New Years in Ubud

I know I’m WAY behind on this Blog, but good things are worth waiting for, so keep your pants on.

Cassandra Johnson

Leaving the Resort

After spending Christmas by a Hilton Conrad pool in Nusa Dua in Bali, Vinisha, Ali and I made the journey to the faraway land of Ubud, Bali. It’s a deceivingly short 45 kilometers between the two cities. But don’t let that fool you. It takes damn near all day to get there.

Balinese residents have had the pleasure of living in a peaceful, tourist-free oasis existence until just recently. Because of this, there are no wide-laned highways transversing the island. It’s blatantly obvious that the island grew faster than its infrastructure. Most roadways are narrowly limited to two lanes, with local business and dense foliage brushing right up to the skinny shoulder. As a result…when in Bali you are always stuck in traffic.

We made the best of it. Slow going offers an excuse to make stops along the way to break up the monotony of slow poke driving at 10 kilometers an hour.

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Temples on the Ocean

First up – Tanah Lot temple in Tabanan, in West Bali. This temple is well-known for its unique oceanside locale. Tanah Lot is set among an outcrop of rocks, jettisoned out into the ocean among the crashing waves.

I found it….Eh. Okay. I guess. The place is known for its sunsets. The three of us self-explored the temple in the late morning. Maybe that contributed to the feeling of lackluster. Or it could have been the fact that we couldn’t go up to the temple because the stairs were roped off. Maybe it was the gray sky and the misty wind in our face.

Or maybe it was just small and underwhelming.

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We walked ourselves through the site and back to the van before our driver even had the chance to park and meet us to show us around. It’s quite possible we missed something important. We may have moved though the site too quickly. But I don’t see how.

Also I don’t think I care. You can’t see everything.

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Monkeys in a Forest

Next adventure – The Monkey Forest. Now this stop, I enjoyed. I love monkeys. And I love seeing how dumb tourists act around fast moving, non-domesticated animals that steal things. It’s a good time.

The Monkey Forest itself is also really beautiful. It’s is like big Indonesian jungle park with hundreds of monkey families and monkey babies running around causing shenanigans.

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After leaving this place, I had to immediately go back through my phone and delete half my pictures. I took SO many. What the hell was I going to do with two hundred pictures of random Balinese monkeys? But then again….how could I possibly not take at least that many snaps in this magical place? I think I showed immense self-restraint.

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Following the Monkey Forest we were supposed to make another stop at a coffee plantation after lunch. But the three of us felt tired. Six hours had passed into our 45 kilometer drive. It was game over. Nothing could top the monkeys anyway. We were done touristing for the day.

At least we were done AFTER taking pictures on one of those Insta-iconic Bali swings over a rice paddy field.

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And stopped for dessert to try this mango cheesecake ice cream shaved ice thing.

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Bike Rides Through Rice Paddies

Our next Ubud excursion involved a few bikes and a lot of rice paddies. This is a thing to do in Bali.

First of all – shout out to Ali and Vinisha for planning this entire Ubud-ian excursion. I had nothing to do with booking any transportation, tours, or accommodations during our time together in Ubud. They took care of everything and I just injected myself into their plans. It worked out great (for me).

Now biking. This tour was not the most strenuous bike tour I’ve ever been on. Quite the opposite. While the bike tour was several hours long, the route was on a seemingly impossible downward angle almost the entire way. The only exception was one (very) steep section lasting about a half a kilometer. It’s here that the three of us, and every member of the American family joining us on this tour had to dismount and walk our bikes up the hill. In terms of physical fitness, we did not represent the red white and blue very well.

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The tour made a few stops at the house of a local Balinese family to talk about local customs and traditions. Our tour guide pulled over on the side of the road at one point to pick up a giant spider. We also stopped to give a go at practicing manual labor and rice harvesting. All in all, a fairly standard touristy experience. But in truth that’s exactly what we came for.

