Diving In

Two things happened recently: 1. My drink got spiked at a party and caused me to end up in hospital 2. I took my open water diving course Two very different events, one of them being the coolest thing I’ve done on this trip, the other being one of the worst moments of my life. On the surface there is no connection, but I learned so much from each challenge, the good and the bad and contrasting them side by side I’m learning something that might help me more and more in the future. Now you might be thinking, isn’t one of your biggest fears the sea? What were you thinking jumping in deeper than you’ve ever been before? Well I’d had a few very scary, anxious filled days so I decided that I was done being defeated and controlled by fear that it was time to step up and face some fears and what better way to do than than diving right in (pun intended)! I was scared, and I was scared that I would panic (not a great idea 20m under water), but after the pool session on the first day I realised that diving might be the best way to stay calm. Anyone who’s done scuba diving will know that it’s not about swimming but about controlling your breathing. It’s important to keep breathing calmly and normally throughout the whole dive. I found it similar to yoga, where you focus on inhale, exhale, and also to how when trying to calm anxiety it’s exactly the same. Breathe in, and breathe out. So when I entered the ocean, before I even had the chance to worry, I was already breathing calmly. One of the worse effects of the drug that some horrible person decided to slip into my drink, is severe paranoia and anxiety. Worse than I’ve ever felt it and it continued to effect me and control me for a few days afterwards, alone in a hospital room in a strange country with a needle attached to my hand (another unfortunate and irrational fear of mine) not understanding what had happened or what would happen, and unable to keep myself calm, needless to say I didn’t really sleep. (Actually I wasn’t alone, shout out to my awesome friends who helped me out! You guys are amazing!) Being able to breath through anxiety is an important practice, I say practice because it takes work and sometimes I’ve got it completely wrong. It’s something we focused on in the diver training because it’s very easy for you or your buddy to freak out but when you have a finite amount of oxygen and can’t just shoot up to the surface, it’s important to be able to keep calm. But as well as the focused breathing, the more i considered it, the more I think can be taken from diver practice into coping with anxiety. For example the diver buddy checks you do before entering the water: B - buoyancy R - regulators and releases A - air I - instruments D - diver okay? I thought this could also be a good check if you feel like you’re panicking. Buoyancy; are you sinking? Are you spiralling? When on the ocean floor this is considered negative buoyancy, add a couple of puffs of air to pick yourself up. Regulators, what can you do to ground yourself. Releases; what do you need to hold on to and what should you let go of? Air; inhale, exhale. Slowly, steadily, continuously. Instruments, in diving this means your fins, your mask, your compass and your computer; what do you have around you to feel safe in your current circumstances, or do you have the tools to face the oncoming challenge? Diver ok; take it as a statement rather than a question, I’m okay, I can do this. I feel so proud of myself for not giving into my fears and I proved that I am strong, I am brave and the next time I feel anxious, even if I completely forget my new coping check list, I will remember that I overcame my fear. And you know what, it’s possible that something that terrifies you can hold something that brings you so much fun and joy. Tomorrow I start my advanced diving course!

