Traveling Girl With a Glass

I arrived in San Miguel on Wednesday with 8 friends, here to celebrate a 50th birthday… as I am writing this it is Saturday morning, and we’ve seen quite a bit of this charming little town! A few days is probably enough to see it all, but with a bit more time, it feels like a great movie that you watch over and over… every time, you pick up a little something extra that you didn’t notice before.

This is for SURE a town that demands that you just set off and walk around to discover its charms… the cobblestone streets are steep and narrow and sometimes treacherous (especially in the rain – they suddenly become deadly slick in a downpour), and seem to be the original streets front the town’s founding in the mid-1500s, so it can make for a tricky walk, but oh so worth it.

The town simply overflows with restaurants and galleries and boutiques, and a good strategy is to figure out where you are in relation to the main square and then wander towards and around it, just zig-zagging the streets and popping in and out of anything that looks interesting. There is a big American expat community here, and many people speak English, so while it always helps to be able to speak a little of the language in a country, I’ve gotten along fine with my mediocre Spanglish. 😉

Dinner the first night was at La Parada, a terrific Peruvian restaurant recommended by several friends who have either lived here or traveled here frequently. San Miguel seems like Singapore that way – as soon as you start asking around, it turns out you know more people who have been here than you thought you did. Traveling Girl made a rookie mistake and ordered wine at dinner… Peruvians in general are not all that into wine, which I just sort of forgot… the food was terrific, but go with Pisco (a native Peruvian liquor) or tequila (which is amazing everywhere here) if you go.

The next day, we took a little walking tour of the city – while I normally avoid organized tours, it was a great way to get oriented a to get some of the history of the place. Lunch was at Hecho en Mexico, and dinner was at the rooftop bar at the fabulous Rosewood Hotel. They had possibly the best DJ I have ever heard, and we ate and drank and danced and had a ball, all with the best rooftop view of the city:

My cranky back (still sore from my falling off the horse adventure) forced me to bail on a hike with the group yesterday, so I walked into town late morning and planted myself at La Azotea – definitely add this to your list for lunch! Get the jicama tacos. Trust me. 😊

Dinner tonight is at Casa Nostra. Tomorrow we go to an afternoon jazz concert at Rancho Zandunga and finish up the trip with dinner at The Restaurant. The reason I’ve included all these links is that if you consider a trip here, you will be instantly overwhelmed by the number of choices and all the recommendations you will get from your traveling friends. This group did a TON of research into all the options (spreadsheets might have been involved), and this has been our itinerary – fabulous so far!! Thank you, thank you to my uber organized friends who put so much work into planning this trip. ❤️

We are staying in a 5 bedroom villa on Calle Andama, only a few blocks from the main square. With some planning, it’s very easy to find a VRBO or Airbnb for a group, and the fewer people you have, the easier it will be. We’ve had two ladies here who have made us a wonderful breakfast every morning, and even had a chef come in for an amazing paella dinner last night. Covid is still an issue, of course, and you’ll see precautions everywhere – some make sense and some don’t, just like in the states, but in general everyone is careful with masks, and nearly everything being outside lends a more relaxed air to things.

I will say that with the pandemic still a very real threat (especially with the variants), it’s tempting to just stay home and play it safe, but I’ve opted, since getting vaccinated, to get back to traveling and just embrace the precautions. Yes, masks are a pain in the ass, and traveling is not quite the same as before, but I’ll still take it. I love seeing the world, and I’m willing to adopt whatever new normal arises in order to keep doing it. Being here is a good reminder of how fortunate we are, as Americans, to have unrestricted access to the best vaccines – that’s not the case in much of the rest of the world, and I’m grateful. Many, many people that I have met on my travels in the last few months would trade places with an American in a heartbeat to be able to get vaccinated so easily.

Sending love from San Miguel, my traveling friends! ❤️

More later from Italy in a few weeks (another 50th!) if not before….

Cheers 🍷

Traveling Girl

Me, to my acupuncturist a couple of weeks ago, as I hobbled into his office: “Sooo… I might’ve fallen off a horse on Friday.”

My acupuncturist: “What do you mean, you MIGHT have fallen off a horse??”

Me: “Ok, I definitely fell off a horse. Yes, I am aware that I am almost 50, that I should have been wearing a helmet, that I’m lucky I’m not in a Mexican hospital right now, and that it’s probably super annoying when your patients go do stuff like this and then expect you to fix it. So… can you fix it?”

So here I sit, propped up on my sofa, writing. It seems I strained a big muscle in my back, and it’s taking its sweet time to heal. I’ve seen the acupuncturist, gone to my chiropractor, gotten a massage, taken lots of hot epsom salt baths… I was hoping for a few days, but we’re on two weeks now, and while it’s gradually getting better (I’m for sure mobile, just not as mobile as I want to be), patience is not my strong suit. Plus, I leave for San Miguel on Wednesday, but I guess that’s what Advil is for…

The short version of the falling-off-the-horse story is this: My last day at MEA, I went riding on the beach with three friends, two of whom are expert riders. I’ve ridden, but it’s been… oh, let’s say more than a few years ago. The wind caught my baseball cap and blew it off, it hit the horse and spooked her, and she took off at a full gallop.

