Since the mid 90's I've frequented Bali. There's something so special about this place that can easily be missed nowadays with the take over of the instagramable vacation; but for me I know exactly where to come to still find solitude. Let me share with you this little piece of Heaven on Earth.
I first stayed in this exact location in 1994.
It was my first time away from what I knew, my first solo trip and my first time of feeling like I had actually come home.
I had come to Bali with a girlfriend and we spent a month travelling around surfing between Bali and Java. We found perfect waves, met wonderful people, ate new food, chilled out on remote beaches and explored places we had never dreamed of.
After a month she had to go home for work so we jumped on a flight back to the place we had grown up. When I stepped off the plane I realised immediately that I no longer belonged on that land.
I went home, unpacked and repacked my bag and jumped on the next flight out of there, back to the place that had stolen my heart.
When I arrived back in Bali I had no plans and only enough money to last me if I was frugal. I decided to get out of Kuta (the tourist hub at the time) and head to a place I had ventured once with my girlfriend that was not yet set up for tourists and hard to get to without a motorbike.
I found a place to rent a motorbike (I had never ridden one) and the guy gave me a quick run down in the alley way. I had come prepared with only a day pack on my back so I bought a 'sensible' pair of long pants and set off up the hills towards Uluwatu.
Back then the only people on the roads were locals, there were little to no signs and I stopped a few times to ask directions from locals who were normally playing cards, lazing in the heat of the day under shopfront roofs or selling home grown bananas and paw paw on the roadside.
At one stage I stopped to drink some water on the edge of a cliff top, a large grassy area over a spectacular crystal clear reef with a perfect, hollow wave. And there, right in front of me was a hand written sign cut out of wood with a small arrow leading down a goat track that seemed to lead to nowhere. I followed the track and it soon became steps precariously carved into the cliffside so I did what anyone would do and continued on down.
After 200 steps (yes I counted them) I was presented with 3 bamboo huts built into the cliff face, jutting over the ocean, the crystal clear water crashing below, the most beautiful place I had ever seen.
I was greeted by an old Balinese woman who looked about a hundred years old. She was sinewy and tough, barely any teeth left but a smile that filled my heart all the same. She welcomed me in broken English and I responded with the few words I had learnt in Bahasa and we instantly became friends. She ushered me into one of the huts and showed me photos of the people who had stayed with her and she invited me to be a guest.
I stayed in that hut for a few weeks, she charged me $3 a day including meals. Her husband would carry a 20 litre water container that he collected from the well on his shoulder down the 200 steps every couple of days so we could shower and another one for drinking and cooking that he collected from a delivery driver since there is no drinkable water up here.
While I was there the family had only one other visitor, another Aussie, obviously well known by the family because he featured in many of their photos that hung on the wall like a shrine to the people who had ventured here. He was twice my age, leathery skin that had seen nothing but sun and so familiar with the wave that we surfed out the front he made it look like he was one with it. I don't remember having any conversations with him, he wasn't very social with me but the family adored him and I could hear them talking in Bahasa late into the night like he was part of the family and those sounds of familiar conversation would lull me to sleep under the rickety fan that barely kept the mozzies away.
I'll never forget those few weeks I stayed with that family. It was the most simple existence in the most beautiful place I had ever been and the experience is etched in my heart forever.
Over the years I have returned to Bali countless times. I probably come here anywhere between 6 and 10 times a year so I guess Bali has become my second home and I have been witness to the changing landscape and the rise of corruption from overseas investors who are destroying the very thing they came here for.
It has changed dramatically over the years, those bamboo huts were taken down many years ago and Uluwatu is no longer a hard to get to surfing destination but has become another Instagram hotspot full of butt implants, fake eyelashes, boobs that are way too perfect and wankers who carry selfie sticks to prove that 'they have arrived'.
There are cranes along the coastline that are converting the once remote jungle scapes into mega hotels that all look the same and the once perfectly imperfect hand made bamboo huts are being replaced by structures that seek to fill the void of the people who will never see Bali for the beauty that it held before they all took over.
The very thing that drew people to Bali is slowly being taken away and replaced with the exact same landscape that is being built all over the World, the exact same template that fills every modern travel blog, magazine and instagram photoshoot. It's perfect curated beauty missing the soul and deep spiritual belonging that the real Bali still offers but is rarely sought after.
And even though I see all the destruction and devastation that mass tourism has produced here, I also see the heart of the Balinese people and how they are so pliable with their deep spirituality, their connection to the land and their reverence for something so much more profound than the what we see on the surface.
I speak to my driver often about what is happening and the ever changing landscape in Bali. He sees it too and he speaks about it with so much love and acceptance that I sometimes find difficult to grasp. And what it comes down to is his spiritual beliefs, his knowing that all is as it should be and that nothing is what it seems.
