I have made a short summary video about my time in Indonesia.

I hope the pictures tell everything I have already told you in words.

The post 196. | 45 days, 2 islands, lots of experiences first appeared on Digital Nomad Blog.

Summary

I have arrived. Not to a place, but to a state. I am in no hurry now. I am here, in motion, yet at rest. That is enough for now.

Semper in motu. Always on the move.

It’s travel day again.

I love this part of my life too.

I’m almost looking forward to the experience I had in Milan last year – how strange, not so long ago I didn’t need this time limit – these days.

It’s magical to write at the airport and drink iced coffee made next to my laptop.

Of course, when I started this day, I was already aware that this was just a part of the journey.

After all, today I had 3,600 km and a 6.5-hour flight waiting for me.

At Denpasar Airport

I packed my things at dawn. I left my room for 6 weeks at around 7:40. I couldn’t say goodbye to my host because the reception wasn’t open yet.

I had planned one last walk in Bali, but the rain intervened. It was really heavy. So I had to call a taxi.

Since I was able to check in online for all three flights today at dawn, I have almost nothing to do here. I got through security easily and am sitting in a Starbucks.

I was writing my post until now when I noticed that someone had written the following on my glass with a marker: safe flight!

Even in my last moments in Denpasar, the locals can surprise me with their kindness. I asked one of the bar girls who wrote this message on my glass. It turned out to be her. So I was able to return her kindness by thanking her with a smile.

This will be the last kind moment in Bali for a while.

Now I’m trudging to my plane and I’ll be taking off in an hour.

As I sat on the plane, I meditated for a moment, then immediately fell asleep. I woke up to the plane taking off, but two minutes later I was asleep again.

I woke up to the plane’s wheels touching the ground.

The trip was completely without excitement – and without wakefulness.

At the Surabaya airport

Somehow everything is going so smoothly that an hour before my second plane takes off, I’m a little worried that I won’t have anything to write about in the end.

This airport is still in Indonesia, I arrived here on a domestic flight. From there, however, I’ll continue my journey on an international flight.

To do this, I had to take a taxi from the landing airport to the departure airport.

There, they tried to trick me with some product presentation, but I repelled the attempt with my immense routine.

Now I’m sitting here in front of the correct gate and waiting for the hour to pass when my plane will take off.

In the meantime, I crossed a time zone, so I was momentarily confused because my laptop shows a different time than my phone and watch.

On my next trip, I’ll check exactly where I change time zones, just to avoid misunderstandings.

Now I have a 4+ hour flight ahead of me, I hope I can read on this plane. LOL.

Before takeoff, I had a nice experience. A young guy came up to me and said he was doing a survey with tourists about Indonesia. He asked if I had 5 minutes for an interview.

For an interview? Mom! The alluring scent of anonymous fame hit me again.

I asked him to sit next to me, and then we started the question-and-answer game. He asked me a lot of things about my stay here. Some of the questions were about how I found interacting with the people here and how I felt.

During my answers, he expressed his gratitude and joy several times because I used the words “respect”, “respectful”, “gratitude”, “sincere” and “smiling” a lot.

The interview was anonymous. Anyway, that’s all about world fame! But the guy wanted to make the anonymous moment memorable, so he asked if he could take a selfie with me. We both happily did so.

This will be the last nice moment in Indonesia for a while.

There was an event, but not related to the trip. When I turned on the internet on my phone, I saw that the accommodation I had booked and paid for yesterday had been cancelled by the system due to the lack of feedback from the landlord.

So I was left without accommodation. Fortunately, by the time I got off the plane, we had already discussed the details with the owner of the accommodation I had booked and paid for the second one.

The price of the first accommodation will be refunded within 7 weeks.

At the Bangkok airport

I arrived prepared.

I had my Digital Entry Card to the country ready. I had internet ready. I had Thai baht in cash with me.

The internet came back on immediately, just like in any other country. Although I didn’t have to go through a green/red gate, they almost let me through the first check. For some reason, they took my passport and the officials talked about it among themselves, but finally decided: I could go.

At the next passport control, the customs lady asked how long I would be in the country and I answered her to the best of my knowledge: a maximum of 2 months.

All three of my flights were delayed compared to the original plan, but apart from that, everything went smoothly.

I didn’t feel the wait was stressful at any point.

I finished reading two of my two books in progress, started a new one and finished it, and even had time to read a few chapters of the next one.

I think I spent the time I had during the trip usefully.

Chiang Mai

I arrived here an hour late.

It was a full moon. Chiang Mai is a large flat city.

With the help of these two ingredients, the evening conjured up a wonderful sight for me.

As we descended towards the city, I stared out the window with bated breath. The full moon illuminated the visible landscape. The illuminated roads and parts of the city meandered in this light.

I noticed the different colors. The stronger orange, the warmer yellow. As the buildings became more and more observable in fine detail, the opal blue also appeared, transforming the entire city into an exquisitely designed model city.

The flickering lights of the huge billboards appeared, and the moving images projected onto the walls of entire buildings became clearly visible.

But the real miracle for me was the golden moonlight appearing on the still waters. It was amazing how the waters of the river bends, lakes and agricultural areas showed themselves in the moonlight.

It was an unparalleled experience to arrive in the city in this varied light show.

To arrive home.

After all, I first experienced Asia in Thailand, and now I am here again.

An inexplicable happiness filled me when I started walking towards my accommodation. Familiar posters along the roads. Familiar shops. Familiar letters. Familiar queen. Familiar words.

I walked to my room. The distance was 5 km.

As I walked, I thought about how much I love to take possession of an unknown city for the first time by walking. This is the first step of a dance. I am curious, the city allows me to glimpse its details.

And now I was dancing with a familiar stranger, with my mouth reaching from ear to ear.

I was so happy to have arrived here:

I have arrived again. I never thought for a moment that it was a shame to leave.

But to arrive somewhere, I have to leave from somewhere else.

Semper in motu. Always in motion.

