Tales from Thailand & Bali

In the last 2 months, I visited Thailand and Bali, Indonesia. While nursing some nicely painful bruised ribs it is a nice time to reflect on the experience in a combined story. 

After having done the tourist tours in Malaysia, I had different plans for my next trips. In Thailand, I wanted to engage in more spiritual activities by visiting monasteries and staying in a yoga resort. As a bonus, I went to see the North of Thailand with the famous city of Chiang Mai and the town of Pai. 

In Bali, I had a very specific goal for myself: To upgrade my surfing! Having been enthusiastic about surfing for years, I never got beyond the beginner stage and wanted to apply myself to get better and have more fun doing it. 

In my stories, I will reflect on what I found and also on the less fun sides of traveling. Sometimes it seems like everything is fun and games (and yeah sometimes it is), but it is not always as great as it seems (while still being very much first-world problems).

After visiting Phuket and Patong Beach, I went to the center of Thailand to visit Koh Phangan. I took a bus and a ferry to get to the island which is famous for its full moon parties. While traveling there on the ferry I was suddenly in the presence of more Western people than locals since I left home and it felt a little bit weird. In Sri Lanka, Singapore, and Malaysia I was more in touch with the local people everywhere and I had gotten used to this new vibe and enjoyed it. For me this makes traveling feel more real rather than a Western vacation resort in an Asian country. 

Before I go on, let me say that this is my experience and what I enjoy! Every person should travel the way they want to and enjoy it! Traveling in Thailand and Bali feels very safe, but also very Western. It is fantastic because it creates a safe environment for younger adults to travel around Asia and not be overwhelmed which happened to some of the fellow travelers I spoke to in Sri Lanka or India. However, it is also difficult to dive into the local culture because everything revolves around tourism and there is a much more clear separation between Westerners and locals. 

So sitting there on the ferry with people searching for the best party and checking of the tourist boxes was not what I was looking for. Another aspect was that most of the people on the boat were getting ready to go to the full moon party while I was getting ready to go to a yoga resort. The difference in attitude could not be further apart. Did I come to the wrong place?

Let's look at it from a personal development perspective. I would like to say that my development has come so far that I can immediately center myself again and put it aside after experiencing this kind of feeling, however, this is not the case. Rather than accepting my emotions about it or having an open attitude I got annoyed and let my mind run free (about whether it would be fun on the island or not, which quickly turns to: "Am I ruining my trip?"). In cases like this, I normally try to get to a calm state and try to reassess and let go of any expectations that I have that cause this (In this case something along the lines of "My journey must be epic, nothing can go wrong, I am not a tourist but a traveler"). 

Now why is it important to try and get back to a calm and nice state, while also accepting that these things can happen to you? After all, this is such a small thing. In my experience, these things can snowball (as you will read later). We see one bad thing, and then another, and then another, and before we know it, something is ruined in our minds while nothing has happened at all. We cancel plans, activities, trips, or even break up relationships without something having occurred. Is it the end of the world when this happens? Are we about to die? Absolutely not! Are these first-world problems? Absolutely yes! But why do things that make you unhappy when you are in such a privileged position?

And yes, soon after arriving on the island, we drove off to the yoga resort and I quickly found myself in paradise. After a nice introduction with the head of the resort, I sat on the beach watching the beautiful sunset just happy to be there. 

After changing places this many times in short periods I started noticing that I am the person who needs a short adjustment period. I have not done an academic survey and analysis, but based on conversations with fellow travelers I think this applies to most people. 

For me, it mostly comes down to judging too fast. Using my monkey brain rather than my human brain. As well as in the example above on the ferry, I tend to do the same coming to hostels or camps. Arriving at the yoga camp there was a nice campfire and ice bath party in the evening. I was there quite early and there were 2 guys already sitting next to the campfire. 

With love and warmth,
Jelmer

Judging too fast is a consequence of our evolution according to Daniel Kahneman (a Nobel prize winner who recently passed away). In the modern day, we still judge situations with the same mental functions that had to judge whether a sound in the bushes was there to eat us or something we could eat. He divides the brain into System 1 (the fast-judging brain) and System 2 (the analytical brain). I will write a full article on this later, but in this case, using System 2 would have been much better :)

It took a very nice new friend to pull me out of my mood and show me that I was assuming, just by being friendly, interested, and kind. Being at the camp was a great experience. From my notebook: "What a journey! I almost didn't want to go and then this happened. It was so awesome. I made new friends, I dived deep, it was incredible".  All while being situated on what felt like a private beach on a beautiful island. What more can we ask for in life?

