Jason has been slacking lately on his blogging responsibilities, so it’s Piers here filling in. We’re well aware that an update is long overdue but there has been a lot going on in our department. The reason is because we both took a two week hiatus from our yachtie lifestyles to return to the ‘real world’ to catch up on some business, see family and friends. However, it was returning to Bali and Tamarisk again that brought back the feeling of home which makes us ponder where or what ‘home’ really is. More than a physical place, home to us has become a comfort we get from a sense of adventurous uncertainty of what lies ahead. As we plan our itinerary moving forward, and as our time in Indonesia winds down, our focus shifts to planning our route through East Asia.

Our time in Bali has treated us well and we continue to be amazed at the rich culture and diversity, and we will leave with a deep sense of satisfaction. As well as the having the Italian cousins aboard, Desi also managed to make it out to visit again for a few weeks to enjoy Bali, soaking up the holistic lifestyle with some fresh juices, massages, views of rice terraces, and temple visits. Being the only Hindu island in a predominantly Muslim Indonesia, there is a unique character and personality to the people which is heartwarming and inspiring. The daily offerings, frequent celebrations, and multitude of temples and shrines demonstrate a way that personal spirituality and religion is so integrated into daily life… something that seems foreign in most western religions which tend to make the church and clergy an intermediary between oneself and God.

We are spending our first days back in Bali exploring the southern beaches of Uluwatu and Padang Padang, made famous by amazing waves, surf communities, and sheer cliffs where we are again reminded that there is something here for everyone… not just the drunk Aussies that infiltrate the bars and alleyways of Kuta Beach. We’ve been joined by our friend Antra who’s come to explore Bali with us for our final days here. From here, we’ll head back to the Gili Islands to finish our SSI dive certification with our final two open water dives, then begin our northerly charge towards Singapore and Malayasia nearly 1000 miles north.

For a western person who’s never spent any time exploring Asian cultures, the principles of “eastern philosophy” are elusive and foreign such that it makes little sense to try to understand them or embrace them. It’s possible, maybe even normal, for a westerner to go through their entire life without ever considering that their thoughts and perspectives about human life, their mental models for how the world works, and their fundamental assumptions about cause and effect are all distinctly minority views on the world stage. In reality, a majority of the world’s people operates on a completely different mental operating system that can loosely be described as “Eastern Philosophy”. As our voyage now takes us into parts of the world where Eastern Philosophy dominates, we notice the challenges it presents to our own western mental models… a shaking of our mental foundations and a realization that our thinking up until this point has been narrow minded, maybe even brainwashed in some ways.

Because Eastern Philosophy relates to every aspect of human existence, it isn’t something that can be summarized in a few paragraphs, or even an unlimited number of paragraphs for that matter. Instead it’s something that has to be experienced and studied through years of immersion in Eastern cultures to be understood. Our short time here has been just enough to force the issue upon us, to appreciate the differences between Eastern and Western views, and to bring to the surface countless questions about what we observe: Why the simplicity? Why the individual sacrifice? From where does the patience come? Where is the materialism? And the list goes on and on….

So we’ve been exploring around the central part of Bali where many westerners come to learn about the Eastern way of life, to relax, and to achieve a level of personal balance and harmony that, for whatever reason, seems impossible in western cultures. We arrived in Bali with three cases of acute conjunctivitis (aka “pink eye”), and because we’re all westerners we of course opted for an expensive course of antibiotics before heading to Ubud in the heart of Bali’s mountainous interior. This is a place that caters largely to tourists, but where the overwhelming number of temples, villages, rice fields, and nature walks makes it easy to escape the crowds and forget you’re in a touristic place. As has been the case everywhere we’ve been in Indonesia, most of the locals are overwhelmingly friendly and welcoming, not because we’re tourists or because they want money, but rather simply because we’re humans sharing a moment with them.

It’s sadly just about time for our Italian friends Lisa and Mara to head back to the west while we continue our adventures in Bali. We haven’t even touched the beach areas here yet, and that means Kuta Beach will probably be next on our agenda. But for today, after several days of running around like lunatics, it’s a day of rest and Balinese massages, which means the time for blogging is officially over.