In a movie scene, this would have been wild and exciting and exhilarating, but I’m afraid it was not, nor was I at all glamorous, galloping down the beach. I was terrified.

Of course, had I just hung on and let her run for a minute, it all might have been fine, but I freaked out and pulled HARD on the reigns… so she did exactly what I asked: she came to a screeching halt.

And I went over her head into the sand.

I really couldn’t have asked for a better accident, as weird as that sounds – the last day there after two amazing weeks, soft sand, three friends with me, one who calmly explained what had happened (it all happened so fast that I honestly didn’t know), one who is an MD and made sure nothing was terribly wrong before I started trying to move, and the other who helped me back to campus and got me set up with Aleve and ice… it was a good reminder for me on accepting help.

Most of us are not, as a rule, very good at that, are we? Accepting help, that is.

So I’m thinking about two main things today: as my title suggests… getting back on the horse. (Not literally – that may be awhile for this Traveling Girl – but metaphorically… when we come back from our travels, it’s not easy, is it? “Re-entry”, we always call it)… and the second thing is accepting help. I think they’re related. Stick with me here…

I used to always think of travel as an escape, mainly because I had created a life for myself that was so stressful that I needed to regularly escape from it, and I think that’s pretty common. Now that I’ve worked hard to change that, travel has become more about growth and learning and experiencing new things, not just flying someplace to drink wine with different scenery. (Though that’s fun, too 🍷)

So how do we go about creating a life that we don’t feel like we need to escape from? Isn’t this (hat tip to Glennon Doyle’s recent podcast on this topic), rather than manicures and massages and chocolate, the definition of self-care?

My team and I at work went to a 4 day week over a year ago. We held our collective breath, hoped for the best, and decided to do it. Know what happened?

No one else noticed and revenue went UP.

Remember our new mantras, traveling friends. Why not? Who says?

We have also learned to ask each other for help. We do this at work, I’m learning to do this more and more with my friends and loved ones, and it makes ALL the difference. I am, little by little, moving from not only just accepting help when offered, but actually (gasp) asking for it.

So the questions I have for you today are: what can you do to make your “real” life into one you don’t need to escape from? And who can you ask for help to make that happen? We genuinely love to help each other, so consider giving someone the gift of letting them help you.

Thank you, thank you, to my friends who helped me that day ❤️ Let’s do something different on our next vacation together 😉

In love and adventure,

Traveling Girl

Hello, and thank you for your email! I will be out of the office on vacation through Monday, June 21 with no email access. If you need immediate assistance, please contact….

I remember the first time, probably only a few years ago, that I added those two little words to my out of office email reply. “On vacation”. GASP.

We Americans, in general, like to pretend like no one needs a vacation. If we do take one, we try to pass it off as if it’s actually work, or we’re at a conference, or we announce that everyone should feel free to text us if they need anything… no, no, really, don’t worry about it… you can text me… no problem.

I think that this is, in fact, a problem.

Rather than write about how everyone should unplug more often and take more time off (please do!), though, what I want to explore is this idea of permission. I’ve been thinking a lot about that this week as I’ve met more seekers and explorers and adventurers, many of whom have done a lot of the the things I’ve been saying I’m going to do “someday”.

Take the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage in northern Spain.

I’ve been obsessing about walking the whole Camino for at least five years, halfheartedly looking at the calendar and trying to figure out when I might pull off being gone that long (it takes about a month), batting around fearful thoughts around whether it would be safe to do it alone, and deep down believing that I’m just not allowed to do that.

Allowed. By whom, exactly? Who made that rule?

Then I met a woman (here in Baja) in her late sixties who walked the whole damn thing alone with just a backpack a little over a year ago. Well then. If she can do it, so can I.

So here we are circling back again to who says? Why not?

I love the idea that as we get braver, as we step a little further out of our comfort zones and give ourselves permission to do the things we’ve dreamed of, we give others permission to do the same.

That’s why I changed my OOO years ago to say “on vacation” instead of just the vague “away from my desk”. No more pretending that I’m actually working in order to feed my own ego or our culture’s obsession with work. Maybe in stating that, I’m giving someone who reads it the permission they need.

My friend who walked the Camino gave me the permission I didn’t realize I was needing. Maybe when I do it, it will give someone else the same… is it possible that this is part of the definition of karma?

So pull out your calendar, traveling friends. What brave and wonderful and adventurous thing can you do? It can be big or small, matters not. Pick something, let people know about it, and delight in the knowledge that you just gave someone else permission to be brave, too.

In love and adventure,

Traveling Girl

As my close friends know, I’ve been super hesitant to write this post… why? Because I’m back in Baja. Who do I think I am, coming back down here for another two weeks? Don’t I have a job? Where is poor Frank the traveling pug? (he’s happy and playing with his buddies at a friend’s house, don’t worry)

I was invited to come back down to the magical MEA campus here in Pescadero to lead a session on financial goal-setting, which is A) right up my alley, of course, and B) an outstanding excuse to come back.

