Bali

"Surrendering to the chaos."

Shaped by the wisdom of a traveller who knows that when the world shuts down, the best thing to do is to find a massage and relax on the beach.

The Silent Descent: A Bali Lockdown Tale

The world was ending, or at least it felt that way in the lobby of our hotel. The air was thick with the humid heat of Indonesia and the sharp, metallic tang of collective panic. COVID-19 had finally caught up to us. My tour was dead on arrival—day two, and the itinerary was a ghost.

While the other travelers swarmed the tour leader like a panicked hive, demanding answers no one had, I felt a strange, detached clarity. My laptop charger was dead. My plans were dead. Even the electricity seemed to be bracing for impact.

I looked at a German guy standing next to me, his face a mask of worry. "Fancy a massage?" I asked.

An hour later, as the world scrambled for flights, we were face down on massage tables, the scent of frangipani and coconut oil dulling the edge of the global catastrophe. We ended the night eating dinner on the sand, the tide pulling back just as the life I had planned for the next month was pulling away from me.

The Long Walk

The next morning, I chose the hard way. To save a few pennies and regain a sense of agency, I decided to walk to a nearby hostel. I am a chronic overpacker—a flaw that becomes a physical penance in the Balinese sun. With my life strapped to my back, sweat stinging my eyes, I trekked.

But fortune favors the stubborn. On that grueling walk, I spotted it: a shop that sold the exact charger I needed. A small victory in a sea of defeats.

The French Connection and the Monkey’s Mark

At the hostel, I met him—a Frenchman with a motorbike and the kind of easy-going spirit that matches a slow traveler’s soul. We roared off toward a cat sanctuary, the wind finally cooling the heat of the previous days.

But Bali has a way of reminding you who is really in charge. At the sanctuary, a monkey decided my face was far more interesting than the fruit on the trees. A flash of fur, a sharp pinch, and suddenly I was looking at the world through the lens of a "pin-prick" bite.

"Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans," someone once said. In my case, life was a monkey bite and a cancelled flight.

The Great Silence

Then came Nyepi. The Day of Silence.

Imagine a world in crisis suddenly falling into absolute, mandatory stillness. No lights, no fires, no travel, no sound. The entire island of Bali shut its eyes. My flight out of Dubai in three weeks was a fiction; the prices for new tickets were climbing into the thousands.

Sitting in the profound, eerie quiet of Nyepi, I realized I wasn't a backpacker rushing to a destination anymore. I was a slow traveler, learning to breathe in the gaps between the chaos.

I eventually found a way home, paying an extortionate price for a seat on a plane that felt like a lifeboat. I left Bali with a scarred face, a new charger, and the realization that when the tour gets cancelled, you don't panic. You find a massage, you walk until you find what you need, and you wait for the silence to tell you what’s next.

Reflecting on Your Journey

handled the situation with a "stoic flexibility" that most people spend lifetimes trying to cultivate. You didn't fight the tide; you swam with it.