Multiple people have suggested that by taking this sabbatical I’m “doing an Eat Pray Love,” a book title so popular it has become a verb. I loved Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir about her year spent healing from heartache by traveling to Italy, India, and Indonesia. In Bali, she spent time learning from her healer, befriending locals, and ultimately finding her way to love again. The book inadvertently made Bali become one of the most touristed destinations in the world, to the point where overtourism has become a serious concern for locals and visitors alike.
When cleaning out my apartment to make space for my subletter, I found the book on my shelf, and gave it a re-read in July. Gilbert’s emotional vulnerability and deep travel experiences made me want to emulate her – as a traveler and perhaps as a travel writer. As much as my experience is my own and I flinch when people say I’m doing an Eat Pray Love, it’s really not so bad of a comparison. I’m on my own path to growth, clarity, and as I came to start saying in Bali: clearing out my old emotional gunk.
Incidentally, I’ve already been to Naples and eaten at the pizza spot Gilbert made famous, and I still dream of that sweet gooey cheese to this day. So I had high expectations for Bali.
Everyone told me Bali would be different from Java, the massive island that distracted me with its smoggy skies and challenging culture shock for the last week and a half. On the 4-hour drive from the Bali ferry port to my accommodation in Ubud, I could feel the difficulties lifting. First impressions assaulted me: the sky was blue and smog-free, even on busy roads. FINALLY! It had been weeks since I could relax and breathe the air to fully heal from my ear infection and cough. Massive ornate sculptures of deities were everywhere, denoting different villages. The architecture was different, as seemingly everywhere there were pretty carved temple structures. Unlike in Java, women were wearing shorts and showing skin. And on the side of the road I saw many wild monkeys, one eating from a cup of noodles and another pair going at it right on the shoulder.
I found the vibe to be so different from Java, much more relaxed. The hospitality industry isn’t just there to take your money; they want you to chill and enjoy your time. I spent my first night in a nice villa where I ordered a massage to my room, had pizza delivered by scooter, and breakfast delivered to my balcony, all surrounded by beautiful trees and a quiet pool. On a broader scale, the wellness industry seems to dominate, with yoga and massage and opportunities to find inner balance all around.
Religion is different too: the majority of the island is Hindu, which explains a lot of the culture and architecture. The Muslim call to prayer was gone, and in the tourist towns I could feel the western influences in the international restaurant options and the plethora of activities built solely for tourists. While one could argue this makes the place less authentic, I found my overall experience to be fantastic: centering and calming through cultural learning and lots of introspective mind-body experiences. And while Bali is considered expensive in Indonesia, it was still on the cheap side for me, leaving me continuously happy and indulgent.
The bulk of my time in Bali was spent at a week-long yoga retreat. I used the time to set personal intentions and come back to myself. I sought to remain present, immersed, and connected with others, while staying open to what thoughts might or might not come about my life beyond these six months.
The spot was called Firefly Retreat, and it promoted itself as a budget experience set in nature in the north of Ubud. It was a set group of 16 people for the week, many coming the short way from Australia plus some Brits, French, and Germans. I paid an upcharge for a single room and still paid about $80 a day for the full experience, and everything was peaceful and comfortable. The price difference compared to other “luxury” experiences in Bali was vast, and had many of us questioning what could possibly be worth paying so much more.
Yoga was twice a day in beginner-friendly classes of hatha, vinyasa, and yin styles. The studio was on a breezy rooftop with palm trees and lush rice fields in all directions. I reminded myself that I love moving and vinyasa is my favorite, learned many new breathing techniques, and went into an assisted inversion for the first time since I was a fearless child. There were rotating instructors, with one woman we had a few times named Pebi whose sarcasm and calm we all came to adore. Throw in free time to lounge by the pool, delicious vegetarian meals, and group bonding and it was the perfect week.
