July 6 - Kuta, Lombok
Expectations for today: have breakfast, rent a scooter, rent a surfboard, hang at the beach and read, sunset hike, and maybe explore at night and grab a drink at one of the many hipster sheik bars that seem to be popping up.
Seems relatively simple, right? Some small tasks and a bit of adventure, mixed with a respectable amount of relaxation.
Actual:
Phew.
I'm a month into my trip at this point, and I should know not to have expectations at this point, especially when travelling in a third world country where every transaction is a carefully negotiated business deal. And that's one of the difficult balances: being comfortable with your plan changing is great, but not having one at all puts you at serious risk for looking back and realizing you missed out on the best a given place has to offer.
Which brings me to my second point: travel FOMO (fear of missing out). I've always loved to be a go-with-the-flow type of person, but travel brings out a certain anxiousness in me. Will I realize when I get back home that there was a cool waterfall 5 minutes away from my AirBnb that I missed out on because I didn't Google search for an extra minute or two?
I mean, why am I doing this in the first place?
I had planned on sharing more about my travels by now (Where is Lombok? How did I get here? Why was there a fee to look at a wave? I thought you said you were going to Australia?), but it's been a whirlwind tour so far, and writing has taken a backseat to my tendency to overplan and sign myself up for way too many activities. And, as you might expect from someone that's on a trip like mine, I'm thinking about what I'm doing with my life. So as these posts develop I'll share what I've found (maybe I'll even answer that "why am I doing this?" question) and where I think I'm headed, but also some of the photos of where I've been.
Timing will likely be irregular - I'm trying to focus on making sure I'm writing these for me, not just for a few more likes on facebook. I'll be journaling for myself first, and blogging for you second. But I do want to share, and what I value in doing so is interacting with all of you about what your thoughts are - have you been in similar situations, felt similar things? How did you react, what did you do? In these, the days of Instagram and influencing as a recognized profession, I want to make sure that I use the powerful communication tools to feel more full, and not more empty. Maybe you can help me here?
So here I sit in Lombok, Indonesia (I'll let you Google it), at the end of another day. It wasn't what I expected, maybe not as much pure euphoric fun as I wanted, but it was still worth it. And I put on a fresh pair of underwear, so that's something.
Cheers,
James
Seems relatively simple, right? Some small tasks and a bit of adventure, mixed with a respectable amount of relaxation.
Actual:
- Had breakfast
- Rented a scooter
- Aborted surf check (not worth it to pay entrance fee)
- Snuck into the big resort next door to see if I could see the wave from there (ended up talking with the guys working the scuba counter, two of whom ended up divulging that they had been to jail, and one of whom offered to sell me cocaine - I'll just take it as a sign that I make friends easily)
- Surf shop - selected a board, decided to go grab lunch while they figured out if they had any fins to give me with it
- Lunch (everything went smoothly)
- Surf shop to pick up board (realized at this point that my scooter didn't have a rack for the board)
- Back to my homestay (to see if I could swap the scooter I had rented for one with a rack - negative)
- Switched rooms for one with AC, negotiated competitive rate
- Back into town to find a scooter with a rack (spent an hour wheeling and dealing with 5 different people, some of whom wanted to charge 140k IDR for one day. Stopped in at a travel office on a whim, got what I needed for 50k - with free delivery to my homestay!)
- And FINALLY: back on the scooter to find the beach I wanted to get to
- Side of the road to check my directions
- Intercepted by another guy on a scooter - followed him to the beach and got on his dad's boat to go surf (had the wave to myself and caught a few good ones, but it turned out to be incredibly windy - a local told me they usually don't go out in the dry season because of this. Well, that and the fact that the water is too cold [it's 81F].)
- Bought a can of soy bean drink and chocolate wafers
Phew.
I'm a month into my trip at this point, and I should know not to have expectations at this point, especially when travelling in a third world country where every transaction is a carefully negotiated business deal. And that's one of the difficult balances: being comfortable with your plan changing is great, but not having one at all puts you at serious risk for looking back and realizing you missed out on the best a given place has to offer.
Which brings me to my second point: travel FOMO (fear of missing out). I've always loved to be a go-with-the-flow type of person, but travel brings out a certain anxiousness in me. Will I realize when I get back home that there was a cool waterfall 5 minutes away from my AirBnb that I missed out on because I didn't Google search for an extra minute or two?
I mean, why am I doing this in the first place?
I had planned on sharing more about my travels by now (Where is Lombok? How did I get here? Why was there a fee to look at a wave? I thought you said you were going to Australia?), but it's been a whirlwind tour so far, and writing has taken a backseat to my tendency to overplan and sign myself up for way too many activities. And, as you might expect from someone that's on a trip like mine, I'm thinking about what I'm doing with my life. So as these posts develop I'll share what I've found (maybe I'll even answer that "why am I doing this?" question) and where I think I'm headed, but also some of the photos of where I've been.
Timing will likely be irregular - I'm trying to focus on making sure I'm writing these for me, not just for a few more likes on facebook. I'll be journaling for myself first, and blogging for you second. But I do want to share, and what I value in doing so is interacting with all of you about what your thoughts are - have you been in similar situations, felt similar things? How did you react, what did you do? In these, the days of Instagram and influencing as a recognized profession, I want to make sure that I use the powerful communication tools to feel more full, and not more empty. Maybe you can help me here?
So here I sit in Lombok, Indonesia (I'll let you Google it), at the end of another day. It wasn't what I expected, maybe not as much pure euphoric fun as I wanted, but it was still worth it. And I put on a fresh pair of underwear, so that's something.
Cheers,
James
Some random things that I saw:
- Very playful/friendly cat at a surf shop
- Scootered by cows that were being led to their next grazing pasture
- A boy playing with a bowl of fresh fish while I held charged scooter negotiations with his dad's friend
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