So on the surface, it’s that. And yet it’s also more than that. No travel recommendations in this post (other than a hearty suggestion that everyone consider coming to Baja someday), but stick with me here…

I’m turning 50 this year, an excellent opportunity to think about next chapters. How might the next 10 years be different than the last? Of all the many questions that this special place holds space to answer, that might be at the top of most MEA alum’s lists. For a financial goal-setting class, that’s rich material, and led to some really great discussion around how to make the next chapter happen.

Ostensibly, that’s why I thought I was here this time, then. To teach a class and then to spend more time doing three of my favorite things: reading, writing, and walking on the beach. The universe tends to re-route our plans, though, doesn’t she. The time here has been ever so much more than that.

The title above was sparked by a conversation with a friend I made down here who is a very well known expert in the fitness industry. Suffice it to say that unless you’ve literally never exercised and have been living under a rock for the last 40 years, you know who she is. She’s had an extraordinarily long and successful career, and continues to be an active thought leader and traveler and seeker, and she’s an absolute inspiration. One day at lunch, a new arrival who somehow did not know who she was made some (inadvertently) thoughtless comments to her that led my friend (and the rest of us) to comment, “who does she think she is?”

Indeed.

Who did that well-meaning but awkward person think she was, making assumptions about my friend? Well, she was just being human, wasn’t she. Don’t we make assumptions all the time about who we think others are? We put people into boxes absolutely as quickly as we can, most of the time. And that translates to limits. On them and on us and on the quality of the relationships we have.

So I’ve been thinking a lot about this. Who do we think we are?

Are we our professions?

Our relationship status?

Our gender or appearance or age or family role?

I used to try on different personas when I traveled – all true, just never the whole story. Sometimes, when asked what I do, I’d say I’m a writer. Sometimes I’d say I’m an educator or a runner or an artist. Just to see how it would feel. (Saying “financial advisor” always led to dull, technical questions anyway). Now I find that I want to have multiple answers. It’s finally dawned on me that I don’t have to pick – we all, as Walt Whitman brilliantly said, contain multitudes.

One of the brilliant journaling prompts here last week – there is one every morning that Chip Conley, one of the founders, sends out – was: “what mastery do I have to offer?”. Ask yourself this five times, and you can’t answer the same way twice. You may be surprised what you come up with. I was.

For instance, I’m great at my job, but it’s for sure not because I’m good at math (I guarantee you my team at work just LOL’d at that, because it’s sadly SO true. I am genuinely actually terrible at math). What I’m terrific at is taking very complicated topics and information and distilling them down, through analogies and storytelling, into something helpful and actionable.

What mastery do you have to offer? What is it that you have a natural ability to do that others don’t? And how does that fit with who you think you are?

The sunsets here leave me struggling for words to describe them. Same with the people I’ve met that have prompted these deep and fascinating conversations about who we are and why we’re here. Amazing doesn’t even begin to capture it, but that’s all I’ve got. The fireside conversations over too many glasses of Mexican wine, the dance parties, the beach walks, the yoga classes, the hugs, and the love. Thank you, thank you, to my amazing MEA friends – especially the four-pack of us that arrived together and have been enriching each others’ lives from that very moment – and to Chip and Christine and Jeff for creating this special place.

So here’s a thought, my traveling friends. Ditch the limiting labels. Or at least add lots of commas and broaden them out. Who do you think you are, really? And why do you often think you have to be someone else? And as we discussed last time, who says?

In love and adventure,

Traveling Girl

It’s been awhile, traveling friends. Like most people, I haven’t traveled for a year, which just seems like the craziest thing to write. I would have NEVER thought I’d not travel for a whole entire year. And yet here we are.

Once my parents were fully vaccinated, I went to SC for a visit – that was about a month ago. I was surprised at how anxious I was traveling – understandable given the circumstances, but a foreign feeling for me. Double masked and feeling like I had to be on guard at every moment, it was the opposite of everything I love about travel.

But now (half vaccinated – I’ve had the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine), I find myself in Mexico. I’m at the Modern Elder Academy in Baja taking part in one of their “Sabbatical Sessions” for two weeks. All our meals, discussion sessions, etc, are outside and Covid-safe, plus nearly everyone here is vaccinated, so it lends a level of comfort and relaxation that we haven’t felt in a year. I’ve been taking long walks on the beach and reading and writing and making the acquaintance of the most interesting group of people.

One Canadian has been working remotely here since February. There are several Brits who escaped the lockdown there and have been staying either here on campus or nearby most of the winter. Two fascinating women have been digital nomads for months – working and traveling and staying in hotels and Airbnbs around the United States, all their belongings in storage. One of them, when asked where she was from, replied, “Well, my stuff is in the Bay Area”. I loved that answer and it got me thinking about the boxes we put ourselves in, the hills we think are hard to climb.

The folks I’ve met here are for sure free spirits, braver and bolder than most – but why not be those things? Why not live someplace else for awhile and break out of our routine? What’s the worst that could happen? We don’t love it, so we go back to where we were? Not so bad. Why do we make things harder than they really are? So much is remote now anyway, why not take advantage of it?

There is a road behind the campus that goes up several HUGE hills, one pictured above. I set out running the second day I was here, and to run from campus to an overlook point and back is only about two miles, but it’s an intense two miles. The first day I thought my lungs might explode trying to make it to the top, even walking about half of it. Now, a week in, I can run a little more and it’s getting easier and easier. Enter Oliver the three-legged dog.