The post 193. | Bali – Chiang Mai: 3 takeoffs, 3 landings first appeared on Digital Nomad Blog.

Summary

A dawn hike to an active volcano, sunrise above the clouds, then waterfalls and human gestures. Not the most beautiful, but the most fulfilling day.

For this day, I treated myself to one of the most famous Bali experiences.

I visited an active volcano – choosing a trip that was both a physical challenge, a sight, and an inner journey.

I’ll tell you about my day.

The experience begins at dawn

The day before, I got home from Gili Trawangan at 10pm. The driver picked me up at 1:15am, so it was clear that I wasn’t going to sleep before the tour. I tried, I swear, but I couldn’t.

It turned out that I would be the only passenger in the car that picked me up at dawn and in the morning. So we talked a lot with the driver.

I can’t even count how many people like this guy I meet on a daily basis. I talked to 4 great people that day alone. Yesterday I had five more meaningful conversations with strangers.

By the end of the day, the driver wanted to invite me to his family for lunch, but unfortunately his wife wasn’t cooking that day. Regardless, I was grateful for the intention.

He also told me about Mount Batur during the trip. I learned that although the volcano is active, it last erupted 25 years ago, and there is no sign of it being active now. They are constantly watching, and if a signal is received, they immediately evacuate and seal off the area.

We arrived at the meeting point in the dark, and I was among the first to show up. Soon, there were dozens of us waiting to start our hike to the top of the mountain.

Several hiking guides were waiting for us, so we were divided into groups of 5-6 people. We were given bamboo hiking poles, headlamps, and a bottle of water each.

We started the mountain around three in the morning. We hiked about 2.5 kilometers uphill, with a 500-meter elevation gain, and we reached the top in exactly one and a half hours. The total time was much more than that, because we stopped often, waiting for the members of the group who kept falling behind.

This was not the hardest hike of my life, but it is definitely one of the good medium difficulty ones. To reach the 1,700-meter altitude, we had to walk on a continuously ascending path, so the hike required some energy.

We replenished the energy we had burned before sunrise. We had breakfast at the top of the mountain. A banana sandwich! I have never had anything like it before, and I must say, it was excellent. Banana puree between two triangular toasts. We also got bananas and soft-boiled eggs, and a local dessert. The soft-boiled eggs spooned on the banana sandwich made the special breakfast special. LOL.

Sunrise

Sunrise is a difficult subject to photograph. I tried to take the best pictures I could.

On the top of the mountain, benches set in the right direction await those interested in this simple natural phenomenon that has been designated a spectacle.

Like birds on a wire, we sat next to each other, waiting for the miracle. A Serbian woman sat on one side of me, and it was very interesting to talk to her about “home” things.

I can’t really say how a sunrise begins.

It wasn’t the sun that I saw for the first time, but the appearance of lights. A strip slowly appeared in the sky.

Then, slowly, the ridge of a previously invisible mountain became perceptible in the strip. Two other mountain peaks nearby, towering above us, became more visible. More and more details emerged from the volcanic depression in front of us, the buildings and fields in it. The volcanic lake also got closer and closer to me.

I’ve been carrying a sweatshirt with me for four months. I used it for the first time this dawn. As the sky cleared, this piece of clothing became unnecessary again. Behind us was a hollow that I thought was the volcano’s crater. I don’t want to know if it really was. It was for me this morning.

From there, warm clouds of steam would occasionally rise. It was so welcoming in the cold of the morning. At one point in the crater, I stood in this pleasant warmth, spread my arms, and let the warmth envelop me. It was one of the best warmths I’ve ever felt while hiking.

My preconceived notion about the sunrise was that it would definitely be the most beautiful sunrise I’d ever seen.

This anticipation came to mind on the way down the mountain.

It wasn’t necessarily the most beautiful sunrise I’d ever seen.

But it was certainly the most complete.

I was part of the birth of this day.

Every moment of it became life and then immediately a memory for me.

On the way down, I was leading the team. Just like my own life.

Tibumana Waterfall

The next stop on the trip was Tibumana Waterfall. It was about an hour’s drive from the mountain. I slept a little on this trip, as I was so tired that I could barely form words to the conversation.

I woke up to find that we were stopping at a “surprise” place. The next stop on the well-organized ride was a coffee shop.

Here I could relive the Kopi luwak experience that I wrote about in the post “A wonderful day in Bali, when honey was mixed with salt”. I drank some great coffee and tea tastings again. I also learned that there are male (single seed) and female (double seed) versions of coffee beans. Today I could even choose which one I would drink. Let it be a secret what I chose.

In addition, today I took a picture of the real person responsible for Kopi luwak coffee.

From there we actually went to the waterfall.

Actually, to three waterfalls.

Visiting the waterfalls and their surroundings, the word majestic came to mind. The natural environment and the artificial things added with a lot of work appeared before me in rare harmony.

The bridges, the statues, the inviting resting places, etc. all seemed to be an integral part of the environment. I made a half-hour journey to the parking lot and back, so I didn’t spend much time here.

But I think it was enough to feel the spirit of the place.

Then we moved on to the offer. Let me buy something! Here I said what I have said so many times before: I don’t need anything, I have everything.

Then this conversation suddenly took an interesting turn when he asked me to buy something to support them.

I thought about it for a moment and told him that I really didn’t need anything, but to help them, he should enter 50,000 IDR (1,000 HUF, 3 USD) into the terminal and I wouldn’t ask for anything. The reader beeped and he told me to choose something for that. I smiled and said that I really didn’t want to buy anything. I don’t need a bracelet, a statuette or a wooden bowl.

As I continued walking, I thought I could have taken a grape out of respect for reciprocity, but that thought quickly faded.

As I went up the stairs and approached the shop, I could almost feel that the old man was waiting for me. I knew immediately that he would give me something, because I could feel his excitement. It made me wonder how I would become richer in the next moment.

He gave me a bottle of mineral water. His words were very kind. He said that he knew that it was much less than what I had given him, but he wanted to give me something too.

