I first learned of Sulawesi when reading Lawrence Blair’s Ring of Fire. He recounts an extraordinary adventure from the Bugis shipyards of South Sulawesi, running with the monsoon winds to seek out the Bird of Paradise in the Aru islands across the Banda ocean.

Before meeting the shipmen, Blair attends the funeral celebration of Puang of Sangalla, a king of the Toraja. He’s surprised to learn he had died four years earlier. This is nothing out of the ordinary here. The more renowned and wealthy the deceased, typically the longer it takes to prepare for the suitable multi-day event, at which up to 100s of prized buffalo will be sacrificed within a village-like encampment built to house the guests and festivities.

Heading to Indonesia in summer 2022 as part of the Year Out That Never Ended, visiting Sulawesi was obviously on my mind.

I had now read more about the Tana Toraja highlands and their unique beliefs around death, but also about the nature in North Sulawesi — giant turtles in Bunaken, and the diminuative tarsiers of Tangkoko.

But also what about the Togean Islands? What about the volcano views and lakes of the Minahasa Highlands? What about the infamously hard to cross central mountains?

I was overwhelmed.

After a busy few weeks travel in Europe, Morocco and nipping to and from weddings, the first plan was to have some down-time in Bali.

Great, said my partner’s grandfather. Your long lost cousin is there right now!

A family tree fanatic, he had recently discovered an Australian branch of the family, and it turned out one of them was currently living in Bali. With no more information than this, we agreed to meet her.

Upon meeting, we promptly fell in love. She was a passionate traveller, warm, bubbly, and someone who enjoys a good plan as much as I do. She worked for the Australian Consulate and was currently on placement to aid with the upcoming G20, aided by speaking translator level Bahasa Indonesia.

And, she had just completed a two years posting in Sulawesi.

To the frequent dismay of many of my loved ones, I firmly believe in signs.

Flights were rapidly booked.

If you’ve already been thinking of Sulawesi, perhaps reading this can be your cue to go.

If you are coming fresh to this island, let me entice you further…

South Sulawesi

Cultural main event - Tana Toraja

In the mountains of South Sulawesi lie the Tana Toraja highlands. Here you can be welcomed into a culture so vivid, open and unlike how most of the world approaches death. From witnessing funeral and commemoration rituals to scootering around hillsides dotted with tombs, effigies and caves full of bones, every day there was filled with awe.

I have a reported piece upcoming about my experience here which I will share soon!

But it’s so much more than funeral rites

We visited Natsir’s social community initiative, making chocolate from homegrown cacao and going on a garden tour that looked as much like a fairy tale of eden as I can imagine. We met some of his long-term workaway volunteers who seemed very happy, if that’s your thing.

Something I didn’t expect was how stunning the natural landscape is. And as you take in those views, you’ll keep spotting curved roofs of tongkonan houses, shaped to honour ancestors believed to have descended from the stars.

There are also short to multi-day trekking opportunities that can be arranged. We did our own mini hike up Mount Sesean, walking between pine trees whilst rice terraces spread out far into the distance.

Additionally the regional capital Rantepao has many coffee shops highlighting the famous beans of the area. Warning, coffee comes very strong!

Lake Tempe

Heading south out of the highlands, on crossing the old border of the Bugis kingdom, the land abruptly flattens out. This region is home to one of Indonesia’s largest lakes.

Lake Tempe is a floodplain lake, swelling across the surrounding land in the wet season and constricting in the dry. We were there in the dry season and it still felt vast. Leaving from a pier in the centre of Sengkang, the adjacent town, passing buildings on stilts along the access waterway, soon all we could see was water fringed by palms. There are a small number of floating homes on the lake where you will be welcomed in with the ubiquitous pisang goreng (fried bananas) and delighted smiles. The small profit these families make from tourists enables them to pay for boat petrol to get their kids to and from school.

The town of Sengkang itself is very walkable, with great places to eat and traditional silk workshops to visit. I love to visit a town and just walk around and think, wow, all these people just living their lives here and I had no idea it even existed until recently.

Ramang-Ramang

Back at the bottom of the South Sulawesi peninsula, there is a village set within the 2nd largest karst cluster in the world. The air is full of butterflies, and you’ll take a canoe to your accommodation, weaving through canals which may, depending on the time of year, lean more towards swampy than streamy.

This area is also home to Leang-Leang archeological park, where you can clamber up a ladder to stand before some of the world’s oldest visitable cave art. Honestly this was one of the coolest experiences these two history nerds have ever had and the site was completely empty.

Sulawesi keeps breaking its own records: in January, art on nearby Muna Island was dated to 67,800 years, rewriting the previously eurocentric view on the origins of art. Read more here.

I’m working on a piece about our journey from Lake Tempe to Leang-Leang right now. Stay tuned.

Makassar

According to scholars, in the 17^th century Makassar had a population of over 100,000, making it then the 20^th largest city in the world.1 A great free port of the spice era, Makassar grew rich by letting traders deal outside the Dutch monopoly. South Sulawesi’s Bugis sailors, meanwhile, earned a reputation so fearsome that it gave English the word boogeyman, or so legend has it.

Today it’s Indonesia’s 5th largest city and the quasi-capital of all eastern Indonesia. You can wander the old phinisi harbour at Paotere, where wooden phinisi like the one Blair sailed on still dock, or visit Fort Rotterdam, the Dutch stronghold raised after Makassar fell in 1667.

We didn’t explore the city, as we were tempted into flying quickly to the north, but I would like to return to do so.

North Sulawesi

Bunaken - snorkelling with giant turtles

A few blissed out island life days on Bunaken were chef’s kiss.

It’s known as one of Asia’s best diving spots. We don’t dive but I can certainly say the snorkelling was incredible. And I say this having visited Raja Ampat and the Banda Islands too. Not a humble brag, just for comparison! What stood out (apart from turtles, obviously) was the sheer volume of fish and dramatic drop-offs. We also had a string of sunsets that somehow kept improving on the one before.

Swimming in the lagoon in front of our accommodation and looking at the horizon knowing the next landmass was the Philippines, was one of my favourite memories of this trip.

Tangkoko - one of the only places in the world to see wild tarsiers

Who doesn’t like tiny fluffy mammals with giant eyes? Tarsiers aside, the jungle here has many delights, with giant Ficus trees, hornbills, sloth-like cuscus and troops of endemic black macaque monkeys.

I am planning a piece on the wildlife in Bunaken and Tangkoko. Spoiler alert, you will see some trash, but it will still be wonderful.

Where we didn’t go but is still on the list…

Central Sulawesi: Togean Islands

• I still hope to make it to the underwater paradise of the Togean Islands. Infamously hard to reach, this is the home of the seafaring Bajau people, who live in traditional stilt villages over the water. Ever read about the world’s best freedivers? It’s the Bajau: their spleens are around 50% larger than average — a genetic adaptation that floods their blood with extra oxygen and helps them free-dive as deep as 70 metres.2

• Another well known marine life area, that is more accessible than the Togean, is Gorontalo. However, I’ve seen increasing press about Gorontalo whale shark viewing being unethical and dangerous. Steer clear.

Northern Sulawesi: Tomohon area

• Only an hour from Manado is a mountainous area full of volcanoes, lakes, waterfalls and bright flowers. Sipping more delicious Sulawesi-grown coffee and taking in cooler mountain air was very appealing during our sweatiest northern Sulawesi transfers, but sadly we didn’t have the time!

• This blog has a great overview of Tomohon and the wider Minahasa regency attractions in more detail.

Interested?

Today less than 1% of Indonesia’s foreign visitors make it here.

The domestic visitors are higher at 5% of the market, but the majority of this is made up of family and business visits to Manado and Makassar.

See some of the world’s rarest wildlife, trek through Tana Toraja villages, stand before 40,000 year old hand stencils, or just slurp chicken soup next to an excellent view… (a late entry, but South Sulawesi goes down as the capital of chicken soup in my travel memories!)

Looking for a sign on where to go next?

Consider this it.

Start imagining yourself there

📅 Your holiday allowance

• We met a lot of Europeans taking the whole of August to travel across the island. A month here would be perfect!

• But so would 2 weeks, or even 5 days just to visit Tana Toraja instead of a Bali side trip to a more typical beach destination (looking at you, Gili Islands).

• The best time of year to visit Tana Toraja, conveniently for northern-hemisphere summer holidays, is June to August. Dry season brings the greatest concentration of ceremonies.

📖 Travel writing

• Lawrence Blair - Ring of Fire - This collection of epic travel stories from the 1970s kicks off with a quest from Sulawesi.

• Mark Eveleigh - Kopi Dulu - Mark’s recent Indonesian roadtrip covers large swathes of the island.

Practical bits

📱Key contacts

• Meyske from Ne’ Pakku Manja Family Home. Her lovely homestay is within her families’ traditional Tana Torajan tongkonan and she’s an excellent guide. She also leads trips to the Togean islands and further afield.

• Iksan - Makassar based guide who is a wealth of knowledge and seriously fluent english in which he will debate everything from the latest British royal family drama, to ancient Rome. Here’s his website.

✈️ Connections

• International connections to Sulawesi are typically via Singapore or Kuala Lumpur. If you are already in Indonesia, you likely need to transfer via Jakarta.

• After landing in Makassar, we took a night bus up to Rantepao, then drove back down with Iksan over two days, stopping overnight at Lake Tempe. After Ramang-Ramang, we flew direct to Manado. This was a good way to break up the southern peninsula, and avoided the serious feat of crossing the mountains into North Sulawesi by road.

• There’s a small airport near Rantepao (Buntu Kunik) with a couple of Wings Air flights a week to Makassar (~55 min), but the schedule is thin and unpredictable.

More from me on Indonesia:

Komodo National Park is an increasingly popular destination for snorkeling and nature. I’d recommend Sulawesi as an interesting alternative.

Or stay in Bali, and head somewhere a little different; Medewi

Lusting after the tropics, I was drawn to the greenest of the Greek island chains, the Ionians.

We ended up on Meganisi.

Now whilst this summer’s Odyssey film has no doubt increased traffic to sleepy Ithaca, not far away, I am confident Meganisi remains the same.

I’m not going to list the attractions. Obviously Greek Islands are wonderful. But part of the appeal of Meganisi is exactly its lack of dramatic highlights. And, whilst admittedly we were there end of season late September, we didn’t see a single selfie stick.

It’s mostly just roads petering out till it’s just the trees and the goats.

So what does it feel like to be on Meganisi?

With only a handful of roads and neighbouring Ionian islands resting along the horizon, the world reduces and flattens into simplicities.

Something is always shimmering, whether it’s the water, the leaves of the olive groves, or the light over the surrounding mountains.

Countless sailboats amble around in the distance, manned by tiny figures.

We arrived planning four nights and stayed eight. We were soon excellently busy choosing where to have a Cafe Freddo, laying towels out on warm white pebbles, and perusing small grocery stores pondering what we could combine with our trusty travel spice kit from home.

We drove along the southern peninsula until the road gave out, then stood with the goats enjoying the breeze whilst thinking about which taverna to head to for dinner.

For a little buzz, the main town of Vathy provides a lovely oceanfront promenade and the bustle of visiting small boats.

But outside of Vathy, nights are so quiet you’ll almost be startled by the shadows your scooter casts against the road under the starlight. Driving home to our corner of the island one night, the silence was so deep it was almost spooky. This was not helped by me reading a book on DMT which kept returning to alien-based hypotheses.

There are many walks too (we didn’t do any). Or if you are feeling inspired for a quest, a chance to trace Odysseus’s footsteps by visiting Polyphemus Cave: a spot long associated with the famous cyclops encounter. You could also go further and charter a boat trip to nearby Ithaca.

Or just stay here and gaze out at a horizon softly layered with other islands, like sentinels protecting from the outside world.

Eating and drinking favourites

• Dine on Vathy’s waterfront at Errikos Fish Tavern or Rose Garden

• Cafe Freddo with a view at Summer Sun

• Smoked meats at Taverna Lakis, squeezed into Spartochori's steep streets

How to get there and logistics tips

• Fly to Preveza-Aktion National Airport (PVK) on mainland Greece and make your way to Nidri on Lefkada. It’s also easy to get here from Kefalonia, which is where we headed to next and also has international flights.

• From Nidri it’s only 30 minutes by ferry with several departures a day in peak- shoulder season. Find out more here.

• There is a big supermarket at Nidri if you are self catering and want to stock up. Grocery shops on the island are more limited.

• You’ll need a car or scooter, we rented scooters from Discover Meganisi.

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I’ve been thinking about whether one trip can change your life, as so much promotional material loves to suggest.

A weekend away, no. A week or two, unlikely.

My biggest life changes have always come about in a moment of crisis. Until those moments, the relaxation and escape of a holiday served as a much needed balm. It was never a trigger, but a chance to restore before plunging back into the fray.

But, long-term travel is a different beast.

It gives the chance for things to truly unravel. Space from your usual bubble, your usual crutches.