Oliver is owned by a family nearby but spends most of his time on the MEA campus, getting attention and snacks from the folks here, most of whom are missing their dogs at home and are delighted to heap affection on him. He’s smaller than the rest of the pack of beach dogs he runs around with, but he make up for it in spirit.

I set out on that hilly run with a friend here a few days ago and Oliver decided to tag along. We were worried about him in the heat, but damn if he didn’t run the whole way, laying down and panting in our shadows at the top. On the way back down, he sought out every shady spot available to rest, and then promptly jumped in the pool when we got back. Which I’m fairly certain he knows he’s not supposed to do, but he’s so adorable no one cares.

Perseverance. Rest. Reward. Not hard concepts. Oliver reminded me that basically life boils down to those few things, and the little guy has them all down. Why do humans struggle so to find that balance?

I think we often focus on one thing and forget the others. Mainly, we work and work and persevere and we forget to rest.

Or we forget to be grateful. Or forget to celebrate.

Or we DO remember to rest and be grateful and celebrate but then we get complacent and forget to think about what else is out there, about how we can better serve, better make a difference in the world. Be better neighbors and friends and parents and citizens.

It’s been a tough year, friends. We’ve persevered. Time to rest, to jump in the pool, celebrate that we are almost past this, and then start thinking about what’s next. Everybody get vaccinated if you can. Let’s create a safer world where we can get more connected and start cultivating a new boldness. Let’s go on some adventures.

Start asking why not? Who says?

If Oliver the three legged dog can climb that hill and rest in the shade and jump in the pool and love every minute of all of it, so can we. It’s all LIFE – the work and the rest and the celebration. All of it. Don’t leave anything out. We need it all.

Let’s go.

In love and adventure,

Traveling Girl

I am turbulent, says my Italian neighbor, whom you met in the last post.  

Again with my affection for non-native English speakers. Often contractions aren’t used, making comments sound more definitive, more formal. And often adjectives get picked that we native speakers wouldn’t have even thought of but that are perfect.

Turbulent.  And notice he didn’t say I am feeling turbulent.  He said I AM turbulent.

Me too, neighbor, me too. Ask Siri for synonyms for turbulent and she will give you:

Agitated, troubled, stormy, swirling, rough, choppy, bumpy, unstable.

Sounds about right.

Like everyone right now, I have my good days and my bad days.  Good days when I laugh at every funny meme someone sends me online, make lists of all the restaurants I can’t wait to go back to, start planning my next trip in my head…. and days when I get bored and restless and worried and, well, turbulent.  

Just like travel.  Not every flight is smooth.  Some are choppy and bumpy and turbulent, but we’ve been on so many that it doesn’t throw us, we just buckle up and know that we’ll land soon.  Have another glass of wine and daydream about our destination.

For what it’s worth, I learned a few things being in the financial industry during the crisis 12 years ago.  That was certainly not as broad based and as scary as what we’re going through now, but the lessons I learned are still relevant:

1.     Just do the next right thing.  (this idea is echoed, by the way, in a new book by my favorite author.  “Untamed” by Glennon Doyle.  Go read it, it is fabulous).  You can’t predict the future, so stop making yourself crazy trying to scenario plan.

2.     Maintain your self care rituals.  Keep working out and doing all of the things that you usually do to take care of yourself and feel your best.  Your first instinct will be to get rid of those things because they somehow feel wrong or indulgent or like a waste of time.  They are not.  Keep taking care of yourself.  We need you.

3.     Use this time to edit.  We have all been given a pattern interrupt here, so use it.  Business as usual has screeched to an abrupt stop.  Use this forced time out to make sure you are spending your time and resources in the most impactful places based on the results and values that are most important to you.

Our team hired a fabulous coach about a year ago, and she helped me put the above into words after a long conversation last week. Our relationship with her has made a world of difference in how we function and approach our responsibilities to our clients, our families, and ourselves, even before this current challenge was upon us. You can read more about her team at www.fruitionpersonalcoaching.com

Something else she brought to our attention that has been invaluable in our work in literally all areas of our lives, is an understanding of the 6 human needs. In no particular order:

1.     Significance

2.     Love and Connection

3.     Certainty

4.     Uncertainty (aka Variety)

5.     Growth

6.     Contribution

I’d argue everyone’s list pretty much just narrowed itself down to #2 and #3.   

Well, we can’t have #3.  If we ever even really had it.  We just thought we did.

So that leaves us with #2.  Much of our love and connection has been punted to cyberspace, so we do the best we can.  We wave to our neighbors, FaceTime with family, have Zoom happy hours with old friends (try this!  It’s so fun).

Spread as much love and give yourself as much connection as you can, friends.  

Do the next right thing.

Take extra good care of yourself.

Use this time to edit and refocus on what’s important to you.

Buckle up and know that we’ll land before too long.  Have another glass of wine and daydream about our destination.

See you there,

Traveling Girl

PS: my version of a PSA…. In a recent Terrific article in The Atlantic, this quote grabbed me: “”Think of it this way: There are now only two groups of Americans. Group A includes everyone involved in the medical response, whether that’s treating patients, running tests, or manufacturing supplies. Group B includes everyone else, and their job is to buy Group A more time.”

