August 8, 2025
Today was my first day since I’ve come to Bali that I had a to-do list:
- Spend a couple of hours looking over my notes for the opening session of the retreat and my (very loose) teaching plan.
- Review people’s arrival times and emergency information forms.
- Arrange all necessary details for the opening of the retreat with hotel staff.
- Organize a optional offering-making class for anyone who’s arriving a day early (quite a few writers were arriving early).
- Eat at Loaf, my favorite lunch spot.
- Walk into town to visit my favorite lotus pond.
- Get a pedicure.
- Greet Joanie and the two other members of our group arriving tonight.
I spent a few hours procrastinating before I got to the top two items on my list. I’m engrossed in a gripping novel (Tilt by Emma Patee) and I kept having to just read a few more pages while I lingered over my wonderful Indonesian breakfast. And then, miraculously, time zones lined up and I got to talk to my wife and daughter back in Santa Cruz, for the first time in a week.
But eventually, I buckled down, leaning back on the huge sprawling couch overlooking the sea, surrounded by colorful pillows, opened my laptop and started reviewing the groundrules I’d be setting for the retreat, our “no talking about politics in common spaces” policy, my encouragement for everyone to take a risk everyday, and how FOMO (fear of missing out) can keep people from taking care of themselves on a group trip. I read over my plan for the first writing class, knowing that I couldn’t plan further than that until I met the group.
That hour-and-a-half spent, laptop open on the couch, was more about changing gears than anything else. It was time to transition from hanging out to working. Time to don my leader/teacher/shepherd hat.
It was noon before I finally headed into town.
I hadn’t planned to create a blog post today, but a storyline emerged as I walked, insisting on itself, and I kept seeing the images I just had to capture with my camera.
I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to take you along on my walk.
I had to be very careful as I walked. And stop fully every time I wanted to take a picture. You have to, with sidewalks like these:
As I walked down the street, men with motorbikes, lounging by the side of the road, asked if I wanted a ride. I’d shake my head no and say, “Jalan, jalan,” and make a walking gesture with my fingers. I’m walking.
The main drag through Candidasa is filled with boutique hotels, schlock shops selling cheap clothes, trinkets and tchotchkes, open-air restaurants and cafes, ATMs, spas, warungs (small sidewalk storefronts selling fruit, drinks, snacks and miscellaneous goods), a dive shop, a seamstress, and ads for laundry service.
This is the Bali you see if you don’t have guides like my amazing team, Judy Slattum and Made Surya of Danu Tours, to bring you directly into the culture, spirituality and community life that beats beneath the surface of the thrumming exterior.
Yet despite all the trappings of a tourist town, the sacred is always there, small offerings left on the street, holy shrines, the sacred and the commercial all mixed up together.
Half an hour after I set out, I reached my first destination, my favorite lotus pond, and took the long looping walk around it.
On my way to my lunch stop, I stopped here, at the No Problem pharmacy.
You see, I had a little problem. Just a touch of Bali belly. I won’t go into all the details, but let’s just say it’s an unpleasant but manageable change in my normal digestive functioning. I’m not sick. I feel fine. It’s just that things down there are well….a little sticky. This has happened to me in Bali before. It’s unpleasant—but it always fixes itself when I get home.
I walked into the pharmacy and tried to explain to the pharmacist what was happening with my bowels. I was grateful it was just the two of us in her shop.
I could see right away that the pharmacist didn’t speak any English and I didn’t have any Indonesian. After a few false starts with gestures, I pulled out Google translate and tried to articulate what was happening with my bowels.
Our Google translate conversation went like this:
She asked if I was constipated.
She asked if I had diarrhea. Nope.
I typed out, “Sticky.”
She looked perplexed. We really weren’t getting anywhere.
She typed out, “Do you have colitis?”
I shook my head no.
Finally, I asked if she had any probiotics. Maybe I just needed to replenish the good microorganisms in my gut. Once she looked that word up, she brought out a flat packet of pills and a small jar. I pointed to the jar.
I settled on the stronger one.
Three times a day. Sold. My two little jars of pills cost 750,000 rupiah, the equivalent of a driver taking me to Ubud all day and driving me back.
I handed over my credit card, and took the first pill with the delicious fresh Vietnamese spring rolls I ate for lunch.
After sinking back into Tilt for half an hour, I wrenched myself away from the climax of the book to walk over to my pedicure at Andre Bali Spa. Tami is an incredible masseuse (I know from direct experience last year). She gave me an amazing pedicure, removing all my calluses (even the ones on my toes) and massaged me deeply up to the knees. While she worked, I asked about her children, always a good topic of conversation with the Balinese. Tami told me she had a ten year old and three year old. She asked if I had children. I said I had three: 48, 32, and 28, and three grandchildren: 22, 9 and 11. She asked if they all lived with me, and when I tried to explain that my family lives all over the world, she looked at me in complete disbelief. She couldn’t conceive of having children who live thousands of miles away. In Bali, most families are intergenerational and live together in one family compound.
That contrast, between her reality and mine, made me sad, but my feet never felt better.
But the best part of the day was yet to come. Joanie made it!
