It’s 1:30 in the morning and for some reason, I can’t sleep. I’ve been lying in bed for the last two hours completely wide-eyed trying to force myself to sleep, which everyone knows, never actually works. Then, as if it were the reason for my current insomnia, my phone rings with a call from my dad. He and my mom are celebrating their 27th wedding anniversary by going to Bali for 10 days and my dad is calling me from the airport. I answer the phone and he says, “there’s an issue with your mom’s passport, do you want to possibly leave for Bali tomorrow?”

Without any hesitation, I answered “hell yes!” and assured him that I would find a way to get work off and if I couldn’t, I would simply quit on the spot. The next day, by some sort of miracle, my boss was on board and less than 24 hours after getting that call from my dad I was on a plane to Indonesia.

As far as preparedness goes, I wasn’t; pretty much all I packed were some shirts, a couple pairs of board shorts, and my camera. After a 17-hour flight to Taiwan and a five-hour flight from there to Bali, we made it to the island. For the next 7 days, we were taken all around Bali by our tour guild, Addu. Previous to working as a tour guide, Addu had worked his entire life as a rice farmer and had a knowledge of not only the history of his little island and its immensely deep culture, but also of every different farming technique used on Bali and the reasons behind the practices. Immediately he explained how the islanders have such a powerful connection to the place they live and understand so thoroughly the natural processes of their home, that they realize how necessary it is to protect it.

In some of the places we stayed, like Kuta and Sanur, it’s very apparent how much of a tourist trap they can be. Once you escape them, however, you begin to learn what the real Bali is. We walked through temples that were thousands of years of old, carved directly into the compacted lava rock that the island is formed on. Observed ceremonies of holy celebration where women would carry offerings that weigh nearly 40 pounds on their heads for over a mile to the temple, and all done while carrying a child in their arms. And no matter where we went, the people were genuinely welcoming and loving to us.

Addu, after hearing that I worked in a coffee shop back home in California, insisted that we stop off at a coffee farm to taste genuine, hand roasted Balinese coffee. Where he brought us was relatively unassuming from the outside but once seated we found ourselves overlooking an incredible view of the forest below and the acres of coffee plants below the canopy. On the way into the seating area we got to meet the woman who was roasting coffee beans the traditional way, in a wok-like pan over an open fire. She was tossing and flipping the beans with incredible precision. Then she offered for me to give it a shot and she definitely got a kick out of my pathetic attempt to replicate her handy work. After being seated the workers brought out a flight of 12 different coffee and teas made all in house for us to taste. All of it was delicious and I left with a few pounds of coffee in tow.

After about 7 days of driving all around island, the tour of the island by temples was concluded and we had the last two days of the trip to do as we please. The first destination was the Elephant Safari Park, a few hours outside Ubud. There we had the opportunity to wash the elephants, ride them bareback through the water, and ride them through the park. The elephants in the park definitely hold true to the old title of gentle giants. They are incredible dexterous and gentle with their trunks and when you look into their eyes, there is so much depth. They have such human like expressions and emotions that it’s truly impactful being with them. All the elephants at the park are treated kindly and humanely and being that get attached to people much like humans do, they stay with the same keeper their entire lives. The elephant we were with had been with her keeper for almost 17 years. Being with those incredible creatures was an amazing and humbling experience to say the least.

The next day, being that we were staying in Sanur, we rented scooters to do a little self-exploration of a different part of the island, Canggu.

Riding a scooter through Bali is no joke. Addu reassured us days before that there actually weren’t very many scooter accidents and most of them happened in the mountains where the speed limits were higher. That being said, we later found out that he was saying this just to make us feel better and that in reality there are over 1,300 accidents per year and a third of them are fatal… Of course, we found this out from an Australian couple we met later that night, after riding 16 miles through the heart of the island at peak traffic hours. In Bali, it feels like there are a total of five streetlights on the entire island, so when driving a scooter, you either need to fully commit to making through an intersection or you will never get through. At first, the ride is pretty terrifying; but once you have ridden for a few miles, you begin to learn how to move through traffic and streets naturally, like a dance. Sure, at times it may have been a dance with death, but it was a dance nonetheless.

Once in Canggu we parked the scooters, rented boards, and were in the water before the engines had time cool. The water was at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit with fun 3-5ft waves constantly pouring onto the black-sand beach. I surfed for about three hours, much to the dismay of the guys I rented the board from, being that I was only supposed to have it for two hours. After that we headed to a not so little shop called Deus Ex Machina, The Temple Of Enthusiasm.

Deus is a custom motorcycle and surfboard shop that also has a restaurant and barber in house; but I was there another, very specific reason. Every Tuesday night they put on an event called Tacos and Tattoos where they bring in two tattoo artists and if you buy a couple of tacos you can get a free tattoo. So naturally I was all in on the idea of a free tattoo. We sat around and hung out with our new Australian friends whom we met that evening, Daniel and Kylie, from Melbourne. They were some of the nicest and most genuine people I’ve ever met and they assured me that when I find myself in Australia in the future, I’ll always be in good company and have a place to crash. After a few hours of chatting and plenty of Bintangs, it was finally my turn for a tattoo.

I wanted something that has a lot of meaning to me, as well as something that is a testament to this trip and the last-minute nature of it. So, I got a very simple quote in an average, lower case font that reads, “built to roam.”

The tattoo isn’t very impressive or very well done, but that didn’t matter to me. It was never meant to be beautiful, nor did I really want it to be, it was meant to symbolize this trip and the nature of it, and for that reason, it was perfect.

After getting the tattoo, it was about 12:30am and we hopped on the scooters and rode back to our hotel on the other side of the island, in the rain. Then the next morning we packed our bags and left to go back home to California. Just like that the wild trip that was Bali was over and I’ll carry those memories with me for the rest of my life.

Bali is an incredibly welcoming and beautiful island that has such a rich history and connection to the natural world. Thank you, Addu, for showing us around your amazing home and I promise I will be back soon, and maybe with a few surfboards in tow this time around.

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