Anonymous - Bali - Chapter 3

With the gratitude and satisfaction of achieving a long-term dream of seeing the unknown worlds under water, I jumped on to my scooter-without any plans where I was going, in a country, that I have never been before, with no friends around, with no maps. I was in fact starting to love this strange anonymity – just to be a human being, away from all the known worlds and the illusions of identity. Even more, I was getting into the adrenaline of exploring what’s next rather than committing to a pre-booked itinerary with everything pre-known.

Along the long stretch of blue beaches on right and the clearly visible but far away green mountains on the left, I rode on my red scooter for a while and when my gut started to fight for its rights, I started scanning for a restaurant in the deserted roadsides. No one was there - only some small shops where I could refill the petrol from their hand pump- petrol cans. I pulled over from the burning sun under a tree for a few minutes. Quickly checking on the unreliable G maps of Bali, to get some food, I had to ride for another one and half hours! Turning into vegetarian is definitely not an easy task if you are a traveler – if I could eat chicken, I would have had food in first 20 mins of search from one of those “fried chicken” shops. Apparently, Bali has only fried chicken with rice and friend chicken with noodles.

After an hour or so – (I had stopped refining of time by now- they all exist in only developed world. For anonymous, they are in hours and often just morning-evening and night! )- I found one shop which had a logo different from a chicken’s head and a name that didn’t have ‘C’ in it - definitely, this was the most probable one. I reached the counter only to see the menu where everything was combinations of various dead meats. “Well, just some fried chips and a thick milk shake. That should do for now. Thanks.” I stretched a bit and sat back on the quiet dining area to book my stay for the night. Mt Batur - 2 hours away from me - if I could reach there tonight, that will be a huge lead for my trip! Since it was past 6 in the evening most places were booked out, though I managed to get a hostel dorm somewhere near the Batur – with great reviews!

It was already dark and I was riding my scooter through unknown forests - Or maybe just remote regions and not forest forests – not in a position to wait for the lights of morning to confirm - all I could see now was the road ahead of me and all I could hear was the sound of night. Poor network and un-trustable GPS maps. “Ever seen The Wrong Turn?”. “No.” “Good”!

The unknown forest roads - Photo by Jake Weirick on Unsplash

Time to distract my thoughts - :p – ‘now is the time to remember our great ancestors and colonial invaders- they didn’t have a road, bike or a commonly understandable language even’. I am certainly in a much better position. Same time, I admired the courage they had to start off sailing into the infinite oceans and to ride their horses through unknown jungles to ‘explore’!

Darkness was teaching me a new skill now – to look up and find the directions using the stars. I had only heard about this possibility – but I tried to fix the hunter constellation to mars (may be Venus or Mercury – who cares the names! The bright white non-blinking big star - hence a planet) and defined my “east”. That was a great lead – I had a much reliable compass now to confirm the direction I was heading. I followed the stars more than I followed my unreliable GPS from then. Another tip I had learned from my first solo night drives through New Zealand forests – ‘If you hit a junction that you didn’t expect, pick the widest road  - that has more probability to take you were you want and take a U-turn as soon as you start seeing the roads narrow down.’

One of the best things was that my power bank was fully charged which fed the phone already twice today. From estimates, I should be now 2 hours east from the last checkpoint and there should be road to left, probably a narrower one which should then - in 30 mins or so -take me to my hostel. Only one U-turn this time! Rest was almost correct – stars never lie.

 Up hills, steep down hills, hair pin turns the ride was on and on with only one or two human encounters every hour. It was now in complete darkness that I saw there was no red - shade following me. The tail lamp was not working – hmm! Seemed like that’s an extra fitting in Bali. I took a break in some area which pretended to be safe (nothing around, street lights visible) to take a snapshot of this thrilling and chilling night, and paste that somewhere in the walls of my deep heart – I was on top of a mountain with the cold night around me, hugging me tight and a few small towns far away like a bunch of fireflies romancing at night! 

Gravel roads  in forest
 - they most often bring surprises at night

 The last 500m before the hostel was a bit scarier than the rest 70km forest ride, because, there was no road. Just a tiny arrow mark like that in one of the Hollywood psychopath movies and a narrow gray gravel path – like a trekking trail. Detours! They always have something for us – a surprise or a blood boil! But I didn’t have a choice by now – so took that turn! Sharp uphill and slidable dusty gravel road. Extra conscious now, with goosebumps all over!