A Backpackers Christmas

There are few things in life that I’m traditional about but Christmas is one of them, so when I did the calculations and worked out that my big plan of dropping everything and going backpacking around Asia, would mean that I’d be somewhere very far away for the first time at Christmas, I started to stress about how I was going to spend my favourite time of year, worlds away from everything and everyone who I call home. The build up to Christmas is always a magical time, the anticipation, the preparation for a day of giving, whether it’s presents to shop for and wrap, cakes to dose in brandy and decorate, trees to dress in lights and sentimental ornaments. But strip all that away and move yourself 7000 miles away where they don’t celebrate Christmas and it’s 30 degrees outside, even listening to Christmas songs can’t quite get you in the mood for Christmas because they simply don’t make sense; it’s not looking a lot like Christmas, I’m not driving home for Christmas and singing let it snow would just be plain mad! But I’m no Scrooge and after watching a few Christmas movies I refused to give up on Finding the Christmas spirit! I went back to these Christmas songs and started listening a bit deeper to lyrics and re-interpret them to see what actually we search for at Christmas, when the snow, the presents, the tree, the turkey and even the loved ones are so very far away! For example the classic “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas”. Well the closest I’m getting to that is a white sands beach, but what if it didn’t mean snow; White is a symbol of purity. Do you remember how you felt about Christmas as a child? That pure, uninhibited, undeniable joy. So maybe listen to the song as a reminder to dream of a purely joyful Christmas “just like the ones I knew before”. “Rocking around the Christmas tree”; what is it that Christmas tree provides for us at this time of year, and what do we miss when it’s gone? I’ve thought about this, and I reckon it the focus. Think about it, how much thought goes in to where the Christmas tree will be placed, maybe you have it in the sam perfect place every year or maybe it’s a big debate every year. But it always takes pride and place and draws all the attention every time you enter the room. It’s where the whole family gathers to open presents, moan how full their tummies are while still snacking on the honey roasted nuts on the coffe table. So take away that key focus point, what is it you want to focus on this Christmas time? I’m reminded of the first Christmas, there were no traditions then, and the climate was a bit closer to the heat I’m in right now, Mary and Joseph were very far away from their families and friends and everything they knew, but they weren’t alone and it was the most special Christmas of all. Their joy was pure, and their focus was the miracle child in the manger. They celebrated where they were, with who was by their sides and with what they had available to them and they enjoyed the moment. Take away the hassle of the preparations, trying to get everything perfect and just live in the joy of the holiday. Now we are going to open our makeshift stockings (upside down Santa hats) and drink some mimosas and eat pancakes on the beach, then our Christmas dinner will probably consist of pad Thai, which I’m sure we will eat until we’re stiffed like a turkey! Wherever you are and whoever you’re with I wish you all a very merry Christmas!

Believe in Your Ability to Figure it Out

What's your response when things go wrong? Or when you're helpless? Most of us stress, right? And what does that do to the situation? 
The thing is, I know how I should respond, I know I need to keep a level head and that stress just makes the whole issue worse and clouds my judgement etc etc. I understand the logic of it, until something goes amiss and suddenly logic goes out the window and panic and stress take its place...

Until the other day when we found ourselves in a very alarming situation and I'm still trying to understand how I was so at peace during the scene because I feel more scared and panicked looking back on it than I did at the time!

We decided to take a road trip up to Northern Bali in search of some waterfalls and temples. Leaving most of our belongings at a hostel in Ubud we packed all we would need for the night into my camera bag plus some snacks for the road and climbed aboard the motorcycle. It was about 1 and half hours to our first destination: a vast lake with a temple situated on one of it's banks. We'd left most of the tourists behind us already and it was so peaceful and untouched. 

From here we began to climb into the mountains, pausing at the top for some lunch with a stunning view of the lake beneath us. Then we descended a steep rough road to some marvellous waterfalls:

We climbed back up the rough road and then continued our journey north towards Lovina Beach. To reach it we had to scale more mountains, then about 50 minutes off our target we began our very steep descent down the mountains. It was a very economical drive, there was no need at all for the accelerator, but the brakes were being squeezed, under constant pressure all the way. About half way down, and still a very long way from the bottom, we were sailing down a particularly steep stretch of road, when very suddenly the brakes gave out...

Yes, we were riding down a mountain squeezing the brakes as hard as possible, when out of nowhere they stopped working! This is the stuff of nightmares. 

Miraculously Zak, who was driving, calmly managed to bring the bike to stop on the flattened entrance to someone's driveway. And that's where we were: stranded on the side of a very steep mountain in a foreign country, no phone service and well out of reach of the AA, with a motorcycle who's brakes had failed and two of us who had no comprehension as to why!

This is the moment to freak out right? If you can't panic now, when can you? And the weird thing is if I was back home I almost certainly would have stressed out. But something about the complete helplessness of it all was almost comical and that bought us enough time for us to remember logic and knowing that stress wasn't going to help, instead we thought of the quote: "The key is to believe in your ability to figure it out". We were helpless but we didn't feel desperate, and in fact help was on the way, though not in the way we were used to.

Not long after we'd dismounted and done a check around the bike, pretending we knew what we were looking for, an Indonesian man drove by and clearly recognised the perplexed looks on the tourists faces. He told us, in English, that the brakes were too hot and that we should wait. Neither of us knowing much about motorbikes, we weren't entirely convinced by this information. But, we'd also started to attract the attention of the people who lived nearby. One man spoke excitedly to us describing the problem - in Indonesian... He then waved his friend over, naively we thought this meant his friend spoke English; Nope, he just wanted to the share in the dramatic and increasingly comedic event. Have you ever thought "you've got to laugh about it otherwise you'll cry about it." This was certainly one of those moments, and we chose to laugh, it was really all we could do! 