So one last thing. Let’s be as excellent a Group B as we possibly can. Everyone take care of yourselves. We’re all in this together.

Though our journey now, of course, is at home. Almost no one is traveling.

The quote above is not to suggest that everything is ok. Everything most certainly is not ok at present, as our government is finally taking a global pandemic seriously as of about three days ago and the financial markets are swinging wildly. My favorite part of this quote are the last two lines. Allow me to explain.

……………………

“This will be good for us in the end”, says my neighbor.

My neighbor is from Italy, and his sister lives in Milan, so lately every time I see him sitting out on his porch and smoking one of his huge fat cigars, I ask after her and see how he’s doing. Italians, he told me today, are bored and scared and remembering their community. How important it is to be together. Remembering that they are all more equal than they’ve been acting.

One of the things I love about talking with someone for whom English is their second language is that they don’t tend to chit chat. They actually say something – it’s a pleasant directness. (And when it comes to Italians, sometimes not even pleasant, just direct. Still love it). Americans, when we are so inclined, can talk for hours and say nothing. My neighbor, even if I talk to him for five minutes, usually says a few very real things. Many of which I disagree with, but he’s a smart and thoughtful and kind man, so even those things make me think, and I appreciate that.

Ok, I say, good how?

“This is the universe reminding us that it can wipe us the fuck out”, he says.  “That we’d better start being nicer to each other than we have been.”

Unpacking that, since that sounds more than a little harsh and I know my neighbor and you don’t and there was also a bit more to the exchange, here’s what I think he’s saying: after the potentially terrible consequences of this virus have subsided, after we’ve reacted and responded and contained and mitigated and cared for the members of our communities who are affected, it’s possible that something good also arises. Not taking away from or denying the awfulness, but existing along side it.

Who will be choose to be, as a country and as a world, when this is over?

As you may remember, I work in finance, so last week was brutal on many levels. Most clients were calm, resilient, and wise – we all went through the financial crisis in 2008 together, so they know not to panic – and as I spoke to each of them, I was reminded of the generational differences in how people handle crises, financial or otherwise.

Anyone who is in their 70s and 80s now grew up with parents that had fresh memories of the Great Depression – that generation is, almost without exception, more frugal, more economically conservative, and calmer in a crisis that anyone else.  They also tend to be a bit more pessimistic and it’s harder to convince them that things are ok even after things are objectively back to being ok.  There’s a scarcity mentality that got hard-wired in that keeps them on guard in a way that I suspect the rest of us can’t really grasp.

I’ll spare you a rundown of generational responses to financial crises, but the stark difference in how older folks handle these things made me think about how we’ll handle this national health crisis.  Who will we be when this is all over?

Who will we choose to be?

Will we continue to isolate? Every person for themselves? Or will this, as my neighbor is convinced, remind us how important community is?

Here’s what I want: when I’m 75 and we have yet another market meltdown or public health crisis, I want my young financial advisor to say “Oh that generation is different. They lived through the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020. They don’t panic. They come together, take care of each other, and are the backbone of the community when things go awry. Thank heaven they’re still around to show us how to handle this.”

I hope we choose to be closer, not further apart.

And here’s what I want everyone to do in the next few days: check in on your neighbors that live alone or are older. Even if they don’t need anything, it will matter that you asked. Even if you don’t know them well. Text if you have their number. Or just leave a note in their mailbox. Everyone has a different level of anxiety operating right now, dependent upon their own internal wiring and life experiences, and while our judgment of their level of worry doesn’t help, our concern for their welfare does.

Let’s come out of this better than we went in.

“Breathe in, and breathe out…and virabadhrasana two… and SMILING!”

I’m sorry, what did he say? Leslie, my new friend in 7 am yoga and I looked at each other. The small, uber fit, ridiculously happy small Balinese yogi looked at us with eyes squinted shut in a huge smile.

“SMILING! You SMILE!”, he repeated.

Oh. Ok. Yes, smiling. I can do that.

I started committing to 7 am yoga on my second day here…the first day I left early in the morning for a bike tour, my only pre-planned activity that I actually kept.

So… Bali. Much love to Singapore, I’m so glad to have seen it and the food was fabulous and the people there were lovely, but Bali…

Yeah, this…. this is my vibe here. I see why people visit here and just end up staying. Don’t get me wrong, Indonesia is still a third world country and there is stunning poverty among the stunning beauty here, but there is a grace and a positive energy here on this lush island that is hard to articulate. Even for me, your wordy friend.

But Traveling Girl, come on. You’re staying at the Four Seasons.

Yep, and lucky me, but what I’m trying to describe exists everywhere here. Every taxi driver, school kid, gardener, shopkeeper… everyone is happy. It’s not just the yogis. Is it the religion? This is a predominately Hindu island in an otherwise Muslim country, so maybe… but that can’t be the whole story, I don’t think. The closest I can come to putting it into words so far is that there is just an incredibly strong culture here – the people that call this island home know who they are and what they’re about. They prize happiness, community, celebration, family, and faith above everything. They may be economically weak, but they are culturally strong. Which is more important?