 

A small, slightly elevated bike-parking and a board with my hostel name on it in the middle of nowhere. Yes! Looks like I made it!!! Though, the backpack was extremely mysterious in the first glance: An amazing, traditional wooden construction with a whole lot of emptiness, and a solo receptionist waiting for me at 11’o clock with a nice smile on face! Pebble floors on bathroom with hot water and an 8-bed dorm just for me, all for $10! A bit unbelievable – but I had no option to not trust! In fact, it now felt like all the risks were worth it. He showed me the room and asked if I wanted to join the 3 am sunrise trekking. I had read about it before on the reviews– The mesmerizing sun rise sight from the Mt Batur volcano! “I would love to! But I am afraid I can’t!”. I was told I had nitrogen bubbles in my blood – the gases dissolved in blood while I did my dive – and that could cause nitrogen sickness if I went to low pressures in 24 hours. And moreover, I was feeling a bit tired to commit to wake up in three hours! I had to say No to something I really loved and wanted to do – but yeah! Life is not a wish granting factory – sometimes the wants just will not work.

 

After a hot shower I came back to my bed – in the biggest room I have ever slept – to wake up as a stranger again, in a completely new place, with the new name.

 

To be continued...

Anonymous - Bali - Chapter 2

Following the mountains

Using the sense of geography and following the seaside-main road and the hero’s advice – I managed to make it to the destination, ready for my first Dive! I was a bit late, but apparently this is not the peak season, so my guide was happy to take me on board. He gave me the secrets of diving – the tips to enjoy the dive and to wipe the panic out. We were ready, with the jacket and tubes – now just a 5 min drive to the beach. Most important thing to ask : “so, the package includes video, right”? “Sorry, our camera is not working today”. That was a bit heart ache. But yeah, capture the moments with eyes and heart- and let that incompleteness bring me back to ocean next time! (All below images on this chapter are similar scenes at the same dive spot from other explorers)

Tulamben beach – dive spot (courtesy- tripadvisor)

I changed my clothes to diving suit and left all my belongings in their office. The off road-drive to the beach was a fun- sitting on the blue trailer of an Ape sort of vehicle. My instructor was a french, professional diver – he travels around the world. Once he gets bored at one site, he packs his bag and goes to the next location – to explore the new sea, to explore the new world! He had a couple of friends with him and they always travel together in their ‘life of exploring’ and they share their income and expenses! Wow! For a moment, I remembered the narration of life from my Skydiving instructor last year. He had a similar life - a profession that is not bounded by the walls of offices or even by country borders – a life that is full of adventure and exploration.

He clipped the lifesaving oxygen cylinders on my back, and we were ready for the adventure! Next is fins, and then some initial trials of mouth-breaths. We had to fit the flaps from water as we cant walk with fins on beach. We had to lift the legs - one at a time - to the water surface and slide our feet into the long blue flaps - huh, a bit challenging task! After that, we tried to go down and I realized that life in water is a completely different chapter. I terribly failed to breathe through mouth in the first attempt. We went down and stayed at bottom for a minute, but I felt the world is just not existing and I couldn’t breathe, even though regulator is sitting right in my mouth and I am biting on to it. I couldn’t convince my brain that I don’t necessarily have to breathe through my nostrils. My awesome coach tried his best to pump the confidence in, but we had to go up- back to the sea surface, crossing through a layer of dirt. I was panicked by now and the coach just pointed his finger upwards to show me the enlarging circle of light to tell me we were going up.

Majestic Sea floors  (courtesy- tripadvisor)

Attempt 2:  Second trial - after first two mins in 2 m depth, I started to panic again – I knew it’s not fear and I wanted to see the ocean, without it’s surface coverings! But just felt like – a lot to do to just stay there. Managing the breathe was only one part of it – to swim around and to go up and down, there were four different tubes around me, which I had to press – each one for a different purpose. My coach held me strong and indicated – “look into my eyes”. I did! His pearly, french, super confident expert eyes said– “Trust me. I am here. Let’s go!!”. He showed me to take a deep breath and release slowly - THAT WORKED!

