This year, during the last two weeks of June, my family and I were fortunate enough to take a vacation to Bali, Indonesia. Upon arrival in Bali, I was pretty clueless about the adventures and lessons to come. We were greeted by our driver and his young son. The driver went to pull up the car and left his son to help us out. This little boy was around 10 years old and even though we had not learnt any Balinese and he did not speak english, he reminded me of the innocence me and my siblings used to once had. We talked through hand gestures we both were all able to understand, and connect even though we had barely met. When we actually started driving to the house we were staying at, there were motorcycles everywhere on the road. Never in my life would I ever imagined being surrounded by motorcycle traffic. It was definitely a mind blowing sight to see. The driver however explained that there's a method to the madness and people respect each other enough to have an organized chaos. Anyways, we ended up getting lost, seeing some cows in a random green field, finally finding the right house, and that is where we met Sophia. Sophia was the name of our first AirBnB host. She seemed to be in her early thirties and she was absolutely amazing at making us all feel welcomed in the new environment. She said she moved to Bali when she was in her twenties and stayed for the people. I didn’t really know what she meant but I soon found out.
Throughout the trip, we met our tour guide Wayan who drove us to all of the sites and temples while sharing the stories of the land. On one of the drives, my mom pointed out how we didn’t see any homeless people during the duration of the trip. Wayan replied saying that it is because in Bali everyone cares for each other and their core values include helping their family and neighbors when needed. It was such a shock since here in California we have one of the biggest homeless populations. We also saw these values of caring for others in person when we went to various restaurants. Every single local we met had the warmest smile, took time to teach us their language, and shared genuine conversations. My brother got sick for a couple of days while we were staying in Ubud. We were all devastated because he had to stay back at the house with one of my parents while my sister and I went with the other into the village. However, the AirBnB staff was so kind and cared for my brother by picking up coconuts for him to hydrate, getting him medicine, and even decorating his room for his birthday since he could not go out. This was so heartwarming to us all because it was just so heartwarming of them to go out of their way to help us out and make his experience more enjoyable.
We also experienced kindness from locals whenever we said we were from California. In Bali, they have many tourists from Australia or Europe but not that many from the United States. However, whenever we said we were from California all their responses were “Oh like Hotel California”. One particular night, my family and I were walking down the dark streets lit up by the restaurants when we passed by this one outdoor restaurant with a live singer. There was nobody else eating at the restaurant and we had already ate but the music called us to go in for some drinks. There, the singer took time to ask us where we were from and sang “Hotel Bali-fornia” for us. This will forever be a core memory for me. Everyone we met was so genuinely curious about our stories as we were theirs. My family and I learned about their culture, offerings, and ceremonies. It was just an amazing two weeks of just appreciating human connection and taking the time to get to know other people.
In all, my experience in Bali is best remembered by the people and stories I got to know. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to talk to people who spend their lives helping each other out, giving to others, and just being kind. Wayan, the best tour guide in the world, summed it up best by saying “Less drama, more karma”.
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