Escaping

Friday, June 23rd

I departed from the hustle and bustle of Jakarta when the city is still fast asleep. Although when I reached the airport it seemed like there were others who needed to get away from this town more urgently than I am. The flight was relatively short and painless as I slept through the most of it.

My first hour in Bali was spent in my friend's office as I tried to get cheap accommodation in Ubud. It struck him as odd that I wanted to stay that far away, but when I said that I needed to not see so many people he understood immediately. Yes, this weekend is my getaway trip -- from the crazy and hectic Jakarta that never sleeps and constantly dragging me into its insomnia. For 250K a night, I secured a private bungalow complete with breakfast.

My next stop was to see an old friend who recently moved to Bali. I had to see her during the day because she works nights. I picked her up at Poppies Lane, and we went off to have one of the best pork dishes ever tasted that was very very cheap. My mouth gets watery just writing about it. A brunch, many stories and 3.5 hours later we managed to caught up with everything and I dropped her off.

It was 1.5 years ago that I comfortably roamed around the streets of Bali in the small Japanese jeep that can never go past 60km/h without strating to get wobbly and I thought getting to my hotel wouldn't be a problem. Wrong. It took me an extra hour from Kuta to Ubud, because I made wrong turns, followed the wrong way for too long (under the name of adventure and not caring), and couldn't be bothered asking for directions. After too many wrong calls, I picked up the phone to call a local friend who finally pointed me to the right direction. I got here in no time.

But I couldn't be bothered to go anywhere else. I was sitting in that car for too long, and all I wanted was just to chill and relax. I found out that I could order a dirty duck dinner, so I did and then I turned the tap on for some long hot bath. Unfortunately the timing was slightly off. Just when I closed my eyes and let the hot water soaked my tired body, a knock on the door told me that my dinner had arrived. Darn!

The rest of the evening went smoothly as planned without a hitch. Dirty duck dinner, a long hot bath and good music playing through my ipod. Initially it was hard to wind down. My head keeps wondering on the jobs I left behind in Jakarta, what if this and what if that. It took serious effort to let it all go. Then, I received a little bonus. The next door cafe was playing some really really cool jazz live. I could listen to everything, and that music became my lullaby into the deep of the night.