Following the instructor – into the hidden secrets
(Courtesy – tripadvisor)

Then we just flapped like a fish couple into the depths. First swim was till 7m – we saw astonishing blue shoal of tiny pearl fish – and a vast variety of other ocean beauties swimming around us! So much species in there, including coral reefs - just a totally different, magical world! Green, red, yellow, blue, pink, golden, all colors – you name it, it’s there in the ocean. My instructor showed his skills – to make whirlpools in the deep ocean, to play with the fish and to fool the coral reefs by moving his hands close to the sea floor to force the fly-traps to be closed quickly.

A school of large fish (light green, about 30 cm long) came on our left side and followed us for a while. Some of them came near us when we stood still – close – with their vibrating lips near our eyes and ears – as if they were talking to us! Some had small beautiful array of sharp tooth, some were like the teeth-less grandmas. I tried to touch them and the instructor warned me! Not to do so. If we touch them, they loose their mucus layer on skin and will be prone to inflammation! That’s something I had never heard before – that touching a fish will kill them! Well, new world – new rules!

The ship wreck, turning into by sea corals
(Courtesy – tripadvisor)

We swam up back to the surface and took a break before our next dive- to the ship. As we held a refreshing drink on our hands and sat down on wooden stools, the trainer explained the story behind this ‘one of the most favorite diving spots in the world’: “The next dive is to a US war ship from world war II. USS Liberty – which was hit by Japanese Torpedo and beached near Tulamben. In 1960’s the Mount Agung volcanic eruption pushed it to the ocean floor, and now it is laying on a 30m deep sand slope.” I didn't know I was at world's one of the most marvelous dive spots! The beauty of unplanned trips - they are always packed with surprises!

For a moment I felt like living in Titanic movie’s first few scenes! Diving inside the broken ship with blue – yellow – red – white – green fish playing with us and swimming with us – this is the best thing I have ever had in life! Wow! That was a true treasure – to swim through the memories of WWII! Above all, I was learning a new skill here– to breath in water and to be a fish in the miraculous infinite ocean!!

The memories – of WWII. From the shipwreck at Tulamben
 (Courtesy – tripadvisor)

 To be continued...

Anonymous - Bali - Chapter 1

The day started with a 10 am sharp eye-opening. Probably because I read “free breakfast served from 6 am to 10 am” just before I went to bed last night. The perks of being a solo traveler -I slept very well in just a small cubicle bunk bed in a hostel, somewhere, 1 hour away from Denpasar International airport.

It was already 10.30 when I got ready and one of my exciting reservations were waiting for me at 1 PM in Tulamben, which is 2 hours away from the current hostel. I was super hungry, and I asked the reception lady if she can still give me some breakfast with strong expectation for "sorry sir, kitchen is closed". However, she politely asked – “what would you like, sir?”. That’s when I realized how hospitable and welcoming Bali people are – no complaints or excuses- no wonder why it is a tourist spot. She gave me nicely toasted bread with an omelet.

Delightful morning lights from Denpasar Hostel – day 1

They had set up the hostel in a way that the sunlight gets penetrated through the green covers of thick tree leaves in front of the hostel and reached the small pool they had placed downstairs near the car park, with an attractive blue flooring that reflects magnificent colors in the morning. Across the pool, they had set up a few benches where I sat down to enjoy the breakfast– which tasted delicious with a special touch of love in it.

The Power of Thoughts : What is the worst that could happen?

Many of us start our journey with a sky of dreams and a sea of ideas. But most of us end up doing very little or nothing at all by the dawn. Why?

One of the reasons, I believe, is the inherent fear embedded in our genes - the fear of trying new things- may be coded by nature for survival purpose - Doing something different always means taking risk as we are trying to walk in less explored trails through the forests.

To start a journey that's not so much common, there is fundamental step - to overcome our fear of failure.

If we want to be the ones who want to do things that will let others dream for a better tomorrow, we have to start doing things which most people fear to do. For which we need to overcome our inherent fear – the fear that holds us within our comfort zone.

How to win the fear?

1.     Believe in yourself – as Napoleon says, “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. (since it is 2020, lets rephrase “man” with “human”). We eventually become what we fundamentally think what we are. So the best way to move ourselves outside the comfort zone is to redefine our comfort zones and believe we own bigger territory.

2.     Strengthen your drives. As Elon says – drive, if strong enough, overrules fear at the end of the day. If we truly want to achieve something, we will get that even if all the odds are against us, all we need to do is to define why we do.

