167. | Bali: where new levels begin

Arriving in Bali is like someone turning down the noise inside me and turning up the colors. In the first few days, everything is still unknown: the smells are too intense, the streets are too lively, and I am too curious about everything. But somehow, I had the feeling from the first few minutes that this place didn’t ask anything of me – just to be present. And as I entered this slow, warm, slightly chaotic Balinese rhythm, I knew right away: something new was beginning in me.

In the following lines, I will tell you how this island swept me away. Slowly, patiently, sometimes surprisingly, and how these four days became something much more than a simple arrival.

Tuesday

2025.11.25

My days here are different than the previous three months. It is true that after almost a week I have acquaintances (in shops, restaurants, etc.) with whom I have talked and we greet each other when we meet, but basically I am finally completely alone here. For a while yet…

This means that if I want, I have no one to talk to all day. I am alone in my small room and I enjoy this state immensely. My mornings are starting to become a routine accordingly. I start the day with meditation after waking up. Then a little exercise inside the room. (Yes, the room is suitable for this too.) After taking a shower, I start work. I skip breakfast. The first meal is usually lunch.

If I want to eat, I have to go outside. If I go outside, I also take a short walk around the neighborhood. I should add that this place is so crowded that if I want to go to the store and then to my current favorite restaurant, while also getting in the way of the laundry, it means a walk of exactly 400 meters from door to door.

Walking through the bustling bustle, I was mainly able to observe buildings that caught my attention.

I don’t feel like a good photographer yet, and this walk was in the evening anyway, and I’ve already experienced that it’s not so easy to take good pictures at night.

So I’ll just tell you now.

Of course, everything is crowded! Landscapes polluted with advertisements, lots of electric wires everywhere. Lord grant that if I were reborn, I wouldn’t be an electrician in such a country! There’s a lot of garbage, all kinds of things are moving everywhere: motorbikes, cars and lots of tourists. Let’s just say, now that I think about it, I haven’t seen a bicycle at all. (This is also true of Koh Samui.)

And in this bustle, the buildings hide. They show dignity to me. The walls, the fences – even the sidewalks – are worked with respectable detail. The gates represent a separate genre. Not to mention the carved wooden figures! The careful work of the maker is noticeable everywhere.

This is complemented by the sculptures. I come across sculptures every now and then, which seem like masterpieces in themselves.

Most of the buildings and sculptures are made of some kind of characteristic black, gray, dark brown stone.

This stone is a gift from the volcanoes: most of Bali’s temples and gates are carved from lava stone. The most common material used is andesite or basalt. The island is full of old and active volcanoes (the most famous are Mount Batur and Mount Agung), and there are plenty of stones in the area that were once spewed out by volcanoes.

This stone is dense, hard, and durable, making it a perfect building material. It has a porous surface, which makes it easy to carve, even for creating fine details. It is naturally dark, which over time gets an even deeper tone from the rain and tropical air. And what is really important, it has spiritual significance for the Balinese: it is considered the material of earth, fire and time.

Andesite and basalt seem to still carry the power of the volcano. That is why the locals sometimes say that “rocks also live”, only more slowly.

Andesite and basalt reminded me of my early interest in natural sciences. The first pieces of treasures I collected from nature were also these: andesite, basalt and tuff. This triple expression was burned into me in environmental science class…

As a child, I always wanted to be a natural scientist. I don’t even understand how I ended up becoming an IT economist. David Attenborough’s books, for example, had a huge influence on me.

If time travel existed and I could choose an era in which I would like to live, I would choose Darwin’s time. The time when the world was still full of white spots and the discovery of nature was the greatest adventure for travelers.

Alexander von Humboldt, Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles Darwin, Ernst Haeckel, Joseph Dalton Hooker… I would be happy to join any of them to draw a great portrait of nature together.

This era was full of curiosity, rebellion, discovery and people who were not afraid to step to new levels. I dare to hope that with my new worldview I could be a worthy companion to these people.

As I stepped back into the present, the Balinese stone world was before me again: the basalt gates, the andesite sculptures and that strange, raw beauty that always stops me.

In the galleries I will try to show what captured me from these moments.

At the end of the walk, I suddenly found myself on the beach, where many people were watching the sunset. I sat down on a bed and simply admired one of the most beautiful cinemas of nature.