A little girl who had been playing nearby and seen the whole thing, reappeared again with her mother who amazingly spoke a little english, she pointed to the front wheel and said water too hot. Having learnt a lot more about automobiles in the last year, I understood this to mean that the brake fluid has got too hot. So we had a diagnosis. She then echoed the first man's advice to wait, for about 30 minutes. They let us use their bathroom and we settled down with our snacks for a mini picnic by the side of the road. Many more Indonesians came by, some merely beeped their horns, the normal greeting here, others stopped to say hello to the tourists, some tried to help but it's not easy when you don't share a common language.

Finally we started to gingerly make our way down the mountain again, going as slow as we could, but also being as gentle with the brakes as we dared and stopping for periods of time when we didn't feel safe. Eventually we made it to sea level, phew! 



Although apparently that wasn't enough adrenaline for us, because the next day we found ourselves at Aling Aling natural water park for a spot of cliff jumping. A bit hooked on adventure!


I'm not sure what that X factor was that kept the stress at bay, but I do know that it changed what could have been a desperate nightmare, into an adventurous afternoon, a shared experience with some really kind people and a story we will always remember, proof that whenever we feel out of control, free-falling down the mountain. Its not desperate, we can figure it out, with some help, patience and remembering the lessons we've already learnt.

"It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to."

-J.R.R Tolkien

Fireflies in the Moonlight

Everything is different. 

Not a mind blowing statement. Not even new information. I expected different, I wanted different. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t hard, but I think I wanted that too. The reason I turned my life upside down wasn’t because I wanted to make it easier, quite the contrary. I was scared I’d fallen into the trap of comfortability, but I wasn’t happy. Because comfortable doesn’t always mean happy. And in this case I wasn’t happy but I’d become comfortable in my unhappiness. This might not make sense to you and that’s okay, I may be completely wrong about this, and that’s okay, but this is my understanding of it right now, and that’s okay too.

I was speaking the other day with someone about the labels that we allow ourselves to be defined by. I’m not talking about the judgements others put on us, not this time. There are two stories in our lives the one that we tell ourselves and the one that’s actually happening. Too often we confine ourselves by believing the made up stories. We restrain ourselves by living under the labels that we believe define us.

There's a cliche about travel of "I'm going to find myself". Personally I think it's more like I'm going to be myself. Taking myself out of the pressures and confinements, away from routines, habits and expectations and throwing myself into the chaotic and the peaceful, the challenging and the beautiful, where there's time to breathe, time to simply just be me. Whoever and whatever I am.

There's no need to put on the mask here, there is no reason to hide who I am... a literal example of that is that I haven't worn make up in about 3 weeks, I haven't done that since before I was a teenager. But the mask isn't just skin deep, the mask I had been wearing covers much more than that. But it's been amazing to see what can happen when I liberate myself and grant myself permission to come out from behind the mask, to stop repeating those made up stories in my head, and actually live the story that's happening right now.

It's strange, its new, to actually be present in the moment for days at a time, I'm catching myself and realising that I'm happy, not about things to come, not even about things that have been, no simply happy right now. I want to be in this moment. And it's not just the jaw dropping scenery, it's playing in the waves of the ocean, even though it scares me, it's eating dinner in a rice field at sunset, it's spending hours in deep, wonderful conversation on the beach, it's spotting fireflies dancing in the moonlight, and not being able to resist dancing too!

10 Tic Tacs And Half a Bottle of Water

I had almost decided no tot write this post, because the past week has been one of the happiest of my life, but more on that in the next post... The following I wrote on the 26 hour journey last week from Karimunjawa to Bali and it wasn't easy:

"Travel isn't always pretty. It isn't always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that's okay. The journey changes you, it should change you. It makes marks on your memory, on you consciousness, on your heart and on your body. you take something with you, hopefully you leave something good behind." ~ Antony Bourdain

The pretty pictures are really only a fraction of the story, the majority of travelling isn't very photogenic; being exhausted, drenched in sweat, and completely confused!