It was very warm. So I ended up with the most perfect surprise. I thanked him and replied that this water was worth more to me than all his other products and that I was very grateful that he had surprised me with this.

The shared smiles, mutual respect, and the bottle of water made my already unforgettable day unforgettable.

The post 191. | Mount Batur and the sunrise first appeared on Digital Nomad Blog.

Summary

Kayaking to another island, capsizing, losing a bank card, and then finding myself. Gili gave me one last gift.

I didn’t plan to write about my last day in Gili because I wasn’t expecting any special experiences.

Of course – and to my happiness – life often overrides my plans. This was the case in the last 24 hours.

My plan, as stated in my previous post “Gili: hello 2026!”, was: I will wait for the afternoon and go for a swim in the Indian Ocean.”

With this idea in mind, I set off for the town. I thought I would take a long walk and stop for a swim in a few places.

I became a sea explorer: the first conquest

But while walking, I suddenly saw something interesting. Not far from me, a couple was getting into a kayak. I immediately remembered that I had planned to go sea kayaking in Koh Samui, but then it was left out of the time I spent there.

I stopped in front of a kayak and paddle rental table. I acted immediately and we made the deal. I rented a single kayak for two hours.

I was already used to the fact that the rules protecting life’s safety work differently here. After I paid for the kayak, the owner pointed to a red kayak on the shore: “That’s yours.” He asked if I had done something like that before. I answered yes and didn’t want to get into it, that only in Hungary and only on rivers, never at sea.

“Have a good trip!” That was all we had to do with the conversation and preparation. I asked if I could get a life jacket, and another gesture and a few words were the answer: they are there if you want them.

I wanted to: I love to live!

So I grabbed the life jacket, the paddle, and the kayak. The third minute after the thought occurred, I was already in the kayak.

I immediately set my sights on the nearby island of Gili Meno. Off to adventure!

I had probably gone 30 meters when I heard the guy shouting after me. I turned around and heard him tell me to paddle close to the shore. I was a little disappointed, it would be fun, but not for me and not for two hours.

I told him that I wanted to paddle to the other island. Oh, then I should go diagonally and that would be fine. Hurray! I got my port clearance.

Kayaking on the sea is another dimension of existence.

The word “soul-sucking” immediately made sense as I moved away from the shore. The beautiful blue of the water is also a frightening black. Each of the friendly waves carries the message: I can overturn you at any time.

As the distance from the shore increased, the feeling of being alone and physically dependent on myself also grew within me.

Yet I felt no fear. I had my life jacket on. And I always have something more important with me. The knowledge that the soul is guiding me and that I can take care of myself.

So I simply enjoyed the magic of this new experience. The sea water was shaking, the physical work and the sun made me sweat, the colors and the air fascinated me. An experience familiar from movies enchanted me: there is a fabulous charm to the sight of an approaching land from a boat bobbing on the water.

This experience became a special film experience here: I filmed, watched and enjoyed the film of my life.

I reached the chosen stretch of coast in about 20 minutes. I energetically jumped onto the sandy shore, because the idea had already been formed in my mind before.

I became an explorer. I reached a new island on my own vehicle. It was the first time I had set foot on a piece of land that I had conquered.

I had no flag with me that I wanted to plant. I did not bring with me a desire for possession that I had to satisfy. I felt that I had conquered another piece of my own heart there.

A desire that had been kept quiet and formless until now transformed into a determination in these minutes. I would like to make one of my next conquests with a plane that I would fly. I will never stop dreaming!

That day the dream continued in the present. I returned to my own island.

I paddled to the port where I arrived on this island, then paddled close to the shore. As I passed by the place where I got into the water, I saw the owner of the kayak greeting me with a big smile and a thumbs up, acknowledging my achievement.

Maybe that’s why he kept one eye on me the whole time?

Before docking, I had another new experience: I capsized with my kayak.

10-15 meters from the shore, the sea wanted to show me that, despite all its friendliness today, it was the master. The capsizing happened in seconds, and it happened with full presence. It started and I was forced to accept that there was nothing I could do about it.

The water was pleasant. The life jacket definitely kept me afloat. I simply lay on my back and, holding the boat and the oar, swam to shore.

I don’t remember ever capsizing in a kayak. I needed this experience, and I knew I would have to go through it sooner or later. I feel like it happened here in a very good place.

The last day on the island of Gili Trawangan

After landing, the owner asked me if I had seen the underwater sculptures.

Of course I hadn’t, because I didn’t even know they were there.

And so the last day’s program was.

The next day’s kayak rental started with some excitement.

I needed cash, so I withdrew money from an ATM 10 meters from the rental place. At the same time, I did something I’ve never done before: I forgot my bank card in the machine.

After about two minutes, I discovered this painful mistake and went back to the ATM, where someone had already occupied the small space, holding a neon green Wise card. I asked him hopefully if he was holding my card. I had no luck.

After kayaking, I went back to the “travel office” next to the ATM. This is actually a small booth where you can buy boat tickets.

Here too, with hope in my heart, I asked if someone had given them my bank card. They immediately pushed a pile of bank cards about 3 centimeters high in front of me for me to look at.

The height of the pile of cards filled me with joy. It showed that I was not the only one so lame as to leave my bank card.

My Wise vegetable was not there. However, there was a guy with whom we somehow started talking, and then he came up with an offer very quickly. If I feel like participating in an illegal action, then he has a solution.

In practice, this was implemented by him calling someone. The someone arrived about 20 minutes later. He got a screwdriver and went into the room where the ATM was stored for a minute. Then he handed me my card…

This is a legally feasible process, by the way, without a screwdriver and in 2-3 weeks. I liked this solution better now.

Using the card I had back, I withdrew 300,000 IDR (6,000 HUF, 18 USD) and used it to support the screwdriver master.

Statues under water

To reach the underwater statues, I had to row across the strait again. I docked again on the island of Gili Meno.

Then I put on a pair of diving goggles and a matching snorkel. Then I just had to follow the direction, where about 6 anchored boats and 50 people frolicking in the water showed me the location of the statues.