As the sun went down, I felt that I had probably never seen such beautiful colors before. An incredible harmony of orange, blue and the green of the Aurora Borealis showed itself. A feeling of gratitude filled my being…

I really like that in my life, gratitude constantly permeates and reminds me again and again of what a beautiful world surrounds me.

Wednesday

2025.11.26

This day was really quiet.

I worked all day and only moved out twice. First I went to my favorite restaurant for lunch. It’s interesting that after four days I have a favorite place. But I can’t and don’t want to do anything about it.

I came to this restaurant based on a simple “I like this” choice. A young boy works here with his aunt and uncle. All three of them are nice and I feel like we were able to look at each other with mutual respect. We had a long conversation the first time. The boy honored me by calling me by my name the second time. I also remember his name.

I had a curry that was completely different from the usual food in Thailand. Here it’s more like a soup than a sauce dish. However, the taste is delicious here too, and I think the ingredients are completely healthy.

I went out for the second time in the evening. I walked about 30 meters and sat down in the bar opposite for a beer. Yes, for a beer! It was too late for coffee, and I didn’t want to make the bar look dirty with a water, so I chose beer.

Here the beer is not 500 ml, but 600. This is an excellent option for drink lovers. The expression “I only drank 5 bottles” here actually means 6 bottles by my country’s standards.

I had several phones that evening, so I had the opportunity to listen to others and also talk about my own experiences.

Thursday

2025.11.27

Work, walking, meditation, the first wash in Bali.

These were the keywords of the day.

On this day, I began to feel that for me, walking in such a bustling city is also a kind of meditation. I feel the presence. Harmony appears.

The city provides the spin, the intensity, the noise – the thousand impulses. And I walk slowly. I contemplate in a restrained manner. Listening to my own music, I exclude the noise. Harmony is simply born between the city and me, only because I consciously place myself at the other end of the city’s reality.

I continued the city meditation on the beach, with a different kind of immersion. I simply sat down in the sand. I listened to the conversation of the young couple sitting near me. I didn’t understand a word, I just enjoyed the rhythm of the language. I watched the guys playing soccer on the beach. I searched in my head for the right setting for the two girls taking selfies in the twilight. And I felt like rolling around on my back like dogs do in the sand. I’ll do that next time!

To end the walk, I went to get my laundry. The laundromats here are not self-service. The price of the laundry is calculated based on the weight of the clothes and the urgency. I drop off the clothes and can pick them up in 6, 12 or 24 hours. It’s more expensive than Koh Samui, but in return I get dried, folded clothes back.

And they’re wrapped in foil. I understood the meaning of this at home when I opened the package: they use some kind of scented spray, and the foil helps the scent last longer.

With this wash, a kind of luxury has now moved into my chosen minimalist life.

Friday

2025.11.28

This day was about my transition to a large group in the digital nomad kindergarten.

Although – as I wrote – my room has a small backless seat and a small table/shelf that is the right size for my laptop, over the past few days I have had to admit that it is uncomfortable.

The lack of a back on the chair is extremely tiring for my back.

I decided it was time to try a coffee shop equipped for work. I stopped by the day before and asked about the conditions. I don’t have to pay to work here, I simply buy food and drinks.

I have to buy my daily coffee anyway. I don’t prepare the food myself either. I felt like I would be in a good place here.

It turned out that this was a good feeling.

I found the most comfortable place for me. There is a great table in front of the glass wall of the cafe, with comfortable chairs. I can see the traffic on the street. I use the stable wifi connection. There is power everywhere. The service is nice. There is pleasant music playing, so I can choose between listening to my own music or cooperating with the rhythm of the place.

The coffee and drinks are reasonably priced. The first meal I had here was very tasty.

I think I fell in love with this place right away. It is 300 meters from my accommodation, so I may make it my regular place in the next period.

I had an evening program for this day. A few days ago, the question appeared in the Nomad Cruise chat group to see who was in Bali. Along with this, the question was who would like to have dinner together at one of the excellent restaurants.

One of our friends visited several restaurants to find us a good place and a good deal for a Thanksgiving dinner.

The dinner took place at a restaurant called Fuego, according to the announcement below.