And truly unravel is what I did during my first time-out since my student days. My partner had leave between his law conversion ending and his training contract. He had two months, but I asked my team for three. You can read about that here:

After two months together in Indonesia, I flew to Australia to spend the rest of my time with two of my closest friends. These wonderful humans had to bear the brunt of some of the unravelling that ensued.

Cue my birthday.

They planned me a day out with all the best intentions.

I thought we were returning from a campervan trip around Kangaroo Island to my friend’s house in Adelaide, to chill and eat dinner at home.

It transpired we were going on a surprise cycling vineyard tour.

Wine and cycling, what could possibly go wrong.

I hadn’t cycled for years and am a lightweight at the best of times, not aided by weeks of barely more than half a beer in Indonesia.

I got far far far too drunk.

I fell off my bike.

I ripped my favourite trousers.

At the next winery, I walked back towards the table from the bathroom. I could see them laughing away, framed by truly glorious golden afternoon sunlight. And I started crying, hard. Ugly big tears.

They came with me down a lovely grassy slope, away from this perfect set up of sun-kissed Australians enjoying their wine.

I’m so sorry, so embarrassed, I’m just drunk. Not been drinking much. I sniffed and snivelled.

With some tension released and then lots of chips consumed, I did manage to hold it together. I made it to the next winery. Puffy eyes focussing hard on my friends’ bikes ahead of mine.

Then the next part of the surprise: we were camping again at a nearby site and my friend’s boyfriend was cooking up one of his famous bbqs.

All I actually wanted was to be back in a house, watching Netflix with takeout whilst knowing plumbing was metres away.

I sulked like the mature adult I am, but kept it together. The campsite toilets were nice and clean and large amounts of food looked soon to appear.

Everything was looking back on track. Until he started cooking and everything reeked of garlic. Which I really can’t eat. Especially back then when I was only a couple of years post glandular fever which had given me a very strong fodmap intolerance (onion and garlic = stomach feeling like ripping open)

Meanwhile, I’d received a birthday message from a parent.

I analysed it with my phd levels of alignment to their brain. The resulting pangs in my stomach helped clear up the wine haze.

I went and hid in the toilets whilst repeatedly calling my partner, messaging ‘code red’. Hoping he might magically wake up.

At some point I started sobbing in a toilet stall. I think I even remember dramatically sliding down the door to the floor. I’d had the best time of my life these past months, and yet this dark cloud had curled its way through time and space to remind me of its hooks. I remember thinking, what a waste it all was.

After a while, my oldest friend came and found me.

I remember her staring at me blankly as I said something like: I know they are so unhappy I’m not home for my birthday, that I’m away. So for me to not even be happy now, what’s the point.

She said something like, this is not right.

I looked into her eyes and saw no comprehension.

This was not my oldest friend not understanding me. And deep down I think for the first time I started to realise I was wrong. Something was very wrong. Something that was not me being selfish. Something more to do with a saviour complex and the allure of playing the victim.

Coming back to London that winter was hard. Back at work, despite my neurotic handover with reams of instructions for every scenario, it felt like nothing had happened.

I was immediately more bored than I had ever been in the office.

And I did leave the job a few months later for a startup. With bean bags and everything! Perhaps thinking this change of scene might be the answer. You can read more about it here:

But to quote myself…

…I needed to move worlds entirely, not just sideways.

There were much worse times to come. Years to pass before I was able to put up boundaries, and/or cheat by running away.

But this trip did something.

Far away, uncontactable through the unavoidable spin of the earth, your sense of self can begin to feel nebulous. And just maybe in that blur, you’ll be confronted with the gap between the reality you’ve created for yourself and what could be possible.

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How long had we been here? Did we build our place? What did we pay a month?

I explained it had been paid upfront. But what was the monthly equivalent? Did we rent it out when we were not there?

Like the vast majority of foreigners here, we do not have the right visa or regulatory status to rent out our place and have no intention of doing so. Conscious it’s not exactly thrilling social conversation, I briefly mentioned this. I also added that this is exactly the kind of arrangement the government is cracking down on, fed up of an informal market of unregulated villas with almost no tax going back into the system. (I wrote about this for Inside Indonesia here)

But how much did you pay for your villa? He asked, again. I could see calculations going on behind his eyes. It was all about how could Bali work for him.

He told me, unprompted, how he was thinking about paying for a year lease upfront (to secure a lower rate with the Balinese landlord) and then renting it out during the 6 months of the year he would not be here, at the monthly tourist price.

My previous comments had glanced off him. They were not helpful to his cause.

The conversation moved on to how much I cook at home. A safer topic. Or so I thought.

I was happily making small talk about the best place to find cheese and where we bought our vegetables. And how we often end up having breakfast out as we pass so many nice spots on the way back from walking the dog.

He then complained to me about the price of coffee at cafes. It’s disproportionately high compared to the price of food, don’t I think?

For context, it's normally 45k IDR plus tax, like £2. I replied, well everything needed for it is expensive. Coffee machines and their maintenance, good quality beans, barista training. If you want something cheaper, warungs serve traditional Bali coffee for a fraction of the price.

I suppose, he said.

I smiled and excused myself. Inside my head was flashing red.

Sorry that your fancy flat white you buy for whatever price at home is not matching your perception of what a Bali price should be. Sorry Bali can't perform total convenience for you at a price you think is right.

If you are considering moving and are so worried about the price of a coffee here, maybe don’t be here?

I can’t help but equate this kind of mentality with the neverending ROI signs I see everywhere.

But, perhaps I’m being too harsh. A few years ago, I pondered similar questions about villa rentals. Perhaps I hadn’t asked a near stranger so directly about it, or maybe I did and I don’t remember.

It’s easy to get swept up in the excitement and possibility of making a home on this beautiful island.

And just as easy to want to sand its textures down into something smooth and shiny, made just for you.

Wondering about the rental market and how to afford a life here is one thing; wondering how to turn a profit from it, or complaining that the coffee costs too much, is quite another.

But still.

Last time I was in London in January 2026 I treated myself to a flat white at my local. It cost £4.90.

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When I told Made we had found our own home to lease, she immediately asked if she could work for us. I hadn’t wanted to ask her. I had a misguided concept that if she worked for us it would ruin the friendship. But that was rose-tinted goggles on my end. To deny her a way to add to her family's earnings, just so I could tell myself we were friends and not boss and worker, would have been wrong.

I would also have been a colossal fool to have not taken her up on her offer. I cannot imagine our lives here without her and her family, with people you truly trust living only metres away to call on.

Made was my first bahasa indonesia teacher and we speak a mix of english and indonesian together. For clarity I’ve written our exchange out in english and tried to preserve her voice as much as possible.

Tell me about when you were a teenager.

I finished school when I was 12. I had to work in the rice field because we had no money. It was so hard. I would cry, and my mother would cry also. My skin went red, red from the sun.

When did you stop working in the rice field?

When I got married and had children. At first I kept working in the field when I was pregnant, and I stopped when I could not do it anymore.

When did you first meet a foreigner?

When I was 30, a friend told me to apply for a job in a furniture factory. I did not want to, but my friend kept persuading me.

The owner of the factory, T, was the first bule (foreigner) I ever spoke to. I told him, I have no skills, I am not from a high caste. But he liked me and he said he liked my honesty. I worked for him for 17 years.

I got very good at finishes and sanding. Sometimes I would travel all over the island to fix up installed kitchens for T. I went to Nusa Lembongan, Amed, everywhere!

How did you move jobs to working at the airbnb?

I worked for T in his house also. So I got to know him very well. One day, he called me into the office at the factory. I was very stressed, worried there was a problem.

He told me about his new apartments he built, and that he wanted me to work there.

I said, no. I don’t speak english, I’m not confident with bule. I cannot do it.

The next day I went back to the factory. He called me into the office again. This happened many times.

He said I have a good heart and he believed in me. He said I would be good with the guests and he knew he could trust me. He is a very kind person.

It’s not hard to see why T believed this, Made is one of the most genuinely warm people I know.

So you didn’t speak any english before you started working at the apartments?

No! But I write down things on my phone. I practise with the guests. Slowly slowly.

And now sometimes I feel like a celebrity. I see in many of the reviews, guests say my name.

When you started, did you find it boring compared to the factory and travelling around Bali?

No, I liked it a lot. I felt I was more my own boss. And in the factory, someone was always watching you.

How do you have the energy to always be so lovely to guests?

When we bring happy energy and good spirit, we get it back.

What do you find the most difficult about guests?

When some guests stay a long time, and they ask many things. Many favours. Can I get them groceries, organize cars. Ask me to buy special food for the dogs. But then they do not tip.

I don’t understand, why are guests so worried that the dog needs fresh chicken. But then they not want to help people? 1

I would also like fresh chicken from Pepito.

(Pepito is a large, internationally-oriented supermarket chain. Guests have asked Made to buy chicken breasts there, which they then cook for the dogs.)

What do you think about the general increase in foreigners in the area?

I don’t like it.

Why?

She asked me back ‘Why don’t you?’ .

I said I know what I think, but I want to know what you think. She grimaced and paused and finally went

It feels bad in my heart. It’s my Bali, not yours. It’s too much.

Bule build a villa, stay a bit and get bored. Then they leave and villa is for business.

But if they want to stay and live with their family, that’s different?

Yes. If they really love Bali, it’s different.

Made points at some new ‘mediterranean’ style blocky villa developments in the distance.

So ugly. And for what? I miss when it was just rice fields. I would drive to work and everything was beautiful.

What would you change if you could? if you were the governor of Bali

I would give money to all the little people. For hospital, for fixing temple, for ceremonies.

This was the second in BALI, BY PEOPLE ACTUALLY FROM HERE, a series of interviews with people from the island. You can read the first here:

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I’ve been to two onsens in my life.

The first was in a small ski-hotel in Hakuba, which mainly catered to Australians while we were there. It was tiny and on the top floor, with a big window facing out towards the snowy mountains. The second was a veritable complex in a large, busy hotel in Kanazawa, where the other guests were predominantly Japanese.

Day 1 in the ski hotel I was raring for my first onsen experience. I did breathe a sigh of relief when I went in and realised it was empty. All the benefits without the nervousness of being naked in front of strangers.

Even so, I pretended to move slowly but actually rapidly immersed myself in the pool up to my neck. Then, covered by the water I stared out the window. I watched an eagle. I felt pretty zen.

Someone came in behind me and I kept my eyes forward. There was a gentle splash as an older lady joined me. We didn’t make eye contact.

She also stared ahead as I left the pool and padded over to the changing room.

The next day, buoyed up on this success, I returned. From the changing room I could hear two young girls with Australian accents chatting. This made stripping off feel much harder. Naked, I scooted tentatively closer to the door and looked in. They were sat on the edge of the pool, gesticulating wildly to each other, deep into an excellent sounding gossip. They were also both wearing bikinis.

I silently looked at the sign that did clearly say you had to remove your clothes. I looked back at them. I didn’t go any further. Going in naked, in front of clothed teenagers, just felt wrong. But also so did telling them to ahem please follow the rules and get nude.

I left the onsen. I sat on the end of my bed in my dressing gown for fifteen minutes of scrolling before deciding surely they may have departed by now.

I did the walk from my room to the onsen, admittedly only about 20 metres, several times. Each time that I leaned my head through the entrance I could hear them still chatting, and so sadly I turned back around.

A few days later we were in Kanazawa, the capital city of the Ishikawa Prefecture. I loved our hotel as soon as we entered - you had to take off and store your shoes in lockers and they provided wipes to clean your suitcases. I would love to enforce this in my own home.

A short while later I found myself in a lift, in my dressing gown, heading to the top floor onsen. At each stop more people got on, all in matching dressing gowns, most holding the same bag provided in the rooms. Nobody spoke. We just ascended, robed and silent, clutching our identical bags. It didn’t not feel like being in a cult.

Entering the changing area I was hit by a hubbub of activity.

All around me were women in various states of undress and action. Some blow drying hair, applying makeup, others peeling off their socks and folding them into their lockers. Everyone I could see looked Japanese.

I put my belongings in the locker and tiptoed through to the onsen entrance.

It was a wide dark space with a dark stone floor. Along one wall glass looked out onto a terrace with additional pools, with high walls to provide privacy from surrounding buildings. Something about it reminded me of UK swimming pools from my youth; the happy murmurs, splashes, distant sounds of hair dryers, and sounds of feet slapping on wet floors.

I was overwhelmed by choice, but felt that standing and looking at the various pools was much more awkward than purposely walking to one. So I headed for the largest pool and made my way to a corner, out of the way.

Around me, maybe fifty bodies of all different shapes and sizes happily enjoyed the facilities. Many were in groups, including what looked like families.

My gosh was it nice to see a whole range of women’s bodies and women sat around enjoying themselves. All completely unselfconscious.

Soon I was exploring every part of the indoor and outdoor spaces. Waiting my turn for the cold plunge, I shifted my weight from foot to foot, practising looking at nothing in particular. I did give a victorious smile to the woman after me, though, as I was absurdly pleased with myself for lasting a whole ten seconds. I enjoyed a sauna where Japanese legal news played on a screen, which was oddly compelling despite my not following a word of it.

It was louder, busier and less beautiful than the ski hotel onsen. But I liked it all the more for this.

