When you travel, especially when you are hopping from country to country, There are expected days that you write off. Big travel days, etc. Then there are the days you don’t expect to write off.
I didn’t write yesterday because I was exhausted and annoyed with how my journey from Cambodia to Bali ended up. Plus I’m dealing with some kind of jungle flu and a gastric issue all at once.
Yesterday was supposed to be my first full day here, AirAsia certainly made a mess of that. On my last post I wrote about how one delayed flight made me miss a connection, and I had to stay in Malaysia. Well my new flight was yesterday morning at 9:15 am. We boarded on time, taxied on time, and then we sat on the tarmac at the runway for 2 hours with no information given to us. After the two hours it was announced we had to return to the gate to refuel. Which seemed weird to me, but whatever. As soon as we were back at the gate, airport security rushed onboard and quietly removed two passengers that were seated near me. When I say quiet I mean completely silently. There was nothing spoken between the passengers, security, or flight crew that I could hear. I was only 10 feet away. It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen on a flight. We waited another 30 minutes at the gate, the passengers did not return. Finally we did refuel then waited another 30 minutes on the tarmac. in total 3.5 hours of standby. Making a 3 hour flight a 6.5 hour flight.
Well there goes the day. I ended up getting to my hotel at 6pm last night. Even though I was feeling less than 100, I quickly ran a few new country errands. From there I grabbed a burger. Since I had very little time to figure out the exchange rate I paid for my meal, without paying much attention to the price of what I ordered. When I sat down, I did the conversion and realized I just paid $28 Cad for a burger and fries. Now that’s more than id normally pay back home, and coming from Thailand and Cambodia, that’s 3 or more meals worth of money. I was a little shocked. Then I made the realization of where this particular joint was located and the businesses surrounding it, I was in tourist central. With all that being said it ended up being a stellar burger with incredible fries and a nice thick flavorful milkshake. So I left happy, Asian food has not looked particularly appetizing the last few days, after this gastro issue set in.
That was pretty much the end of my night last night. Not feeling well enough to continue to explore the windy, busy, dangerous roads of Bingin, Uluwatu. I settled in my bed and read more of the second harry potter book. I read the whole first book, while transiting from Cambodia to Bali. Let that be a marker for how long it took.
Thankfully I was able to get a really good sleep last night, thanks to some sleep meds and some Neo Citron. Pro tip, travel with Neo Citron. Its an absolute life saver when you need it.
This morning I awoke feeling pretty darn good, which came to a surprise as I expected to be much more sick than I felt. I stretched for 2 hours and then puttered off to town to get a massage, go see the beach and grab some food. The massage was excellent, the beach was pretty crazy with big waves, and my lunch of Nasi Goreng was decent. Then near the end of my meal, it hit me. Like somebody hooked up an air compressor to my nostrils and filled my head to bursting. Thankfully I was only a short drive from my hotel because the dizziness was not far behind the congestion. I hate being sick on vacation. Even as I am writing this I can barely focus. I’m sitting in my hotel with the blinds shut as the sunlight is making my head split. Total complete write off. Tomorrow will be better. I hope.
Since reading Marcus Aurelius’ book, I have been practicing a type of stoicism. It has helped me curate a particular mindset that I am applying to everything in my life, and how I process the world around me. I used to get so internally upset about some things and in turn ruin my time doing that thing. Staying calm when things go astray, not victimizing myself internally when it feels like the world is blatantly out to get me or ruin my day. I must say it has helped me be a much happier human. Even when I cant be more than 15 minutes from a toilet and my head feels like its gonna pop. Especially finding a silver lining in an otherwise dreadful or incredibly inconvenient situation.
For example, I now have the time to write down the shit show of the last two days. If i wasn’t feeling so dreadful I probably wouldn’t’ve even bothered. Ill take that as a victory.
So apparently I could not sit cooped up in my room all day regardless of how sick I felt, after I wrote up to this point I decided I was going to Padang Padang beach. I heard tell of some cool bouldering routes there, and since I have never bouldered on actual boulders before I was pretty pumped to giver er a go. Remember me saying how sick I was, no matter my drive to do something I truly had no strength to boulder. I did 2 attempts on a route and called it quits and went for a swim.
Somehow today, even though I was in my room for 90 percent of the day. Managed to get a brutal sunburn on my shoulders. Yay for me. After the beach I went to a restaurant called Menza, The food was expensive. But neither dish I had was that great.
Big ole side bar. Did you know that Nasi Goreng, literally means fried rice? My family has been eating Nasi Goreng since the dawn of my time. Now I’ve had it 3 times here and it has been completely different every time, whilst being nothing like what I grew up on.
I guess today was a half write off.
Till tomorrow
The Great Dopamine Rush of 2025 