Pommie Travels

Finding myself in Bali

When my friends hear about my traveling lifestyle and that I’m living in Bali the words ‘jealous’, ‘lucky’ and ‘living the dream’ seem to pop up quite frequently. I don’t think of it so much as luck, I chose to live this way and I’ve done it on very little money too.

But  a problem many travelers find they have to deal with is a case of the travel blues. I’ve had it myself, the more you travel the more you can become too used to it. You can become immune to the culture difference, another temple here, another monument there, another crowd of tourists and another bunch of backpackers you’ll go drinking with but will never remember the names of.

Particularly staying in the same place for too long, life that would usually seem unusual to others becomes quite normal. These days in Bali I think nothing of seeing geckos on my ceiling and toads hopping through the house, I think nothing of the hundreds of motorbikes on the roads or being blocked off by a Balinese ceremony in the street. The shouts of “DVD, Transport!” have become mere background music to my ears. It can be difficult to get the most out of being abroad when things become all too familiar. For familiarity is what most backpackers are seeking to avoid. There also comes a point where you wake up in your bed after 6 months of being away from home, and you feel disorientated because you haven’t been back to your roots in a while.

People say that they find themselves in Bali, and for me it has been such a place. The bike accident was hard physically and mentally to have to go through, not only did I have to deal with the pain, the scarring and the treatments which I still have to go through today, but I also had to spend days alone recovering with only my thoughts and my computer. However, in many ways I think of it as a positive thing- after the bike accident I really came to appreciate the little things, being able to lie on the beach in the sunshine reading a book, go swimming in the sea, walk round the supermarket…all the things that I took for granted before. If there’s one way to get out of a travel rut, it’s to have a motorbike accident.

I’ve heard many people dish out similar advice, but it was something a friend of mine, Brian, said that really struck a chord. We were drinking Bintangs at the bar in his house one night, when he said to me “Tell me, what do you do for yourself? What do you do that is entirely for you?” I was stumped. “We all have to work and make money and do things to survive, but if you don’t work on growing as a person, then you will keep traveling and seeing the same shit over and over again.” His words were true. In the midst of all the work and the socialising I’d been doing, I really hadn’t had any me time.

So at dawn the following day, I took my wounds to Echo Beach in Canggu and I sat in the shade, breathing in the sea air, admiring the waves crashing down on the black sand beach, savouring the taste of the Bali coffee I was drinking and read a book for the first time in a long time. It was as if my senses were heighened and I absorbed every aspect of the world around me.

The best piece of advice I can give you when you’ve been somewhere too long, whether you’re living at home or abroad, is to really discover the world around you. I set myself goals to go to places I had never been before. I didn’t do them all at once, but I wrote a list; Ubud, the mountains, the volcano, snorkeling in Ahmed…slowly I did them one by one. If there’s a coffee shop that I’ve always passed by but never gone in, I try it now. I focus on things that I would like to do that I usually don’t have the time to do.

I also discovered a lot about myself as a person here in Bali. I discovered how much im comfortable with being alone in my own company. I have driven around the island by myself, taken myself out to nice dinners and walked into rooms of people alone, and I actually rather enjoy it. I’m comfortable and confident in my own skin that I will meet and talk to people. I’ve also discovered that I am able to create a new world for myself outside the one that I was born into. I don’t really think of England as home anymore, and I’m comfortable with knowing that I can create a home wherever I choose.

But sometimes it is also time to move on, we get that itch to move to a different place and try new things. Whilst the carefree, relaxing, beach-going, eating-out lifestyle is an easy one, it can also get old. Sometimes we need to move to new places to really appreciate things. So now I am off on my Vantastic road trip to South Australia, and I’m really looking forward to it!!! So keep your eyes peeled and watch me online as I descend on the land down under with A Van. A Tan and A Plan.