Being surrounded by the buzz of a language you have zero comprehension of, whilst being utterly ignored, is a potent way to unwind.

I rarely travel alone. And when I am alone, at a café or a restaurant, I usually have a book, or my phone. In the onsen, you have nothing. How many spaces are left to us where you’re truly not allowed your phone?

No distractions. Just life, naked life.

Tips

• There will be rules displayed. Follow them! Not just about getting naked, but things like wearing the slippers provided as soon as you enter.

• Other rules may not be displayed but matter just as much, such as cultural norms around tattoos. In some onsen they’re banned outright; in others they must be covered, and the facility can provide plasters for this. Ask ahead of time.

• I recommend checking a resource like this before your first visit: https://www.japan.travel/en/ph/story/onsen-etiquette/

• Sitting on a stool to wash yourself takes a surprising amount of coordination. Make sure you don’t spray people walking past. I did feel like I was doing it wrong and can only hope more repetition would have helped.

• If it’s raining or snowing, definitely make use of any outdoor tubs. The feeling of cool drops falling on your face from the sky is wonderful.

• If in doubt, choose the busiest, most local onsen you can find. Statistically, far fewer Australian teenagers.

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Over our trip I had been developing a deep love for tonkatsu: a breaded pork cutlet served with a sticky, sweet and tangy sauce. We had come from Kanazawa, where there was said to be an excellent tonkatsu restaurant in the train station. However through a sequence of events that were 100% blamed on my partner, we ended up on the platform with no time to go back to the food hall. With one night in Narita left in our trip, I was convinced I’d missed my last chance.

But, there is a reason I married this man. Upon reaching our Narita hotel, he offered up his phone screen on Google maps with a listing in view. A tonkatsu restaurant…

But it’s miles away I said. That seems ridiculous.

But soon we were in a taxi the hotel had ordered us.

The driver was excited that we wanted to go to his favourite restaurant, which was reassuring as the journey took us out of the centre and along a dual carriage way flanked by large stores and supermarkets. Not the discreet little backstreet we might have imagined.

We pulled in off the road in the rain and blinked up at the narrow restaurant, squeezed in between a Toyota dealership and a large medical building.

Everything was in Japanese and no one spoke any english. They had no wifi and our data packages had run out. Our phones had barely any battery (I risked some to take a picture). Yet of course where there is a desire to feed and be fed, there is a way.

I got the special where the meat was rolled around fragrant basil. Every single thing brought to the table was great, including a sort of mustard and strong pickles which were a perfect counterpoint to the sweet sauce and crunchy fried goodness.

The road outside was emptying and the rain was still falling as we finished up. We managed to pay by contactless on our last 2% of battery. After some miming with the staff, they kindly called us a taxi.

The taxi journeys cost more than the meal, but this was a priceless, relationship restoring experience.

The next day we were up early to explore Narita itself before our 11am flight.

No highs and lows of tonkatsu-gate here, just a lovely morning.

We headed to Naritasan Shinshoji Temple and were lucky enough to have it mostly to ourselves.

We soon noticed steps leading up a hill behind the buildings. The very first sprinkles of cherry blossom drew us in further, past the first of a series of very serious cats.

There is an around 165,000 square metres park behind the complex, dotted with shrines and curving paths. But it didn’t feel like a park at all, it felt like a completely distinct world to the city we had entered from.

As we headed in deeper, tall trees almost blocked the light and we heard disgruntled miaos from those we were disturbing.

It was amazing how immersed in nature and an almost spiritual silence we felt, just steps from a city. We itched to wander more and see where we ended up, but sadly had to keep an eye on the time.

We walked back through the temple, now slowly filling with people and set off for a coffee shop I’d favourited, Routemap Coffee Roasters. Again I would have loved to linger.

I nursed my flat white, made with home-made soy milk, as we power walked back to the hotel to get down some breakfast before heading on.

I wondered what the cats were up to as we lugged our suitcases onto the shuttle bus.

Narita was originally intended to save us the effort of negotiating the enormity of Tokyo before our flight, but I wish we had given it more time in its own right.

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Coming soon: notes on Kanazawa, where I ate unbelievable seafood when not hunting for tonkatsu.

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2018

When I first came to Indonesia 8 years ago, I was not planning to visit Bali. With two months at our disposal I must admit to saying things like ‘Bali is for basic bitches, we are going more off the beaten track’ (I now live here, facepalm). However a last-minute change in plans due to an earthquake in Lombok diverted us.

In preparation for our trip I had read every single Indonesia entry on Travel Fish. I adored their description of Medewi as a quiet corner where rice fields ran down to volcanic black sands, cows wandered freely, and mosques warbled in the background.

So after a change of flights, we were soon heading out west from Denpasar.

We stopped en route for nasi campur. Sambal, rice, fried tofu, greens, shredded chicken, potato balls. Whilst the drive to Medewi is still one of the most beautiful on the island, we’ve never managed to find this warung again. Our first ever nasi campur remains a delicious mystery.

Backed by often misty mountains, Medewi is one of the damper and greener parts of Bali. In a crescent of the coast sweeping towards Java, it looks out across the strait to Alas Purwo National Park, a dense forest where tigers used to roam. It’s also a predominantly Muslim area. As we arrived at Pink Barrel Homestay at sunset, the call to prayer boomed around us.

We had the most wonderful 10 days. Pink Barrel is run by Reza and Tika who live there with their son Raya and their long-term best friend Mikael. Raya was 4 years old when we first arrived and I’ve possibly yet to meet a cuter kid.

They have a few rooms to rent and two bungalows looking out across the rice fields. And all day the wind chimes flowed gently in the breeze.

Tika cooks some of the best food I’ve ever eaten in Indonesia and family dinners around the table there have seldom been topped in our travels since. A lot of Bali’s traditional food is less curry-based, more dry, whereas Muslim dishes tend to draw on richer, coconut-based sauces, which I love. One of our first nights she made a curry with squid stuffed with minced tofu. I still think about it.

I sometimes forget that on our first Medewi morning, we had our worst scooter accident ever. Full of the excitement of starting our sabbatical, we set out early on a scooter to explore. A downside of Medewi is that the main road through the area is also the key route to the Java ferry port. Not thrilled by the large trucks passing us, my partner started driving incrementally faster in a bid not to be overtaken. This resulted in us, on a completely empty stretch of road, trying to make a steep turn, and failing.

With instincts born of self-preservation and years of horse riding (side note: I once had a horse drop into a coma mid-canter) I leapt off unscathed as he skidded about 100 metres. We had to spend the rest of our trip diligently tending to his mildly mangled foot.

We also just had to crack on with driving, as there were no other options. There’s no gojek in Medewi. We were helped by our friend who joined us a day later and who is a very competent driver. His encouragement in our ears, we followed his line round sharp bends as we took off into the hills to find our first Balinese waterfalls.

Medewi is also where we first learned to surf. Mikael took us to a quiet bay a 10 minutes drive away. I’ll always remember his calm voice calling out ‘little something, little something…’ as each tiny wave approached us.

This time has a golden glow in my memory. A time of unimaginable freedom, with 3 months stretching ahead of me, the longest period off I had ever lined up. Everything felt open and promising.

We met people who said things I still think about today. Had conversations that were the first of their kind for us.

Off a recommendation from another guest, we headed next to Bali Silent Retreat. Here I began to articulate some new thoughts that I would return to many times later in times of crisis. Into this new spaciousness, an easing in my system, snuck an intense fever. As soon as we left the retreat, I came down with a 40-degrees temperature.

We were delighted to find Pringles and Oreos available at the little shop near our next guest house which I nibbled on as I spent the next two days in bed.

I recovered in time to enjoy a day exploring Campuhan Ridge in Ubud, before we flew to East Timor — a trip I later wrote about for Mekong Review.

2022

We were next in Medewi almost exactly four years later, in August 2022. Landing back in Bali for what became the ‘Year-out that never ended’, we felt an almost mandatory pull to return.

The biggest change was that Raya was now a little more aloof, drawing closer to the pre-teen stage. The new way to his heart, my partner discovered, was football chat (men!). The breakfast options had changed too. When we first came there hadn't been anywhere with a coffee machine and breakfast was Bali coffee with typically either pancakes or nasi goreng.

Now there was Wakey Wakey Cafe nearby, serving excellent brews, smoothies, and banana bread. And Holy Tree had just opened, and yes they served smoothie bowls from the start. I sent Slack messages to my first ongoing freelance client, something I wanted to experiment with whilst we travelled, whilst looking at the waves and sipping my iced long black.

2023

The next summer saw us choosing another six months on the road instead of 'settling back down' into London life. We chose two spots in Bali, a month in each, daring to hope something long-term might actually work out.

We’d become good friends with our neighbours in that first month and were excited to take a short trip to Medewi together.

We took them to Rambut Siwi, the sister temple of Tanah Lot a little along the coast. It was excellent for our cred with them when the man responsible for signing in foreign visitors remembered us from our previous visit and dug out the old logbook to find our names.

Over at Pink Barrel, Raya was now very into crushing us at Uno and debating who would win between every single possible combination of Marvel characters. He was also still passionate about football. Our friend disclosed that he had actually played under-18 international football for Germany. We were shocked and impressed!

But do you know Ronaldo? asked Raya. Unfortunately not. Back to Uno we went.

2024

We next returned in March 2024. Part way through our first full 6 months stint in Bali, we decided to visit for Nyepi. We spent most of the trip worrying about the dog, who we had rescued only a week earlier. She was back at the vet boarding for the 3 nights we were away and we felt terrible about it.

It seemed fitting in a way to witness our first Nyepi, Bali's biggest Hindu calendar day, in the corner of the island where we'd first landed. The villages on either side of Medewi are Hindu, and the night before tourists, Muslims and Hindus alike flood the streets for the Ogoh-Ogoh parades.

A couple of months later, we had a final gap before we could move into our new home. Naturally we returned to Medewi again.

I was not feeling great, with old shoulder injuries and chronic fatigue having flared up. Reza sent me to see his father-in-law, Ugi, who is famed locally for his healing massages.

Going initially for my shoulder, Ugi asked if I had time to do a few sessions; that there was a lot he needed to do. I spent several hours lying on his bale the following days, as he managed to move parts of my perpetually locked up spine that previous 10 week courses with London specialists had failed to touch.

At the end he told me, matter-of-factly, that I had a lot of trauma related to a family member. And that I carried pain on my left side by my kidney. To rest and that I would feel bad the next few days, but then, much better. He knew nothing of my parent with the chronic condition and a removed left kidney.

Days later we moved into our new house.

On the first morning by 9am workers had happily bulldozed down the kitchen wall that we were turning into a sliding door. The new chapter of our lives was firmly underway.

2026

Whilst Medewi is changing (last time I was there I did see some ROI and ice bath signs) it’s still distinctively different from the south. Mosque domes sparkling in the sun, no beach clubs within hours’ radius. Wetter, junglier, less manicured. The mountains behind mean the wind is nearly always offshore, making it a great rainy season surf escape too.

I’m going to make a collection of mini guides to some slightly different places to explore in Bali. Medewi will be first.

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When we first dabbled in the idea of moving to Bali, we were annoying. I looked at all the foreigners I saw living here with hungry eyes. So keen to join their ranks, work out how they did it. But I could tell we were not getting back the enthusiasm I was throwing out.

Now I’m +2 years on the other side of this equation, and I get it.

I think part of the reason is that newcomers can give the impression that they are treating Bali life a little like a product they would like to buy.

Some of it is just new person fatigue. People come and go a lot. Long term residents don’t want to invest time in friendships for people who are just passing through.

I’d done exactly this myself while travelling. Once you have a few friends on your own schedule, the energy to meet someone new for a couple of nights dwindles.

But in Bali we found it harder to connect than we’d expected. We were in a grey zone: not on the backpacker trail, but still peering in at what an embedded life could look like.

Making friends as an adult can be notoriously hard. As we arrived back in Bali again in January 2024 we thought, let’s try one more six-months stint away. And if at the end we feel the pull back to our London world, we know we gave it our best shot.

Around the same time as these discussions, the dog came along.

How events unfolded:

We noticed dog A on the beach, recently dumped and in bad shape. I mentioned it to a woman we had loosely gotten to know. She didn’t mince her words. Don’t just complain she said, why don’t you do something then? Get the vet out.

Slightly affronted, I said, yes of course. She gave me the number of a long term expat in the area who informally manages all the local beach dogs.

I messaged Dog Angel Lady (as I came to think of her) and she offered to meet me at the beach to look at the dog together, give it skin medication, and take it to the vet if needed.

So we were on the beach, looking for dog A. Turns out he’s fine, just needed skin meds (side note, he ended up being adopted by a local warung). But whilst we were there Dog Angel Lady noticed another dog. Small, trembling, skinny, and bleeding vaginally. My god she said that one has to go to the vet right now, she’s on heat. She asked me to stay with the dog whilst she went to get her car.

This tiny little thing was absolutely thrilled to sit next to me and accept treats. From that moment on, I was invested.

