back in lisbon everything feels different :)

the trip was perfect!

on the last morning in bali me and constanza from germany sat at the front seat of the bus from ubud to the airport in denpasar. we met there, almost siting on each others laps! and we had so much to talk about! same age and similar moments in life and somehow taking similar bits of ubud's energy with us. it was great to sit there and share what the last months had done to us :) and suddenly we realized we could tell the other things that you don't tell everybody :) and we couldn't care less about the fact that we had 8 other western tourists behind us listening to the whole conversation ;) anyway, i got off at denpasar airport. she went on for the last day in kuta beach with a german friend. we said goodbye with broad smiles, sharing the joy bali puts in you!

at the airport i found out that the fancy european food i had bought at bali budha the day before.... had gone bad!! oh no, i admire bali budha beyond what would be a normal level of admiration!!! mainly because they make the best spelt and walnut pancakes on Earth and they manage to top them up with dark maple syrup from canada all the way in bali!!!!! so i was sad that my last bali budha treat was spoiled! which actually ended up making me feel very determined to go back to bali one day and sit at their tables again :) or order their food at my favorite ubud rice field ;) i love that restaurant!

the flight from denpasar took me to singapore carrying a huge kite i got for my nieces and nephew :) singapore airport was so clean and quiet and organized and everything was shinning and i felt all over my body this strange feeling of having left indonesia! there was an underground now!! an underground!!!!! and i got to the clementi underground station to meet sara :) we chatted from that minute until the minute i left her apartment the next day in the evening and it was clearly not enough because i spent a lot of the time on my next flight thinking like if i was still chatting with her :) anyway, for me singapore is sara :) during these 4 months lots of travelers have raved about the city, recommended the arts museum, a few galleries and other interesting things to do in the city... but for me singapore is sara and her favorite restaurant in little india and the amazing bookshop where i spend my money with the joy to be in a place where books are so well respected!! oh, and singapore is also those amazing desserts :) like the ones you find all over south east asia, but in singapore they are served in really clean places often inside of a mall with air con and the experience is just perfect!

on the flight from singapore to dubai i got to think of all the consumerism i saw in singapore after so many months of being in places where there was nothing to buy. i love the contrasts of traveling :)

i liked the airport in dubai a bit more this time around. i missed canadian jay and somehow bumped into bits of our conversation there 4 months before.

then london!
i arrived in london right on time :) and it was cold! not too cold, just really nice cold that made me put a long sleeve t-shirt on for the first time in too long! that made me happy :)
all the time at gatwick airport i was smiling thinking to myself "i don't have to stay here!! this is NOT home anymore!" and that felt great :) london is so NOT my city! and it's good to know it!
i checked in really early for my last flight and spent many hours at gatwick reading "eat pray love" still feeling ubud all over me.
finally i sat on the easyjet airplane and i really wanted to fly asap as i knew 2 little princesses and a handsome little man were waiting for me in lisbon :) but they couldn't close the luggage door of the airplane!! so we had to change airplanes!! anyway, the new one was better :) and we got here with a 2 hour delay... but we all got here fine :) and i could hug the kids and my parents and my sister and it felt GREAT!

i have never had a trip like this one :) when i feel so happy to be here now and not there! it was the perfect amount of time, the perfect place, i was lucky all along the trip, i don't have any complaints and i still chose to be here now! maybe it was some magical power in indonesia that changed me ;) or maybe it was just me! but traveling inside me as i stepped around indonesia was exactly what i needed at this moment in life :) and i'm very, very happy i did it :)

now i miss the atlantic ocean!! going out to see him and smile at him and enjoy his freshness and his amazing sound xx

to sum it up really shortly, i'll just say i'm HaPPY :)

gratefulness

walking home after i finished my reiki level 1 course i bumped into a really nice irish couple i had first met about 1 month ago in flores. they're traveling for an indefinite amount of time and as they told me about some of the changes they make to their plans for the next months i realized.... i couldn't be less jealous! isn't it funny... me?! not wishing i would be traveling indefinitely??! and realizing this didn't even surprised me :D i feel so happy and serene to be at this moment of my life :) and i think it's excellent when people are doing what they want to be doing! travel when it's time to travel, not traveling when it's not time to travel, and following you intuition at all times :) i couldn't be more at peace with the place where i am moving in now! it's new... it's definitely very new to me! and it didn't come out of the blue - i got me here, there's a lot of work and energy spent on it! and now i am in this totally new and exciting place which is at the same time totally comfortable and it breaths tranquility all over it :) it's a transition point, clearly the closing of a circle, the starting of a new one. and i am here smiling at it as it comes :)

it feels great!
and i'm very grateful i got this rite of passage in ubud :)

healing

these last ubud days are treating me really well :) i had the best healing session of my life the other day... don't quite have the words to write about it. but believe me, it felt great! and... big! there's a lot of unexplainable things happening in ubud :) and i'm not trying to understand them, i just let them float and touch me and move me and spin me and dance me into the good balance xx it's beautiful here! this is really a special place :) to top it all up today i had a 2h full body massage + facial + special feet reflexology session... with my sweet nyoman mina :) and tomorrow and the next day it's time for reiki! this is the land of the things i can't explain but that i can feel strongly moving me xx and that makes it the place to be for the last days of this trip before i go back to sara's place in singapore (looking forward for that dear sara!)