I did buy a waterproof phone case, but in the sunlight that was there that day, it was simply useless. So I don’t have my own photo, but I’ll show you what I saw.

Exactly!

With those little zebrafish.

This experience was also amazing.

I was floating on the surface of the water.

And also in my own dream…

The pictures were taken without a camera in the present, but for the rest of my own life.

For a while I felt one with the sea.

I am grateful for this union.

The post 190. | Gili: kayaking extra first appeared on Digital Nomad Blog.

It’s another day on the fabulous island of Gili Trawangan.

Today I spent my day in two timelines.

Most of the day in the paradise of the present.

And for a while – measured by the grains of sand flowing from my palm – I got a taste of the past.

At the end of the year, it’s somehow inevitable.

A slow walk around Gili Trawangan

I live in the world of Lost Slippers.

I saw a lot of lost sandals, flip-flops and flip-flops during my tour today. Most of them are waiting for a better future alone, but surprisingly, they are often bored in pairs.

And I have not only encountered them on the beach in recent months. They also appear in quite unexpected places. I have seen lost footwear on the road, on the sidewalk, and even in shops.

I spent my morning alone, but I did not feel like a lost slipper.

I woke up exactly when I set the alarm, but in the end I turned it off for the sake of my roommate’s peace.

After eating a simple, healthy Indonesian breakfast, I set off.

I planned a walking version of yesterday’s cycling tour of the island today.

I went around the island of Gili Trawangan along the ocean.

I took tons of photos along the way, swam several times, and even stopped for a beer.

The island’s beach is not only perfect for walking around, stumbling around in the sand and wading in the water – it just beckoned me to do so.

Yesterday I told you about how the sand is sometimes brown, sometimes white. I forgot about black. Sure, there are places where the sand is black. This is a common color on Indonesian beaches.

On the way, I alternated between hard sand, soft sand that goes down to my feet, and sections of the beach covered with coral fragments.

The water is so pleasantly warm! For some reason, I remembered that it was much warmer than the water running from the shower in my room in Denpasar.

It also comes in many colors – mostly the one everyone imagines, the unadulterated sea blue, with light and dark shades.

Fortunately, the beach is not really littered with trash, and the water is perfectly transparent.

The beer was served at the perfect temperature. I usually drink from a glass, but the bar had a few oddly shaped mugs, so I made an exception and ordered one. I gave it to the experience.

I met few people. Maybe everyone was getting ready for New Year’s Eve, or it was just hot. The kind of hot that many adjectives came to mind.

The trees on the beach impressed me. With their twisted bodies, they exuded a dignified calm, while providing a mind-blowingly pleasant shade.

Dignified service. That’s the phrase that came to mind about them.

One of them invited me to meditate under it, and I gladly accepted the invitation.

I was moving slowly on this road. I covered the 7.5 km distance in almost 4 hours.

Perhaps this is because the road wanted to show me a lot today. The sea did not move at all. Sometimes it caressed me gently. In other places, it tried to knock me off my feet.

There were places where I was walking in knee-deep water, slowly because the rocks were slippery. In return for the slow pace, I could see a lot of sun-bathing crabs.

The water was an obstacle in a few places, and at other times it gently rocked as I lay on its surface.

The only – less friendly – condition today was the sun. As usual, I didn’t use sunscreen today either. After a while, my body turned a pleasant red, the color of boiled crab. Interestingly, the sun-bathing crabs were green and brown.

At the end of the tour, I sat down to drink a coffee in a shady bar.

And I just admired the colorful cavalcade of boats bobbing in front of me.

Burn and keep it!

This is not only the title of this paragraph, but also of the rest of my day.

After the hike, I took a nice shower to remind myself that getting burned is not such a good thing. Fires are also put out with water, so it seemed like a great idea to repair the damage caused by my own stupidity with water.

I burned a small amount of energy during the walk, so I did something I haven’t done in a while. I ate half of the chips in the room.

I also balanced out the active energy consumption with a short afternoon nap.

I compensated for the laziness of the days without work by writing this article.

I was outside, I was inside. I gave my all and I spent myself.

I think this characterizes my entire year, but I will write about it in the time measured by the grains of sand that flow from my palm.

Now I’m going to get on my bike, maybe I’ll ride around the island again. In the meantime, I’ll find my friends.

Yesterday we found a great bar, where we danced a lot and drank a little until nightfall.

It’s possible that today we’ll dance a lot and drink a lot.

I’ll continue studying the life of flip-flops and at the same time I wish you a happy new year, my dear reader!

Why am I grateful for this year?

Out, in, giving, receiving, spending and filling…

This is a time of reckoning.

I am 12,000 kilometers away from my homeland.

And much further away from my former self.

A year ago I made a brave “Decision”.

I gave my life a new direction.

I created space for myself to get closer to myself.

So now I am as close to my inner self as I have never been before.

I learned to be present in my life.

I found silence and was able to keep it within myself.

I found peace within myself and was able to stay there.

Among the many important decisions, I made two stand out within myself.

I want to live honestly.

And I want to live respectfully.

I have made many new connections with great people, learned a lot from them and influenced many of them.

I have improved a lot in keeping my boundaries.

I have opened doors that take me forward and closed doors where there are things that do not serve me right now.

I have experienced. I have learned. I have lived.

I am experiencing. I am learning. I am living.

I will experience, learn and live.

I am grateful to myself that I have trusted, trust and will trust in the flow.

And the soul leads me on.

The post 188.| Gili: farewell 2025! first appeared on Digital Nomad Blog.

By setting foot on the second Indonesian island, I did not become a great explorer of the country, since I only visited 0.01% of all the possibilities.

The official number of Indonesian islands is always changing, the country consists of about 17,500 islands. Of these, about 11,000 islands are uninhabited, which also means that 6,500 islands are inhabited… For me, these are shocking numbers!

0.01%… This number is small even with a magnifying glass. Just like the island itself is small. However, coming here was a huge experience for me.