It transpired she was bleeding because she had TVT, a type of genital cancer common in the tropics. Dog Angel Lady couldn’t take her home as she has a huge pack of rescue dogs already. Now that this one was at least sterilized and having rested up at the vet, she could take her chances settling in with the beach dogs. Dog Angel Lady said she would try to find her and take her for chemotherapy treatments every 10 days as needed. That was the plan.

A couple days later, Dog Angel Lady brought her back to the beach. I met her there and honestly I don’t know what I thought was going to happen. Tears were in her eyes as she dragged the dog off her scooter. I can’t take them all home. She said.

She put the dog in my arms and said I can’t do it and her husband drove her away. The dog looked into my eyes. I looked at my husband. I felt her warm body in my arms. I got on the back of our scooter with her.

We took her home. The day we moved villas. The day my partner was having a once in a year work blow up. She scampered round and I followed her mopping up the fluids she was leaking. We didn’t even have any cleaning products yet. I’d never had a dog and had no idea what to do.

However, help flooded in. Our new neighbors were brilliant. Dog Angel Lady did everything too to support. And from this, a wall of warmth enveloped us.

Not to say we were welcomed into local cafes like heroes, but there was a definite shift. Or maybe it was just our perception - the dog was a built-in conversation starter and we felt more confident because of it. We had done something good, something permanent. Even if we were just initially fostering her.

Shortly after we found the house to lease that’s still our home here. Much like I’d made a snap decision on the beach, my usually extremely risk-averse husband said we had to take the house the moment we left the gate. The deposit was transferred within hours. For these two chronic overthinkers, these moments have a surreal dream-like quality in our memories.

Initially I told myself, doing some good is better than no good. We’ll get her through her chemo and then find her another home. She’s so cute, how hard can it be? I even made posters for her. I joined all the Bali rescue/adopt groups and posted her photos. But on joining, I was inundated hourly with posts of the cutest pups you can imagine, all in need of a home.

It didn’t matter. Within a matter of days, it was inconceivable to us that she was not part of our family.

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After a month with the dog, more than enough time to re-orbit our lives around her, we had a preexisting plan to move into a friend’s villa where it was not possible to take her. A Balinese friend offered to look after the dog for this intermediary period before we moved into our new long-term home.

We drove once or twice a day into her family compound to pick up the dog for beach walks.

She’d hear the scooter coming round the bend and run out to greet us, hopping onto the bike with total joy. Other times I’d walk in to find her snoozing on the cool tiles, or deep in an elaborate game with the family’s other dog and the youngest child. I’d see who was usually home in the mornings, when certain family members napped, and practise my bahasa chatting about the weather with whoever was around (turns out this is not just a UK fixation).

I learned to say nothing when they gave the dogs leftover chicken bones.

To this day she’s beside herself with excitement when she sees Balinese people assembling for a ceremony; she knows it means an excellent meal could be coming her way.

Now I have to admit something. We realised we had seen Loops before that fateful (or so it feels to me) day on the beach. Shivering in the distance in a field when we’d been on a walk. I’d felt a pang in my heart. But we’d just turned our gaze aside, much like we all do at some point to a beggar on the London underground. Not our problem.

To say I’m grateful to have had a second chance to help her is an understatement.

I don’t know how much she gave us a sense of rooting to Bali that had been missing, or how much she really changed the way community unfolded for us. But if I can take one lesson from it, it’s this: do the inconvenient thing. Help. Trying to do some good will reward you far more than staying in your perfect air-conditioned airbnb, dreaming up a frictionless Bali fantasy.

If you are visiting Bali and want to help the local street dogs, here is a useful guide. The best outcome for most is a medical check-in and then being returned where you found them.

This was not going to work for our dog though. From her condition and the fact she didn’t understand depth/water/sand and was already scooter trained, we are pretty sure she was in a local house until she was dumped when they saw the TVT.

She was never going to make it as a beach dog, as much as she now likes to think she is a top boss and regularly surfs head high (for her) waves in the shorebreak.

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I was worried it would look like I was unfairly judging a whole country. That I’d be judged for that. But then I realised: we don't apply that worry in reverse. When you visit somewhere as a tourist, and have a wonderful time, it does not mean that country is wonderful and perfect. Sometimes our experiences as travellers might intersect with real political and cultural issues, but mostly, not. Mostly we just skim the surface.

So this isn’t a verdict on Morocco. It’s just my recollections from a few weeks. The good and the less good, as they actually happened.

Re-reading my travel notes, we had a brilliant time in many respects. I even described one day as one of our best travel days ever. Spoiler alert, it did involve galloping Berber stallions across the sand dunes.

Yet on reflection, a few things over the trip built up that left a not so effusive taste in our mouths.

Let’s start with some highs

Our first day

At the start of the trip we met up with friends who had been living in Morocco the past few months. Their upstairs neighbours, who were teenage boys living away from home for school, invited us all up for a meal.

As ever football proved a universal language and there was much debate on Morocco’s poor performance at AFCON, their best players abroad. A game of FIFA was played, and my partner was far too pleased upon emerging the victor.

Also universal it transpires, is teenage boys’ lack of culinary finesse. They served us cold pasta mixed with mayonnaise, ketchup, peas and some sort of sliced meat.

Football chat (thankfully, for me) eventually died down and talk turned to the trips our friends and the teens had taken across the country, mostly focussed on epic camping adventures.

All in all it was a great welcome.

Imsouane

Our next stop, and where we were to spend the majority of our time, was Imsouane. A fishing village turned surf hub, perched on a steep peninsula between two stunning bays, one of which is home to one of the gentlest and longest surf waves in Africa.

It will be hard to forget the beauty of Imsouane and the pink sunsets over the sandy encapsulating cliffs. I’ll also always remember the kindness of Medhi, who we rented our surf kit from. He was endlessly helpful, from tracking down alternative female wetsuits (in low supply) to tips for getting from the main road back down to the village after our various excursions.

Essaouira

We enjoyed our first stay in Essaouira so much that we returned a week later. Both times we stayed at Riad Salmiya Dune. It was our first time staying in a riad and I adored the design and colours, not to mention the warmth of the owner, Nadia. A twentyish minutes walk from the medina, it was a small splurge, not a huge one.

Out and in and around the souk, the blue boats and bright accents on building fronts contrasted with the sand-hued old city walls and shady corners, drawing us into many happy wanderings.

A favourite spot was Cafe L’Espirit, with an insane lemon-meringue pie and great selection of books to leaf through, including many on Moroccan design.

Another place we were glad to find was Chez El Ouazzani, whose delicious potato-based street food (I’m always a potato devotee) was a nice break from our own hostel-kitchen cooked meals and meat tagines.

We were also lucky to cross over with the Gnaoua Music Festival. We got swept up in various live performances, and met people who were attending from all over Morocco.

Oh and Essaouira was the base from which we galloped the Berber stallions.

And now some honest travel lows.

Constantly having to negotiate

I’m not opposed to haggling. I’ve spent months in places where it’s how things are done. But for some reason, in Morocco it wore us down.

It was little things. Like buying bottles of water, the wildly varying price of a tomato or a taxi journey we’d done many times. Or a tub of amlou (a delicious almond, argan oil and honey blend) quoted at four times what we’d paid elsewhere. A low-level fatigue that built up.

Escalating toilet-gate

The hostel we stayed at in Imsouane had two private rooms. Our friends took the nicer street-side one. We took the other, which it turns out was not a room so much as a partitioned off area of the main dorm, which meant minimum airflow. Now this was before we got to Portugal and couldn’t sleep because the room was too hot. More on that here →

Let the record show that we did successfully sleep in this fanless, windowless room fine, just about.

But, a stuffy dark room aside, it was the shared bathroom that stood out.

Firstly, there was never any soap. I kept buying it, and it kept disappearing. But this was the least of our issues.

The bathroom’s window was into… the kitchen… and the screen kept falling down. Cue my partner standing (kitchen side) holding up the screen, whilst my best friend and I, in total hysterics, attempted to spray ourselves down with the alternating boiling or freezing water spraying from mid-way up the faucet on the other side. At one point someone started shouting at my partner for perving, and he had to reassure them he knew us and was holding the screen up, not trying to take it down.

Now this may sound like a high, but a comical yet bonding bathroom situ is fine until you get sick…

Flashforward to our first trip to Essaouira. Our friends were moving there and we went for one night to see them off and returned the following day.

We moved into their previous room and were excited for this upgrade. However, the bathroom was still the same shared one…

This took on huge significance as I was laid low by my worst period in recent memory.

I remember lying on cushions messaging a friend that I had the worst cramps of my life. I had recently come off birth control pills and this was my first period in months, so I thought my body was just freaking out.

A few hours later, it transpired it was actually additionally one of the worst food poisonings of my life. Not to be topped until Nepal 2024 (story to come another time)

You know what you really don’t want in this situation at 12am in a quiet surf village where everything is shut at night? A bathroom with a dodgy flush, no toilet paper, no soap, and water spewing out the side of a hole in the faucet instead of a shower.

The next morning I hobbled over to a more expensive guesthouse where our room came with access to a spotless and functional bathroom. I left my partner behind to say goodbye and move our stuff over a couple of journeys. I didn’t go outside again for the next 24 hours.

Weaver fish incident

Up early to enjoy uncrowded waves, it all felt very epic. Just us, the cliffs, the mist. But an epic adventure spot shape-shifts rapidly when something goes wrong. There was no one in sight when my partner yelped that he had trodden on glass.

We couldn’t see any blood, so decided to keep surfing. However soon he was stumbling out of the water looking extremely pale. I propped him up against a rock as he lost the ability to speak. I kept looking at his foot from all different angles whilst helpfully commenting but I can’t see anything?!

I saw a local approaching, the sole other person on the beach. ‘Ah, weaver fish’, he said sagely. ‘You need hot water’.

My partner at this point was sprawled out making feeble moans. I took one more look at him and sprinted for the cliff stairs, huffing and puffing in my wetsuit.

The hipster surf lodge was the closest place open I could see. I explained I needed boiling water. I’d been to a yoga class there before. Yoga vibes: good, but as it transpired, proactive help: bad.

First, they asked me to leave because I was dripping. Then as I called from the entrance and asked for hot water, said they didn't have any. After a bit of pleading, someone eventually walked very slowly away… to return an unbelievably long amount of time later with a bucket of hot water.

On a recurring theme of highs and lows, the next time one of us stood on a weaver fish (me this time) I knew what it was so didn’t faff around and let it get so bad.

It was later in the day so I was able to go to a small cafe open next door. They couldn’t have been kinder; rapidly pulling out a seat, bringing a vat of boiling water and a pot of tea, and refusing any payment.

(Note if this happens to you, hot water ASAP is the recommended way to reduce the pain of the sting).

Ending with a whimper not a bang

Imlil

We finished our trip in Imlil, thinking it would be nice to experience a side of Morocco away from the coast.

On our first night we ate in the guesthouse. Dinner was very expensive and not good. No seasoning or herbs to be detected in our chicken tagine whatsoever.

On our second night we went out for dinner instead and our hosts made it clear what they thought about this. There was a definite sourness to our exchanges after this that made these awkward Brits feel very uncomfortable.

Keen to spend time away from their terse faces, we dug out our trainers and planned a day exploring the hills. Imlil is well known as a jumping-off point for Mount Toubkal, but also offers gentle hikes in its surroundings.

After a fair few climbs, it was a treat to drink ridiculously delicious orange juice, for which the fruits were kept cool in the adjacent stream until squeezing.

Although overcast and hazy, the nature had an almost fairy-tale feeling to it, with lush green pockets and babbling brooks. Scampering around patches of mud, on our way back down we turned a corner to the sound of bleating.

A woman was sitting on the rocks with her arms full of two of the fluffiest lambs — the kind that look like they’ve walked off a Pixar set and immediately make you regret ever being a meat eater. They squirmed to get out of her grasp and back towards some other sheep perched on rocks across a stream. What I took to be the mother bleated mournfully back at them. My thoughts drifted to the lamb tagines about to be consumed for dinner across the village.

We sat on a rock to see what would unfold. The slate sky and scrubby bushes gave the proceedings a faintly Old Testament feel. Two more women appeared on the sheep side of the stream, weighed down with huge mounds of grass on their backs. We noticed one was holding a scythe as she made her way towards the lambs. My partner grimaced and said look away. As historians, our imaginations are perhaps too quick to reach for biblical sacrifice.

It transpired that the first woman had simply carried the lambs across the stream and was waiting for the other two to arrive. She handed the lambs to their fresh arms, then recrossed to herd the rest of the animals over. It was less an Old Testament reckoning than a school riddle about getting a fox and a chicken across a river without leaving the wrong pair alone. Mother and babies were soon reunited, and we all left the scene untraumatised.

Back in the village, we passed a hole-in-the-wall serving incredible-looking flatbreads. Possibly on a post-orange-juice sugar crash, we were starving.

Our food was finally almost ready, when we watched the man pick up and flip raw meat, then pick up our orders and hand them over.

We paid. We walked round the corner. We agonized. We put them in the bin. Memories of my recent unfortunate stomach luck were too strong in our minds.