I'm sat on a bus which I think/hope is taking me to Bali, but who knows, so far today I've had a 2 hour boat ride, a much longer walk than anticipated from the harbour to bus terminal, where I tried to ascertain the essential information about this bus from a grotty hole-in-the-wall ticket office. After about 15 minutes of baffling communication, I just about worked out that the bus I needed had already left but they would wait for me if we went NOW! So me and my 2 bags piled onto the the back of a scooter and was driven furiously across town. I finally bought the bus ticket which was a lot more than I expected but there was no time to even try negotiating. My large rucksack was taken off me and I was hurried onto the bus. My hopes of buying some food and drink for the 20 hour ride disappeared. I guess I would have to survive off the 10 remaining Tic Tacs and half a bottle of water in my bag.

So me, very sweaty, tired, confused and hair sticking up all over my head gets on to the bus and true to form all the Indonesians on the bus take out their phones and take pictures of me! 

After the excitement of a single white girl on the bus died down we exchange a few words. Sufficient conversation to discover that we can't speak a common language!
Kindness, however, is not an act that can be hindered by a language barrier and through a mix of Indonesian, english and sign language, they offered me a cup of coffee.

It turned out that the price of the ticket paid for some rather comfy seats and a couple of nice meals, no need for the tic tacs after all! And I managed to deduce that we were definitely heading towards Bali! I believed the tricky part was over...

The following morning, after not a lot of sleep and a bumpy ferry ride we pulled into a bus terminal still a long way off Denpasar, where I thought my ticket was taking me to. Here they took my bag and told me to get off. Very puzzled, I very quickly pulled on my boots, shoved stuff into my bag, and did the "passport, phone, money" check!

When I arrived at the bus door, I saw the vultures, a whole flock of them, waiting for me, ready to pounce on their prey. Taxi drivers, hungry for their next tourist. They shouted at me, trying to grab my bag, my arm, asking me where I was going - a little difficult when I had no idea where I was! I tried to ask the bus driver, where we were and why we weren't in Denpasar, he either didn't understand or found the whole situation hilarious, because he just kept smiling and insisting that I must get off here. All the while these vultures continue to hunt for their food, offering prices to various destinations I've never heard of. I did my best to get them to shut up, I would very much have liked to say something else to them but I don't know those words in Indonesian!

However, this isn't my first rodeo, and if they thought they could prey on the blonde, white, single girl, then they can think again. I knew I needed to get out of there, but they weren't giving up easily! 

I exited the terminal and the chase began, they followed me, still shouting out their prices surrounded by every lie in the book. Carrying 20kg of baggage was somewhat limiting my walking pace so I ducked into a mini market and hid for a while. Most of them gave up the hunt, but not all, so I had to elbow my way out saying "no" in as many languages I could remember. I just kept walking, not looking back and turned down the first side street I found. 

Finally able to breathe I ordered a grab car (like uber) for about a 10th of the price the vultures were offering...

I made it eventually, we got stuck in traffic but we made it. Arrived at my hostel and collapsed by the pool for the afternoon, ordered some food to be delivered and didn't move until I took myself to bed in the evening. 


It was a crazy day, a challenging day but I got through it, became stronger and I will be wiser for the next challenge to come at me!

I found Nemo!

One of my goals on this trip was to face some fears head on. In fact it was one of the reasons I decided to do the trip at all!

“What you’re afraid to do, is a clear indication of what you should do next.”

I've always believed that fear is not a good enough excuse not to do something, all very easy to say but very different when you're stood on the precipice deciding whether to make that jump...

My route changed direction somewhat when multiple people insisted that I must visit Karimun Java - a small island (surrounded by 26 other smaller islands) north of Java. It wasn't exactly "en route" to Bali but time isn't something I'm chained by and so I get to choose how I spend that freedom, which in this case meant making the 14 hour journey north from Jogja. 



Karimun Java, it turns out, was well worth the trek, with its beautiful beaches, luscious jungle, crystal-clear, brilliantly-blue waters, peaceful town and great people to explore all of this with.

So far on my trip I've not come across many fellow backpackers, but here I found some of my sort of people, and "I" very quickly became "We".

And not only fellow travellers, but on an island with a population of 1200, everybody knows everyone and the locals get to know you very quickly too!

The day after we arrived we decided to do Karimunjawa's most popular activity: 
Go snorkelling!
I've never been snorkelling before, for one main reason: I'm kind of scared of the sea...

I think it’s sort of like the way you can be afraid of the dark, in truth it’s fear of the unknown, I love swimming, but to get into the sea always takes a lot of psyching myself up and I never stay very long or go very deep.