Good question.

I arrived here late Monday night, in the rain, and the drive from Denpasar to Ubud in traffic (traffic is terrible everywhere here) took about an hour and a half. My hotel sent a driver, but taxis are plentiful and easy to get – turns out I could have easily just grabbed a taxi, but had arranged the driver knowing I was arriving alone at night and not having a good feel for what my options would be.

The forecast for the entire week was rain, but it was too late to cancel my bike tour, so I gamely showed up at 8 am and was rewarded with only a few sprinkles. The tour was fun – went with a tour company called GreenBike, and I thought they did a great job. We stopped for coffee early in the drive out of town… do you know about cat poo coffee? I’ll spare you the description. Google it (or click here). It’s pretty good. 😉

We started up near Mt Batur and cycled, mainly downhill, through villages and rice paddies, past temples and crowds of kids on motorbikes, people smiling and nodding at us the whole way.

Interesting things I learned: every family has a family temple at their house, and each “house” is really usually two or three small simple buildings around a raised platform that is used for ceremonies. People rarely move, because they believe the spirits of their ancestors are there. It is preferable, when having children, to have boys, but it’s not actually quite the misogynistic sort of scenario that brings to mind – it’s that when the Balinese marry, the girl typically goes to live with the boy’s family, so if you have all girls… then you’ll be lonely when you’re old. Not having children? Unheard of. My tour driver didn’t even try to hide his concern for me. It was actually kind of sweet.

I had dinner that night at Sayan House, right around the corner. If you go, get there for sunset – I missed it and could tell it would have been spectacular from their perch on the hillside.

Balinese cuisine is simple and good – lots of fish and nothing super complicated. Wine isn’t really popular here, so though the Four Seasons has a decent list, your Traveling Girl will not be waxing poetic about any magical glasses of wine. All the better for making it to 7 am yoga.

So I had to make a call immediately on the rest of my planned excursions if I wanted a refund for them – a sunrise trek up Mt Batur and a day of snorkeling in Nusa Penida. Between the forecasted rain (and the rain the last few days that I assumed would render the Mt Batur trail a mess) and the traffic I had already experienced, I bailed on both. My philosophy on things like this when traveling is: just do your best. Take what info you have, make a call, and move on. Second guessing yourself is a waste of energy.

(I did hear someone at the hotel complaining the next day about how muddy and awful the Mt Batur trail was. Validation that you made the right choice is always nice.)

It strikes me that there are two sides, or maybe layers, of Bali to experience – internal (spiritual, cultural) and external (activities, beaches). So I decided that rain = a spiritual and cultural trip. I’ll just have to come back some day and snorkel.

So the next morning, I set out to visit a traditional Balinese healer. There are two main categories in this realm – one does more chakra clearing and healing, the second palm reading and blessing. The one I visited fell in the latter group, and happens to be the son of Ketut Liyer, the healer that Julia Roberts’ character in Eat, Pray, Love visited. Ketut passed away a few years ago at 102, and his son carries on the family lineage. It’s actually not the giant marketing machine that you’d expect (or that it could be)… there was literally almost no one there when I showed up.

He’s a smiling, crinkly, spark plug of a man, a little shorter than me, with huge knobby callouses on his ankles from (I assume, since mine started to hurt after five minutes) sitting cross legged on a hard floor for many years.

After paying (600,000 IRP, the equivalent of about $40), a sarong and a sash were tied around me, I removed my shoes, and I stepped up on the platform to sit cross-legged, facing him. He smiled and immediately started laughing. Which of course made me laugh, so that started us off nicely. 😄

He told me a lot of things that most westerners probably need to hear – I need more balance and that being happy is the most important thing, among others – but he also said that I will live to more than 92 (good to hear), that I will become a leader of some sort (like hearing that, I love leadership), and that I’ll get a PhD (no insight into in what subject). And that I’ll get married again. Hmm. Check back with me in twenty years and I’ll fill you in on what’s come true. It was a cool experience and I always try to do stuff like this when I travel – I mean, why not? You can take a little something from every healer, psychic, and medicine man. Me, I’m taking away from this one a renewed commitment to balance, happiness, and living to be 92.

I spent the afternoon at the spa at the hotel, which I really can’t say enough great things about… it is really just amazing, the whole property is. Even if the weather had been great, I’d have been hard pressed to leave this place to go on a day trip somewhere else. We had a couple hours of sun too, so I was able to enjoy the marvelous pool down by the river. I mean really, how gorgeous is this?

And here’s the main building looking back up from the river:

Massaged, charkras cleared (part of the spa ritual), and a little sunburned, I headed to the chef’s dinner with my new friend, Leslie. Seven small courses of traditional Balinese food, the star of which was a roasted pig. All delicious.

Today after yoga I went into town for a bit, walked around, had a foot massage (ever so slightly more gentle than Singapore, but not by much, loved it), and found a lovely little cafe for a smoothie. If it weren’t crawling with westerners, Ubud would feel really authentic, and I imagine at one time it did. It’s still delightful, don’t get me wrong, but I can imagine what it used to be like before all the, well, people like me showed up. That’s always the quandary, isn’t it. As a tourist you’re both part of the solution and part of the problem. I just try to be more of the former and less of the latter.

