A Day in the Life of an Extreme Beach Bum

Amidst all this beach bumming and joy not much happens. To be a professional beach bum, you must be committed to living a life that requires very little of you. And when you live in a world where so very little happens, there will inevitably be bursts of utter insanity because, you know, balance.

I.

The last thing you want to hear after handing over your passport to the Indonesian immigration office in order to extend your visa is: I'm sorry, but there appears to be a problem with your passport. What kind of problem? According to our system, you have overstayed your visa by 45 days. Obviously I didn't. I've only been here 3 weeks, I told the lady. It must be a glitch, she said. Bring me proof you're leaving the country, and I'll see what I can do about it. This is not comforting information coming from an official office of a country that does things by less than official standards.

She gave me directions to an internet cafe where I could print out my flight itinerary. I did not find the internet cafe. Instead, I found myself down a sketchy looking alleyway full of hole-in-the-wall businesses that make you guess at what exactly their business might be. I eventually found a computer shop with a printer, and stood by watching a guy tinker with two different laptops, attempting to make the printer work with one of them. It did, eventually.

After handing over my proof of leaving, the lady smiled at me in a warm-hearted way and said, Call next week to see if the glitch has cleared. Then tossed my passport into a drawer.

II.

Sometimes the Universe thinks I need to have certain experiences and sets about to make sure these experiences happen because I'm typically not one to seek out danger and crazy at my own will. In this case, the Universe decided to prove to me that I indeed would not survive an underwater life and death situation or the apocalypse. 

I learned this by way of a crash course in scuba diving that was set up for me by my very kind bungalow neighbor I had met two days before. He seemed incredibly disconcerted that I'd never gone diving after having been in the Gilis for almost a month. We need to fix this, he'd said. 

The crash course took place in a swimming pool where you learn underwater communication (I'm okay! I need to surface now! There's a big shark heading right toward us!) as well as how to handle emergencies such as losing your oxygen supply and/or having your mask completely fill with water--perhaps by being kicked in the face by a fellow diver. Apparently these things happen.

I failed miserably at this. I failed so miserably I'm shocked they let me go on the actual dive--which, by the way, went well enough even though I couldn't properly hear out of my right ear for a week afterwards. Once we surfaced and were back on the boat, the instructor gave me a high-five. For what, I'm not sure. Surviving? For someone who panics so easily you hardly used any oxygen at all, he told me. Thanks...? I'll take it as a compliment. Jedi skills.

III.

Turns out the phone number to the immigration office is perpetually busy. After two days of trying to get through, I took my chances and headed back to Lombok hoping to push things along in person. I was leaving Gili Air in less than a week. I needed my passport back.

It was a very long day--waiting for the glitch to clear, visa fees, finger prints, and finally getting my passport back about fifteen minutes before the office closed. A friend back in Santa Cruz once told me I had the patience of a monk. Perhaps. My driver on the other hand, turns out, did not have the patience of a monk--though he kind of looked like one. 

Perhaps he was concerned about me catching a boat back to my island--the last public boat headed to the gilis left at 5pm. Perhaps he was in a mad dash to get back home for personal reasons. Whatever his reason, he drove like a madman in ways I have not experienced in my 8 months of travel. He ran a motorbike off the road.

It didn't take long before we were surrounded by several cars and motorbikes forcing us to pull over. These other drivers were yelling at my driver frantically, and he was yelling back. I expected the stone throwing to commence any moment. The shouting match continued until my driver turned the car around and went back to the motorbike he sideswiped, apologized, and handed over a wad of cash. Because this is how accidents are handled here. 

This incident did not slow down his game. It only made him chain smoke. You guys, I was seriously scared for my life. We finally made it back to the harbor alive, and I paid him the amount we agreed on at the start of the day. This agitated him. Turns out, he wanted me to pay for the accident--reimburse him for the cash he gave the motorbike driver! I kindly reminded him that I was not the one driving. He cursed me as I got out of the car. You! He shouted. No good! Right.