But I was determined that here was a challenge that I had asked for, a chance to face my fear. We took a boat out on the water and when we were about 2 minutes away from our first destination, our instructor told us to "prepare ourselves". Obviously he meant put on our flippers and snorkels but for me it was time to give myself a little pep talk!




2 minutes later I stood on the edge of the boat, my fear beneath me (deeper than I'd ever gone) and I jumped, straight into it!

I admit, it took a few minutes to get the Jaws theme tune out of my head and to concentrate on breathing through my mouth as normally as possible... Then I opened my eyes, looked around me and it took my breath away all over again!  Not from fear this time but from awe! 

There's such a beautifully created world down there, hidden beneath the surface, and for me it had remained hidden, blocked from view by my fear. But I'd changed that!

We had such a wonderful day, spotting turtles, rainbow fish lots of Dory's and a few Nemo's swimming in their anemones (they're much smaller than how I imagined!) 

One of my favourite films growing up and indeed it still is: Finding Nemo. Not only is it a captivating and heartfelt story, but there are some wonderful life lessons embedded among the adventure... you see where I’m going with this right? Marlin fought past his fears and went so far beyond his comfort zone, but if he hadn't, he wouldn't have had those adventures, he wouldn't have learnt and grown as a person (well fish) and he never would have found Nemo.

Life is Too Short to Drink Bad Coffee

Starbucks has been ruined, I've tasted the best coffee in the world, now I can never go back!

My stay in Yogyakarta took me on new adventures because this philosophy of stretching myself beyond my comfort zone involves saying yes, trusting people and therefore leads to wonderful discoveries and fresh experiences.



Wandering from my hostel towards the centre on Yogyakarta, I met a very friendly and helpful local who offered to take me to see the traditional painting, Batik. I watched them at work and looked around the gallery of beautiful art. It can take them 3 weeks to do a detailed coloured painting, and you know that they're made properly by hand if you can see the same painting on the back.

From here the friendly local drove me to see the traditional puppets being made. Indonesia is truly a fascinating nation, especially when it comes to religion, there are 5 faiths present here, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and Catholicism, but long before any of this religions came to Indonesia, the country's faith was animism. Which they describe as being about a state of mind and heart. (It's a lot more complex than that, but I'm not an expert theologian so I'm not going to go into details.)






Because very few people could read, they learned the philosophy and meaning through pictures and learned the stories and lessons from these puppets. They still use them today to understand certain principles, because life changes over time but the importance of love and peace and harmony doesn't.

Each one takes about 1 week to make, they're made from a sheet of leather with nails tapped holes in the for the design, there are 25 different shaped nails to make the holes, after this they are painted different colours.








There are 350 puppets in the collection and each one is different and has a individual meaning or what they represent. They have a long nose to show curiosity, long arms for generosity, short legs to be grounded and humble, the "human" puppets have their heads bowed as a sign of respect and a crown on their head, the "spirit" puppets have more of a layered crown. The body is in 3 parts, the bottom is to represent the 4 made earthly elements, fire, water, air and wind. each one is very important, The middle part is about the heart and the top part for the mind. Some puppets embody love, others wisdom, creativity, or education, for some examples.

The guy who owns the puppet making workshop told me that he makes puppets to continue family tradition (that was very important to him) however his true passion is coffee. He took me to his coffee shop and gave me a cup of the best coffee I have ever tasted and I will be amazed if I ever taste anything so good again... but you will be shocked about what makes it taste so good because its a very surprising process!

There are 2 types of coffee plants that grow here, the arabica and the robusta. From here they can pick the coffee beans...or for the best tasting coffee there's another way...

This animal is a Lupak, otherwise called a mongoose. They're wild animals and they know how to pick the absolute best coffee beans, and they eat them, due to their fast metabolism the enzymes in their stomach ferment the coffee beans and then they poop them out again... can you guess what comes next? Yes the pooped coffee beans are collected, shelled, roasted, ground and brewed into the best cup of coffee you will ever taste! Don't believe me? Come and try for yourself!


I sat for a while drinking this coffee and having a lovely conversation with the barista, He talked more about Indonesian culture and lifestyle, we agreed that the west has so much to learn from how the Indonesians live their lives. Indonesians are always smiling, not because they have what they want but because they have peace and harmony, with each other, and with themselves, and they understand how much more valuable that is!