Two on a Scooter and Jatiluwih

After an incredible time in Sydney and Brisbane I travelled back to Bali to not-so-patiently await the arrival of my beloved John. There is still much to be chronicled about my Australian adventure but in an effort to challenge my somewhat perfectionist mind, I'm allowing a bit of unchronological story jumping.

I arrived back in Bali five days before John was due. Five very long days! Eventually I found myself sitting at the airport, waiting for him to arrive. I sat there for nearly an hour and part of me didn't believe that he would ever walk through those sliding doors! Six months blurs one’s ability to believe that certain people exist in the flesh. And then… suddenly… there he was! 

John jumped off the plane and into the sea! My friends Georgina and Shailender drove me to the airport to pick him up.

We spent two wonderful weeks in Ubud; visiting my favourite eating spots, meeting friends, enjoying delicious meals together in my little cottage and having daily classes at my favourite yoga studio, Radiantly Alive. We were treated to a special Balinese dinner with my Balinese family, they also excitedly gave us traditional ceremonial dress to wear. They absolutely adored John. Once or twice he went to collect the laundry and still hadn't returned half an hour later – where could he be? After stomping up the garden path I was met by a laughing Gustut as he explained to me that he had kept John chatting for a very long time and that John had only just been released to pursue his original quest!

One Tuesday morning we packed up our two little backpacks, donned our helmets and set off on the scooter. Off on an adventure! What a wonderful feeling! We were not long out of Ubud before we stopped to snack on peanuts and watch the kite flyers launch their kites over the rice fields. It is both the windy season and the kite season in Bali and it was awesome to be able to count over fifty kites sailing in the blue blue sky over the green of the paddies. 

Our first stop was the rice terraces of Jatiluwih, a UNESCO world heritage site. We took our time to climb up through the misty mountains and valleys to the highlands of the Penebal District. We followed some wooden signs to an organic farm where some lively Balinese children asked us questions in impressive English and showed us what was growing in the thin strip of farm land. After enjoying our picnic lunch we made our way back into the mist towards Jatiluwih. Before committing to accommodation for the night we continued to scoot up and down the hills exploring the area, but after experiencing a very bumpy and potholed road we decided that we better backtrack a bit and return to the small village of Jatiluwih. I can promise you that any bump is felt quite severely after being on the back of a scooter after a couple of hours!

The small warungs and homestays devoted to the tourism of Jatiluwih are set just behind the road that lines the edge of the cliff, as it gently falls downwards to the rice paddy terraces. This place is one of the best spots to witness the clever subak irrigation system, which allows water to be shared by a community and flow from one paddy to the next.

After settling into our accommodation for the night we went for a dusk-time walk. I thought that the view was rather nice and pretty. But, it was only the next morning when we truly experienced the spectacular beauty that Jatiluwih boasts of. The sun was not yet up and the sky had not yet been clouded in the thick mist characteristic of this region. We saw the two spectacular volcanic mountains of Batur and Agung to our left and all the way to the sea straight ahead.

We walked into the rising sun and beyond it. We experienced that precious morning time when things are slowly starting up, where the air around you is pulsing with that special, somewhat energised sunlight of the initial moments of the day. We saw cows having breakfast and farmers making their way to their fields. We reached the shaded entrance of a temple compound. We were the only ones there, and this solitariness, coupled with the feeling of the early morning, made it feel all the more sacred.

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Melbourne Magic

I cannot let the small, subtle, joyful moments of my trip to Melbourne go unrecorded. This blog has always been about capturing those times during travel which would otherwise go unrecorded; a walk through a random park; the soulful chat with a friend and of course a delicious meal enjoyed in an unexpected space.

I arrived in Melbourne in a whirl. I still marvel at the shift of universes that can take place as you hop on a plane and then hop off it a couple of hours later. I woke up on my first Australian morning and I revelled in the chillyness; in the autumn leaves and the comforting ways the trees looked against the pretty creek that ran parallel to the park near my ‘aunt and uncle’ Di and Vince’s home. I spent the day at home acclimatising to a gecko-less and rat-dropping-less existence and took two walks with Melba the dog. I was in heaven. It was wonderful to be bundled up and walking along an orderly path in an orderly park!

