New Year, New Country

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” ~~Lao-tzu 

You know you've become addicted to travel when you begin planning the next journey while the one you’re on has yet to end. That was me on day two of our twenty five days in Singapore and Indonesia. 

Where to next, was the ever present question. Who, what, where, why, when, how. Like a toddler let loose in the big wide world full of worldly legos. That was me for twenty five days. Big eyes and a brain like a sponge soaking it all up. 

Wide eyed and taking it all in :)

Twenty five days of dusty, sweaty travel. It felt like forever yet at the same time it wasn’t enough. It’s never enough. There’s so much in this world, but yet we’re only granted one life. It doesn’t seem fair. 

How do I see it all? I have one life and by statistical standards, I am nearly at the halfway point, yet there is still so much out there. No, this is not a mid life crisis, simply an observation. All we can do is make a choice and run with it, going where it takes us. There is no wrong turn. 

They say it begins with a single step, how true that is. 

I had little opportunity to blog during this journey. Limited access to Internet, but sometimes things cannot be given words. When I think of Indonesia, the last twenty five days, I think of one thing: cojones. 

Big cojones. 

Traveling in a third world country puts a whole new perspective on life. I might be dirt broke back in the states, well below the poverty line when it comes to the tax bracket, but in Indonesia, we are sitting pretty my friend. 

What do we have to complain about? Yeah, maybe gas is a bit expensive, health insurance will cost you your first born child, and college your retirement fund. Don’t even think about graduate school. But at least we have possibilities. Sometimes in third world countries, these are dreams, simple fantasies. It’s a tough realization. 

There are survivors in this world. There is always someone who has it worse than you. I cannot even begin to say I understand, because our story is our own. I traveled in a country where they tell you the water isn’t safe to drink, yet the locals drink it. A hot shower is a rare luxury, twenty crammed people in a small van isn’t considered full—always room for one more. “Bathrooms” consist of a hole in the floor where you squat, flushing by pouring a bucket of water down the hole. Some would cringe at the idea of squatting to relieve one’s self, but man has been doing this for thousands of years. 

We were meant to squat people, not perch on a porcelain throne. 

Everyone needs a little Buddha in their life.

It was an interesting experience to pass through the more developed cities and see how they had been touched by the western influence. It was interesting and sad, a culture dying right before our eyes. The city of Ubud in Bali seemed to be the hidden gem for the meditative, grass juice thirsting, yoga seeking Westerner on vacation, aka: the modern day trust fund hippie. It didn’t seem right that Ubud was even in the same country after experiencing Java. It was a great location to buy trinkets, but otherwise Ubud was everything we were trying to get away from. 

Ten days racketing around the hazy, sweaty grunge of Java, traveling by Bemo (small vans crammed full of fifteen people or more) and trains that felt like they would fall apart at every shudder, we hit Bali and Ubud. It was culture shock in a whole different sense. Western restaurants, western toilets, stores selling western style clothing and accessories. On Java, we had gone days without spotting another Westerner. In Ubud, the streets crawled with “Bules,” the Bahasa word for “white foreigner.” It seemed that Ubud was where everyone went for vacation. I had one question, if you were going to travel in a foreign country, why be drawn to that you had left behind. I didn’t understand it. Humans are like a moth drawn to the flame, glorying in the comfort of what they know. Embrace the unknown, it won’t hurt you. 

We were only in Ubud long enough to get from Point A to Point B and back again. All the guide books tout about Denpasar and Kuta, the party beach scenes and the place to be for Christmas and New Years if you’re a foreigner. The locals couldn’t understand why we were going in the opposite direction. If they could only have seen my guide book, these places had been crossed out with a big fat red marker. NO GO, I had written. 

Instead, we joined a local Balinese style Christmas gathering in a small village called Keliki, outside of Ubud. Balinese food is SPICY, but oh so yummy! My taste buds are watering just thinking about that food. Being a primarily Muslim and Hindu country, Christmas is not generally celebrated, but the connection we had was of Christian faith. 

Amazing Balinese food for Christmas

The family that invited us for a Balinese style dinner.

Christmas Day was spent on the island of Rinca tracking down the elusive Komodo dragon in Komodo National Park. It’s hard to explain what it’s like to stand five feet away from the largest lizard in the world, also an ambush predator that can run at speeds of 18km, venomous saliva running from its mouth. Once in a life time experience: Check. 

The elusive Komodo. Not so elusive when it comes to the smell of food. :)

Christmas Eve sunset.

Twenty five days of exploration. The boundaries of knowledge stretched. I cannot even begin to write about all of it. This blog entry is already a rambling mess. A new year came and went. It was spent quietly in relaxation on a remote island of Gili Meno, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. With a new year came a new country, a new journey. 

Embrace it I say. We only get this opportunity once.

Embracing it.