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Three days later...

It wasn't a hard decision now was it? Even if it really was at the last minute. I have a special affection for the Bukit peninsula of Bali and its vibes - many people do get it once they've been here. So I rocked up at Padang Padang Beach, a back-of-the-scooter-ride-with-rucksack, ferry, bus and taxi ride later. I chose here because I hadn't actually been before on my last trip to Bali. It almost feels like unfinished business. even though you always get the feeling that coming here business will never be finished. Maybe it represents the same for me as Italy - I will always go back wherever I am on this planet, and even if I am not.

My gut feeling serves me so well. I have talked about the indigenous people in my last post, but I finally met with people of my own cloth stitched from these voyaging moments. International people, people who have tales of travel. It doesn't matter where to, I am intrigued by their stories and how they deliver them in their own language and cadence. That art of storytelling stays alive when you travel. I could listen for hours, fuelling my wanderlust. 

Here now, I realise one thing is central to all of it - the energy. Well, it's always about the ball of energy we are gravitationally perched on, it's how life all began.

I also realise this time around opposed to all my other previous backpacking trips through the years, I needed to find a certain kind energy, even though I couldn't really pinpoint what that was. It is my first Christmas travelling like this. I haven't felt the gradual flow of festivity at all this year, even more than the last two years, and that is fine, I am learning to process that. To be honest I wanted something different, as I can't have things I had before. So I need some new energy, and here in Bali I met it. I feel a connection, I created a new motorway, letting traffic flow freely again through my mind. You are never alone even when you travel alone, you feel that striking up conversations with everyone around you is the most natural thing you can do. 

There is a bridge that overlooks Padang Padang Beach from the main, if not countryside street. To cross a small forested ravine which descends to the shoreline is its main purpose; what comes a close second is a lookout point, where surfers parked at the kerbside on scooters sit and analyse the waves, or even non-surfers, because quite simply it is a pretty cool view of the beach and the sea and it's roll and long breaks of surf. Every time I scoot past now I also have to stop - it is too good of a moment and of a place to not just spend a moment and get lost in it. Anywhere in Europe you would not be able to do that, it would be policed and outlawed. But here reigns a law very similar to Costa Rica and of 'Pura vida' as the Ticos - their people - always tell you when you greet them and ask them how things are going. 

Then as you ride five or so minutes further down the road to the most south-westerly tip of Uluwatu you park up and descend through cliff walkways with the scenic ocean views. 

It would be enough to stop here, sit with a beer in the overlooking bars and warungs and take it all in, watch the surfers as they paddle out and meet the waves, see them manoeuvre like whisping ants on water. But no, you have to go down to the very end, to the jagged rocks with hanging lush, green vegetation and the little cavernous coves of sand where you meet the sea. It is as if the energy of this island has seeped down from the valley of the Jatiluwih rice fields in its centre, past the bottleneck to the raindrop peninsula, gathering its energy along the way until it meets emerald swathes of sea with crisp, white, breaking surf. Poseidon power punches it back with all its might back in to the cove to go from standing at ankle depth to being completely submerged in one quick shore swell. It is powerful, scary and demands respect, yet it is calming, relaxing, hypnotic. A big poke bowl serving of all energies. It cannot be harnessed, but you can go with it, feed off it, let it all wash over you and rinse you clean.

I parted on this trip without any plans of coming back to Bali, I had other things to see. I know myself quite well, I am a person that will venture off down a dirt track if I get a hunch there is the risk of finding something cool down there - that same kind of hunch as I sat at the shore of Banyuwangi in Java a few days ago. I also recognise the gratitude to be physically able to do all this, to able to make things happen and go with my gut feeling and allow myself to come back here even for just a few short days. 

I'm sat writing this in my one-room wooden homestay surrounded by palm and banana trees, the high pitch croak of crickets along with geckos playfully scampering the walls of the bamboo terrace, and it is feeding me more. I am smiling on the inside, I feel a connection, I am plugged in to the socket and I am on charge. I am loading...

I'm really feeling more geared now for this new year ahead. Off to Lombok I go tomorrow.

Read more stuff like this here: Energise