What To Do When It Rains in Bali

Here we are in paradise. When you think of paradise, at least for me, you think of the hot sun, the beach and just relaxing. But sometimes in paradise it rains. After a day of surfing and waking up sore, we decided to spend an extra night in Legian, Bali. We are within a five minute walk to the beach and thought it would be good just take a full day of laying in the sun, but were rained out after an hour or so. We headed back towards our room and stopped to get some water from the cute little store down Melati Street Gang (gang means an ally type road). Beside the store was Energy Ink, a tattoo shop that we had passed on many occasions. As the rain came down harder we decided to go in and take a look. And that's when it happened. Within the next hour both of us had designed and priced out a tattoo for each of us and booked for the next morning.

Realizing what we were in for

After a lot of thought we decided to put down our deposit. This meant a couple of things for us. We had to book an extra night here in Legian, which at $14 a night we weren't complaining, and we had to change our future travel plans as swimming is out of the question for a bit. The joy of freely traveling with no set plans is we can do whatever we want. So tomorrow we head to Ubud for some relaxing and adventures that do not include swimming. 

We both got tattoos on our sides. This area hurts more than I could imagine but we bared the pain and got through it. The guys at Energy Ink were great, making sure we were OK and the place had a great vibe. I didn't think I would end up doing this on this trip. Back home we would just say YOLO, but here as everyone says; Whatever. It's Bali.

It Only Takes A Of Couple Days To Feel Like Forever

It took us over twenty four hours of traveling to get to Bali, Indonesia but here we are on our third day and I feel like I have been here for weeks. Just finished a simple breakfast with coffee and am sitting outside of our room listening to the rain gently fall down. I think this is where they record every ambient relaxing piece of music from the sound the rain to the birds and even the annoying roosters in the morning it just makes every inch of your body relaxed.
Now that I have blabbed on about how relaxed I am I can tell you that our first stop in Bali has every reason not to be relaxing. We are staying in the Legian/Kuta area which is beyond touristy. Every shop sells the same shirts, sarongs, watches, random wooden penis', offers massages and shady money changing. We have walked street after street, been called beautiful, sexy, and girlfriend. We've had people try and be our friends, take pictures with us, and of us. We have had an overload of people selling everything. At one point there were six people crowded around us at the beach trying to sell us everything from massages, to bow and arrows, to bracelets and hair braiding. We even said no to rice hats and ice cream. Something I am still regretting this morning, as I imagine sitting here with my rice hat on and a Magnum bar. Maybe I'll get more ice cream today. We also had to switch rooms. It is disgusting hot here. Our fan in our fan room broke the first night. The point I am getting at is that with all the craziness that is here, the people hawking us, there are still not words to explain how amazing it really feels here.
The sunsets are like falling head over heels in love. The people are incredibly kind. The smell of incense is everywhere, calming the soul. The sounds are relaxing. The vibe is just all around good. I think I see why people never leave and I think I remember why I always wanted to be here.

Sunset at the gates of Legian Beach

Gorgeous sunset on Legian Beach

To Travel Is To Live

Jen

Rachel

In less than a week we are going to be leaving the comforts and the familiarity of our homes, friends, family, jobs and life as we know it. We are two sisters nine years apart who have decided to take on an adventure, go out of our comfort zones and see the world. 

The idea for this trip sprung a year ago when our youngest of three sisters took a leap and moved to New Zealand. Having never been on a plane, lived on her own, or ever having a job we saw her grow and learn as she faced her new world head on. This came as an inspiration for myself, Jen, and I figured if my 18 year old sister could do it so could I. Then there were a change of plans. She decided to come home and my thoughts of living and traveling in New Zealand changed. One day I was reading a fellow travelers blog which stopped me dead in my tracks. He had left with a one way ticket, a minimal amount of money and has been finding ways to support himself while traveling the world. He has been traveling as of today for 5,057 days and has visited 87 countries. You can read his blog if you want to see all the things he has been doing to support himself along the way http://www.wanderingearl.com/

Needless to say he made me look at traveling as a way of life not just a trip. I thought about going back to India, trying the Europe thing, but when I realized how far my money could take me in South East Asia I decided to start there. I've always wanted to go to Bali and Thailand and figured why not add it all in. Gorgeous beaches, new cultures, volcanoes, a chance to dive in some great spots...once I got certified of course! It was a huge life changing decision I made that day and have had to change my life in so many ways since that day. It just so happened that my middle sister decided one day to ask me if she could join me. I was a little hesitant, not because I didn't want the company, but because I had a vision of things I wanted to do. I gave her my list, told her the style of trip I wanted to try and she was all for it. 

I've packed my belongings in storage, lived with roommates, taken a leave from work for a year, said goodbye to most of my family and friends and here we are. We fly out in less than a week from Toronto to Bali with a layover in Hong Kong. I've heard everything from everyone on how to stay safe, how I will find myself, things I need to take. As I did with India two years ago, we're not going to be naive but we're going to go with open minds and open hearts and hope we can really take in the beauty of life. We don't want to just travel, we want to live.

 Here are our lives so far:

Packing our backpacks for six months

Rachel's belongings are packed up at home

Backpack packed and moving out