It was late. I ended up hitching a ride on a supply boat back to Gili Air--our bright yellow star crossing over the edge of the blue horizon as we crossed the sea over to safety--back to my tiny island, back to my hammock and my books and my manuscript, back to my beach bumming ways--where the world is worlds away.

This post does not lend itself to philosophical musings. This post likes its status as a rip in the space-time continuum of extreme beach bumming. Discuss.

I cannot believe my time is up here on Gili Air! I've been here for 5 (mostly) blissful weeks. Tomorrow morning I will hop on a boat for the tiny fishing village of Amed on the east coast of Bali for my last 3 weeks in Indonesia. Let's hope all the bliss and joy crosses over as well. 

Ripples of Joy

Late afternoon sun through the palms and red hibiscus flowered plants that wall my palo santo scented bungalow. Wet laundry flapping in the light breeze--sundresses and sarongs, my 'I Love Goa' beach towel, like I need reminded. Sun-kissed skin, coral cut feet, hammock folds. Banana pancakes and coconut everything. Yoga sunrises, salty, sandy skin, reading books and writing for hours. Ocean, jungle, volcanoes. Indonesia. Home.

Lately, I've been spending a good chunk of time lounging in my hammock listening to the new season of Magic Lessons (amazing timing) as well as bunches of Dire Straits/Mark Knopfler recordings (random, yet awesome rediscovery).

On low tide afternoons, I find a sunny spot on the beach and read Anthony Doerr and Margaret Atwood--books I'd never even considered before now. And like the magic lessons and music, they mysteriously presented themselves to me in such a way I had no choice but to indulge in them.

Every morning, I follow the sandy path from my cottage down to the ocean side cafe where I drink coffee and write. I stare off beyond the cafe at the boats bobbing along the edge of the beach, at people fumbling around in the coral filled waters, at the mountainous terrain of Lombok across the strait, at the erupting Mt. Rinjani--looking for any sign that it is indeed erupting.

I island hop to the other gilis with no other reason than to walk their perimeters and take pictures. On my first hop over to Gili Meno, I realized that these islands that look so close together, close enough to swim between are, in fact, much further apart when you're out on the open ocean traveling between them.

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As random as each of these things are, I've been doing them simply because they bring me joy in this time and place. And when you are filled with joy it tends to have a ripple effect on the world around you. Like skipping stones of joy into the Universe. It has the power to change everything.

Do you pay attention to the things in your life that bring you joy? Do you notice if your joy causes a ripple effect on your world and the people around you? Tell me about your joy and what it does!

Tiny Island Life

My mind likes to connect dots. It's a lot like looking into space and making up your own stories about the stars and constellations. Life is complex and contradictory in all kinds of ways. When you begin to try to make sense of the seemingly random, the illogical, when you begin to connect the dots and grasp for answers, they will present themselves no matter how illogical or strange because that may be all that's left to grasp onto. And from this space, you can put together limitless stories from the same material. 

I left Santa Cruz with very little faith in most anything except my own ability to connect dots because that was all I had left to grasp onto--strings of miracles, shooting stars, glowing bugs, rogue spaceships, looking for serenity, anything. Grasping.

India and Nepal filled my life with all kinds of bliss--so much bliss that I didn't think there could possibly be room for much more. Bali brought a lot of residual muck to the surface that began to overshadow all the bliss. In Cambodia I released everything that came up leaving nothing but bliss and peace that I sat with for weeks. And as my days in Cambodia wound down, I couldn't help but wonder what was waiting for me on Gili Air--the possibilities as limitless as the Universe is vast.

Gili Air is a tiny island. In fact, that is exactly what the word gili means--tiny island. It is so tiny you can walk around the perimeter in under 2 hours. There are no cars here or any kind of motorized vehicle. Aside from the scattering of dive shops, provision shops, food shacks, and beach huts, there really isn't much of anything here at all. But, oddly enough, there are enough paths that cut through the center of the island that you can still get lost, even with a map.

