Balinese Bliss

It's been hard trying to find a minute to write in the midst of horrible Internet connection and perfect beaches. It's hard enough to find Internet access or even give a shit who emailed you that day, or poked you on Facebook, when there is the most perfect beach in the world on the most perfect island in the world right outside your bedroom door.

After Jakarta, we met my friend Inbal and went to Yogyakarta, which is a hippie town full of brightly colored art galleries selling batik paintings and sleepy cyclo drivers lining the streets. We stayed in a five dollar a night hotel that provided us with free chocolate toasties for breakfast and tea. One morning we awoke at 4 a.m. to watch the sunrise over Borrobodur, an ancient temple an hour away from Yogyakarta. It was a beautiful place to be at 5 a.m. As the prisma colored sun stroked it's mammoth curves. The mist over Merapi volcano started to diffuse, slowly covering Borrobodur in gauzy layers of fog.

After a few days in Yogyakarta we headed to Bali where we spent one night in Seminyak--a horrible, beach town with the worst beach I have ever seen, and completely overrun with designer stores. It was not the Bali I had dreamed of. We quickly left and went to the Gili Islands, our first stop, Gili Tarwangan. The minute I stepped off the boat, I knew I had found heaven. No cars were in sight, because there are no motorized vehicles on the island, only horse drawn carriages. Small bistros and dive shops line the dirt roads that are surrounded by a ridiculously picturesque beach. We spent four amazing days there, laying on the beach, drinking fresh papaya juice, and eating freshly grilled fish at beach side restaurants. Gili Tarwangan is a little piece of heaven. One night after a few Bintangs at the local bar, we met two New Zealand surfers, Jon and Paul, and a Canadian, Ross, who were all going to this supposedly amazing and remote island, Kuta Lombok a few hours away from Gili Tarwangan. After careful consideration, we decided that this island sounded too awesome to pass up and that we were going to make it our next destination.

A quick boat ride and a two hour drive away, we found ourselves in Kuta Lombok--an even more perfect and remote island than the Gilis. The next three days were spent in bliss. Days were exhausted on motorcycles, feeling the breeze in my hair as I passed by rows of palm trees and one deserted beach after the other. I had finally found heaven and it was so perfect, that it felt like a dream. How could this place exist, and how did I get so lucky to find it? I didn't think it could get any better than Gili Tarwangan, but it did, I had found it, and never wanted to leave. The night before Christmas eve we were hanging out with Jon and Paul--our New Zealand surfers, two beautiful Colombian sisters--Diana, and Paula, an Austrian traveler, Martin, and a handful of locals in the street. The locals were sitting in a circle with a guitar, drinking home-made Arak wine and singing soulfully to Jack Johnson and other Western tunes. The circle in the street, turned into a bonfire on the beach, complete with Bintang beers and fire jumping. It was one of my memorable nights on the entire trip. Even as the fire faded and the beers were emptied, the stars on that seemingly endless beach never did. It was an amazing night. The next day was Christmas eve, but it never felt so far away from it. So far away from Christmas, from my family, from all the things I've ever known Christmas to be. It wasn't a sad feeling though. As much as I missed my family, it was kind of a beautiful thing to see locals in sarongs wearing Santa hats and to celebrate with new friends at a beach side bar, with live music, as we did that night. Christmas day was spent on my motorbike, scouting out deserted, sunny beaches with the clearest and most amazing water I had ever seen. The night was spent at a buffet at the Novotel hotel, with our new friends laughing. It was a great way to spend Christmas, and it will be one of my most memorable, especially because of the randomness of it all. Sometimes, the most random things, can be the most beautiful.

I was somehow convinced to leave heaven to go back to Bali, where I find myself currently in rainy Ubud, a place I have wanted to go to since I read Eat, Pray, Love. It's an awesome town with an incredible bohemian and artsy vibe, reminiscent of Yogyakarta but to a whole new level. There are a million art galleries and the best shopping I've seen in all of Indonesia. After an intense bike ride around some rice fields, I found myself at a two tiered market haggling for a bunch of things I have no need for, including a bunch of presents for my family, and two more scarves that will just add to the fifteen or so scarves I have already accumulated during my travels around Asia. I have a weird fascination and obsession with scarves. I swear I have the best collection of anyone I know. I love them and can't stop buying them. There's a "Scooter Appreciation Convention" that has been going on the two days we have been here. It's annoying the crap out of me, the streets are filled with hardcore bikers in leather and last night I was woken up more times than I can count by the live band outside my door--a live band that sucks. Maybe I should be appreciative of these kinds of interesting happenings, but I found it more annoying than anything else.