3.     Power of dreams – the man who taught a generation on how to dream – APJ Abdul Kalam - once said, “dream, dream, dream. Dreams transform into thoughts and thoughts result in action”. If our dreams are strong enough so that they start to disturb us on sleep, that’s the point where we begin to make a difference.

4.     Start doing – there is a million reason why things can’t happen. Even the way we walk can be turned to very complicated process of sensors, control systems and data processing – anything can be made as complicated as we want it to be to convince ourselves that its not possible – we have learnt that in school. But as Einstein once said, “any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex; but it takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction”. When we stop finding the reason why things can’t work and start finding solutions to problems, that’s when we conquer our fear and start doing things.

5.     The power of compounding –Einstein’s power of compounding is not only valid for numbers – that transfers well into our actions.  Admiral William H McRaven once said, “If you wanna change the world, start off by making your bed”. Which I had followed since the day I listened to his speech. The small pride of achieving small things motivates us to do the next small thing, and the next after. And at the end of the day, we eventually end up doing a lot of big things. Each time we achieve something, our dopamine based - rewards driven minds – overwrites fear with a touch of confidence and motivation.

6.      Make the baby steps – the more we think of the impossibilities the less the chance for an action to happen. Same way, the more we start doing small things, more things start to happen. As the saying goes, the journey of a thousand miles start with a single step. Remember, sliding friction is a lot less than static friction – i.e., once we start moving, the resistance drops down. It’s all about overcoming that band of peak resistance when we sit idle.

7.     Ask yourself -what’s the worst that could happen? – a great way to convince our human brain is to compare the possibilities of doing and not doing. According to one of the researches done a few years ago among old people, one of the greatest regrets were things that they didn’t do. Remember – anything we try – even if that fails adds our knowledge. Either we achieve what we want, or we end up learning why that won’t work so that we can do something better next time. How would we even know if we don’t dare to try in the first place? 

8.     Take the odds to strengthen you. When we try something new, there will always be failures and a ton of criticism. But the good news is, we have the chance to take it positively or negatively. If we take them constructively, we can in fact use them to fuel us forward. Remember when the 15 year old Cristiano Ronaldo said that he will once become the best foot ball player in the world, all his friends laughed – but he used that to push himself to prove them they were wrong and he won.

9.     Avoid the ‘Na’ Sayers. This is a tip from Grant Cardone and many other successful people. Last but not the least, surrounding ourselves with people who believe in us and likes to see the change we wish for is a great addition to our journey. They will give those small but important lifts when we slip or fall down and push us to keep going. The more we here something is possible, our brain automatically rewires to believe in it.

In short, the world has all the right to train us on how to fear and to try to stop us from achieving what we want. Though, the good news is - we have the complete right to take that criticism to crush us down or to build us even more powerful! The way we pick us defines our destiny. Ask yourself what's the worst thing that could happen if you chose to try- may be we will just learn a new lesson!

How to live after you die

Does everyone die?

--The question dates back to the morning when an earliest version of Chimpanzee's brain decided to evolve into a human brain (or may be even they might have had such questions on Sunday nights- who knows?).

It might seem as a simple question on surface, but the deeper we dive, the more complex it becomes- just like that of an ocean floor. If we roam around there for a while, in fact, we might find some dead people walking alive - and the answer to the question, everyone doesn't die! In truth, we all have an option to live even further! Yes, to push ourselves further into future.

Let's take an example here - the story of Pranyas Development Foundation. Pranyas is a baby, born last year in India from the vision of a future leader and the determination of a bunch of inspiring people. Their aim is to connect the two extremes of society- the poor, uneducated slums and the educated.

Pranyas Development foundation Weekly classes in one of the Slums in India

Remembering Gandhi's words - "If we want to reach real peace in this world, we should start educating children", it is obvious that the result of adopting an entire slum and educating all its kids is a far reaching effort. Pranyas Founder Rahul re-quotes, "Individuals always have limitations, but a collection of individuals/organizations doesn't." Thus the power of a group of inspiring people is in fact limitless and that will definitely leap into future.

There are plenty of amazing efforts across the globe, spread throughout the timeline of our species so far, which lay seeds into future, with all its power to blossom in the coming spring. From Nelson Mandela to Elon Musk, thousands of great leaders have planted their part by inspiring millions of people across the globe to dream and to create a difference in the right direction - into the future.

What does that mean? May be - death is a limitation only when we limit our true potential to spread ourselves??