I spent my first week exploring and getting lost--looking for something, maybe. I had a vague sense that's what I was doing anyway. I wasn't really sure. I did a lot of exploring and getting lost in India and Nepal, and bliss was all I found. Here, on Gili Air, I wasn't finding anything except a kind of strange void and lonely you can only feel when surrounded by lots of hazy people walking on all those twisting paths. This is peak season after all and this is all there is. People and paths.

What makes you feel alive? The question came up several times my first week. And so I made a list of everything that makes me feel alive--all those things that kept me alive those last years in Santa Cruz and all those things that have brought me bliss since I've been traveling. 

Here's how I connected the dots: I found a lot of bliss in India and Nepal when I needed it most. I learned to embrace it, and I learned to let it go. When I was ready the Universe unleashed all the unresolve I hadn't yet dealt with from my Santa Cruz life. I learned how to process it in a healthy way while in Ubud. Then in Cambodia I was able to release it. Now, I'm in a place that is very quirky and unique and pretty indeed and faced with the question: What makes you feel alive?

That is my goal here on Gili Air, that is my new challenge--to live in a void and fill the void from the inside out, to take the emptiness around me and fill it with any story I please. 

And I pass on the question: What make you feel alive? How do you connect the dots to make sense out of the illogical? When faced with a void, how do you fill it--from the inside out or from the outside in? Tell me your stories!

Cambodia's Word

"What sort of future is coming up from behind I don't really know. But the past spread out ahead dominates everything in sight."  ~Robert Persig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance 

I.

I walk among the ancient ruins of Angkor and through the narrow passageways of the temples--old and empty and silent. I climb up steep, steep stone stairs and over the roots of strangling trees wrapped around the still standing structures. Stone figures sit cross-legged on snakes, their heads all decapitated now. Giant Buddha faces tower at the top of some temples and stare out over the region. I try to picture what this place was like hundreds of years ago, back during the Khmer Empire, back when these temples were first constructed and life vibrated throughout them. But all I see is the haunting afterthought of what was.

II.

The only people lingering in Otres this time of year are the locals and expats--those long term expats who keep coming back again and again until they just never leave. Like a few places I've been, I can see how never leaving is easy to do here--life is slow and easy and inexpensive--the Gulf of Thailand in one direction holding secrets and stories of privately owned gun patrolled islands just beyond the coast, and in the other direction, long stretches of nothing beyond the village. I talk to a group of young expats one night--broken dreams and nothing to lose in a big world.

A guy from New Zealand sits across the table from me and talks enthusiastically. "I'm broke as fuck, but this is where it's at, this place has potential. Thailand's ruined so I came here, but Phnom Penh's a dump, Siem Reap's a tourist trap, Sihanoukville's way too seedy, but here, Otres, this is the spot. I can do things here." He could be a character in the Beach which is both amusing and terrifying. He flicks his cigarette and stares into space for a moment then abruptly points at me. "Stay out of Australia. Everything there is trying to kill you."

And in some sort of mysterious cross wiring of conversations, the guy to my left from somewhere Eastern Europe whispers to me--a mid-conversation confession. Between his thick accent and drunken rambling, I could only catch a few key words--tattoo, prison, brother, spy. There were a few different ways I could put it together. Later when the group dispersed he looked at me with his icy blue eyes through his shaggy black hair and thanked me for listening. Anytime, I had said. Though I hoped not anytime soon.

III.

A few nights later walking back to the village from the beach, I stop at the darkest part of the path and look up, and for the first time ever, I see Scorpio clear and full and on the rise. It really hits me then that I am literally in a very different point on the planet looking into space, into the past, from a whole new angle.

IV.

On the bus to Phnom Penh the kid sitting behind me says loudly, "Are we there yet?" His mom tells him no, of course not. And in the most matter-of-fact way, he then states, "Well, it sure looks like we are." I gaze out the window--at the rain pelting down on the flat stretches of fields--vast emptiness in every direction.