I also got a massage and body treatment yesterday ... it was RAD. It included an hour full-body massage followed by a full body yogurt scrub and then a milk bath to top it all of ... all for ten dollars. I love Indonesia. It's so cheap and amazing and beautiful and I never want to leave. Sigh. The people here are the friendliest and happiest of anywhere I have ever been in my entire life. I remember, Elizabeth Gilbert talking about how happy the people where here in Eat, Pray, Love, and I tell you, she's spot on. Everyday that I have been here, I have been greeted with genuine kindness, open arms, and beautiful smiles. They seem so happy, so content, and so alive. Americans, really need to take a lesson or two from the Indonesian. Everyone back home is so consumed with hating work and hating their lives that they don't even take a moment to realize how beautiful life is. They know it is here, and the more time I spend here, the more I realize it too. It's truly amazing and wonderful here, everything about it, and leaving here will probably be harder for me than leaving any other place I've been. Maybe because, I know it means I have to go home soon, but maybe it's because I just love this place so much, even though it was by fluke that we came here. I always say everything happens for a reason, and coming here is proof of that.

New Year's is approaching and Denny, Inbal and I are trying to figure out where to go next. Pedang, Pedang in the Bukit Peninsula may be the place. It may not be my perfect island, but hopefully, it will do. Hopefully, there will be sun, and deserted beaches, and I can ride a motorcycle and feel the wind in my hair. That's all I ask for, and maybe, a beer or two on New Years ... a kiss would be nice too, but at this point, I'm not betting on it.

Sianara Tokyo and Jakarta my Hearta

So Tokyo was what I expected it to be--cold, exhausting, expensive, over-crowded, over-indulgent ... but amazing. I love that city. I'm always tired there, maybe because of the ridiculous amounts of people, and ridiculously-overcrowded trains that make you feel like a hyperventilating sardine in a can of squished sardines packed with the sweat of hundreds of Japanese, instead of oil. Sometimes, I can feel the next person's breath on the back of my neck, it's such close quarters. Creepy, super creepy.

After I spent some quality time in Iizuka with my grandparents, parents, and sisters, I hopped over to Tokyo for a week of hanging out, reminiscing, and revisiting. Me and Denny stayed with my old pal, Eugene, squatting on his floor, like a bunch of homeless vagabonds, for a week, sleeping on a futon and a couch in the middle of the living room. Tokyo hasn't changed a bit, but most of my friends aren't there anymore which makes for a much different experience. I saw Eugene, Susan, Jeff, Julian and Mina, which was great, and felt like a sordid reunion of sorts with just a few lonely faces instead of the typical bunch I was used to. I really missed Mia, Steph, Cherylle, Paul, Teresa, David, Sudarshan, Olivia, and my entire old crew that I loved so much in the Tokyo of two years ago. It made me realize that when I think about Tokyo, it was more that I was thinking of them, than the actual city itself. Without them in Tokyo, it just wasn't the city that I loved, and it wasn't the Tokyo that I cherished in my heart as one of the best experiences of my life. It was more of just a beautiful, crowded metropolis with nameless faces and memories of things I used to know. It's like returning to the place of your youth when you are eighty-five, only to realize everyone you knew is now dead. OK, maybe that's a bit over-dramatic but Tokyo has become an urban oasis that looks exactly the same on the outside, but feels entirely different to me now.

Don't get me wrong, I still love this city like I do any that I have had a life-changing experience in--the constant pulse and electric energy of people on the go, the soothing breeze of calmer Shimokitazawa, which transfixes me into vintage-shopping bliss while it's picture-perfect cafes give me time to reflect. It still gives me shivers of excitement, when I get off the train at Shibuya station and see thousands of people trying to cross the notorious street, Tokyo is epitomized in. I still love and envy the uber-stylish and impossibly hip fashionistas in Harajuku with their hair pulled up in a perfect bun, donning hipster boots, and the most perfect makeup I've ever seen. I still love the smell of yakitori and okonomiyaki being grilled at streetside izakayas and I will always miss dancing the night away at a Japanese disco after missing my last train. Tokyo is a city that has everything, but coming back here has truly showed me how much I have changed. I don't think I will yearn for Tokyo the same way that I have the past two years--constantly regretting leaving when I did and feeling pangs of nostalgia and regret in my gut. It's no longer home to me and I think I understand why now. I love it the same as I always did, but I think I finally made peace with the decision I made to leave. Perhaps the only way to get closure is to revisit that place again, and realize in your own time the reasons you left were perhaps, the only way fate could have it.

