Bali is the best. Straight up. I spent the last two days in Bali wishing I didn’t have to leave it and regretting that I stacked my tours back to back, so that I couldn’t stay for an extra day or two… Or twenty.
From Ubud we drove to Candi Dasa, with a quick stop over at Kerta Gosa. Most of the bus ride was spent napping and listening to My Dad Wrote a Porno. I know I’m SO behind on this, but good lord is that Podcast ever incredible. I typically don’t like (hate) podcasts because I hate it when anyone tries to tell me what to do or how to feel (don’t bother explaining that’s not what podcasts are, I refuse to listen to reason), but it definitely kept my attention more than the Outliers audio book. Oh, we also stopped for lunch at a restaurant that was basically at the top of a mountain that looked unto another mountain and I met another furry friend who obliged me with the perfect photo op.
Candi Dasa is a quiet beach town that I, frankly, didn’t see much of at all. Too busy going snorkelling and LOOKING AT SEA TURTLES IN THE DAMN OCEAN. Also, hot tip if you’ve never been snorkelling before like me, but that shit is WEIRD. The first 10 minutes of breathing was so stressful and it constantly feels like you’re gonna run out of breath, except there’s zero danger of that happening. Unless you yourself stop breathing, and if you do that, well, that’s on you, isn’t it, asshole? But as soon as I adjusted it felt like I was in a fairy dream world full of cute little fish and coral reefs. Also because of my massive tig ol bitties, I basically had a flotation device with me at all times.
There’s not much more I can really say without being redundant. No matter how many times I say “Bali is incredible” you’re not gonna fully understand just how wonderful it is until you go there. It is such a cliche, but I really found a part of myself in the 8 days. I found that tiny part of me that felt like I actually belonged somewhere, and again, I’m not even Indonesian. BUT. For the first time in a really, really, really long time, when I looked at the faces of the locals, I saw the same features and I would even occasionally even hear bits of a language that does belong to me, but I’ve chosen to leave it behind. And that bit of recognition is something most people completely take for granted. How many times in a day do you look around and see people who look like you? In Toronto, for me, it’s certainly not a common feeling. It didn’t even register that that was something I was missing, but it was. More than the beaches, and forests, and mountains, the most beautiful part of Bali is that it made me feel like I wasn’t an “other.”
