We landed in Bali on a Monday evening. Amelinda’s sister, Stella, had hired a travel agency to help plan our trip, since there were so many of us. The travel agency picked us up in a bus and took us to dinner and then to our hotel. On the way there, they told us the plan for the next day. We were going on an excursion and they would pick us up at 2 am. 2 am?! I was convinced that I had heard that wrong. Unfortunately, I had heard it right. They were picking us up at 2 am because we were going to drive 3 hours to a mountain, where we’d get in jeeps and drive them up the mountain to see the sunrise. I like sunrises and jeeps sounded fun, but then I remembered the 2 am part and thought, “hell no”. I was still sleep deprived and still not feeling great, so I opted out of that excursion.

Our hotel was very nice. They had lots of plants, in-room massages, a tsunami evacuation route, a tattoo shop, a pool, a restaurant, and housekeeping left towels on your bed in cute animal shapes. When I first entered my room on Monday night, one of the first things I saw was the elephant towel on my bed. I love elephants. They’re the best animal. That’s how I knew we were at a good hotel.

At 1 am, I got a wake-up call. And then I got another wake-up call a few minutes later where I actually talked to a human and acknowledged the call. And then I got 3 more wake-up calls. I’m glad I never found out who scheduled those calls because I was feeling murderous by the time they stopped. Wake-up calls are one of my pet peeves. If I need to be up at a certain time, I will be up at that time. I don’t need someone waking me up 30 minutes before I have to be up when I haven’t asked them to wake me up in the first place. Luckily, I was able to get more sleep after that.

I wasn’t the only one who opted out of the excursion on Tuesday. Therese, Patrick, and Luci stayed too, so we spent the morning at the pool, complained about the wake-up calls, got in-room massages, and then ventured out to look for lunch. We found a Vietnamese restaurant with a menu that was an inch thick. Most of the menu was pictures, but they still had so many options. As we went through it, we had to keep our fingers on different pages to remember the options we liked the most. The food was delicious!

The group that went on the excursion had offered to pick us up for dinner. I was exhausted and was full from our Vietnamese lunch, so I stayed at the hotel, saw the sunset, and went to bed early. When I was at the beach waiting for the sun to set, a lady selling bracelets approached me. I tried to tell her that I didn’t have any money and didn’t need any bracelets, but she said that she knew I didn’t need bracelets, but that I should still buy some to help her out. Business hadn’t been good in the last few weeks. Because of the war in Iran, the larger airports in the Middle East are closed and Europeans who usually get to Bali through those airport haven’t been able to make it. This lady really knew what she was doing. She sat next to me in the sand and told me about her kids and finally convinced me to buy bracelets when I realized that she wasn’t going to leave and I was about to miss the sunset. At least I haggled.

The next day I learned that I hadn’t missed much the day before. The jeep ride was pretty bumpy and the sky was overcast, so there wasn’t much of a sunrise. Dinner was seafood that you had to spend a lot of time taking apart in order to eat. I like crab and lobster, but they’re not worth the effort, in my opinion. I was happy with my decision to skip the 2 am wake-up the day before.

On Wednesday, we had another excursion with a more reasonable pick-up time, so I went on that one. We went to the Garuda Wisnu Kencana (GWK) Cultural Park. It has many statues and performances that showcase Balinese culture. Most of Indonesia is Muslim, but most of Bali is Hindu. Most houses in Bali have temples at the front and people leave offerings for the gods every day. Every year, Bali has a Day of Silence to celebrate the Hindu New Year. The entire island shuts down on that day, even the airport. The airport in Bali is the only international airport that closes for 24 hours every year. This year, they celebrated it on March 19th, so we just missed it.

After visiting GWK, we had lunch and then went back to the pool at the hotel. The food in Indonesia is interesting. It’s either extremely flavorful or very bland. When it’s flavorful it’s usually also spicy. Since I can’t tolerate spicy food, I mostly ate the bland food. There were times when only a small part of the food wasn’t spicy or was mild enough that I could eat it, so others in our group would kindly eat my spicy food and give me their mild food. By Wednesday night, we were all a little tired of local food, so after watching the sunset, we had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe.

The next morning, most of our group flew back to Jakarta. Therese, Patrick, Luci, Josh, Nicho, and I were flying out in the evening. Since we had a whole day, I was originally planning to go to the Uluwatu Temple. It’s a temple on a cliff by the ocean and there are free-roaming monkeys. However, I still wasn’t feeling great and we had a surprise 12 hour layover in Brisbane the next day, so I decided to take it easy so I could explore Brisbane. I mostly napped until the evening.

My time in Indonesia wasn’t what I expected it to be. I expected to have more energy to go out and explore, but my body decided otherwise. I learned that if I’m going to go 24 hours without sleeping, I need to give myself a few rest days before trying to do too much. Even though it wasn’t what I expected, I still had a great time. I was able to find ways to enjoy my days even on the days when I felt the worst. I got to Indonesia thinking that if I’m flying to the other side of the world, I need to see as much of the country as possible. But I learned that flying to the other side of the world to spend time in the pool with friends is also a great plan. Maximizing my time in a place doesn’t mean seeing all it has to offer. It means enjoying myself as much as possible, while listening to my body and taking into account its capacity. That’s exactly what I did.