life is such an amazing adventure :)

another wonderful ubud day

it's hard to feel anything but happiness in this place :) and also... i'm so happy with this trip and all that it has been moving inside me! and to top it all up... i found a book that really fits the end of this island hopping journey :) i think for me bali sums up a bit of what this trip is all about, the same thing that liz in the book finds here in bali - a new path to inner peace so that one can fully love again :) the last 3 years of my life have been the hardest ones so far, and island hopping inside myself was exactly what i needed to do to find peace and rest and love in tranquility again :) so simply happy here in udub ** next monday i'll be home after 2 lovely days in singapore and a perfect yoga class at the same place i started this trip. things always have a way of getting full circled

bali bali bali

ubud again and again and again :) it must be quite obvious on my face how much i love this place and already feel so much at home here because lots of people today asked me if i had been here already many times :) i always said "no, it's only the second time" but who knows? maybe i spent other lifetimes here, maybe i traveled here in my dreams, maybe someone who loves me thought of me while in ubud... maybe i have been here many times and just didn't know it :) what i know is that i LOVE this place! the rice fields, the offerings all the time and everywhere, the smiles, the way the houses are built, the importance given to the arrangement of space, the smell, the sounds, the sweetness in the air... it's beautiful!

today i found out my balinese sign - cremation tower. the character of the 'cremation tower' people is intelligent, well-mannered, responsible, likes to give information, brave, happy and extravagant life, open person, hides nothing. i had a longer explanation done by a balinese teenager and it all sounded a lot like me :)

in all of my trips in asia i like to read a book that is kind of a bad book but that feels good to read - a bit like when i read "the diary of bridget jone's" in vietnam or the last adrian mole in india :) so today i bought "eat pray love" and it feels great to read it! lots of people read this book when traveling in indonesia and after hearing so much about it... it's my time to have an opinion on it! julia roberts has been here in ubud to film the american blockbuster version of the book ;) the third part is set in bali - the time to love, of course ;) :) i'm still on page 9, so it's still all in italy - that's when she eats :)

ok, it got quite late and i still want to go get a korean tea that helps rejuvenating during the night!

i'm really happy... just simply happy :) it's no from eating praying or loving in particular ;) or it is, only in the way we do those things everyday. this happiness is kind of a breeze on a south east asian night x

back to bali

just quickly to say i'm alive and have a huge smile on my face :D the boat trip was mind blowing!! definitely the best snorkeling of my life!!!!!! sharks and dolphins and eels and snakes and thousands of nemos and clams and trumpet fish and lobsters and lion fish and just so many things!!! the komodo dragond were nice too :) but nothing compared with such amazing underwater life! 12 dolphins at a time :) and 5 at the same time jumping up just in front of our boat :):) pretty awesome! after the boat trip was over me and roel asked if they could take us for another week... but of course that was impossible! but as i liked it so much, i tried to look for the thing that would be the most like that and so i went to gili meno :) the quietest of the 3 gilis. and i loved it!! met the nice italian couple that i had met in kanawa island there - funny, we first met on an isolated island and then we met for the second time on another one ;) had a great time there! swimming with turtles and seeing the underwater xmas trees... i'm overwhelmed by the life of the coral!

now back to bali, for a week of ubud :) i got an amazing room! the place where i stayed last time was full so i went and checked a new place that is still not in the guides and... it's beautiful!! really nice place with a nice family and... i have the first hot shower since august in sumatra!!!!!!! this is only the second hot shower since i left sara's place in singapore! so, 3 hot showers on this 4 month trip!! i'm even a bit scared of going under it, my skin might melt or something! hehe

happy to be back here :)

boat life

happy with this life on board :) we have an amazing crew of 5 nice indonesian guys! and it's me and roel from holland. he's really nice and reminds me of piotrek, my first travel mate on this trip. they're about the same age and the way we make jokes and laugh together is similar :) roel has great travel plans and like piotrek he's just starting his traveling life - exciting times! today we head to the island of rinca after some morning snorkeling :) and we'll see the first komodo dragons!!! they eat goats and deer, did you know that?! i can't wait!

just came out of the harbor to do something urgent i had forgotten to do on the internet and to buy mangoes and cashew nuts for the trip. now back to the boat :) heading west!