The Great Dopamine Rush of 2025

Today started with blue skies and excitement. Today It was planned that I meet up with my old pal Brian from back home, and his parents. Brian has been traveling Asia with his parents for the last few weeks and was quite excited to be around someone his own age again.

After checking out of my hotel, I dumped my bags at the front desk and decided to go for an adventure to a hidden beach that has some picturesque views and some awesome photo opportunities. It was called Nugugalian I think. There was a sweet 15 minute hike down some carved steps to the beach. It was hot as hell at the beach and I was sweating profusely in the midday sun. I took some photos had a quick fresh coconut and hiked back up to go and meet Brian and his parents. Now I am pretty fit and reasonably acclimatized to the heat and humidity here, but that hike had me so drenched in sweat there was puddles in my sandals that splashed every time I took a step. So silly me did not reapply sunscreen after this epic sweat fest, got on my bike and rode back to drop off the scooter and catch a taxi to Brian’s villa. Well sure as shit by the time I met up with them I was a bright rosy red color. Lovely.

We hung out in the pool at the villas for an hour, and then trodded off down the street to a Thai/Indo fusion restaurant named Kats Kitchen. Funny enough with the same colors, sign and logo as the Kats Kitchen in Chiang Mai Thailand. I asked the owner, and she said shed never heard of another Kats Kitchen before. Curioius. Anyway our meal consisted of a bunch of my favorite Thai dishes all with an Indonesian twist. It was delicious, so good that I didn’t take any pictures.

We had a loose plan to meet up, leave his parents in their villa in Uluwatu and travel inland to the cultural center of Bali, Ubud for a couple days. Now I want to be a spur of the moment traveler, but leaving things to the last minute stresses me out. So without consulting Brian, several days ago I booked this amazing deal on a 4 star resort a few kilometers outside of Ubud.

When I say we had a loose plan I mean the plan started and finished with us meeting up. Now in Brian’s mind we were going to get a place together, In my mind we would get our own places. Now we are pretty close, so getting a place together was no big deal. except that I had already booked a resort. After traveling 2 hours from Uluwatu our taxi delivered us to the swankiest place I’ve seen in Bali to date. I will post pictures tomorrow. Now what I failed to recognize, when booking this resort was that it was a spiritual honeymooners resort.

Now we are both straight for the most part and absolutely just friends, and in our heads we’d just show up and ask for two beds. Well this resort has ONE room type, and its a Romantic 4 post king bed room with a lovely view of the jungle. So now two dudes are in a honeymooners sweet sharing a bed. We both found this quite comical. The room is lovely by the way. I wish my partner was with me, but Brian will have to do for now. Hahaha.

Till tomorrow.

P.s As funny as the sleeping arrangements are, this hotel is nearly empty and I got this room for $50 cad a night with a complimentary 3 course breakfast every morning, fresh fruit delivered to the room every day as well as afternoon tea. Its a win.