After the morning walk I set out my yoga mat on the floor, with the good intention of continuing my Bali practice in this new environment. Melba, however, had different ideas for our post-walk activities and trotted over to me with a ball in her mouth, dropping it at my head during downward-facing-dog. She cocked her head and looked at me expectantly. I sensed that she wanted me to stop this nonsense and engage in a more worthwhile activity of her choosing.

I spent half of my time in Melbourne with Bridgette, one of my best friends. I’ll always enjoy the memories of sitting on her couch in the morning (aka my bed) feasting on dates from the 5kg box she bought and drinking one of her delicious fusions of tea or her blended up version of date milk. I like to think of myself as ‘a walker’, but I was pretty much put to shame by Bridgette and her sister Sarah. We took many a walk through their neighbourhood of St Kilda East, both of them marching two steps ahead and me trailing behind – they assured me that they’d soon get me walking fit!

On one of our long walk adventures we ended up at a beautiful shop called Qi Crystals. I entered the shop and a sense of peace descended upon me. The first room is full of crystals and the second, a delightful array of books dedicated to the many facets of ‘new age’ (ancient) thinking. These kinds of shops can often have a sort of strange energy about them, but this one wasn’t like this. I felt an immense sense of peace and silence, as if, just by being in that space, I was experiencing some sort of healing. They offer you a cosy warm drink and then are perfectly happy for you to spend as long as you need to in their space, reading, browsing, or picking angel cards with your friends.

I was attracted to Melbourne because I knew I would find the home-loving that I was craving. Fortunately for me, my family were quite happy having me lurk about their home for three weeks. There was always a warm dinner to come home to or someone to pick me up from the station if I arrived back late from the city. I loved hopping on the trains and trams and getting places. I spent a fortune on transport but it was totally worth it, and I revelled in the mobility which public transport offered me. Many people who have grown up with the luxury of a working transportation system seem to always find something to complain about; waiting for the train, the expensiveness of the tram, the time it takes to get places. But coming from a country with a limited public transport network means that I will always delight in the way I can get to places all on my own. I loved being on the train and usually I wasn’t quite ready to stop reading and get off when it pulled into Flinder’s Street Station in Melbourne City.

One evening, Bridgette and I met my family at the Moroccan Soup Bar in Fitzroy North. It is not a bar nor did we eat any of its soup (and I'm unconvinced that there is actually any available); instead we went there to enjoy its share-feast, which was absolutely amazing. We started with mint tea followed by flatbreads and a scrumptious array of dips. And just as our tummies were settling into the feeling that dinner was just about done, about six different meals were set before us. I find it difficult to describe food using any other words besides ‘delicious’, ‘scrumptious’ or ‘amazing’ but to put this meal in perspective, Vince, a non-vegetarian (of the extreme variety) was heard to say, “if this is vegetarian food, I could definitely get used to it”. Well there you go.

On the topic of vegetarian food, I thoroughly enjoyed the vegetarian options in Melbourne. I’ve never been to a city where there are vegetarian restaurants that dedicate themselves to only serving gorgeous vegetable-based dishes. As a South African, it's taken me awhile to imagine a meal that has no meat, and so to enjoy such artfully designed animal-friendly food is a real treat. Travelling always introduces you to new people and back during my exchange in Canada I met Justine and we shared an afternoon together in Montreal after my flight to New York was cancelled due to a snow storm (a whole other story which my mother would be enthusiastic to share with you – 'I told you to catch an earlier flight!'). Unfortunately, Justine is currently gallivanting around Central America and so I connected with her friend Luce who took me to the all-vegetarian Vegie Bar in Fitzroy. Once again I was blown away by the options available to us and we eventually narrowed down our choices to a vegan pizza and a falafel dish (I just love falafels). Yum! After dinner we had the obligatory ice-cream which was almost but not quite as big as the monster I consumed in Singapore.

As I look back on my time in Melbourne I find myself still quite enamoured by this gorgeous, culturally vibrant city. I enjoyed wandering the streets, drinking chai lattes, being with loved ones, taste-testing teas at T2 and enjoying the warmth of winter meals. The Emerging Writers Festival I went to was incredible and I left feeling absolutely inspired – with a renewal of vows to my partnership with the written word. This unexpected Aussie blip in my Bali journey proved to be an important part of my soul adventure and with it an unveiling of the next important step in my life.

Melbourne Moments