Sunset and sand

It takes three times longer for the soul to travel than for the body, they say. Maybe your soul can’t find you if you change places every second day like travelers do.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of traveling routine – get up, get somewhere, eat, pack, go to sleep. On Bali, this seems to be the standard for travelers who want to see everything on the island, go places, take insta pics. There is so much to see, volcanos and temples and rice terraces and waterfalls, and so on and so on. But I’ve been a bad traveler.

It’s been a stressful year

Since the beginning of the year my life has been out of sync. January, February, March I took a good look on my life and found: ew. It’s all a little wrong. Many relationships broke, private, personal, job wise. Others I built up newly in the same time. So, when I took my flight to my vacation here, most things were in order or leading in the right direction. And when I arrived here I realized just how exhausted I was.

No “must-dos” on Bali

I’ve not visited rice terraces or coffee plantations. I did not rent a scooter and visited water falls or walked volcanos. I didn’t even get drunk and party.

Instead I slept an aweful lot, read, did tons of yoga, ate rice everyday and spoke to few people. The people I selected were awesome though.

Friendly spirits on the islands

I’ve met Ania, my yoga spirit, in a small warung where I had dinner, and she recommended the yoga barn to me. Since then we started to hang out every now and then until we became friends. Many of the quotes in the last blog are from her actually. She says some beautiful things and embraces spirituality in an easy, open way – so even if this is not your kinda cup, it will still make you smile. She also was my reason to visit Nusa Lembongan: she does a yin yoga teacher training there. So I partly owe it to her that I saw a manta and met this amazing dive master Ben.

Ben might be Aquaman, he is part of the water, sees the tiniest sea beauties, mantas come to him, and he is so easy in the waves it’s just beautiful to watch him wander with the waves. Maybe he is not Aquaman though, but then he is partly fish, I’m sure.

I’ve also met Naomi, the smiley English, Cora the Greek who only works few months a year, Freya with the toy poodle, Jessie the traveling mom. Not too many people though. I was really happy and ok to not meet dozens of people.

He’d throw you over board

On Nusa Lembongan I also met Alia, the mutineer. She worked on a boat with the most aweful captain – he’d throw you in the sea when you dropped a line – and she deserted him with the deckhand and the chef. Now, Alia was not a jerk – she took care all guests were safe and sound off the boat on the way to the airport, but then grabbed a small boat with the other two and sailed away, silently leaving.

(She deserves her own story, right? It is too little to give her just two sentences in this blog – let me follow up on that.)

Well, Alia and me sat together on the beach watching the sunset when I told her my story about me feeling like a bad traveler and she responded in a very enthusiastic way, telling me she was just the same at the moment.

Soul follows up

There we sat, babbling away about travelers’ stress, and how we not want to be part of this right now. The sun went down in front of us, dogs were playing around us, and it was all utterly peaceful. It became pretty apparent that we did the traveler thing quite well. That was the moment my soul caught up with me, like a deep breath after a stressy day. It was when she said those words: “Sometimes, you know” – she has this English accent that sometimes made me miss what she was saying, but this was very clear:

“Sometimes all you need is some sunset and sand.”