We also had a full schedule of cultural experiences and classes led by a local Balinese guy named Buda: learning about local plants, making canang sari offerings like those that line the streets across Bali, a cooking class where we made jackfruit rendang, jamu-making (the medicinal beverage I tried in Yogyakarta), chocolate-making, and herbal tea-tasting. We took a day trip to a local village/complex that opens its doors to visitors to learn about Balinese religious offerings, ceremonies, dance, music, fashion, and more. I somehow found myself, alongside Mollie from Australia, holding the reins of two cows as we plowed a thigh-deep mud pit to prepare it to be a ricefield. It was all a bit touristic to be sure, but also a real place and authentic to how life is still led in Bali today.
I indulged in some new age-y things in Bali, opting to lean into my curiosity and try new things since it was all so readily available. Things like ancient sound healing, seven chakra meditation, energetic healing, reflexology, and a water purification temple ceremony. The somatic dance activation class I took at the massive Yoga Barn complex was my favorite, connecting me to a lifelong passion for creative movement that I’ve been missing these last few months. And at about $10 a pop, I got a lot of massages.
All of these experiences helped me on my journey to a truly enlightened time in Bali. My body felt like jelly; my mind felt clear. I had no epiphanies and made no major life decisions, but I felt very balanced and centered; overcome by a sense of inevitability for the present, that I am on the right path. This brought me such joy. Life has ups and downs, and in difficult times I hope to look back on these words and find comfort in remembering this feeling.
In addition to finding my zen, I did many other epic things in Bali! With some new yoga friends staying in town a few days after the retreat, we secured a driver to take us around to some less-crowded spots for the day: the water purification temple that offered a powerful and beautiful experience that I shared with Lexy from Germany, a tall waterfall that entailed many hundreds of steep steps down and then up, a temple that masqueraded as a nice park, and a monkey forest.
I was highly anticipating the monkey forest visit, taking a recommendation to visit the spot in Sangeh instead of Ubud because the monkeys were supposedly friendlier and wouldn’t try to steal your belongings. We were given paper bags of peanuts and bananas, then let loose on the paths to find the monkeys. There were many amongst the massive trees, and they were eager to come up to us for snacks. I did not put out jump-on-my-shoulder energy, but the monkeys did climb onto Inge from the Netherlands and Lexy. I fed many of them and they grabbed their snacks easily. Eventually, a big one stalked me until just the right moment when he grabbed the food bag out of my hand, ripping off the handles, and ran off to feast. It was aggressive but kind of cute. Julia from Germany was concerned about animal welfare, though the monkeys aren’t in cages, they just learned to go where the food is. After seeing monkeys caged and dressed in costumes to bang cymbals in Marrakesh I was ok with the forest situation.
Though I thought I might have had my fill of early morning volcano views in East Java, I took a day trip to Mount Batur for a bumpy jeep ride up a volcano for a magical sunrise view of mountains over a lake. The jeep then drove down into the lava field, where I enjoyed a roam around the dark hardened rocks. The day trip also included a nice soak in a hot spring and a guided visit to a coffee plantation, where we saw the famous luwak, a cat/big rodent-like creature who poops out undigested coffee beans that they roast and overcharge tourists to drink.
Ubud celebrates dance and music with a few nightly performances for tourists. I went to the Ubud Palace complex with Lexy one night for a Legong dance performance. I was riveted! The Balinese movement is different from the ballet I saw in Yogyakarta: hands and wrists twist around and fingers wiggle sideways, and the real treat is the eye choreography: heavily eyeliner-ed pupils dart left to right, expressing a coy emotion. The costumes are amazing with masks and sarongs, and storytelling comes across easily.
Another night, I went to a different temple spot for a Kecak dance and fire trance dance. I was originally planning to drive south to Uluwatu to see this famous local performance, but traffic had it at 2 and a half hours each way and I decided it was not worth it. Luckily I found out they do the same performance right in Ubud. Rather than use music, about 80 men in sarongs rush into the open floor, sit in a circle around a flaming chandelier, and chant in a rhythmic, sharp, and unsettling pattern while their bodies sway in light choreography. Dancers enter and perform in the middle of the circle, with movement more contained than the Legong dance I had seen, and a storyline that I struggled to follow.