The Balinese way of living is very insular, my driver, Robbie has never left his island and he is the most well travelled person in his family, driving all over Bali and seeing parts of it that no-one else in his family ever has, even though the island is a mere 153km long and 72km wide. The only things he knows of other places are the stories he hears from the holiday makers he meets through his tours and the one time he came with us to Lembongan which is a 40 min boat ride from the mainland. In between driving he is often pulled back to his local community for ceremony and family events that take precedence over working, always and we have been privy to ceremonies with is community for birth, death and everything in between over the years, for that I am so grateful.
Sometimes I wish I could see the World like Robbie does, through his innocence and his trust because the World that I see is not as bright and thats exactly what brings me back to Bali again and again and again.
I get to come here and set aside the turmoil and the fear mongering and the feeling that everything around me is coming apart. I walk away from my business, from my clients, from my staff, all who are hungry for my time, my energy and my soul and I sit here in this very same place that I sat back in 1994 and see the World through the eyes of innocence and I can finally breathe again.
I found this exact place again serendipitously on Air BNB. I didn't know it at the time but as I walked down the same steps that were carved in the cliffside long before I ever discovered it in 1994 I realised that I had in fact returned to a place I thought had been completely erased. I asked the staff who works here now, if this used to be owned by a woman called Nyoman but the kid serving me was born in 1997 so we giggled at the idea that he should know the history of the area and things get lost in translation so I left it but I know for sure that I am here.
It is no longer $3 a night including meals but many things about this place remain the same. The monkeys still visit at sunset and will happily steal anything left out within their grasp. They have even learnt how to slide open the windows that replace the original mosquito net curtains and the resident monitor lizard carelessly sleeps on one of the 200 steps in the middle of the day knowing that he belongs here more than any of us.
The ocean still crashes against the age old cliffs which are ever changing shape to the power of the water around and the sun still sparkles on crystal clear water over reefs that keep the ecosystem alive despite the pollution that feeds into her every single day from the relentless progress along any slither of land above.
Last night as the sun went down I sat right here and wept. I wept for my son's future, I wept for my husband who works so hard to provide, I wept for my own suffering, I wept for the people who don't even realise they are suffering and I wept for this place that has given me solitude from the things that make me wan to weep every single day.
I'm one of those people who keeps busy so I don't have to stop and look around, but when I come to Bali I don't have a reason to do anything but observe and reground and come back to the person I became when I no longer belonged in the land I was born. If I didn't have Bali to escape to I think I would go insane. Here it always feels like the sun will come up and the ocean will sweep away anything that doesn't serve me. I feel cleansed and blessed and free just for a moment and I wonder if this is where I am meant to be always.
I first stayed in this exact location in 1994.
It was my first time away from what I knew, my first solo trip and my first time of feeling like I had actually come home.
I had come to Bali with a girlfriend and we spent a month travelling around surfing between Bali and Java. We found perfect waves, met wonderful people, ate new food, chilled out on remote beaches and explored places we had never dreamed of.
After a month she had to go home for work so we jumped on a flight back to the place we had grown up. When I stepped off the plane I realised immediately that I no longer belonged on that land.
I went home, unpacked and repacked my bag and jumped on the next flight out of there, back to the place that had stolen my heart.
When I arrived back in Bali I had no plans and only enough money to last me if I was frugal. I decided to get out of Kuta (the tourist hub at the time) and head to a place I had ventured once with my girlfriend that was not yet set up for tourists and hard to get to without a motorbike.
I found a place to rent a motorbike (I had never ridden one) and the guy gave me a quick run down in the alley way. I had come prepared with only a day pack on my back so I bought a 'sensible' pair of long pants and set off up the hills towards Uluwatu.
Back then the only people on the roads were locals, there were little to no signs and I stopped a few times to ask directions from locals who were normally playing cards, lazing in the heat of the day under shopfront roofs or selling home grown bananas and paw paw on the roadside.
At one stage I stopped to drink some water on the edge of a cliff top, a large grassy area over a spectacular crystal clear reef with a perfect, hollow wave. And there, right in front of me was a hand written sign cut out of wood with a small arrow leading down a goat track that seemed to lead to nowhere. I followed the track and it soon became steps precariously carved into the cliffside so I did what anyone would do and continued on down.
After 200 steps (yes I counted them) I was presented with 3 bamboo huts built into the cliff face, jutting over the ocean, the crystal clear water crashing below, the most beautiful place I had ever seen.
I was greeted by an old Balinese woman who looked about a hundred years old. She was sinewy and tough, barely any teeth left but a smile that filled my heart all the same. She welcomed me in broken English and I responded with the few words I had learnt in Bahasa and we instantly became friends. She ushered me into one of the huts and showed me photos of the people who had stayed with her and she invited me to be a guest.
I stayed in that hut for a few weeks, she charged me $3 a day including meals. Her husband would carry a 20 litre water container that he collected from the well on his shoulder down the 200 steps every couple of days so we could shower and another one for drinking and cooking that he collected from a delivery driver since there is no drinkable water up here.
