It’s been 2 days since I left Bali. I feel lonely for the first time on my trip. I took a train from East Java to Yogyakarta. The journey was 11.5 hours long. I was prepared for a quiet day of window-watching, an audiobook and reflection. I got that too, but I quickly fell into conversation with a German fellow passenger. Throughout the whole trip we talked on and off for several hours, had lunch together, and after the train ride we walked to his Airbnb before we split up. At the hostel I’m sharing a room with a young girl. We lay chatting for a couple of hours before bedtime. Both encounters were relaxed, a little funny and very cozy. But not enough time to actually form friendships.
Something I found out on Bali was that the people I formed friendships with were at a similar place in their lives as me. Brett from Australia wants to live on Bali and make a new life work there. Ella from London has a boyfriend on Bali, but is searching for a direction for her life. Pierluigi from Italy is a skirt-chaser and took me a little while to understand. He’s in an easy but boring remote job and dreams of doing something more meaningful. Similar stories for Aiman, Putu, Mo and Roos. Pol is just incredibly funny and lives on a different planet from everyone else.
There’s nothing wrong as such with a quiet, cozy conversation with a stranger. But I get much more out of having conversations with people I can see myself in and talk with about how they’re approaching their situation. Some have a plan and work relentlessly toward it. Some can’t get a handle on where to start, so they just enjoy where they are right now and take it as it comes. Others carry a deep frustration and confusion, which they actively try to forget or drown in partying.
I judge none of them. I listen, ask questions and share my own experiences. Sometimes they get something out of the conversation. Sometimes I do. Sometimes we just get to say something out loud that we needed to say to another person.
The most important conversations I have are with the person I’ve grown closest to, my friend Eline. Over a couple of years we’ve gone from friendly colleagues to friends, and she’s now become one of my closest friends. She represents a world of presence and understanding that I haven’t really experienced before. Her understanding of the world and human relationships is incredibly profound and frustratingly foreign to me. We can talk about deeply personal and difficult subjects with each other from very different perspectives. Sometimes she makes me feel like a complete beginner when it comes to people.
At the same time she’s a flibbertigibbet who’s completely impossible to keep track of, partly because she in no way wants to be kept track of. Only the very most important schedules and appointments are barely kept. Everything else is just possible places where she might show up. She goes so much against my nature around order, control and carefulness that I actually don’t understand how I can put up with her. I genuinely think that if I hadn’t met her the way I did, I would think she was an impossible person to like. But she’s probably the friend who knows me best, and I’d like to say that I probably know her better than most people do too, even though she’s a very open person. And she’s also clearly a big reason why it’s hard to leave Bali.
Now that I’ve got some distance from Bali, I can feel how that community is still pulling at me. A mix of understanding, trusting and cozy people. But still very different from me and from each other. Normally that would make me feel like an outsider, that I don’t really care about yoga, nightclubs, live music, investing, surfing and spa/massage the same way they do. But somehow it’s turned into a melting pot of many different experiences that we’ve been able to meet over and tell each other about. Funny stories and experiences. Invitations to come along and try out each other’s interests.
We live in an age where you can always get in touch with each other. Hop on Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp or something else and start a chat. That option has always been there for me, and I make use of it now and then, but I also just have to admit that it doesn’t really give me presence with people. And that’s probably my own fault, because I tend to just talk about what I’ve seen and experienced, rather than talk about what I’ve felt and sensed. Funnily enough it’s easier for me in person. There I can’t just hang up once all the easy topics have been covered. And my experience is that many people actually do want to be asked the slightly harder questions. Why are you traveling? Are you happy where you are right now? What have you learned from your trip?
So where does that leave me? I actually do want to go back to Bali again as soon as possible. Back to the group of friends. I’ll probably end up doing that sooner or later. Possibly around September/October. Until then I have more travel ahead of me. First Sumatra, then Malaysia, and up to Thailand. The question is whether I’ll put more effort into finding small enclaves of long-term travelers and hanging out with them, focus on building digital businesses, get to see the less touristy areas of the world, or cultivate my health and my body.
When I started my trip, I chose the destinations without a real plan. Just land somewhere and see what there was to see. But now there’s a pull. A pull toward areas with digital nomads and long-term travelers. Places where they’re open and welcoming to new people, ideally with good evening entertainment options. I already have a couple of destinations in mind across Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan. As much as I liked my time on Bali and in Canggu, there was also a lot missing for me. So the question is whether I can find something similar, but better, elsewhere.
One might ask the question; why leave Bali then, if you’d settled in so well? One thing I’ve learned over the years is that it can be incredibly hard to make good decisions while I’m standing in the middle of an experience. With a bit of distance, a pause, time for reflection and getting a feel for it, the picture becomes clearer. What were the important parts, and what was just the height of the emotions? What was good because it meant something, and what was just superficial? What was a good experience but not worth repeating, and what had a deep emotional resonance with me and who I am? It’s hard to reflect the way I do, because it requires sitting with some difficult feelings for a longer time without getting resolution. But my process hasn’t failed me so far.
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