For the last 15 minutes, the performers clear the floor and sit on the temple steps to make space for the fire dance. A bonfire is lit, and a man emerges holding a horse character over his shoulder; he receives some kind of a blessing before starting. He begins to dart around the fire, and soon appears to enter into a trance. And then, surprise, as he jumps right into the fire, kicking the flames and hot coals in front of him several times. It is alarming. Two sneakered men brush the coals and flames back to the center and this repeats several times. The man gets close to the audience and we can see his blackened feet. Finally, another man announces himself by stomping loudly, and he grabs the man who collapses into his arms, breathing heavily and very slowly coming out of his trance. It was so impressive and yet deeply unsettling; I left the performance without a smile on my face, knowing the experience would stay with me.
I write about it wistfully and I will remember it that way, but my time in Bali was not perfect. One night I woke to my bed shaking, deliriously thinking my neighbor was clomping around but then realizing it was an earthquake — a 5.2 magnitude stemming from the next island over. It wasn’t my first quake, and they are common in Indonesia, but it destabilized me for a little while. The power had some trouble staying on in my room at the retreat, but it was manageable. I wiped out on the sidewalk because the shitty infrastructure wobbled under my step, leaving me with a really bad scrape on my knee (the opposite knee was still scraped from my fall at Mount Ijen). Luckily I was near a clinic where I was going to ask about some vaccinations, which I ended up not getting (though the vaccine price was $30 compared to $700 in the U.S.). There was a fuel shortage across the island, massively disrupting traffic during my drive to the airport. And Balinese coffee is weird: sludge falls to the bottom of the cup and people don’t use creamer.
Traffic in Bali is a little nutty, even without the fuel shortage; it takes a long time to get anywhere by car, leaving scooters as a real time-saving amenity. On my first night, I texted my hotel as I was dropped off a 5-minute walk away, and soon a man with a scooter showed up to escort me up the hill. He seamlessly grabbed my rolling suitcase and bungy-strapped it to the back of his bike, then a few minutes later came back for me. Riding uphill was scary, but I was grateful for the ease of the ride.
So I decided to buck up, and started riding on the backs of scooters. By the end of my time in Bali I felt confident ordering a Grab bike, hopping on the back while lightly grazing the driver, saying yes to the helmet, and holding onto the back with one hand. I came to enjoy the breezy zooming around, though never fully letting my safety guard down.
The internet has a lot of conflicting advice about Bali: It’s too overrun by tourists. It’s beautiful. It’s inauthentic. It’s relaxing and worth it. It’s an Instagram paradise. The beach towns are all just partying Australians and traffic. All of these things are a little true; I believe it’s possible to hold multiple and conflicting impressions of a place at once. For me, I chose to focus on the personal wellness and healing, and this made it a wonderful place. Walking the main street in Ubud with scooters zooming by as I navigated blocked sidewalks and crumbling infrastructure was hella stressful. But then those walks brought me to delicious restaurants and healing massage therapists and magical palaces, like the water palace I stumbled upon that was so pretty and calming, surrounded by lily pads and lotus flowers and amazing sculptures and temples.
I fought the initial tourist urge I felt to visit the most popular spots: the rice terraces and waterfalls closest to town. And soon I found I wasn’t craving them, all I wanted out of my final days in Bali was to do yoga, get massages, lounge by the pool, and treat my body well. I relished the slowing down, especially as I thought of the constant movement that was to come.
It would seem I embraced the Bali vibe, one that is real and yet fed by the idealism of Elizabeth Gilbert’s experience there. I like to say that places are popular for a reason, and Bali was a prime example. I managed to find the quiet and embrace my zen, and left feeling enlightened and centered, ready for whatever the next travel experiences have in store for me.
