Yoga Retreating in Indonesia

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”

Confucius

Diet, Exercise, and a Life of Travel

I am an active person. Before embarking on this year of life and world exploration, I was a runner, cyclist, short distance triathlete (though I do not care for the swimming), occasional rock climber, and general cardio connoisseur. I’ve woken up at 4:30am to make a 5:30am spin class. Got home at 9pm on a Wednesday night because I stopped on the way home for a Yoga HIIT class. Whatever that means.

I don’t do these things because I’m a natural athlete who just loves cycling so much and despises the peaceful respite of sleep. No, no, no. At the heart of this determination is the basic desire to avoid obesity. I love to eat, and I eat a lot. It’s as simple as that.

I live by the rules of moderation. Eat (mostly) healthy, with an equally heathy serving of chocolate for happiness. To balance out the confections, I turn to cardio.

But then I quit my job and spent the better part of a year traveling the world.

I’m slightly ashamed to admit my food habits have taken a teenage-esque turn for the worse. Doritos for dinner? Why not?? Still hungry after dinner? Well that’s why there’s a thing called second dinner. Have I tried that chocolate bar brand before? I’ll try it NOW! Because well…why not?? And who cares?? Time to LIVE IT UP.

I’ve justified this turn to juvenile consumption by telling myself that I’m staying active. I’ve replaced desk sitting with a life of walking – I walk to get dinner in the evening, and coffee in the morning. I walk to get myself to the city walking tour. Combined with the mileage I’ve clocked hiking mountains, I should be in the best shape of my life right now.

This is very much not the case. From scaling Kilimanjaro to cycling through Laos, I’ve succeeded in eating my worth of all the calories I burned. And then some. And then maybe a little bit more.

So it’s time for a cleanse. Mind, body, and spiritually of sorts. It’s time for a yoga retreat.

Yoga Around the World

Yoga classes are surprisingly widely available in many diverse countries across the globe. I may not have found any HIIT classes in Slovakia, and sometimes struggle just to find paved roads worthy of a morning run. But I can almost always find a yoga studio.

I found a Yoga studio run by an American in Cusco, and tried a Pranayama class (a first for me) at a tiny hut of a studio in the mountains of Minca, Colombia. I found classes easily, and at reasonable prices all over SE asia, from Cambodia to Bali. I’ve gained exposure to different styles and teachers, and shared classes with foreigners from dozens of countries as well as several old Cambodian women. It’s been quite the experience.

Initially, I looked at Bali for a yoga retreat. It’s a hippie haven of yoga there, but I quickly dismissed this idea. Bali is too much yoga, it’s too commercial for me. Instead I picked the nearby, but immeasurably more peaceful Gili Islands in Indonesia.

Somewhere in Indonesia

The Gili Islands consist of three very small islands (Gili Meno, Gili Air, and Trawanga) between Bali and nearby Lombok. They sit off the north western coast of Lombok, are accessible via a short ferry from Bali, and are all within viewing distance from each other. There are no cars or motorized vehicles on any of the islands. The main mode of transportation is by bicycle or horse pulled cart. Tourists know the islands for their casual beachfront bars, beautiful reefs well poised for diving and snorkeling outings, and yes a little bit of Yoga.

Given these choices, I selected a yoga studio on Gili Air. It follows what I call the Goldilocks rule of travel choices. Gill Air still has an assortment of bars and restaurants, but lacks the party feel if its larger sibling Trawangan to the west. Gili Meno, the smallest of the three islands, has the best diving and snorkeling spots of the three, but is so tiny it doesn’t offer much else. Gili Air is medium sized and medium busy, with pleasant beaches and a chill attitude.

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Yep, that’s juuuust about right.

Off to a Slow Start

I arrived via ferry from Bali to Gili Air a day before my retreat began. The island greeted me with rain and overcast skies. My first night on the island, I stayed at a budget bungalow down the street from the studio, treated myself to a simple but agreeable dinner at a five table restaurant across the street and retired early. Yoga classes start as early as 7am at the studio where I’m retreating – a place called Flowers and Fire. I paid for a week of retreating, and damn it, I’m going to be here bright and early and ready to get my money’s worth.

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The week started off slow. Even for a yoga retreat. The weather didn’t cooperate with me early on. It rained and stormed and the howled for the first three days. When you’re stuck on an beachy island you can bike around in 45 minutes, this doesn’t leave much to do in your free time.

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The studio/retreat itself was also not quite as yoga-centric as expected. The class schedule when I arrived was more bare bones than typical. The studio’s normal schedules includes three 60-90 minute yoga classes per day, with additional workshops a few times a week to work on specific aspects of yoga – like inversions, or breathing practices. The week of my stay the studio ran short on instructors. They had to cancel a few classes and there were no workshops going on.

Flowers and Fire also runs continuous retreats, meaning that there isn’t one specific day of the week where everyone arrives. Attendees join and leave throughout the week. The flexibility of this format was nice for planning, but it made it challenging to make connections with other yogis. I chatted up some people at breakfast and lunch, but it was hard to make lasting connections with people leaving every day.