Being born as a human gives each of us an amazing gift by birth - the ability to influence others. When we make others' life better, when we influence them, we are investing a portion of us - our seeds in their baskets. Every single person that carries a portion of us spreads that to more people around him/her and all those people starts to carry a unique portion of us within them. If significant enough, butterfly effect will bless us by carrying them forever into future!

In short, the more difference we make, the more people we empower, the more we live. And the ones who inspire others to make a difference in the right direction will live forever- through other's lives. So, death is only optional! Choose wise!

Shadow walks...

When the roars of the daylight settle, then begins the voice of silence- the voice of darkness. That’s why I love walking at night through strange places. They tell you genuine stories, without the fake colors of the day.

Second week into my vacation in Sharjah (the city known to be the cultural capital of United Arab Emirates), around midnight, the bus dropped me off at the National Paints bus stop. A unique place to be at late night- if you are walking you will only see pairs of yellow and red lights bashing by side on an eight-lane road both ways at 100-110 kph. If you are a crazy enough person, you would have at least two options- either to call a taxi and get home, or, to take a glance at the GPS, turn off your phone and start walking, listening to the darkness.

Cars were flying through the cluster of over bridges, a complete solar system created off the ground merging a few major highways. Fortunately, there was an angel walking in front of me, right turns at the right time, I just followed him, he made it possible to cross this cluster easier than it seemed to be. Then there was the mission, to walk approximately four more kilometers to get home, through the strange, secret sand fields. I followed the road for some time to get used to the place, then crossed through inner sand-packed areas to unseal the hidden vibes of the historical city. Sands were amazingly supportive; they even bent their heads when I touched them. I turned my head around and saw that they even keep memories of my footprints.

After a while, I saw the flying cars again, at least a kilometer away. Even though I knew the direction which I had to walk, the closer I got to the road, there were two problems new problems. One, the road became wider into a major highway and two, there was this lucid impression of a divider in the middle of the road. I stopped for a minute and watched all around, and spotted a distant fly over ditching the highway, and two angel figures walking over the bridge confirmed the pedestrian access- Olaa! There I go!

The sounds of sand valleys (My apologies if this picture is still silent as of 2019), a snap from the XYZ over-bridge, Sharjah.

From the fly over, on one side there was the prestigious Sharjah University built with amazing Islamic architecture along with a few other engineering master pieces. But in another two minutes, one can listen to the sound of desert, the cries from past, the voice of lifeless sand bowls which had ruled the place a few decades ago. I admired the power of human vision and determination to change the face of a desert into a bright shiny piece of art and engineering.

Despite the darkness surrounded, a thought swiftly came in from nowhere, of the people falling asleep one by one at my home, waiting for me- the bondage of love, the care of family, calling me home, reminding that it’s my birthday! I started walking again, a bit faster this time...

Sunday 5AM...

Have you ever been woken up seeing a hilarious dream???

It's insane, because it reminds you the fact that it's pretty hard to laugh in sleep. I laughed for half an hour and that woke me up like a hell refreshed with Crazy richness- so back to the clogged blog after a while!!

It was a long day yesterday, spoiling my ex-roommate's whole day of his Sydney trip. Well, I pretend like I haven't, but the creapy fact is I made him travel for half of his day, Lol!! Despite the fact that we invented some innovative new methods to play golf, we three (including a superficial another ex-ROOMMATE) were absolutely the worst in the streets for Halloween night. Wearing a Jean and T-s, without the distant knowledge of walking into a ghost's night, we looked like super- aliens last night. Everyone else chose to bleed their forehead or eyes to SCARE the world for the sake of ghost's- figures those pretend to have lived once, and we, fcking had to walk like we are bleeding our internal organs!!!

The smell of Double apple- the self proclaimed Hookah -has burned all my virgin lungs and ducts of sedimentation (closest figure I can imagine for my trachea after one week of heavy cough).  We were hysterically angry at each other, for no reason for next handful of hours after those bubbles-  and that's when I realized why there is an abundance of violence in some parts of the world!

Anyway, after being successfully failed to go back to sleep- here begins my Sunday- the second page of the two paged book of weekend adventures and the index page for the upcoming extrapolated productive week.

(Proclaimer2: I might make this a habit. Considering that I myself consider as one of the boring persons existing on planet today, sunday morning seems to be a bypass to change my destiny by its ridiculous hilariousness!!!!!)