The only special event is being held at Fuego on Friday, the 28th. They are hosting a special Thanksgiving feast Argentinian style “asado” with 10 different dishes to try with special grill masters and live music. It’s a set menu for that night only. The owner is giving us a discount so the price is 480k ($28pp) not including drinks. Dinner will be on Friday evening at 19:00.

46 Nomad Cruise members came together here last night. I only knew four of them so far. I spent my evening in excellent company, with lots of good conversations and feedback.

One of my five-minute conversations was with a guy. He is a content creator, Human Design coach, fire juggler from Germany. We got to know each other’s thoughts. After a few sentences, we found a common voice in each other. After a few minutes, we hugged, making each other feel that our souls were close to each other.

We didn’t talk for more than a few minutes, so it was really nice when he said goodbye that I was a real soul and that he was grateful to fate for meeting me.

Today (Saturday) I asked if he and his partner (who is a very nice lady, I had also talked to her earlier) would like to spend a few hours together on an excursion or just talking. I feel like we can learn a lot from each other.

I also met a couple of ladies. They push travel quite hard. One of them started traveling around the world more than a year ago and visited 6 continents in one year. They have been doing this together since they first met.

I talked to them a lot, we got to know each other’s stories a little. They told me a lot of useful information and interesting experiences. While listening to these stories, I often thought about how inspiring it is for me to constantly meet like-minded people during my journey.

That’s why it was interesting that my story was also eye-catching for them. One of them said that he thought I was very brave. In his opinion, I had chosen a good direction for my life and said goodbye to me by saying, “Keep going.”

And that wasn’t the end of Friday.

After dinner – as before – I ordered a Grab motorbike taxi and went home. The trip is a good 40-45 minute motorbike ride, despite the fact that it was about we are talking about a distance of only 17 km.

After getting off the motorbike in front of my accommodation, I took a walk around the area. It was already past 1 am by then, and the reason for my walk was that I was curious about the atmosphere of the streets at night.

The silence and the low traffic were strange. All the shops and restaurants were closed, and I met very few people. But there were even more rats. It was interesting to see them where people walk around during the day. In vain, this is probably their time.

I saw quite a few people sleeping on the street. What is interesting is that I did not notice the usual homeless figures. A well-dressed man, sleeping with a mobile phone on his chest on a clean stretch of street. In another place, a boy was lying on his stomach in a parking lot next to a shop. They did not give me the feeling of homelessness, but I thought I discovered a tired man resting.

The last thing that belongs to this day is that I wrote to a guy this morning whose contact information I got from a member of the Koh Samui GreenLight company.

The man in question is Balinese, he lives here in Bali. I simply contacted him because I received the information that he could be a good guide for me if I wanted to get to know the natural beauties here.

He replied a little late, he apologized to me, but last night’s board game party dragged on for a long time at his house. Wow! What a coincidence! Before I left Hungary, I was in a board game club organized by one of my good friends several times… In fact, one of our very nice experiences together was when we played board games in Athens during our vacation together last year.

Returning to the new contact. He expressed his pleasure that I contacted him, he was actually waiting for it. He immediately invited me to a Coach Surfing party on Friday evening at 7 pm.

This is how I managed to have two programs for Friday evening within a week.

Since the Numad Cruise event was only on this day, and Coach Surfing seems to be every Friday, I didn’t accept his invitation. In any case, we agreed to have a coffee next week until the next opportunity.

So it looks like loneliness is being confined to the walls of my room again.

By the way, this is not entirely true, because after my walk, the little guy in the picture was waiting for me at home:

He is a gecko. As I have already noted in Thailand, they are very common in Bali and throughout Southeast Asia. They are on the walls of every house.

They are completely harmless to humans. They are especially useful because they eat mosquitoes, ants, flies. They are active at night, hunting insects that are attracted to lamplight. They often make a chirping and clicking sound. I have heard this sound several times, as well as the sound of them crawling on the wall. The other day I found one under my chair. At least he has moved in…

I said goodbye to the little guy and got a good night’s sleep after the exciting days.

Summary

Writing down the story of my four days, I see a flawless arc for me.

Tuesday: bustling moments, discoveries. Wednesday: silence and rest, connection. Thursday: immersion, city meditation. Friday: community, encounters, introspection.

The pace is very fast: each day of the story has given me something.

The fast pace helps me to slowly but surely progress through the levels.