In conclusion

I don’t like it when people say oh, we loved X country, as though a country is a flavour you consume and either do or don’t like.

The more accurate thing to say is that there were a few reasons we didn’t have the best time. Some places don’t gel with you. That doesn’t make them bad. It just means it wasn’t, on that occasion, for you.

I think our experience was also not helped by the time of year (July). Away from the coast, it was very dusty, especially in Imlil. We’d missed the blooms of spring and the stunning cherry blossoms our friends had raved about. It was cold at night, hot and gritty in the day. Coming from the lushness of the Sicilian spring, and before that Sri Lanka, I was craving greens and, dare I say it, humidity.

Still, Imsouane will always hold a spot in our hearts. It’s where my partner fell back in love with surfing, and where I taught my best friend (extremely badly) to surf.

However, it would be remiss not to mention that since our visit, part of Imsouane has been demolished. I recommend reading this interview with an Imsouane local:

To my earlier point, our (lovely) time here was entirely surface-level — we never wondered what any of it was built on.

Whilst the locals knew the ground was contested, we did not. And the rising tourist interest we were a small part of may, if anything, have hastened it.

This post is from the start of our original ‘travel year’. You can explore the journey chronologically here:

If you’d like something that goes deeper into a place, that’s what I try to do in my Bali pieces:

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One of the first Substackers I connected with, , turned out to be from Bali.

Emily is Chinese-Indonesian, born and raised in Bali, and currently studying in New Zealand. Her mother is from Sulawesi, her father from Java. She sometimes gets mistaken for a tourist in the place she grew up

How would you describe growing up in Bali? What are some of your favourite memories?

Growing up ten minutes away from the beach, some of my earliest and favorite memories were by the water.

Our first-ever house had a pool, so I learned how to swim from the age of three or four. I spent a lot of time in the water, and whenever we would visit the beach I’d never pass up the opportunity to dip my toes or swim in the sea. I vividly remember being approached by another girl who was my age at the beach - she asked me if I had a boyfriend, which was an interesting question considering we were around ten at that time. I do miss how carefree and unserious life seemed back then…

My parents are huge foodies, and we love visiting Jimbaran, a fishing village/coastal town for its seafood. Charcoal-grilled fish, or ikan bakar, is one of my favorites, and since the restaurants are right by the beach, I often went for a quick stroll along the shore while waiting for the food and watching the sun set.

What’s a hobby or passion of yours not everyone knows about?

I consider myself an archivist for my library of memories - I make new ones through traveling, collect trinkets and ephemera like receipts and postcards along the way, and document them in my journal, a hobby of almost a decade. I had a treasured collection of brochures from tourist destinations and local brands throughout Bali when I was around ten years old (which I unfortunately lost). I’m also a huge advocate for the analog movement, whether it be through sending mail to my penpals, film photography (#filmphotographyisnotdead), or slowly growing my CD collection.

Most recently, I’ve been into beachcombing and gathering seaglass and shells from the beaches I frequent. I have a wishlist of things I want to find, some of them being sea china and mermaid’s purses (shark egg cases). I just ticked one off my list a few weeks ago, a beautiful scallop shell from a beach in Auckland. In my next life, I think I would be a crow or some type of bird, because (1) I get to gather a variety of things and (2) I can fly anywhere I want and visit remote places easily.

You’ve mentioned the academic pressure of a Chinese-Indonesian upbringing. What was that like?

My educational background is a privilege that I recognize and am grateful for. It speaks to a belief many Chinese-Indonesian parents hold, that instilling a sense of global citizenship in their children and excelling academically to prepare them to study abroad will give them a ‘better life’. I recall doing extra classes after school and extracurricular activities like ballet, which my mom has always pushed on so I can get admitted to a ‘good’ university’, which in turn will land me a ‘good’ job. Studying was essentially a 9 to 5 back then so I didn’t have much of a social life, and by the first year of university I was suffering from burnout and depression, something I’m sure children of ‘tiger parents’ can relate to. Was it all worth it to be here now is a question I ask myself sometimes.

Can you tell me about a specific place you’ve lost to tourism? You wrote about this beautifully in this post

In its place was concrete. It became a villa. Weeks, months, and years went by, and patches of green soon became brick and mortar. Today, the area I lived in is packed with tourist accommodation and villas, and no longer does greenery exist.

I had a favorite beach in south Bali, near a cliff, which you could only reach by what seemed like an endless flight of stairs.

I remember spending a particularly peaceful day there in 2020, when the pandemic just hit, with no one in sight and listening to my music while watching the sun set. The beach was usually quiet to begin with save for a few fishermen, but there was nobody in sight that day.

When I returned home for the holidays a few years ago, I found out a beach club had opened on the cliff.

When these things happen I can’t help but feel like I’m being stolen from, although I don’t know if I ever had the privilege of calling that place mine, and I cannot imagine what the local fishermen felt. From what I know, they are now unable to fish there.

You’ve said you sometimes get mistaken for a tourist in Bali. Can you tell me more?

Bali has always had an expat community from what I remember, but it always felt jarring when my family would eat at a restaurant and we were the only Indonesians, or Asians, there. Since I don’t look too Indonesian myself, I sometimes get mistaken for a tourist at shopping malls or supermarkets and feel guilty when letting them know that I in fact cannot speak Mandarin.

Guilty towards whom?

I'd feel guilty to the person who assumed I was Chinese, mostly because I'm a severe people pleaser and would feel awful if I were in their position and were told that an assumption they held was in fact untrue. Although it happens frequently, even to this day in New Zealand, I still get surprised.

As a Chinese-Indonesian, have you ever faced discrimination? Were your parents caught up in the anti-Chinese violence in Indonesia’s recent history?

Previously, I’d often feel like the odd one out in a setting where I’m the only Chinese-Indonesian (sometimes I pay too much attention to details and can be too attentive) but I’ve never been discriminated against. The people in Bali are very hospitable and kind. I’m also grateful my family have never been impacted by the recent anti-Chinese violence, but I know of many who have been.

I can empathise with this sense of hypervigilance in certain settings. Could you elaborate about what kind of settings you would feel this in? What are you noticing or looking for?

Back then, I'd often do remote internships or volunteering for Indonesia-based NGOs, and sometimes I'd be the only Chinese-Indonesian present in the meetings. In the back of my mind I expected them to treat me differently (whether negatively or positively), but I'm happy to say that it's never happened.

It might be surprising, but my first encounter with discrimination was actually in New Zealand, a few months after I arrived.

I’m sorry that happened. Could you expand?

I was visiting a beach with my friend and a boy (who looked to be around 10 years old) started saying random Chinese words in a mocking way. Granted, he was very young, but the fact that he assumed we were Chinese and mocked the language itself bothered me. The next time it happened I was in a supermarket and a high schooler came up to me and said hello to me in Chinese while grinning. It was clear he thought it was a joke, and I find it disrespectful when I have someone assume my nationality just because I look East Asian.

So being assumed Chinese in Bali felt fine, but not in New Zealand.

The tone has a great deal to do with it. When I was assumed Chinese in Bali, it was mostly Chinese tourists asking me a genuine question in Mandarin. In New Zealand, they made fun of the language they assumed I spoke.

***

What are your hopes for the future of Bali?

To say I wish tourists could go away is selfish because it has created over three million jobs and accounts for half of the economy. Many families and communities would be nothing without tourism, and my parents’ businesses today would not be as successful without it.

There is no denying that Indonesia is a corrupt country. The government, instead of turning a blind eye, needs to take immediate action to treat the environmental degradation happening on the island. Individuals and NGOs can only do so much without official government support, but in the meantime, I hope that people visiting the island can support those fighting for a better Bali - Sungai Watch is a great example!

I’ve been following the Nadiem Anwar Makarim case.1 How do you feel about it?

I feel like I lose more faith in my country when I read about news like the Nadiem Makarim case, and this one hits especially hard for Indonesians because the platform he founded (Gojek) has created millions of jobs for the country and undoubtedly contributed significantly to our economy. My peers and I feel like corruption is getting worse.

How close do you feel to Balinese culture and religion as someone who has grown up here but has a different religious background and parents from other parts of Indonesia?

Sometimes I definitely feel like an outsider because I don’t speak Balinese and I’m not Hindu, but what I love most about Bali is the diversity and the fact that I can still meet and befriend anyone from around the world who calls this island home and make them feel welcome, as well as feel welcomed.

In other words, although sometimes I don’t deeply resonate with traditional Balinese culture and religion, it will always be the place I regard home.

Aside from the fact that it’s where I was born and spent my formative years, I do believe Bali has shaped my identity, from my almost spiritual connection to nature, especially the sea, to my love for travel. It’s inspired me to pursue a path in sustainable tourism as I’ve witnessed firsthand how it impacted my home, and I genuinely feel protective of this island and want to help it thrive for generations to come.

After living abroad for a little while and flying back to Bali, a small moment I appreciate is when the plane lands and the pilot welcomes those who call the island home, because to me, it really is home.

***

Read Emily’s words on Bali here:

a little digital snail mail

the truth about living in a coastal town

Growing up, I’ve never realized the privilege that is living by the beach. And now, although I am thousands of miles away from home, I still reside in a coastal town. My mother recounts memories of me almost falling into the pool before I could barely walk. Before I could talk, I knew how the warm ocean breeze felt against my skin, and before the lockdo…

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8 months ago · 47 likes · 36 comments · emily 🐚

This was the first in BALI, BY PEOPLE ACTUALLY FROM HERE, a series of interviews with people from the island. Next in this series will be an interview with Made, in her 60s, who left school as a girl to work in the rice fields and now helps run an Airbnb.

If you enjoyed this, a like or restack goes a long way.

More on Bali:

A few days earlier my partner and I had arrived in Lisbon separately, reuniting in an Airbnb where we did the thing burnt-out Londoners are contractually obliged to do there: immediately told each other we could live here. Still early in our year out, the eternal allure of finding somewhere different and making it work was always on the corners of our minds. This was before Bali lured us in, and Portugal was an obvious candidate.

Obviously a couple of weeks in Portugal was never going to answer this. Especially when the plan was surfing and not spending money, with community engagement filed under things we hoped for but had not organised.

I’d chosen the surf house on the unromantic basis that it had availability, was in budget, and had good, if few, reviews. Several guests had raved about how warm the couple running the place were. I do remember thinking, great, we’ll meet some lovely Portuguese people. This was the first of several misreadings.

The first sign came on the first morning. We hadn’t slept much, struggling with no AC and no fan. I messaged politely to ask if a fan might be possible. The reply was very long. It explained, first, the owner’s genuine shock that we needed one, as no previous guest had ever required such a thing. It went on to confirm that, because guest happiness was so important to them, they would go and buy one. And, generously, they would not be charging us for it.

The wife (the sender of the text) got over her dismay at my presumptuous request quickly enough. She loved to chat. She soon took me into her confidence, which mostly meant complaining to me at length.

I heard a lot. About the difficulty of finding staff who would clean to her standard. About millennials, who didn’t work hard and just wanted to travel. (Her clientele, almost without exception, were travelling millennials.) About guests who asked ridiculous questions. Like what? I asked. Like how to get the bus from the airport.

I had a shoulder injury and we had progressed past the point of being happy to flail in white water for €50 a session when the conditions were terrible. I also just like my own time. A mediocre surf followed by hours stranded in the court of our hosts on the beach, waiting for one of them to be inclined to drive home, was not it.

I was far more excited to make the most of the local Lidl’s fresh fish counter (seriously, it was insane) and cook. As a backpacker who loves to nest, I relished having a nice kitchen to myself in the middle of the day when everyone else was out.

One day as she chatted at me in the kitchen, she said how she hated when people stayed at the house and didn’t take surf lessons.

The surf house’s business model, it transpired, was built on guests booking lessons on top of the room. I suggested if that was a big problem, had she considered direct bookings only, and removing them from booking.com?

We were not the only target. A german guest was recovering from long covid and was also opting out of surf lessons. One night the hosts invited us out for dinner, where they talked at length about how he must be staying in his room as he had no social skills.

Then there was the car. We were shouted at for almost sitting down on the seats in wetsuits. Apparently the surf camp’s car could not, under any circumstances, get wet.

It felt like being children on holiday with our friends’ parents who didn’t much like us. Which was, in fairness, very funny — albeit not what we had in mind, having already pissed off our own parents by embarking on a year out in the first place.

The question I was left with was: how were they pulling an 8.5+ review score on Booking.com? With plenty of time on my hands, I read the reviews again.

Arguably what the reviews had actually been documenting was a kind of mild cult. Guests who were enthusiastic and pliant were rewarded with warmth and inclusion. The implicit deal was that you were so lucky to be on holiday with them. But don’t step out of line. The few negative reviews had each received a long, withering reply, picking the guest apart line by line.

I should mention: the couple running the place were British. The kind of British who don’t especially seem to love being abroad. They hadn’t learned Portuguese. They complained about the locals constantly. None of which we had clocked when we booked.

We had some time free at the end of our trip. We found a Portuguese woman running a few rooms out of her family home nearby and moved there instead. She was great.