I can’t even explain why to myself, but I was much more excited about this day than I was about my arrival in Thailand or Indonesia.

How did I get to the paradise of Gili Trawangan?

Some members of the Nomad Cruise group and I decided to spend the end of the year on another island. We helped each other out, sharing the costs where possible.

So today was mostly about traveling.

I called a Grab motorbike taxi around 9:00 AM. For a fee of 150,000 IDR (3,000 HUF, 9 USD), the driver showed up within minutes to rock my ass for almost an hour and a half over the 50 km distance.

As soon as he arrived, he immediately started by saying that the destination was too far, and that I should pay the fare out of my own pocket. I told him that I wouldn’t pay more, then I would call someone else. We agreed on that, so I stayed on the shoreline.

Soon the second driver arrived. He also started by saying that the money he was getting was not enough, and that I should please add to the official fee, because it wasn’t even enough for gas. I didn’t believe it, but I immediately felt that it wouldn’t be any better. I asked him what he meant. He said that I should give him 100,000 – 150,000 IDR. The situation was quite infuriating.

I was currently learning chess on the Duolingo app, so I couldn’t decide whether this was chess or checkmate. I didn’t have to pretend to be angry. I told him that I understood that it wasn’t enough, but that it wasn’t my problem. But to move on from this situation, I told him that I was willing to add 50,000 IDR to his salary, but 100,000 was out of the question.

We agreed and set off.

It’s very uncomfortable to sit on a motorbike for an hour and a half. It’s especially bad in the back. My feet are on the footrest, I hold on to the driver’s waist and keep myself balanced. A few days ago, I was lucky enough to have someone carry me for two consecutive days. In the traffic here, it’s quite hard work when someone is sitting on the motorbike and you have to support their weight while maneuvering between vehicles.

I rarely feel muscle soreness, but the pain from the ride a few days ago is still there in my legs. I felt this today after about 10 minutes of riding.

Then I thought about the fact that this man would carry me for an hour and a half and then come back, probably without a ride, so he would work 3 hours for very little money. So I changed my mind and told him that I would give him 100,000 IDR (2,000 HUF, 6 UDS) at the end.

The result of this was a selfie together at the end of the trip, which he asked for.

We took a boat from the island of Bali to Gili Trawangan. We had to check in to the boat, and we had to squeeze through a lot of people. It was quite a torture, considering that New Year’s Eve was coming.

We sailed for two hours on the ocean, at a pretty high speed. We docked at the island of Lombok, and then arrived at one of the 3 Gili islands in the early afternoon.

What was it like to set foot on this island?

These islands are exactly as they are described in fairy tales. Fairy tales.

The mountains show the direction from afar on the sea. Everything is green. As we approach the coast, the horizon begins to bustle with life.

The small boats grow larger. The sand is getting browner and, what is even more beautiful: whiter. The palm trees suddenly start waving.

Each island gradually reveals itself.

Setting foot on a tropical island is a huge experience for me. I hope it will be like this every time.

It was a very hot day today as well. The sun was scorching, but luckily there is a lot of shade beyond the harbor. Every street is shaded by the green of the trees. The air is fresh and you are surrounded by friendly faces everywhere.

There are lots of restaurants, shops and bars on top of each other. And of course, there are many diving schools, because these islands are famously beautiful diving paradises.

The main road runs along the ocean coast the entire length of the island. Between the road and the water, hundreds of umbrellas, chairs, and bean bags cover the sandy beach. Everyone is sunbathing in their swimsuits and most of them seem to be enjoying the place.

Our accommodation is a 10-minute walk from the port. We immediately took our room and then set off to explore the island.

My first day on Treasure Island

First of all, we looked for a good restaurant, because for some reason no one had eaten anything today.

After we made up for this lack, we rented a bike and set off on the road around the island. Some people stopped to watch the sunset. Some went somewhere else.

I cycled almost the entire island alone. At a very slow pace, it takes 45 minutes, 6 km. The entire circuit is somewhere around 7 km.

The cycling itself is quite difficult. There are no cars or traditional motorbikes on this island. There are small electric motorbikes, and horse-drawn carriages. And bicycles. But there are as many of these as there are stars in the sky.

Traffic morals are the well-known Asian practice. They come from behind and ring the bell. They come from in front and come from across. Three of them side by side, opposite me on my side. Nothing special, just the usual.

This is compounded by the fact that the road that encircles the island is also a sidewalk in many places. Therefore, you also have to be aware of the ingenuity of pedestrians while cycling. Walking in front of you without looking around, meeting you with an unwavering face, or playing the group road-taking game are all traditions that give new meaning to the idea of ​​riding freely.

So, don’t get ready to break the world speed record for cycling here.

But this place is not for that.

The island is very beautiful. I stopped in many places for photos, and I will now present some of them.

It is eight o’clock, and I am slowly finishing this article.

The evening may continue, with a visit to some noisy and crowded place.

The post 187.| Gili Trawangan first appeared on Digital Nomad Blog.

Summary

Cumi Kuah Hitam - black ink seafood soup from Bali. Spicy, deep umami flavors, three sambals, sweating, survival and a brief moment of feeling like a local.

This is a typical Balinese experience, not a tourist dish.

I had this soup yesterday.

During my long walk I saw its picture on the wall of a restaurant.

Black juice. Must be exciting – I thought – so I ordered one.

Black ink seafood soup – Cumi Kuah Hitam

Cumi = squid, (in many places octopus is also called this loosely), hitam = black, kuah = soup, juice.

The recipe for the dish is that simple.

The dark color comes from the kluwek (kepayang) seed. It is the seed of a tropical tree. What is worth knowing about it: The seed turns dark brown-black after fermentation, and is poisonous when raw due to its cyanide content. Therefore, it can only be consumed after a long fermentation and cooking, and its preparation requires traditional knowledge.

It gives an earthy, smoky, deep “umami” flavor. Umami is the fifth basic flavor, I learned about this concept during a sushi making course, back in Hungary.