I went to my old apartment with Julian and we went to my old favorite, neighborhood restaurant--Sushi Ondo. It was nostalgic being there, talking to Julian about our old friends and neighbors. Gossiping about our lives and seeing how much we have and haven't changed in the past two years. I felt pricks of longing being there--revisiting my old apartment and being in the company of an old neighbor. It was that weird feeling where you go back to a place you haven't been to in a long time, like your elementary school, and all of a sudden like a pre-death montage of your life in a movie, a flood of flashbacks engulfs your brain, and emotionally you feel like crying because it's so overwhelming. It's a feeling of yearning, that is hard to typify in words. Most people have felt it before. It's like getting your heart broken by someone and then finding a love letter they wrote you in a shoe box under your bed a year later. No matter how long it's been or how over that person you think you are, that letter will bring back every sweet (or sour) memory.

We are now in Jakarta, Indonesia. After weeks of contemplating whether to go to India or not, we decided not to. I know I haven't touched on the bombings that were happening there, maybe because it's painful for me to write so I've been putting it off. Denny and I were supposed to go to India for the entire month and travel with our friends Zach and Inbal, but while I was in Kyoto with my family, Bombay was getting bombed by terrorists. My precious Taj and Oberoi hotels, which I have had so many childhood memories in--drinking sweet masala milk and icy-cold falooda during sweltering hot December days with my family, are now something of the past and can only be cherished as sweet remembrances. It broke my heart. I watched CNN everyday from Japan, and everyday I felt more heartbroken for my beautiful Bombay and my family. Thank god, my entire family in Bombay is safe. When I heard my aunt's friend was having dinner at the Taj when the bombs went off, and they all died, the gravity of what was happening there really set in. My friend Inbal has been living there for a while now, and was living in the heart of the destruction. She's safe and meeting us in Jakarta tomorrow, but knowing that she was there too, and thinking of what she witnessed, being alone without her famiy, is beyond me.

It was a hard decision not going to India, being a place I've always felt entirely safe and at home in. I know I will return to India soon, but I can hardly imagine the aftermath of Bombay after what has happened. Can a city completely recover after something this big? Or does it just evolve into something stronger? I don't know the answer to that, but I guess we will see how Bombay will grow from this. I love that city so much and to see things of such familiarity burn up in flames, and knowing your family and close friend is there without knowing they are safe, is something I wouldn't wish for my worst enemy. The only way I can really describe it is like heart break.

I guess it's true that you never know what can happen and you never know when your life will be in danger. My biggest fear is that I don't live my life to the fullest. The more I see of the world and the more I travel, the more I comprehend how much there is to explore and that you are only given one life and one chance to live it. I met a guy in Phnom Penh who I spent some time with, and he said something to me that was so simple yet for some reason has stuck with me since that night ... "life is too short to regret anything, you know that." It's something that is so cliche, but at the instant he said that to me, while hanging out in our dingy three-dollar a night hotel, it felt like I finally really got it. I think traveling does that to you ... it makes you think you have these life changing epiphanies, when really you knew it all a long deep inside you, it's just that traveling opens you up and gives you the clarity to really hear it.

So, I've been in Jakarta for the past two days waiting for my friend Inbal to get here from India. We are traveling together for a few weeks and I can't wait. Jakarta is a dirty, smelly, congested city with some of the best fried rice and tea I've had in my entire life. We are staying off a small, lively street called JL Jaksa, teeming with open air cafes that radiate hookah smoke and bars that emanate the late night sounds of karaoke and live bands singing love ballads. I love watching the barristas pour steaming hot chai into warm pots and smelling the street side vendors frying rice and eggs for nasi goreng. Tomorrow Inbal gets here and we may go to Borabodur, which is famous for a temple that is supposed to rival Angkor Wat, if that's even possible. Tonight I'll be content sipping on frothy Indonesian tea at the KL Village cafe while the cacophonous tune of the Indonesian band next door at Memories bar, covers the worst rendition of Wham's Careless Whisper I've ever heard.