She told us that our previous hosts had complained that she had stolen their name. The name being “[location] Surf Lodge,” and hers being “[her name] Surf Lodge.” It fitted entirely with our experience of them.

On the beach for our final few days we kept our heads down, lest they spot us. And soon we were off back to Lisbon, nipping home via a wedding in Prague before flying to Bali.

Sometimes I still check their reviews from the other side of the world, hoping for a bad one — just to watch the reply tear the guest to shreds.

-

This is obviously not a serious piece on Portugal. For that, read this interview between and :

unpacked by fialka

deinfluencing portugal with aneta

The digital nomad lifestyle has become one of the defining aspirations of the early 21st century, replacing the American Dream for many: earn first-world money through a laptop and spend it sipping cocktails by the beach in a lower-income country. Life couldn’t get much better than that, hey…

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6 months ago · 43 likes · 24 comments · fialka 🌸 unpacked and aneta • ejnets

This post is from the start of our original ‘travel year’. You can explore the journey chronologically here:

If you enjoyed this, a like or restack goes a long way.

My main concern before the trip, was the toilet situation. Indonesian friends had recommended Le Pirate, the only boat provider that is generator free. Six double tented mattresses accessed by ladder from the deck. 12 of us, 1 toilet, 4 days.

It appealed to a sense of adventure and romance; waking to silence and not the churn of a generator pumping out pollution into the azure waters. I also liked how it was the only small group boat to offer a 3 night itinerary, allowing flexibility to visit sites outside of the busiest times.

Yet, the toilet (singular) worried me. With the pressure of friends visiting from across the world, I came out of travel planning retirement and looked at almost every single other option. In the end I had to accept the fact that my 3 travel companions were not at all worried about the toilet, and returned to the start to book Le Pirate.

The trip was blissful. Freed from the allure of private cabins with AC, as a group we bonded over moving between sun and shade and card games around watery excursions. We swam and snorkeled in unbelievably beautiful locations, dolphins frequently joining the boat as we sought out new spots.

I was first to wake each morning, naturally at the first glimpses of sunrise. Enjoying both the light and empty bathroom in peace.

We climbed Padar Island’s view point in the late afternoon, deliberately, to avoid the sunset crowds. There was one other group on the ascent, who by unspoken agreement, we overtook.

From the top we watched the light go gold over the three bays. Somewhere out there I knew Komodo dragons were roaming.

In twos and threes we were called forward by our guide to take the requisite photo, whilst others took the chance to stand under the small patch of shade cast by a spindly tree. I wish we could have stayed longer, but soon the first of the sunset photo seekers were approaching the final steps, and the air of the bay was rippling with boats pulling in.

On the way down we passed the army coming up: hundreds of tourists, many very young, very naked, and very sunburnt. Several were complaining loudly in inadequate shoes barely five minutes into the climb.

As we passed them huffing and puffing, it was hard not to feel superior.

The next day we went to see the dragons.

As I clambered onto the dock of Komodo Island from our wildly rocking boat under the harsh midday light, I felt a flutter of excitement. I braced for a sweaty hike and followed our guide into the park.

The trek, advertised as forty to fifty minutes, took fifteen. We saw three dragons in seven minutes, all of them inanimate. They looked like slumped Beanie Babies.

We were pushed out of the way by other tourists wanting a selfie. A friend googled whether the dragons were drugged. The fuller story, which is more mundane but still troubling, is in my Geographical piece.

I left the exprience feeling uncomfortable. But soon we were back on the boat, cold beers in hand and launching into card-based grudge battles of increasing silliness.

The next morning, first to rise again watching an empty bay and the jurassic peaks behind it, I started to pick at what I had felt.

I first read about Komodo and its dragons in The Ring of Fire: An Indonesian Odyssey. A book I recommend to anyone interested in Indonesia, travel, or just storytelling.

I was not expecting hours trekking along a path that a European Baron had recently vanished from. Nor to fear for my life like Lawrence and his brother did at moments, as the dragons stalked them, tongues tasting the air, salivating. But I had hoped for something more than fifteen minutes and a queue of selfies.

I was looking for an experience just authentic enough for me to be comfortable whilst still feeling like an intrepid yet conscientious tourist.

I judge those seeking their perfect Instagram shot. I sniff at people describing Balinese cuisine as smoothie bowls and nasi goreng. I roll my eyes at girls trekking in a full face of makeup. I curate my own experiences to be the nice blend of the adventure and comfort I know I enjoy, and reel off the Indonesian islands I’ve visited (Sulawesi, the Bandas, Rote…) knowing it looks a certain way.

As I watched the boat crew start laying the table for breakfast from my bean bag, I had one of those am I the asshole? moments.

Komodo National Park offers one experience to all of its visitors. No matter how thoughtful your boat, no matter your views on animal interactions, you are escorted along the same path. You will all, inevitably, start snapping away on your phone. I had assumed I could engineer a wildlife encounter that matched my sensibilities. The park doesn’t work that way.

On our boat was a Belgian couple.

They told us about their previous week, which they had spent trekking in the impenetrable jungles of Kalimantan. Their guides had used machetes to clear the path, to cook, and to remove leeches. They had carried as much water as they could and boiled the rest from the river. Eaten rice steamed in bamboo leaves over a fire, caught crabs, and made camp on the forest floor.

I admired them enormously.

Would I do it? Never.

Would I have been up for trekking longer to catch only a glimpse, perhaps, of a Komodo dragon that had not been lured into my presence? Probably.

The line I had drawn between myself and the sunburnt tourists coming up Padar was the same line the Belgian couple could have drawn between themselves and me. The only difference was where each of us happened to stand on it.

If you enjoyed this, a like or restack goes a long way.

I remember standing on the rocks outside St Ives, screaming into the wind.

This is not it. We cannot live our whole lives in a corporate bubble in London. There is so much more.

Reader, I got more. And whilst the leaving was hard, it had a clear momentum. Now I'm stalled.

At 21 I was on a corporate grad scheme and within the first year moved sideways into tech. I did a medium to excellent job. I loved it in many ways. After being recently cut off from most of my family, I was in dire need of stability and approval.

Yet when I looked at those around me, especially the women 10 years ahead, not one part of me thought, oo exciting, that’s what I want.

Women in senior roles who were incredible, inspiring, supportive. And exhausted. Some worked part-time, but all this meant was the same work for less pay.

As my 20s wore on, my disillusionment grew.

I did the start-up thing. Played ping pong with my developers. Got asked by my founder if I was “utterly fucking useless” in front of clients.

I was desperate to leave. But I had a parent who told me if I left them, they would die. I’m brushing over a big separate subject. What’s relevant here is that I had a very large stake pinning me to the ground: I knew what I wanted, but I couldn’t have it.

Then covid happened, coinciding with the escalating behaviour of this parent.

A year later saw me hit a rock-bottom that ironically freed me. It gave me permission to put myself first. Getting away was now a necessity.

By now, my partner, burnt out from corporate law, had a new job as an in-house lawyer. For him this was enough escape.

But I needed to move worlds entirely, not just sideways.

Cue standing across from each other on the rocks by St Ives.

In the end, we compromised. We delayed until he could get a 1 year sabbatical lined up, providing the reassurance of a return path.

Finally in May 2022, we left.

Slowly I thought new thoughts. Absorbed my luck and processed everything I had experienced to date.

Slowly, and then with a gathering pace, a new set of possibilities drifted in.

And now? Time has skipped happily on by in waves of trips home to spend time with loved ones balanced with building a new home on the other side of the world.

But it comes with its own sort of paralysis.

Before I was desperate to try something new, anything to pull me out of my less than happy state.

Now I have the opposite. I’m considering big life decisions, against a backdrop of being happier than I’ve ever been.

I have so much more to lose.

Before I felt brave; on a mission, exploring, learning. I had myself a nice little victim-on-the-mend narrative.

Now I worry I’ve become selfish, cowardly. I imagine myself as a satisfied cat unwilling to give up the sunny spot on the windowsill.

I’ve been thinking about what struggle means. So much of how we’re raised under capitalism is built around it: you do things because they are expected, they are hard (because that’s expected), but the pay-off is always at the end of the rainbow.

My biggest decisions to date have also come in times of crisis. A giant push, a clear direction.

But what about now, when things are a calm shimmering lake? No rainbow to chase, no crises to flee. How do we persuade ourselves to invite in change?

I’m trying to think about future perspectives. How would I describe myself in 10 years time. What would I have regretted? What would I be proud of?

So far I can look back and see my decisions as brave ones.

I think I want to keep this. I may need to get off the windowsill.

Related reads

’s recent piece on the often messy aftermath of leaving the 9-5 very much landed with me. She’s 2 years in, versus my 4, and while you can think of hers as the before and this post as the after, much of her’s still resonates.

It also led me to ’s post on the law of least regret, which arrived on a perfect day of existential crises. Recommended.

If you enjoyed this, a like or restack goes a long way.

Our first base was Trapani.

We had turbulent weather the first days, easing us into our travels with a taste of typical English spring.

My partner was valiantly dealing with last-minute issues for our recently packed up home. I was stupendously unhelpful, citing my recovery from my (first!) bout of Covid as an excuse to watch Bridgerton (Season 1!) whilst he ploughed on with electrical certificates and invoices.

It feels like a completely different time.

And as we settled into our long awaited adventure, the Sicilian spring unfolded around us.

Trapani

Trapani extends out in a narrow curve with the Tyrrhenian sea on one side and the African portion of the Mediterranean on the other, whilst Monte Erice looms behind. Its ancient history, like so many places in this corner of the med, is steeped in legends. The first inhabitants said they were survivors from Troy, and Demeter is said to have dropped her sickle here whilst searching for Persephone. Later came battles between Carthage and Rome.

Our Airbnb was a perfectly small studio in a residential block. On our first night we ordered pizza from round the corner and ate it on the roof with the mountains and sea either side and sounds of the city below.

It also provided bikes, and it was an easy cycle to the center to explore the old Baroque quarter, which was much more laid-back than the often overwhelming Palermo. On our first expeditions we explored the blustery promenade and ducked into grocery stores. I kept a cashmere beanie firmly pulled down around my ears and grumbled about missing Sri Lanka.

These first few days we were happy to wander, rest up and plan. And eat, of course.

Closer to Tunisia than mainland Italy, Trapani’s food has strong north African influences. Alongside enjoying cooking with local produce, including making the curries I was badly missing with coconut milk brought from London, we made sure to try a few of the local specialities.

Pesto Alla Trapanese, made with tomatoes and almonds, was moreish and delicious.

Couscous alla Trapanese, a seafood version of a meat tagine, was punchy and unctuous.

Segesta Temple and Amphitheatre

Our first excursion was Segesta, an easy twenty minutes drive. The wind whistled down the street as I pulled a jumper on and tried to remember where we parked the car.

By then our tiny rental we had driven from Palermo had been sitting idle for a few days. What ensued was half an hour trying to persuade it to start. We were convinced the battery had magically died in the intervening period. After asking passersby for jump-leads and several stopping to take a look, it transpired we just had the car in the wrong setting; it needed to be in ‘neutral’ to start despite the fact it was an automatic. Feeling like idiots we set off.

We were the only visitors there, and I loved how the surroundings were full of wild flowers and thistles, and not the groomed lawns you might expect at a major site. The flowers were bright against the overcast sky, which felt heavy. I blamed covid recovery for the dense feeling in my legs as I grumbled my partner was walking too fast.

I struggled to take it in; we were really here, our feet before something built 2500 years ago, on this trip I’d dreamed about through uncounted nights.

The backdrop of farming fields that along with the heather could have been out of the English countryside, added to the dislocation.

Lo Zingero National Park

Our next trip took us further afield to Lo Zingero National Park.

Maybe it was the clear blue skies, but this day I felt charged up and ready to go. Suddenly it felt like I could be back in the tropics, the park being blindingly green in places and speckled with large palms.

We hiked for an hour along the cliffs before we decided to cool off and relax, scampering down to the waters and enjoying an admittedly cold dip. Most of the coves are accessible only by hiking trail, so there’s a sense of happy comradery amongst those you spot also cooling hot feet in the bright waters.

On the way home we stopped for snacks in the village of Scopello. There was a fee to enter the well-known beach and Tonnara area, so instead we ambled around the hills behind it. We had a great view regardless.

Here the landscape was full of flowers and diving swallows. It reminded me more of the Alps in the spring than the southern med. I had an uncontrollable urge to frolic.

We ended the day with a home-cooked dinner of roasted romanesco cauliflower and courgettes with mint we had picked on our walk, feeling rather pleased with ourselves.

Erice

This day started with a cycle across town to the funicular which we then took up to the ancient hilltop town of Erice. After a confusing interaction with an old man at the spot we tried to chain our bikes to, we realised this was perhaps our first brush with the local ‘Mafia’ and coughed up some cash for him to ‘watch’ our bikes.

The air was cooler and we could see the shapes of the Egadi islands in the distance. On clear days you can see from here to Africa.

Erice reminded us of Sintra in Portugal, albeit less overtly colourful. It was fairly busy with visitors ducking in and out of the artisan shops and cafes lining its twisting streets. However the backstreets were very quiet with not many signs of life, and I wondered how many people lived here year round.

