#23: 1st week of Honeymoon

A glimpse from our Bali trip

Hey friends,

I am writing this from a busy cafe in Ubud and it will not be a regular newsletter.

Meaning that I won’t share any leadership, productivity, or career growth tips, but tell you a bit about our experience here in Bali.

As some of you know, we are in our honeymoon, 2 weeks in the beautiful island of Bali, first week in and it feels great to disconnect after an intense year.

We boarded on the first plane, for Doha, Monday morning. We are travelling with Qatar airways and they didn’t disappoint, as the food and service are great. Had a layover in Doha where I was surprised to see they have separate “silence” rooms for men and women, especially since one guy was in there watching TikTok videos with no headphones.

We boarded the 10-hours plane to Denpasar and enjoyed the entertainment system. F..k Netflix, I want that! So many great movies and vintage games 😊

I’m now a millionaire

Unfortunately, neither of us could get any proper sleep so we were wasted by the time we landed, and even know we knew the drill about waiting for the local bedtime we had to take a 2-hour nap.

We stay in Ubud for the first 5 days, and we used these days to visit the island before we spend some time relaxing on the beach.

After the nap we went to town and headed directly to the monkey forest. Even before entering the compound, I was literally attacked by a monkey, who came rushing towards me and crawled on my legs and chest. I had to grab her and throw her away (she, or he, landed on her feet, don’t worry). It was my mistake, as I had a bag of peanuts in may hand, but in my defence, I was 100m away from the park entrance and I didn’t know the monkeys were roaming outside the park too.

Micki, my wife, had a nice laugh, though.

We got into the park and it was very nice, the monkeys are cute until they get upset, when they seem

quite aggressive (there was a time when a dog scared them and they all started howling and going up the trees) and I can understand the inspiration behind “the planet of the apes”.

Monkey forest

We spent the next days visiting some waterfalls and a lot of Balinese temples with our driver, Ketut who is a really nice guy. We’ve also tried a lot of exotic fruits and drank Luwak coffee, which is made with pooped beans. We learned a lot about their culture and their beliefs. We went on large swings and learned how to cook Balinese food.

The rice terraces are probably the most impressive thing we’ve seen here and we enjoyed walking around some of them.

Some photos from the trip

But the most important thing I noticed in Bali was the kindness of the people as well as their life philosophy.

And I learned about this from our driver, Ketut. He told us so many interesting things about the culture. For example, the oldest boy will inherit the family house but he also needs to take care of the parents and their cremation when their time is due. As houses are passed from generation to generation it’s very difficult to buy a traditional house in Bali, so most people who want one will need to buy land and build their own.

As 80% of the island’s economy is based on tourism, Ketut’s life, as well as the life of most Balinese, was deeply impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. He is a guide and driver and the country was closed for about 2 years. He has a wife and 3 daughters but also had to take care of his parents, who have no pensions. His mom died during Covid, and the cremation costs around 2000 EUR, while the average salary for someone working as a tour guide is 200-400 EUR. When they have work…

So, Ketut had to sell his car, his motorbike as well as all the family jewellery and did some woodcarving during those times. He managed to get through this difficult period even though he told us he had a friend who took her own life during those times.

Ketut’s life was and is a hard one, but he is also one of the most positive and energetic people I’ve ever met. He sees every day as a blessing and is grateful for all the things that happen to him.

Indonesia is a Muslim country but Bali is mostly Hindu with a pinch of Buddhism, and Ketut told us a bit about his beliefs. Even though they have a supreme god, Sang Hyang Widhi Wasa, they also believe in the 3 elements, water, fire and air, that have 3 roles: creator, protector and destroyer.

He believes that you don’t have too much control over what happens so you shouldn’t worry too much about it, just enjoy life and be grateful for everything.

I could see some similarities with a stoicism, and people around the globe have similar beliefs, no matter their religion.

And this also made me think about everything that happens in our lives and the people we meet. Maybe there is no good and evil, there are just different instances of the same energy.

As the western saying goes: “We are all villains in someone else’s story”, some of the persons who hurt us might have done it unwillingly, or just because we had to learn a specific lessons.

I know for sure that I have hurt people in the past without realising it at the time or just because I let my ego get the best of me.

Am I a bad person? For sure some people think I am, I hope some people think the exact opposite, I’ll never know for sure.

The other important belief I saw in the Balinese was the connection with the nature, with our surroundings.

They perceive God as being composed of 3 parts:

• the connection with ourselves

• The connection with other people

• The connection with nature

And the people here are grateful with all these connections, they cherish it and take the time to meditate on them.

In essence, aside from the beautiful things I saw this week and the great experiences we had, I am most grateful for meeting these amazing people and the impact they had on me. But more on this sometime soon.

I hope you enjoyed this personal edition of the newsletter and I’ll come back with a similar one next week.

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Thank you for reading, and let me know if you liked something in particular in this newsletter.

Until next time,

Leo

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