While I was there the family had only one other visitor, another Aussie, obviously well known by the family because he featured in many of their photos that hung on the wall like a shrine to the people who had ventured here. He was twice my age, leathery skin that had seen nothing but sun and so familiar with the wave that we surfed out the front he made it look like he was one with it. I don't remember having any conversations with him, he wasn't very social with me but the family adored him and I could hear them talking in Bahasa late into the night like he was part of the family and those sounds of familiar conversation would lull me to sleep under the rickety fan that barely kept the mozzies away.
I'll never forget those few weeks I stayed with that family. It was the most simple existence in the most beautiful place I had ever been and the experience is etched in my heart forever.
Over the years I have returned to Bali countless times. I probably come here anywhere between 6 and 10 times a year so I guess Bali has become my second home and I have been witness to the changing landscape and the rise of corruption from overseas investors who are destroying the very thing they came here for.
It has changed dramatically over the years, those bamboo huts were taken down many years ago and Uluwatu is no longer a hard to get to surfing destination but has become another Instagram hotspot full of butt implants, fake eyelashes, boobs that are way too perfect and wankers who carry selfie sticks to prove that 'they have arrived'.
There are cranes along the coastline that are converting the once remote jungle scapes into mega hotels that all look the same and the once perfectly imperfect hand made bamboo huts are being replaced by structures that seek to fill the void of the people who will never see Bali for the beauty that it held before they all took over.
The very thing that drew people to Bali is slowly being taken away and replaced with the exact same landscape that is being built all over the World, the exact same template that fills every modern travel blog, magazine and instagram photoshoot. It's perfect curated beauty missing the soul and deep spiritual belonging that the real Bali still offers but is rarely sought after.
And even though I see all the destruction and devastation that mass tourism has produced here, I also see the heart of the Balinese people and how they are so pliable with their deep spirituality, their connection to the land and their reverence for something so much more profound than the what we see on the surface.
I speak to my driver often about what is happening and the ever changing landscape in Bali. He sees it too and he speaks about it with so much love and acceptance that I sometimes find difficult to grasp. And what it comes down to is his spiritual beliefs, his knowing that all is as it should be and that nothing is what it seems.
The Balinese way of living is very insular, my driver, Robbie has never left his island and he is the most well travelled person in his family, driving all over Bali and seeing parts of it that no-one else in his family ever has, even though the island is a mere 153km long and 72km wide. The only things he knows of other places are the stories he hears from the holiday makers he meets through his tours and the one time he came with us to Lembongan which is a 40 min boat ride from the mainland. In between driving he is often pulled back to his local community for ceremony and family events that take precedence over working, always and we have been privy to ceremonies with is community for birth, death and everything in between over the years, for that I am so grateful.
Sometimes I wish I could see the World like Robbie does, through his innocence and his trust because the World that I see is not as bright and thats exactly what brings me back to Bali again and again and again.
I get to come here and set aside the turmoil and the fear mongering and the feeling that everything around me is coming apart. I walk away from my business, from my clients, from my staff, all who are hungry for my time, my energy and my soul and I sit here in this very same place that I sat back in 1994 and see the World through the eyes of innocence and I can finally breathe again.
I found this exact place again serendipitously on Air BNB. I didn't know it at the time but as I walked down the same steps that were carved in the cliffside long before I ever discovered it in 1994 I realised that I had in fact returned to a place I thought had been completely erased. I asked the staff who works here now, if this used to be owned by a woman called Nyoman but the kid serving me was born in 1997 so we giggled at the idea that he should know the history of the area and things get lost in translation so I left it but I know for sure that I am here.
It is no longer $3 a night including meals but many things about this place remain the same. The monkeys still visit at sunset and will happily steal anything left out within their grasp. They have even learnt how to slide open the windows that replace the original mosquito net curtains and the resident monitor lizard carelessly sleeps on one of the 200 steps in the middle of the day knowing that he belongs here more than any of us.
The ocean still crashes against the age old cliffs which are ever changing shape to the power of the water around and the sun still sparkles on crystal clear water over reefs that keep the ecosystem alive despite the pollution that feeds into her every single day from the relentless progress along any slither of land above.
Last night as the sun went down I sat right here and wept. I wept for my son's future, I wept for my husband who works so hard to provide, I wept for my own suffering, I wept for the people who don't even realise they are suffering and I wept for this place that has given me solitude from the things that make me wan to weep every single day.
I'm one of those people who keeps busy so I don't have to stop and look around, but when I come to Bali I don't have a reason to do anything but observe and reground and come back to the person I became when I no longer belonged in the land I was born. If I didn't have Bali to escape to I think I would go insane. Here it always feels like the sun will come up and the ocean will sweep away anything that doesn't serve me. I feel cleansed and blessed and free just for a moment and I wonder if this is where I am meant to be always.