The soup is served with rice and three types of sauce, called sambal. The typical sambal offering – I suspect that’s what I got too:

• sambal matah – fresh, raw
• sambal merah – cooked, brutal
• sambal terasi – deep, fermented

The soup itself is spicy, but the three sambals nicely represented the spicy, even spicier and brutal categories.

I slowly learned how Asian people eat soup. As you can see in the picture, they bring out the soup with a ladle. I get a small plate with it. I put some of the soup, the sambal on this small plate and I even put some of the rice in it.

This way I can practically try the dish in several versions. Without sauce, with a little sauce and with a deadly amount of sauce.

The soup itself is tasty, its strength is not too offensive. You can feel all the lovely flavors of the squid, the freshness of the lime, the strength of the paprika and the speciality of the kluwek.

The three sambals are three characters. The weakest one was hazelnut, it was very tasty. The other two showed that the strong paprika is no joke here either.

As a good Hungarian child, I ate everything. All the soups, the rice and the three sauces.

I drank ice water after practically every small bowl of soup I made, I felt a bit like it was a condition for survival. And I used up a kilogram of paper towels, because the sweat was even running down my ears.

Yesterday, before the soup, I only ate fruit. This is perhaps not the best preparation for eating such a meal. I had to travel about 2-3 kilometers from the restaurant to my home, but – to be honest – there were moments when I thought that this fuel might not allow a safe landing.

Fortunately, I got home. But the experience of the soup was present in my life for about 24 hours. This reminded me of Uncle Anti’s song – I’ll end this thought with this.

“I dreamed I was squatting in the lake, why, I won’t even mention it for decency’s sake!”

The culinary experience was made special by a brief look of appreciation. I was sitting alone as a European in the open restaurant. When I was already sweating and working on the soup, a family sat down next to me, and the mother greeted me with an appreciative look and smile.

I felt like it was saying “nice job!” You are here, in this restaurant – more like a warehouse – where we are too and you eat what the locals eat.

The post 182. | Cumi Kuah Hitam first appeared on Digital Nomad Blog.

Summary

The very first Christmas in the tropics. Christmas in Bali. Unforgettable memories, great people, white elephant gift exchange.

I was at a Christmas party in Bali on December 25th. It was my first tropical Christmas.

We were with 50 other people in a beautiful villa. With lots of food, a white elephant gift exchange, an ugly Christmas T-shirt contest, a fire ceremony, and lots of good conversation.

An unforgettable memory.

The Christmas menu

The invitation was for everyone to bring something they would like to eat or drink. We wrote down on a list beforehand who would prepare what, to prevent us from having 10 plates of rice with 3 bowls of potatoes and 5 chocolate cakes.

This resulted in a feast that we can most often read about in fairy tales.

There was everything that our eyes and mouths could desire: savory, sweet, local and international, fruit, salad, vegetarian and meat dishes. No one went hungry. Not thirsty either, but – as a Hungarian, I am not used to this – the evening was not about drinking alcohol. There was – of course – but those who drank did so in moderation. The main role was played by the sober and cheerful shared experience.

One half of my contribution was the spring rolls that I ordered from Graben, straight to the villa. The other was the help that I was able to give the host. I helped to skin and gut the fish, just like last time.

At the end of the party – just like last time – I was the only guest who stayed and helped clean up. There was enough food for a few days at the end of the party. I even received a special Christmas present from the host:

“Steve, you are the one we can always count on.”

Ugly Christmas T-shirt Contest

The winner of this competition can be the happy owner of a 90-minute massage and a 100 EUR discount on the next Nomad Cruise ticket. Since the founder of Nomad Cruise was also celebrating with us, when the host told us that the discount was 100 EUR, he immediately increased it to 200 EUR.

So it was worth preparing for this competition!

I was exceptionally in the shops looking for a Christmas T-shirt, and I tried to find a place to print custom T-shirts, but I was unsuccessful.

I already suspected that I would not be the lucky one in Bali.

My experiences went according to the expected scenario. LOL. Wherever I tried to buy a Christmas T-shirt at all – not an ugly one, just a simple Christmas-themed one – the same thing almost always happened.

• We don’t have a Christmas T-shirt, but we do have a Bali-themed one.
• We don’t have a T-shirt like that, but we do have shorts.
• I can’t give you that, but there are other things, like wooden plates.

My favorite was the girl who listened to me, then said that it wasn’t Christmas, but at least it was red, and took out a red Puma T-shirt.

An American girl was wearing the T-shirt she had prepared for this competition all evening. For a long time, it seemed that she was the only competitor. Then, as the competition began, another player appeared, in a reindeer sweatshirt.

The competition was decided between the two of them. The American girl’s T-shirt, sewn and sequined by herself, was a work of art. Santa Claus was sprawled out in a gin glass, drinking something, I think this was a great idea and the work invested in it was obvious.

Before the vote, the other lady made a very kind gesture: she said that even without voting, she thought that the other competitor was the winner, because he clearly did more for this competition than she did.

I really like such human moments.

The fireworks

Among the gifts, a huge package of fireworks was very popular. After the gift-giving and the polo competition, a few guys ended their existence.

At that time, a few of us were talking in a small garden bench. Apparently, we painted the devil on the wall, because when the rockets started flying and exploding, we started talking about how much we didn’t like it, because we thought it was a dangerous thing.

Shortly after, the last charge of one of the rockets chose to explode instead of flying. This independence ended happily in the end.

In fact, the hand that was holding the rocket caught the culprit about 10 centimeters below the explosion. That way, we didn’t have to reduce the number of available limbs with one hand.

It was also lucky that although this explosion hit its holder in the head, no injuries occurred, just a fright.

It was a minor experience for me that one of the sparks was about to head towards me, but stopped halfway. The ladies sitting next to me did not remain calm, they showed me what a panicked escape is.

Finally, we were lucky that the song of the evening was not “Smoke on the water”. The pool is next to the small garden seating area, so water was a given.