As a result, the early days of my retreat were most certainly chill, but not exactly zen.  I filled each day with 3-4 hours of yoga practice and a good amount of napping, but still struggled to stay entertained. As a result, I also had way too much free time to overthink the pending end of my travel year and what I’m doing with my life. You see, I had just booked my return ticket back to the United States the prior week. I was officially on the international travel countdown.

The Anxiety of Yoga Retreating

This quiet storm of yogic reflection and real world problems manifested itself in a feeling of real. Damn. Panic. That sinking feeling so deep in your soul, that your body can only manifest the sensation as a stomach ailment.  Like I was punched in the gut with the wind knocked out of me.  I wasn’t ready to go home yet.  Shit, I was so not ready.  I’m not ready to end traveling, not ready to wear winter coats and trudge through snow, to deal with my life, my relationships, my lack of income, my dwindling bank account, and uncertain career path. 

I’d been avoiding these things for so long it had become my new norm.  True, I was tiring of living out of a suitcase and planning travel itineraries, but I’d also adapted to my vagabond life. I’d gotten used to being in a new place every few days, wearing one of five outfit choices on repeat, making poor diet decisions, and keeping relationships over a telephone.  Oh and not having a job. I had definitely gotten used to that.

I wasn’t sure how to fit back into the real world again. 

It seems absurd to admit this, but I didn’t see this feeling coming. In my fantasy of life, I thought I would come to the end of my travels feeling rested, full of memories but weary of traveling, ready to take on a new direction, and ready to work again. But writing and reading this now, I can see how utterly ridiculous this sounds. I’d spent the better part of the last year letting go of routines and expectations, meeting interesting people, and exploring the world. Who in their right mind wants to go back home and be an adult again?!

Finding My Zen

After a few more days and several hundred downward dogs, the clouds parted, the sun finally shone down on the island, and I simultaneously got my head together. By maybe the fourth day I’d effectively settled into my new routine of a 7am relaxing yoga class, followed by breakfast, 9:30am vinyasa flow, an afternoon of reading and bike riding, followed by one last class at 6pm.

I went to every single class, and went full hippie eating vegan all week. No meat, no dairy, and no booze either. I’ll be damned, but I finally started feeling pretty darn relaxed.

Even though we don’t always realize it at the time, sometimes life really does give you exactly what you need in the moment when you need it. The timing is just inevitably different from what you think you need.

I needed this down time to get used to the idea of going home – to deal with the panic of going home. And maybe I needed a calm, distraction-free place to deal with my feelings about it instead of avoiding them. Because like it or not, it’s happening. I can’t avoid real life and travel the world forever. And maybe I needed a quiet place to mentally prepare.

Getting the Most out of the Experience

The change in weather and appearance of the sun also meant that I finally went to the beach. I rented a bike for about $3 a day, and each afternoon I’d bike around the island, stopping to get lunch at a beachside cafe or read my book while sitting in the sand.

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While sitting at one of these cafes, I felt my very first earthquake. These are a real risk in this part of the world – when I arrived the Gili islands were just coming out of recovery from an earthquake induced Tsunami that hit late last year. Luckily the one I felt was noticeable, yet small and harmless.

Gili Air may be small, but it’s very quaint and pleasant when the weather cooperates. The main business is tourism here, therefore the island has plenty of options for travelers of just about any budget. The beachside is lined with small wooden bungalows circling around small swimming pools, and sandy restaurants and bars with thatched roofs ready to serve you. For travelers looking for more activity, there are a handful of dive shops organizing various boating excursions, and a few spas waiting for you when you get back.

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I could have stayed much longer, actually.

I spent my final few nights biking to the beach, where I took up a spot in the sand and waited for the sun to set. And thus ended my days on Gili Air. When the sun goes down on a small Indonesian island, there isn’t much left to do but go to bed at 9pm, and there aren’t many street lights to guide you home.

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Towards the end of my retreat, I also began to appreciate the slow pace of it all. The teachers at the retreat were great, and they continued to help me learn to see my practice differently. I started to feel like I’d been practicing yoga wrong for most of my life.  I’d been viewing it as this physical thing – a class to stretch my muscles, improve my flexibility, and burn some calories.  Basically a balance to my cardio schedule. But I began to see it as more of a mental practice. Devoted time to give mental self some balance, and peace.  Who doesn’t need that once in awhile?

Retreat Reflections

I guess I’m doing alright.  I may be unemployed, but between the life experiences and writing this blog I’ve learned a lot this year. Like just how difficult writing can be for me, but also how satisfying, and how good I can be if I keep working at it.  It’s taught me how so much of my writing and my takeaways from travel have less to do with my itinerary and more to do with my feelings about these experiences. These feelings are often over-analyzed and over-thought, with a small lining of anxiety. But that’s me too, so what the hell.  

I still felt scared to go back home.  Change is still frightening.  But if this year has taught me one thing, it’s that I will surely always have doubts, insecurities, confusion, and uncertainty. What I mainly learned is that I can’t let those things stop me from moving forward.  Just moving.  Who knows if it’s the absolute best decision, but just dive in and see what happens.

So I guess I’m going home. After just a feeeeww more quick stops first…