V.

Nothing can really prepare you for a silent walk through fields where mass genocide took place or through the halls and rooms of an elementary school turned secret torture prison. I didn't have to wonder about anything. The man narrating through the headphones I wore left nothing to the imagination--images that will haunt for days or weeks or years or much much longer if you're from Khmer lineage.

I've given a word to every country and every town I've lived in on this journey--an all encompassing word that captures the essence of the place. Cambodia's word is haunting--an unsettling quite that lingers over Angkor and Otres and the killing fields and S21 prison of Phnom Penh. I take all these stories and all the old energy that came up in Ubud and release it into the haunting. It vanishes along with all the old ghosts, and I continue on my path toward the unknown.

Do you agree with Persig's quote--do you let the past dominate everything in front of you? Does it haunt you? How do you let go so you can continue moving toward the unknown?

I absolutely loved Cambodia and will miss it terribly. I will definitely go back to Otres and linger a bit longer one day, but today onward to Gili Air! Also, watch out for a future post on the words I've given to all the places I've been on this journey!

Strange Paradise

I.

I carefully walk along the muddy roads of Otres Village down to the beach. I pass half constructed buildings, shut down businesses, and a tuk tuk parked along the side of the road--the driver stretched over the back seat sleeping, his leg dangling over the edge. A few motorbikes pass me splashing puddles and dodging potholes. The entire village is eerily empty.

The long stretch of beach that sits between Otres I and Otres II is even emptier--not a soul as far as I can see in either direction. The air is warm, the water even warmer. My eyes scan over the Gulf the Thailand--dark waters and reckless waves, thunderstorm afterthoughts.

In-between the storms and black looming clouds, these moments of sunshine feel like a strange paradise--vast and empty, like driving down a Montana or Wyoming highway--a never-ending, limitless expanse into the unattainable horizon.

Incredible, breathtaking temples, sprawling white sand beaches, devastating war, still buried landmines--what lens do the people here see their landscape through?

II.

Back when I lived in Santa Cruz, I would always walk by this guy who worked right around the corner from me, and we would always have the same exchange--he would wave and say: just another day in paradise.

Early on, I would politely smile and nod. Because I was living in paradise...right? Over time, my responses became--if you say so or depends on your definition of paradise. He might have been being sarcastic all those years. I'll never know. It took me far longer than it should have to learn that one person's paradise can be another person's hell.

III.

I recently finished reading The Beach--dark and twisted and oddly funny. Apocalypse Now meets Lord of the Flies--you know it doesn't go anywhere good. But how could it? A group of people to young to have lived through or remember times of war brought up on pop-culture and video games and boredom find themselves living in paradise--an Eden, a utopian society on a secret beach in the middle of an island in the Gulf of Thailand. What begins in paradise ends in hell because once people are introduced to paradise it ultimately cannot hold--paradise lost. It is a complex story, powerful on so many levels.

I have seen paradise in every place I have traveled--tropical beach paradises and Himalayan Shangri-La paradises. I have also caught glimpses of the dark underbellies of some of these places. The only difference between me and the locals and long term expats is that I can pick up and leave anytime. I never have to stay long enough to experience anything but paradise. Another reason (perhaps the only reason these days) to fall to my knees in gratitude.

Have you ever lived in a so called paradise and wondered if other people see it the same way? What do you consider paradise? Have you ever witnessed your paradise turn to hell? Tell me your thoughts. Tell me your stories.

And please folks, for the love of good literature, do not watch the movie. It doesn't come close to capturing what the book does (not to mention it leaves out a main character, changes relationship dynamics, and waters down the ending). Skip the movie, read the book. 

Six Months Gone

Six months ago today (on January 4th) I boarded a plane in San Francisco with a one way ticket to India, and I have not looked back. I made a leap into the unknown with full faith that whatever awaited me was where I was meant to be and what I was meant to experience.