And the smoke appeared a good fifteen minutes later, when we noticed that the bamboo roof of the terrace was smoking. One of the sparks had rested there. Fortunately, there was a watering hose and an expired powder extinguisher, with the use of which the aforementioned song – fortunately – did not become the main character of the evening.

I was an outsider, because the temporary firefighting team, which was formed with rapid steps, immediately gained its full strength. The seriousness of the situation was somewhat mitigated by the – I think usual in such situations – charm born of amateurism, as everyone tried to do their best.

The improvised fire extinguishing had everything: a one and a half liter soda bottle, an expired powder extinguisher, good intentions and a lot of improvisation. The whole thing had a special, amateur charm.

We survived the adventure and fortunately nothing happened.

I hope everyone involved learned the lesson.

White Elephant Gift Exchange

For me, this was the real holiday.

I had never heard of this game before, so – in retrospect – I did a little research on what it was.

White Elephant Gift Exchange is a gift-giving game played mainly at Christmas, where the value of the gift is not the point, but the surprise, humor and the dynamic between each other. This is exactly how I experienced it.

The expression comes from Asia. It is no coincidence that I came across it here. According to legend, the white elephant was a sacred animal, it could not be worked with. However, it was expensive to feed. If the king gave someone a white elephant, it was often a punishment, not a reward.

This is where the metaphor comes from: a gift that is spectacular, but useless or burdensome. This idea lives on in the Christmas game too – just for laughs.

Basic rules (classic version)

1. Everyone brings a wrapped gift
   1. with a pre-agreed value limit (e.g. 15–25 USD)
   2. can be funny, strange, practical or completely random
2. Raffle: everyone draws a number.
3. The first player opens a gift and keeps it.
4. The next player can choose
   1. either to open a new gift
   2. or to steal a previously opened one.
5. If your gift is stolen
   1. you can immediately choose:
   2. to open a new one
   3. or to steal from someone else
6. A gift can usually be stolen a maximum of 2–3 times, so that there is no endless loop.
7. The game ends when the last gift is opened.

We had three more rules:

• There were a few “blind steal” options, when you could steal a gift from someone while they were holding it but hadn’t opened it yet.
• There was a single “steal anything” option, reserved for the last player.
• The gift had to arrive wrapped so that no one could tell what it was. But before you chose, you could pick it up, shake it, and weigh it.

I had never heard of it before, so I never participated in such a game, but it would be my favorite from now on.

There was a lot of laughter. Lots of fake or real disappointed faces, the thefts didn’t happen by chance. There were some sentences that were funny, for example, when one of the girls started talking about her roommate after one of the thefts as “my ex-girlfriend” who stole what I stole before.

There were obviously popular gifts, quite a few massages, these changed hands several times. There was the fireworks, which were also stolen several times from each other.

This game provided a long and self-forgetful entertainment for the 35 people who brought gifts and also for those who just watched because they did not want to participate in it.

I did not want to steal, I knew this in advance and decided. I chose my gift from the table with my eyes closed. I received a baseball cap with a Balinese figure as a gift, accompanied by a 70% cocoa chocolate from Fiji.

However, the real gift – again – was not for me.

I was worried about my own gift contribution. I am not a good gift-picking person.

Of course, I asked the AI ​​what would be a suitable gift for the occasion. In fact, I asked 4 AI models.

Almost all of them said the same thing, it was funny to see that – probably – other people asked and chose what the models said. I did not accept their suggestion.

On the 23rd, I walked around the neighborhood for a few hours, waiting for something to call me to find what I wanted to give. I looked at dozens of small shops, and then I tried it in a large shopping center.

A toy store gave me the strongest signal: come on!

Here I felt that the LEGO lucky bamboo puzzle would be the right one. Luckily, I was able to buy it with a Christmas discount, so I got a gift of just the right value, and one of the salesmen wrapped it very nicely.

The bamboo was among the first unwrapped gifts of the gift-giving to one of the guys with whom I participated in the summer Nomad Cruise.

He was so happy about it! He hugged it to him, his eyes were shining, as mine secretly were. It felt so good that this gift had reached someone like that.

Not long after, it was stolen from the guy, he played it off, he wouldn’t give it back, he played the role of suffering very well.

At the end of the gift-giving, we witnessed another incredibly kind act: the guy who stole the LEGO returned it to its original owner. He said he only stole it as a joke, he had no intention of keeping it. The theft was part of the game, and he did it with the intention that if he kept it, he would give it back.

Then – a little later – after a few aside conversations, I suddenly saw a wonderful scene.

Four of them knelt around the gift table. And together they put together the lucky bamboo. They played with it for a long time, laughed, brainstormed, shared the work among themselves. And their eyes shone.

Many of us just stood around them and watched them while we talked. I was proud of myself and of this gift choice.

This lucky bamboo was a great experience for all of us that evening. But – fortunately – only one among many.

The post 181. | White Elephant Gift Exchange Christmas on Bali first appeared on Digital Nomad Blog.

Summary

On the streets of Denpasar, scents, gestures, and spoken words together tell stories about Balinese respect, presence, and the quiet gifts of everyday life.

In my article “Flavors born on the beach”, I featured the flavors of Thailand.

Here in Bali, I thought a lot about scents.

I write about this and the words and feedback I received as a gift from my experiences here.

Let’s smell the air!

Denpasar – where I live now – doesn’t leave my nose without work.

Whenever I walk around the area, I always smell something exciting, pleasant or unpleasant.

In this country, traditions are also taken seriously. I have seen many times at dawn and in the morning, mainly women – walking around their houses and shops and carrying the day’s offerings on trays to the street shrines, or simply placing them on the sidewalk. These are the little bamboo baskets that I wrote about before. Usually the contents of the basket are food, sweets, a cigarette, a drink.

And often the incense is also in the basket.

I love incense, I have been using it since I was a teenager. I like exactly the kind that is used here. Not the kind that emits a cloud of fragrance, but the simple sandalwood scent. So I often encounter this familiar and friendly scent on a daily basis. It’s as if I hadn’t arrived in Bali, but an old scent had found me.