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Thus brings up the end of my time traveling through Bali with Ali and Vinisha.  After our biking tour, and a night of dinner and drinks in downtown Ubud, they left for Singapore and I stayed behind. These ladies were great travel companions. Our time together was a nice mix of slow and relaxing with just the right amount of touristing. After jumping from one country to the the next, hiking mountains and sleeping in caves, this was just what I needed for a few days.

Bon Voyage ladies.

Ubud: City of Yoga

The few days I spent alone in Ubud after Vinisha and Ali left were not all that exciting. I spent most of my time walking around town, shopping for gifts to bring home for friends and family and aimlessly exploring.

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My biggest activity at this time involved taking a few classes at the Yoga Barn.  Let me tell you, that was a trip.  Yoga Barn is this huge enterprise in Ubud. It’s not just a studio. It’s a whole compound. Multiple yoga studios with a spa center, on-site restaurant, accommodations, smoothie bar, and weekly events and retreats.

At first glance, this place is everything I hate about yoga.  Hippy Dippy 25-year olds with dreadlocks, standing in front of the studio entrance and hugging each other for way too long.  Drinking spinach smoothies and talking about the benefits of going vegan. 

Ugh.  It’s too much. 

But. Also. It wasn’t so bad.

It took me a minute to adjust to the sheer magnitude of it, but Yoga Barn has a very strong sense of community. The few yoga classes I took here were crowded, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed them. It wasn’t DC corporate yoga, crammed into 50 minutes, including just enough meditation to keep you from a pending nervous breakdown, and just enough movement to burn as many calories as possible before happy hour. It felt a lot more genuine, and more challenging.

I tried a vinyasa flow class and a pranayama class. One class to focus on movement, and the other on breath control techniques. We did an exercise in pranayama called the lions roar.  The way it works is, you breath in normally, and exhale in a quick, robust, almost roar from your gut.  It’s fast and forceful.  And audible. 

There was a part of me that was rolling my eyes at the whole process. But also a part that was buying in.  The exercise is supposed to help you let go of your inhibitions…of your anger, and your tension.  And I’ll be dammed, but it kind of does all those things.  Being surrounded by 50 strangers letting out a breathy roar felt weirdly bonding.  Even if it was just for a second.  I feel weird admitting it, but I was kind of into it.

2018 Reflections

Feeling inspired by roaring my way through yoga class, I decided to end the year on a healthy note. I spent the last day of 2018 getting dinner solo at a vegan restaurant. I retired to my guest house around 10pm with no alcohol in my system, and watched fireworks from my balcony.

What a year.  Last year I had a predictable life.  Work routines, and friend routines, with some family visits and weekend trips thrown in to boot. 

And the start of 2019?  In Bali.  Happily unemployed. Running low(er) on savings.  A dozen countries and countless life experiences later and still having absolutely no idea what I want to do with my career when I get home.

I felt happily uncertain. I have no damn idea what’s going to happen in 2019. And that’s the absolute best part of my life right now. I’m looking forward to ending the year in a different place from where it began. That sounds much better to me than knowing I’ll end this next year stuck in the same exact same place.

I’m not normally one for resolutions, but I did make one this year.

Stop avoiding decisions.

For too long I sat in an office, or in some other life situation, knowing I wan’t happy but being afraid to take the first step to change it. Because even though I knew I didn’t like where I was, the uncertainty of changing it felt scarier. So I avoided making a decision. I stayed too long in the same routine. And unsurprisingly, things didn’t magically fix themselves and get better.

This year I learned I’d rather live with mistakes than regrets. Because life gives you impossible decisions.  And I’m doing the best I can. I’d much rather be an active participant than a person counting down the clock and waiting for something to happen.  

Leaving Bali

Bali overall has been…well it’s been ok.  It’s no eat pray love, let me tell you.  It’s a lot more touristy than I expected.  And yes, beautiful.  The scenery and the Hindu and Buddhist art is really fantastic.  I definitely connected with certain aspects of the island, but in the end I think it may just be a bit too full of tourists to make my favorites list. If I came here five or ten years ago I might feel differently, but I may have just missed my window.

So it goes. Regardless, I’m glad I came.

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