Two things have become very clear in these six months gone:

1. Letting go of expectation unleashes magic--all that blank space will be filled in with things better than you could have imagined.

2. I have been blown away with how different all the places I've been so far are from what I'd always heard about them. This is the magic of traveling--seeing for yourself what these places are all about and what they can bring out in you.

When I arrived here on Otres Beach I was stunned at how deserted it was--long desolate stretches of beach with nothing but trees and clean sand and clear water. The monsoon rains not yet set in making it truly feel like a deserted island--though I'm not on an island and there are still a few guesthouses and food shacks up and running at either end of the beach and in the tiny village that 3 years ago didn't exist. No yoga studios or workshops or classes to take, no night life to explore, no winding streets or alleyways to get lost down. Where have I landed?

I have landed in the perfect place to reflect on these past six months. I have nothing to get involved in, I have no distractions, there's no intense energy to move through nor too many things to choose from. I really wasn't sure why I chose low season Cambodia to spend this month--now that I'm here, I know.

Deciding to take the leap into the unknown has been the best decision I've made in my entire life. And each time I get on a plane or train or bus I take another leap and always land where I need to be. I don't know where things will go from here, but I do know that I can never go back to the kind of life I came from. And the only plan I have is to keep moving forward toward the light.

Do you ever take the time to reflect on your life--on the choices you've made, where they have gotten you, and where you'd like to see them take you? Have you ever hit a milestone and really thought back on how far you've come? 

On the Island of Fire and Rain

When I first arrived on Bali, it rained every afternoon. I'm not talking a drizzle or steady shower. I'm talking torrential rains that might break your umbrella. A solid deluge for a consistent hour or so.

The air would be sticky warm, the sky blue, the clouds big and billowy, and then without much warning, thunder would rumble, darkness would descend, and the sky would open and proceed to purge. And then as suddenly as it started, it would stop--and back to business as usual being blue and billowy and sunny.

Never mind these sudden purges of water--let's not forget that the entire Indonesian archipelago not only contains the largest chain of active volcanoes in the entire world (Bali alone has 3), but the most devastating eruptions in recorded history.

Water from the top, fire bubbling below--you never know what might happen on any given day. This is living life on the edge. I think I overheard someone say this in a cafe.

With all this purging, it's no wonder I was challenged so much here in Ubud these past 2 months--the water floating the buried junk to the surface, the fire exploding outward. Needless to say, I faced a few things head on that I thought were behind me, that I hadn't thought about since I left Santa Cruz-- allergies surfaced, anger surfaced, resistance surfaced, triggers surfaced.

This was not my Indian paradise, this was not my surreal Nepal. This was life on an island of fire and rain--a surreal paradise with ulterior motives. I wanted to leave within the first week I was here. I wanted to run to Bingin Beach or Amed or maybe another island altogether and stay as far away from this crowded, landlocked town full of intense energy as possible.

Instead, I chose to stay. Amidst all the challenges, I sought out those things about Ubud that I loved and I embraced them. I found solace in yoga classes and dance classes at an amazing little studio. I took long walks through the rice fields to the outer edges of town. I suffered through the allergies, I studied the anger, I pushed through the resistances, I sat with the triggers. I escaped to the beach a few times, but I always came back.

I have not doubted a moment that this is where I was suppose to be, to flush the residual junk buried in me. Is it gone? Who knows. But for now, I feel nothing but incredibly blessed and full of gratitude for having experienced everything I have in this town and on this island as I pack up and move forward.

Do you have a tendency to sit with what is uncomfortable or do you avoid it? How do you deal with those things that surface you thought you dealt with long ago?

I have absolutely loved my time here and got to do and see some amazing things--this island  just offered up its magic in a different kind of way. As Lawrence Blair (of Ring of Fire fame!) once stated in an interview later in life: I go on excursions often. There is no way I can live here on Bali full time--I would go absolutely mad.

Goodbye for now Bali! I'm looking forward to all the unexpected surprises and magic awaiting me in Cambodia.