Back to yoga that second day. At the end, after savasana, the teacher solemnly looked at us and said:

“Now. We do one minute laughter practice.”

“Breathe in, and… HAHAHAHAHA!!! From the belly! Now from the chest… HEEHEEHEEHEE!! “. He slapped his knees, cracking up and grinning ear to ear.

Everyone collapsed into giggles. How could we not?

Let’s all do that every morning. One minute laughter practice.

SMILING!

Traveling Girl

This is an actual sign right outside a hawker center in Marina Bay. Singapore takes its food seriously.

I think last we left off, I was about to go to lunch at Corner House in the Botanic Gardens, which was an absolute treat. Four courses with a light wine pairing (in air conditioning) was just the thing after my almost-debacle of a morning. As you might imagine, the sight of this cheered my hot and wilted soul immediately:

Corner House was not the amazing experience that Odette was, but it was delicious and lovely, and I’d recommend it to anyone as a really terrific addition to your list of restaurants to go to in Singapore. The setting in the gardens is hard to beat.

Thus revived, I headed back to the hotel to sit by the pool for a bit, having finally acquiesced to the heat. You simply can’t tour Singapore the way you would another city… at 95 degrees and 98% humidity (which I’m told is unusual for this time of year) in the mid-afternoon, you are best served to just hide for an hour or two and come back out around 5 or 6.

So that I did, emerging early evening to head back to the National Gallery to wander around – it is fabulous and would take two days to see it all, but I got a lovely overview – and have a drink at Smoke and Mirrors, one of the bars on the rooftop. The bar overlooks some cricket fields and Marina Bay, and is a marvelous place to watch the lights of the city come up as the sun sets (behind you, incidentally, but the lights are super cool to see).

I wasn’t terribly hungry for dinner after my long and lovely lunch, but I hadn’t had chili crab yet, so…. off I went. My friends that have been to or lived in Singapore may cringe at this, but I wasn’t up for going far, so I settled on a seafood spot in Marina Bay called Boiler. Quite possible is was a tourist trap, given its location right in Marina Bay, but if it was, at least it was a damn good one.

Chili crab is basically just a huge, and in this case very fresh and VERY good, crab, steamed and covered in a tomato and chili sauce thickened with egg. When you order, you are handed a bib and plastic gloves. Do not resist. This seems like a ridiculous indignity, but trust me that you will need both. Then comes a shell cracker and a tiny fork (or in some places chopsticks) to get the small bits of meat out of the narrower parts.

When you start it looks like this:

When you finish, more like this:

Which is why all the tables are covered in plastic. And thank heavens I know my way around a crab from having grown up on the east coast, or this whole activity might have taken two hours. It’s a lot of work for dinner, but worth it.

The next morning, having finally figured out how to manage my trip around the heat, I woke up early and took a taxi down to Southern Ridges Park for a hike. This was a recommendation of my friend who lives there, and a great one. If you go, take the “forest hike” not the “canopy hike”. The latter sounds like what you want, but it isn’t. Go over the (very cool) bridge over the road and take the elevated walkway up.

Keep going for about thirty minutes and you’ll be rewarded with this view:

Terrific way to start the day, and it wasn’t quite as hot. I had time to go back to the hotel and shower so that I wasn’t as much of a wilted mess as I had been for every other lunch reservation on this trip so far.

Lunch was at Candlenut, the only Michelin-started Peranakan restaurant in Singapore. Peranakan refers to the group of people descended from mainland Chinese men who came to what is is now Singapore and married Malay women, so the cuisine is a really interesting and tasty fusion of Chinese and Malaysian flavors. I had chicken with a black nut sauce, and it was fabulous. Black nuts are actually native to Indonesia, and are poisonous unless treated properly – steamed or boiled or something – which they clearly were since I’m still here to write about it. 🙂

And now that I’d discovered the secret… I went back to the hotel after lunch and sat by the pool. Early evening I headed out to walk down the Quays on the other side of Marina Bay, only to find out that St Patrick’s Day is actually a thing here. Seriously. After getting trapped in a couple block festival of closed off streets, green hats, and drunk tourists, I gave up that idea and decided that for my last night in Singapore I’d just go back to that really honestly (as much as you don’t want to love an overpriced tourist bar) super cool bar on the roof of the Marina Bay Sands. Hey, the wine list is great, it’s a fun vibe, and you really can’t beat the view. A sushi roll and a great glass of wine there was perfect for dinner.

This morning I was determined to see the Singapore Zoo on the recommendation of quite a few people, so I got up early and was there when they opened at 8:30. I have to say, with all due respect to the friends that recommended it, unless you have kids (in which case FOR SURE go, it would be fab with kids) I’d say skip it. It’s a 30 minute taxi ride (longer on the MRT because there’s not a station nearby), and while it’s true that it is a very well done zoo, I just wouldn’t add it to your itinerary unless you have a ton of extra time or have kids with you. Maybe I’m just not a zoo person, but I couldn’t help regretting not staying out for another drink with the other solo traveler I struck up a conversation with at the bar last night instead of turning in early to make the zoo trip happen.