It felt a little like a quaint theme-park ride.

A ride with delicious food.

We had arancino with aubergine, tomato and salted ricotta in the middle. One of us struggled with the advice to wait 5 minutes until it cooled before eating, and may have burnt himself. He was consoled with a Sicilian special gelato of almond, pistachio cream and lemon zest served straight out of the ice cream churner.

This was an especially good day for eating. Once we returned to Trapani we went for dinner at Caupona Taverna di Sicilia. Here my partner had what he still calls one of the best pastas of his life: spaghetti with raw red prawns (a famous Sicilian export) and basil cream, chilli, garlic and parsley.

This day felt like a quintessential European city break; cobbled streets, castles, and a trattoria with plenty of wine to finish. Though the cool mountain air and steep alleys were reminiscent of our time to come in the Andes.

The road to Agrigento

Heading south from Trapani, the landscape spun out hotter and flatter. We drove past miles of salt pans, glinting in the sun.

Our destination was Agrigento, a hilltop city next to the Valley of the Temples.

The sky seemed to broaden and from the painted walls of Agrigento to the dust of the temples, oranges and yellows took over.

The Valley of the Temples is a Unesco world heritage site, and Sicily’s best example of Hellenic architecture. It was impressive, albeit hot, busy and dusty, even in May.

But my draw to this area was more that Agrigento is the jumping off point for a spot that I was determined to visit - the Turkish Steps.

The Turkish Steps are stark white. But the texture, made up of folds of marl, is smooth and soft. A short drive the other direction from the Valley of Temples, there were no tour groups or signposted paths — just confusing local advice and the Turkish Steps shining across the water at us, locals picking their way down while we tried to figure out how to join them.

This was the first time on our trip I felt sheer wonder at something unearthly beautiful. I actually wrote one of my first ever substack posts about the experience:

Looking back now, the colours of the Atacama desert, where we found ourselves almost a year later, registered on a similar note — all those dusty horizons interspersed with brilliantly coloured geological formations, although on a far greater scale.

Onwards to the rest of Sicily

We next left the west coast and drove through the island’s center to drop the car at Catania. No-one has taken more photos of a battered car than my partner. After hours obsessing on reddit threads of people having issues with Sicilian car rentals, he had documented every square inch of our tiny vehicle.

Victory was ours and we got our full deposit back.

We then used public transport to explore the more touristy and connected east coast. Ortigia and Noto were incredibly stunning, and felt more stereotypically Italian summer to me, no doubt aided by the month of May growing hotter and busier.

Our final stop in Sicily was the Aeolian Islands; volcanic, dark sands, empty roads to scooter around. Perhaps a premonition of moving to Bali.

But I adored this start in Trapani and the west coast. A working port city and two people freshly not working and starting a new chapter.

Read about our experience on Salina, the greenest of the Aeolians, here:

This post is from the start of our original ‘travel year’. You can explore the journey chronologically here:

Interested in Sicilian food?

Useful links:

• I love the Along Dusty Roads travel blog, and their Sicily content was a big help for this trip

• The airbnb we stayed in in Trapani

• A great non fiction book on Sicily: Midnight in Sicily. It tracks the exploitation of Sicily as a grain basket and frames the Mafia as a refuge from the worst abuses of successive uncaring rulers.

• A great fiction book on Sicily: The Leopard charts the final throes of feudalism

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Pangrati scratched this itch.

A centrally located yet largely residential Athens neighbourhood, it seemed to me to be made up of a series of wide tree-lined streets and intersecting squares with bistros on each corner. It’s the kind of place where people leave their bags and phones out on their tables whilst they chat to cafe owners.

Arriving at night, the street still had that hot tarmac smell that always reminds me of European summer. The key was in a lock box tied to a tree outside the building, which we could barely turn the numbers on to open. Once in we walked past the obligatory ancient tiny elevator to get to our flat.

The next day as I pulled my shoes on and stepped outside the light twinkled through tall trees and the pavement ran ahead invitingly.

We picked our way past dog walkers, fruit market stalls, and a surprising number of pharmacies. The first square we came to looked promising, but as we began to choose a spot, a construction team started digging on the far side.

With a Cafe Freddo and both my partner and brother’s pre-disposition to needing constant food on my mind, I suggested we head the direction of Ohh Boy bistro, a cafe I had read good reviews of.

We squeezed into the sharing table for breakfast, amidst local families expertly manoeuvring prams alongside seats.

Then with bellies full and the sun still gentle in the sky, we agreed we were suitably fortified to make it to the other side of the neighbourhood, to the Panathenaic Stadium.

The site of the first modern Olympic Games, it’s ringed with pine trees and not much else. It felt very epic without having to scale anything or venture very far. It also offered us our first glimpse of the Acropolis across the city.

I know this is hardly the most original observation, but to live in sight of such a treasure of ancient civilisation blows my mind.

In need of shade, we next headed back to central Pangrati with its plethora of independent shops to check out, such as Lexikopoleio. Books in multiple languages were piled high around armchairs, and there were cats, of course.

After a few hours moving between cafes, book stores and bakeries, the group parted ways ready to reconvene at the Acropolis.

I wish I could tell you we effortlessly mastered public transport to do so, but, convenience and the thought of shepherding my 65+ year old father led to Ubers being ordered instead.

15 minutes later, we were at the bottom of the Acropolis. The sun, approaching 4pm in September, was still bright in our eyes. Here we joined the masses of tourists and the excited buzz. We did some subtle repackaging of our belongings as the large piece of carrot cake my father had taken away from an earlier cafe was swinging in a paper bag off his arms right in front of the no food allowed sign.

I’d visited before aged 15 on a school trip. Nonetheless I got a huge thrill to see the site again. Probably now more so than before, as my head is less full of obsessing over crushes and facebook likes.

It was busy, people were jostling for photos. So did we. Family trips being a rarity these days, I was determined to get mementos.

I also shocked everyone, myself included, by remembering the difference between Ionic and Doric columns, dredged up from my school trip. Now if only I had retained some more useful maths skills…

After circling the Parthenon1 a few times, we decided we had sufficiently soaked it all in.

Minds on our dinner reservation, we descended and walked along Dionysiou Areopagitou street, enjoying the different view it provided and the gorgeous buildings along it.

The group ended up deciding to walk the remaining way back to Pangrati for dinner. I was sceptical, concerned about hanger and fatigue descending, not least for my father who is not known for his physical prowess.

However after navigating some less than pleasant road crossings, we were soon passing through the very pleasant National Garden park. Our path took us by Zappeion Hall, where there was an event with live music. Various family members ventured inside, but my instincts as eldest daughter, eldest grandchild, and general group herder kept everyone pushing on. Another 15 minutes of walking later, we reached our dinner spot.

We sank into chairs at Aswotos just as the last light finished outside.

Dinner was truly delicious. Fancy enough to feel special, not too fancy as to feel pretentious or break the budget. Possibly the best taramasalata of my life.

My brother had been recommended Aswotos by a chef friend of his. A wonderful antidote to my increasing travel planning blues. More on that here:

We walked back to the apartment, foot-sore and happy. The buzz of Pangrati’s low-key nightlife was a pleasing backdrop, but was not enough to tempt us. After walking a fair few miles and consuming mountains of Greek food, it was time for bed.

We'd managed to see one of the wonders of the world2, successfully complete some aimless wandering, and no one had had an argument. A family day well spent.

Next we headed to Andros, which I wrote about here:

Have you been to Athens? What were your favourite spots?

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I’ve been putting off writing about the trash problem in Bali, because honestly it depresses me. But with content about the closure of Suwung dump flooding my feeds, it’s time to toughen up and give it a go.

It’s tempting to link over-tourism to the trash problem. Others like to blame Java (especially the Balinese). Or just Indonesians generally for chucking or burning trash in the street.

But reality is seldom simple.

At a local level

Firstly, there is no free government trash service. Local banjars (village councils) offer services that you pay for. How that trash is handled depends, but it’s safe to say most pick-up are mixed material and go to a landfill.

As a foreigner in a small house, I pay my banjar approx £5 a month. I also pay separate organizations for recycling and composting pick ups. For the majority of locals this cost is not feasible or a priority.

Historically, a mixture of burning and composting has been used. This was a far better solution before plastic became a core component of the waste. It’s common to see someone sweeping up street-side trash into a pile they set alight.

An alternative is chucking the rubbish in a waterway. This is why after big rains the beaches are so dirty - all that trash gets washed down to the shores.

And plastic is ubiquitous. It’s a wrapper for convenience. Rising living costs are well documented. A 6 day work week is typical, and many women on top of this rise hours before their families to prep meals and offerings. The ease of warung takeout food (nearly always in multiple layers of non-recyclable packaging, including sambal in its own tiny bag) is an affordable relief.

Something I can’t get my head around is the sheer layers of packaging. For example, if you order groceries from Gojek, it’s not uncommon for each item to come in their own plastic bag, inside another plastic bag, which as been taped shut. This is then inside one final plastic bag.

So far, easy to get grumpy at the locals, right?

But.

The volume consideration

Bali’s population is <4.4 million. Foreign arrivals in 2024 were 6.3 million. Domestic arrivals were 10 million. Early reports on 2025’s final tally are higher still.

So the volume of consumption in Bali by visitors is far higher than its locals, even if locals are far more likely to throw out a little plastic cup (these are my nemesis) compared to your average tourist feeling good about their stainless steel water bottle.

In addition, monsoon tides bring in huge flows from Java and other islands. This is documented and valiantly tackled each year by organizations like Sungai Watch.

Tourism and optics

Whilst tourism contributes hugely to the strain, arguably it should have some redeeming points.

If anything, Bali’s tourist income should be an incentive and enabler to fund trash management.

Touristy areas are often more likely to be clean with rigorous collection in place. For example, Sanur’s beachfront is kept meticulous.

Yet, even if that trash is picked up, the question of where it goes, remains.

And as of April 2026, this just got a whole lot more complicated.

The busiest tourist regency of Bali, Badung, is now facing a serious waste crises. Its main dump, Suwung, is full.

This situation has been unfolding since the summer, when the governor first announced it needed to close and it started turning away unsorted trash.

In rainy season when we drove to the east coast to surf, we would drive past queues of trucks waiting to see if they would be allowed to dump some trash that day.

Just along the coast is the polished 5* hotels complex of Nusa Dua.

Last summer a friend was staying in a hotel there and could not work out why his asthmatic son was having a flare up. I didn’t know whether I should mention the fact the dump was partly on fire and no doubt whilst the sea was beautiful and the coconuts fresh, the air was ladened with pollutants.

The solution is a long way off

The long-term plan is a new PSEL (waste to energy plant), Indonesia’s first outside of Java. The government has said it will be operational in 2028, but based on talking to someone who has worked on similar projects in the UK and a quick google, this is likely a fraction of the time it will actually take.

The cost of the Bali PSEL plant isn’t published, but it will be funded by the central Indonesian state, not out of Bali’s regional budget.

A similar 1,000 tonnes per day facility in Palembang cost approximately $300 million. The Bali plant goal is similar so one might assume a relatively similar cost.

Bali collected $19.2 million from its tourist levy in 2024. At that rate it would take roughly 15-18 years of the entire tourist levy to fund a single waste-to-energy plant, if every rupiah went to that one project.

But what this means is the tourist levy money and the PSEL money are entirely separate streams.

The question of what the tourist levy is actually being spent on remains unanswered.

You might have hoped that a better interim solution, whilst the PSEL is built, could have been a good use of it.

What’s going on right now

As of April 2026, the dump has further restricted what it will accept down to a trickle, in the run up to closing completely in August 2026.

The Head of the Bali Provincial Forestry and Environment Agency, I Made Dwi Arbani, explained that the dominance of organic waste in Bali (65%) is the main driver. “This situation has the potential to produce flammable methane gas, unpleasant odors, environmental pollution due to leachate, and accelerate landfill filling.”

The dump will now only accept non-organics, requiring extensive sorting at source. But the education and infrastructure required for this is not in place.

Local news has reported on frustrated drivers being turned away because one orange peel was found in their trash.

Elsewhere, whatsapp groups are full of foreigners panicking they can’t get their trash collected for their AirBnB guests.

On Instagram, locals are tagging the Bali senator on videos of the smog from the inevitable increase in burning.

I’m also wondering about the 80,000 accommodation options available in Bali. Only approx 12k of these are actually registered (another whole story).

I’m pretty sure sorting your trash is not part of the vibe of renting your Bali villa for the week. It will likely be added to the task lists of housekeeping staff.

Perhaps the only way from here is up

The closure of the dump for environmental safety reasons, and the push for communities to take an active role in management, is the right direction, however flawed the current implementation is.

Faced with their rubbish not being picked up otherwise, each household and accommodation provider will be forced to take the initiative.

Although the concern, already visible, is that instead this will lead to far more dumping and burning.

It might be about to get a lot worse before it gets better.

The government advice for Bali’s residents, in the governor’s own words is, ‘Solve it on your own.’