Then there’s the smell of laundries. I’ve already fallen in love with those moments when I pass by a laundromat in Thailand. The smell of clean clothes precedes it and even accompanies the area around the store for a while.

When I wrote in a previous post that here I get my clothes back from the laundromat wrapped in a bag, I also wrote that the reason for this is because the clothes are treated with some delicate fragrance and the bag retains this scent longer.

Since then I’ve realized what this smell is! Where I wash my clothes, they use a very pleasant rose oil fragrance. When I was a child, every grandparent had a bottle of rose oil for some reason. I have no idea what it was used for. But it was there. A few years ago, I wanted to buy it for myself in the spirit of this nostalgia. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really find it. I got it here.

In the neighborhood where I live, there are a lot of people walking the streets. So the smell of perfume accompanies me every step of the way. In most cases, these smells are pleasant, but sometimes you can smell an intrusive smell like an atomic bomb.

Many shops also have a certain smell. Often the smell itself is enticing. The invitation of smell has not yet reached me: since I don’t need anything, I haven’t been to a single store, except for grocery stores.

Food!

Many places prepare food in small kitchens. These differ from traditional restaurants in that the food is prepared almost on the street. In addition, there are many mobile kitchens on the roads. The delicacies are prepared on motorbikes and small carts.

So you can smell the smell of the raw materials and the finished product at the same time. I like both, although the raw materials are sometimes strong.

They often grill on the street. Corn is being cooked, sausages are being fried, meat is being made edible. The embers of the charcoal make the cauldron of smells/smells of the street particularly pleasant. This smoke is always inviting. I have eaten grilled corn quite a few times. While I am waiting for it to be ready – and finally smeared with chili sauce, my stomach is often already growling or my saliva is flowing.

The ocean is at the end of the street.

You can almost always smell the characteristic smell of seawater there. If the wind carries this scent away, the freshness of the air captivates my senses.

The wind doesn’t always carry away the smell of garbage. That’s also part of the street. Although they clean it every morning and generally take care of cleanliness, there is still a lot of garbage on and near the sidewalk. Most of the time, the garbage is put out in bags, but sometimes large piles are only taken away after days. That way, it has time to mature and emit odors.

This unpleasant odor is not that typical, you only encounter it from time to time, but it is still part of everyday life.

There are a lot of cars and even more motorcycles on the streets. Despite this, I don’t notice that the exhaust stench burdens the streets. Maybe the ocean breeze has something to do with it?

The magic of words

I’ve been living here for four weeks, yet I’ve had as much joy as if four years had passed since I arrived.

I’ve collected some of my fondest memories that have come to me in the past few weeks.

I’ll start with yesterday and today.

Yesterday morning I started the day at the usual shop. I already know all four young speakers. When I got there (5:30 in the morning) there was hardly anyone on the streets. The sales guy was sitting on the street with his friend, but as soon as I got there, he immediately jumped up and led me inside. I bought myself a coffee and then asked if he would accept one too. He was so surprised that he asked: “Really?” I smiled and told him that I would and that I would like him to choose one for his friend too.

While he was heating the spaghetti he had chosen for breakfast (yes, again!), he suddenly looked at me and said to me: “Sir! I really like you!” I translate this in Hungarian as “I like you”. I thanked him for this and asked him why. He said, “You’re always so nice to us. And I miss my dad, and you remind me of him.”

I gasped for breath for a moment.

It’s true that it’s terribly fresh, because I only got it last night, but I’ll keep it on a top shelf because of its contents:

“Thank you for today Steve! It was a great help and super fun day! Everyone talked about you in the indonesian group and loves you ”

This morning I went to the Immigration Office to do a super quick errand. Seriously, preparing for the worst, I brought my only book. I could read 5 lines of it. On the way out of the office, I bowed to the security guard in the usual way and waved goodbye with folded hands. He greeted me with an ear-to-ear smile, then gave me a thumbs-up on both hands.

These wordless messages often find their way to me. It’s not the first time that my greeting or polite refusal has been immediately rewarded with such a reaction. I immediately receive respect and sincere appreciation for my respect. And what’s more important, I see, I feel how grateful people are that a stranger is addressing them with respect…

I’ve been to one of the oceanfront booths twice. Each time we had a few conversations with the man and woman working there. Courtesy, respect, kind words. That’s the basics. When I said goodbye for the second time, the woman suddenly said after me: “Darling, come back, I have something for you!” The word “Darling” rang so beautifully that I can still hear it now. I gladly accepted the drink holder, which is used daily here in Asia, but this word was much nicer to me.

I have been stopped by a taxi driver after I declined. He asked me how my evening was. I told him that it was good – as always – but why did he ask. He said that he saw me always smiling when I walked down the street and was curious about the reason for this. I told him that it was nothing special, I was simply happy.

It has also happened twice that a stranger simply said that he liked my hairstyle. LOL.

What these words give here is not a lesson, because I have known how to do this beautifully for a long time. These words are proof that I knew it well.

I treat everyone with respect, even if they don’t, and this creates respect around me.

The post 179. | The smells and sounds of Denpasar first appeared on Digital Nomad Blog.

Another Day In Paradise

Another Day In Paradise (Phil Collins)

Play Stop

Steve player

Watch on YouTube

Oh lord, is there nothing more anybody can do
Oh lord, there must be something you can say

Good morning guys, so for tomorrow’s charity trip, we have 10 volunteers (we usually need 15 people, so feel free yo invite your friends)

 

1. Fred – Bali

2. ⁠Dindha – Bali

3. ⁠Jayesh – Irlandia

4. ⁠Steve – Hungaria

5. ⁠Loic – Perancis

6. ⁠Puji – Jakarta

7. ⁠Bu Nengah – Bali

8. ⁠Bu Jero – Bali

9. ⁠Bu Bari – Bali

10. ⁠Pak Bari – Bali

The jungle is beautiful!

Life is hard!

The post 178. | Bali showed the two faces of the world first appeared on Digital Nomad Blog.