(A side note on the night safari: I had a ticket to this and ended up skipping it because I didn’t realize how far outside of town the zoo is. I hear it’s great, and if I’d had company, I would have gone. I just didn’t want to get stuck way outside of town and nowhere near a subway station at night, alone – as safe as Singapore is, that still didn’t seem like a great idea.)

And now here I sit in the Singapore Airlines lounge, waiting for my flight to Bali. All in all, I really enjoyed Singapore… the food is fabulous, the people are absolutely lovely, and it’s an interesting city. I was probably here one day too long – it’s a little bit like Vegas that way… expensive and a little overwhelming and probably best limited to three days so that you leave wishing you could stay instead of being totally ready to go.

The wine in the Singapore Airlines lounge, for the record, is quite good.

More from Bali!

Cheers,

Traveling Girl

I’ve been meaning to write this post for awhile – the decision tree to determine if you are, in fact, having some sort of existential crisis on your trip. Hint: there is approximately a 99% chance that you are not.

In my experience, potential crises usually present in conjunction with one or all of the following: shitty weather, jet lag, dehydration, hunger, loneliness.

This blog is my travel highlight reel, so I usually only tell you about the fun stuff, the delicious meals, the funny stories… but plenty of things go wrong, and it’s important, I think, to acknowledge that. No one lives a charmed travel life free of hassles, hangovers, and bad moods.

So here is your decision tree in the face of what can feel like impending doom when you’re hot (or cold), cranky, tired, annoyed with the person you’re traveling with, whatever:

Thought: this trip sucks. I want to go home. I’m (insert crappy feeling) and I wish I hadn’t had the stupid idea to come here.

Step 1: Sit. Drink a bottle of water. Better?

If no, Step 2: Is it noon? If no, get some coffee. If yes, get yourself a cocktail or a glass of wine.

No need for step 3. You’re better now. Unless you are in jail or the hospital, your travel problem can almost always be solved with water, food, caffeine, or alcohol. You are not having an existential crisis.

I had to remind myself of that this morning after I had the bright idea to walk 2 miles in the heat at 8 am to Little India and get Indian food for breakfast. I mean, why not? I thought. Look at me, the independent solo traveler, going to get Indian food for breakfast on a whim! At least I had the wisdom to have coffee before I set out.

Cut to me, an hour later, drenched in sweat and stomach still a little off from my wine-soaked lunch and super spicy dinner yesterday, faced with this as soon as I walked into the Tekka market:

Normally, super cool. Right that moment, blech. And by that point I was so hot I didn’t want Indian food, or really any food, either.

So, step 1: got some water. A little better.

Punted the Little India idea. I’ll come back later.

Hopped on the subway to the Botanic Gardens, where I have a lunch reservation at a restaurant inside the gates later. Right at the gate, found a smoothie shop and got an icy cold green-tea-and-some-sort-of-fruit smoothie that absolutely saved my life. Walked around the gardens until I couldn’t take the heat anymore, and now I’m sitting in the shade at a cafe having more tea and more water. It’ll be noon here in 20 minutes 😉.

Crisis averted.

The Singapore Botanic Gardens are really something, and worth a visit. The Orchid Garden alone is worth the trip – thousands of different kinds of orchids, all meticulously tended and displayed – it’s absolutely gorgeous.

Lunch here in a bit will be at Corner House, which I’m super excited to try. The friend I had dinner with last night said it’s her and her husband’s favorite place.

Speaking of meals, I got so caught up in my decision tree story that I neglected to report back on lunch and dinner yesterday. Lunch was at Odette in the National Gallery. What a treat – I can’t say enough good things about this restaurant. Rather than sitting me in a corner (which, as a frequent solo diner, has happened more than a few times, and I’ve learned to simply ask for a better table), they sat me at the prized chef’s table facing the open kitchen, where I could watch all the action. You know, in case I might be bored. 🙂

I chose a six course tasting menu with wine pairings, and the sommelier, who’s name is Vino (not kidding, that’s actually his name), cheerfully agreed to do half pours for me so I wouldn’t pass out at the end of lunch. The staff was super friendly, and the food was absolutely exquisite. My favorite dish was a rosemary smoked egg paired with a white, almost sherry-like wine from the Jura. Here’s Vino with the wine, and the egg presentation:

Vino, it turns out, is leaving Odette in a week to be the head somm at a highly anticipated new spot opening in Singapore called Cloud Street. He’ll be working with the only Michelin starred Sri-Lankan chef in the world, whose other restaurant I tried and failed to get into on this trip. Looks like I’ll just have to come back!

After a nap in the late afternoon to wait out the heat and sleep off the wine, I met a friend at Newton hawker Centre (which I think is the one from the movie) for my first street food dinner. We shared sambal stingray, fish noodles, and an oyster omelet, all delicious. My only advice so far on the hawker centers is to stick with water to drink, or Tiger beer if you’re a beer drinker, which I’m not. The “juices” and other drinks are super sugary sweet, so unless that’s your thing, water’s the way to go. Big thumbs up though, on the sambal stingray:

I’m off to lunch – time for some food and wine for this kid.

Cheers!

Traveling Girl