Private trash management companies, such as ecoBali, could have a huge potential to scale up their infrastructure. But that needs time.

Meanwhile, community led information is beginning to circulate on home composting solutions.

But I can’t help but feel it’s just a series of patchworks trying to piece together an unwieldy mess.

Anyone who has ever been in a London park after a summers day when the public bins fill up, has seen the huge amount of waste strewn everywhere.

Waste needs a centrally managed system, and talk of the new processing centre in 2028 is a good distraction from the reality right now.

However, as I grasp at straws for some optimism, I did recently for the first time see the army cleaning my local beach. Perhaps an indication that the severity of the problem is landing.

There’s a well-known stat that Balinese women spend 30% of their time preparing for or clearing up after ceremonies. A lot of the offerings are made of organics, woven from dried coconut and banana leaves. Many are amazingly intricate. Some are held together with tiny bamboo splints, but increasingly they are stapled. Imagine how much time modern metal staples have saved them? The flip side - these compostables are now no longer fully compostable.

I live in a different regency from the one affected by the Suwung closure.

Yet I must reckon with the fact that I am sure much of my waste is sitting in a different dump, somewhere, more out of sight.

Further reading? Check out these initiatives tackling the waste problem head on

Delterra / Sungai Watch /Potato Head / Joseph’s Recycling / ecoBali

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The build up is special too. Every village completes Melasti, a procession to their nearest body of water. And the night before thrums with Ogoh Ogoh parades: energetic festivals of terrifying huge twirling puppets.

Then on the day itself, utter silence. No lights. No one allowed outside. Tourists confined to their hotels. The airport closes for 24 hours.

I feel lucky to be living somewhere where the culture is so alive and powerful. This time of year crystallizes the moments of magic I feel day to day.

Yet more than ever I’ve heard the refrain: Bali is ruined.

What do we mean when we say somewhere is “ruined”?

When I first planned a trip to Indonesia, 8 years ago, we almost skipped Bali because I’d heard this so much. But an earthquake in Lombok led to a last-minute visit.

We started in Medewi and then a silent retreat on the slopes of Batu Karu. From there we went to Ubud, where yes, I had smoothie bowls. Then before flying to Timor, we spent 24 hours in Seminyak.

Seminyak’s wall to wall shops, beach beanbags and dresses matching neon cocktails shocked me. But I still loved Bali immediately. I understood I had experienced different sides to it.

~

Some of the old hands I meet who were first here decades ago say it was already too late back then.

I have more time for them compared to the digital nomads and content creators. They have come to consume exactly what, once there is too much of it, leads them to declare the place ruined. It’s all about Thailand now, they will say, or for surfers, the Phillipines.

But what place in the world is exactly as it was?

And when we say it’s ruined, what do we mean? Ruined for who?

My sympathy is with the Balinese, who have seen rapid change largely outside of their control. But they are not the voices in media using overtourism as the latest headline, or posting TikToks with millions of views declaring Bali is done.

We all have an ideal image that suits us, based perhaps on a previous visit, or an aspired trip aesthetic, that we demand a place complies with.

Theres a type of comment that always gets my hackles up. How before was perfect, the locals wandered around topless, it was so cheap, so authentic.

What this is actually describing is a place that fits a certain colonial fantasy of paradise — untouched, affordable, available.

But I’d suggest that the Balinese of today would rather be thought of as people living and working in the modern world as best they can, not as the picturesque inhabitants of someone else’s nostalgia.

Don’t write off a whole island, with one of the most distinctive cultures in the world, because you heard it’s busy and polluted.

Bali does not exist solely for you to project your holidays goals onto. But it does want your money. It does want you to stay.

If you are all about that Canggu vibe, go to Canggu*, just don’t complain about the traffic and lack of rice fields.

*or go to Ahangama, as touched on here →

Bali is neither an untouched paradise nor a ruined influencer trap.

And I think what pains me the most is a willingness to judge a place and move on. Hop to somewhere at an earlier stage of the same journey, that suits you better, for now.

Kuta, Lombok has recently been touted as the ‘next Bali’. This year fast, poor quality development there contributed to some of its worst flooding ever.

I have my own fears and frustrations, as I watch another development go up. Or as I watch my lovely Indonesian neighbour diligently clear plastic out of the local subak (rice field waterway) only to burn it whilst her grandchildren play nearby. Before friends visit, I hope for high tides that wash the trash away to become someone else’s problem for a few days.

But Bali feels like home, and I want to stay and be part of the solution, whether that’s just putting plastic I find in my street into my recycling bin, or something more in the future.

The other day I watched a Melasti procession. The offerings went into the sea. A beautiful moment. Moments later they wash back up, now as trash. Nothing is perfect, but that’s life.

Next up: the plastic problem, and why it’s not as simple as it looks.

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Many people have grandparents who are very involved. Mine were not just involved, but holding the purse strings. The epitome of golden handcuffs. And a huge thing for them, was that all their grandchildren marry in.

A few chilling emails and a horrifying meeting later, I was officially cast out.

I was transferred cash to pay for my final year of uni, and then that was it. I was told they had a moral obligation to finance my education, although refusing to henceforth say my name and taking pictures of me down was apparently fine.

I heard through the grapevine that even their more conservative friends were surprised at their actions. But I don’t think it was just about religion, but about the lies, the loss of control. As the eldest of 8 grandchildren, they were determined to make me a lesson.

I’ve written more about this here:

I was not able to go home, as it was deemed too stressful for all involved. Especially by the parent who had ratted me out, in retaliation to an unrelated argument.

So all in all it was not a great time, and I am forever grateful to those who dropped everything to support me through it.

And yet, I now think of this time as core to who I am today.

I was young and buoyed up on conviction that I would not end a relationship based on prejudice or for financial gain. Surrounded by students, studying neo-colonialism and gender history, I was becoming increasingly aware of my own privilege.

I’d wanted to go to India ever since seeing photos in one of my father’s National Geographics. The descriptions and images had burned into my imagination.

Now seemed the perfect time to go, and no-one could tell me not to.

~

We were in a tuk-tuk crash. Narrowly missed a landslide en-route to Kerala’s tea plantations. Played Pokémon around conversations with fellow passengers for hours on buses and trains from Jaisalmer down to Kochi. Danced in the rain in monsoon Goa. Clambered over ruins in Hampi, Bundi, and Chandigarh.

But what stays with me most of all, is a sense of awe and scale.

My intense hurt, my confusion over what was right and what was wrong — my lies over the years — paled in significance compared to the vastness of experience of India.

My world view got sucked up and out to look down on myself as just one tiny blob amongst a sea of billions. The views of my family just a smudge swirling around in that endless mass of people and places that make up the world.

I remember one bus journey in particular, I was in that half-dream state where thoughts can be especially vivid.

I remember a bone-mincing rage, that they could be so wrong, so mean.

As much as we think we have our principles, the pain of rejection by your family sears deep.

Principles wouldn’t help me at Christmas, when, despite the irony, the whole family would be gathering without me, as my little cousins opened presents. It was fine for them to celebrate Christmas for the kids. Their line in the sand was marriage, the mixing of blood, you see.

As I watched the surroundings go by, in and out of my eyelids fluttering, I remember it felt like those feelings were slowly leeching out the window as we rattled along.

So what?

Growing up, your family is your echo chamber. Yes we go to school and university, but so much is predefined by what’s come before.

These illusions got blasted open for me.

I was able to see my autonomy and the smallness of the world I had come from.

Almost 13 years later, I still think about that bus. That version of me would be stunned at how it all turned out.

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People started disembarking as I began to feel seriously worried.

I pressed my face to the window. I could see a few lights from low buildings and beyond them was an impenetrable darkness, the kind that’s hard to imagine if you’ve only ever lived somewhere with light pollution.

It was a few months since I’d come down with glandular fever. I was thrilled to be able to do this trip, but had been anxious about holding back my very active travel companion with my still recovering energy levels.

Perhaps to compensate, I had taken the lead with planning. And one thing I felt confident about, was sitting on a bus.

Malawi is small and slender, with most of the eastern border made up by Lake Malawi. There’s really only one main road, running parallel to this inland sea.

We had first gone south to Liwonde for a safari, and now were headed to the northernmost city, Mzuzu.

It appealed to some internal sense of efficiency, to do this stretch up to Mzuzu in one go.

My research told me it should take 12 hours. Deep in travel forums, threads warned of the unreliability of road travel in Malawi, but I was optimistic.

We only needed to get two buses. I’d found recent-ish timetables online. Our host hadn’t said it wouldn’t work, only: “None of our guests have done this route before.”

Full of the wonder of seeing my first elephants and the hugeness of skies over the savannah, I hadn’t blinked.

Waking the day of the trip, the walls of thin bamboo reeds let through starlight as we tiptoed out to begin the journey.

Our first bus dropped us at a market. The sun’s rays made the wares being laid out shimmer as we stood blinking to the side, waiting for bus number two.

When it arrived, it was already packed. The driver merrily gestured at us to sit next to him, not on seats, but on a sort of curved ledge provided by part of the engine casing.

Faces set in smiles, we settled in. My taller friend sat higher so she had longer to stretch her legs out, and I perched further down.

As we pulled away, I was pleased my plan was going well so far. Surely plenty of people would get off soon.

I’m not sure when I began to question this, with an air-conditioned car back to Lilongwe floating in my mind. Certainly within an hour we had made far more stops than kilometres covered.

I suspended disbelief as an incredible number of passengers and their possessions continued squeezing past.

We were boiling hot, not aided by our proximity to the engine. This only increased when a man placed a sack containing a chicken on my lap.

At first it squawked and looked around, then it went limp and quiet, too quiet. But my own state soon mirrored it; despite my discomfort, the hours slipped by in a sort of haze.

Regardless, some parts remain crystal clear. Namely, a cluster of dried lake fish being hung on a nail in front of my face, frequently swinging towards me like a weird, stinky pendulum. How part of my skirt melted onto the engine casing.

We took micro sips of water and nibbled snack-bars, all too aware there would be no toilet breaks. Occasional glimpses of Lake Malawi, although mostly we were sat on the wrong side, kept us excited for the trip to come.

The smell of the chicken, the fish, the fuel, and my own sweat mingled.

The sun reached overhead and then down the other side of the bus. Slowly we cooled as the earth around us did too and the occupants of the bus, and their animals, gradually reduced. The chicken’s owner retrieved them without a backwards glance. I was worried at this point it had died.

Through the orange light of the setting sun, we realised there were now empty seats at the back. We stretched out our legs in bliss. Our minds far away from the coming dark and distinct lack of progress. Having so committed to this journey, the thought that we wouldn’t eventually get there, on this bus that was literally full of blood, sweat and tears, didn’t occur.

And so, in relative comfort and in the now total darkness, we were stretched out across a row each, when the engine stopped.

Passengers got off and silence pressed in on us.

I touched the $100 stashed in my money belt for reassurance, but looking out I wasn’t sure what good it would do. There were no waiting taxis, no hotels, nothing to be seen.

We gulped as we got our phones out and started checking whether we could wrangle any reception. Every tale I’d ever heard of women stranded at night started running through my head.

We were pulled out of our impending crises by a conversation escalating at the front of the bus. A woman was gesticulating fiercely at the driver.

The conversation was happening in a mixture of local dialect and English and her meaning was unmistakable.

I’ve lost her name to time but I remember she was tall, confident and wearing a beautiful bright bandana. She owned a beauty salon in Mzuzu. And she would be getting there that night.

She then moved to leave. We ran after her, although our many cramped hours rendered this more of a hobble. Hello! I called. She was in discussion with a couple of others standing by the roadside who were tapping away on brick phones Sorry, we need to go to Mzuzu. Do you know what’s happening?

She beamed back at us, saying of course, not to worry, they would absolutely not be leaving us. As she said this she looked over my shoulder with utter disdain at the bus driver.

Soon a car pulled up and we got in with her and her friends. We shared easy conversation in their excellent English and laughed at our perceived great plan. And then, finally, came the thrill of zooming into Mzuzu.

They saw us safely deposited around midnight at our guest house. I caught a last glimmer of her smile as she waved us off.

We spent the next week hopping around the north, from mountaintop Livingstonia to the waters of Nkhata Bay. I hiked, swam, cliff-jumped, and happily squeezed between everything from sacks of grain to the ubiquitous dried lake fish in the local minibuses, khombis.

Each experience blew away a little of the lingering gloom of glandular fever. I imagined crossing Lake Malawi by ferry and journeying to the south of the continent. But work was waiting for me back home, pulling my newly restored energy towards a corporate screen instead.

I have no photos from that bus day. I had the sense to save my battery as much as possible. I’m left with a collection of images and smells, and the warmth that spread through my chest as a stranger rescued our plan.

I will never know where exactly that bus stopped, where I had that moment of panic. And where a wonderful lady from Mzuzu saved our trip from turning into a very different story.

This happened nearly ten years ago and I still think about it, a lot. If you’ve had a surprising journey that sticks in your mind, I’d love to hear about it.

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Another journey I often return to was the train to Jaffna during the fuel crisis, just before Sri Lankan New Year.

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