After Koh Phangan, I traveled north to Chiang Mai and Pai to enjoy the beautiful scenery of the North. I was planning to arrive a little bit after the burning season, but I reached it while it was still going on. Even while a little smoggy, Chiang Mai turned out to have beautiful temples, nice street food, and Pai some of the most beautiful sceneries around. 

But of course, the beautiful trip had to end and before long I was back in Singapore. However, 2 weeks later I was already back on an airplane and this time on my way to Bali. 

Two full weeks of surfing. Surfing is one of the things in life that I love, but am not very good in. This time I wanted to put in some effort, so instead of planning a nice Bali/Sumatra/Lombok travel itinerary I decided to go to a surf camp for 2 weeks. 

Arriving at the surf camp I realized I was there with mostly 20-year-old girls. While I had expected this for the most part, there wasn't anybody close to my age. Deciding not to make the same mistake as in Koh Phangan I decided not to worry about making connections, grabbed a book in my off times to focus on myself, and would see what would happen. 

Being in such an open state of mind always creates a situation for me where I, in one way or another, will be blown away by another person. And yes, I got lucky a few times. I met a 19-year-old guy who at his age had already achieved a state of openness and honesty towards the world and himself that was quite impressive. He was not afraid to share his fears, doubts, and worries and was openly looking for advice. I remember myself at 19 as trying to be cool and not afraid of anything, rather than be honest towards myself and naturally, this guy impressed me a lot.

Surfing can be scary, especially getting stuck in a wave rolling towards the beach and not being able to breathe for a while. I met a young 20-year-old woman with whom I was sharing experiences and insights. She baffled me by stating that she figured out through surfing that fear is one of the biggest blockades for humans when it comes to living and was able to turn this into a life lesson. She had learned it, not through reading a book which is just knowledge, but experienced it, and was able to sense it and extrapolate it (Remember: Science & Art). It is something I would not learn for another 8 to 10 years in the way she just had. How can I not be impressed with such amazing fellow travelers. 

So how did my surfing go? 

The first few days were great. I was advancing slowly, like I said it does not come naturally to me, and was happy to be paddling and surfing. I will share a video on Instagram so you can see how many times I had to fall in order to stand. For this, I needed some perseverance and discipline. Perseverance is going through displeasure that does not create long-lasting negative effects and keep trying with a positive attitude (This definition works in everyday situations that do not include war or similar extreme situations). Discipline is the ability to show up every day and do not get distracted by other things. Not trying to compare myself with 20-year-old guys who jump on a board in a single try is also a big factor in this. Focus on what you need to do, not the person next to you and it will be much more enjoyable. In this way, you won't get discouraged trying to learn things in later life and enjoy it just as much as when you are 20. 

Now I tend to play with the fine line that turns perseverance into stupidity. On my first day on a higher level (so a more difficult wave) there were very strong conditions in the water. The waves were about 8 ft (2,4 meters) and by the time I showed up for the class all the other participants had withdrawn. I figured it was because paddling out to the waves gets very hard in these conditions and nobody wanted the cardio exercise, so I decided to go with the surf guide. After about 2 waves I fell on my chest and bruised it severely resulting in not being able to surf the second week at the camp and a most likely recovery period of 6 weeks. Taking a few moments to think and analyze rather than automatically keep on going might have prevented it. So keep that line in mind between perseverance and stupidity and train yourself to recognize it (or laugh a little bit when you misjudged it again  :-P )

Now I do want to share a little bit of advice when something like this happens to you. When people get hurt in such a way or for example get an ear infection (yes, also check), we tend to blame others around us or feel sorry for ourselves. Others around you will feel sorry for you and you might continue on the same vibe. From a personal development perspective, this is the worst we can do because it will create passive behavior. Instead, try to analyze what you could have done differently to help yourself next time.

After that try to focus on what you can still do :) Maybe your plans have to be turned around or you make time for different things. I never imagined myself sitting behind a laptop writing this story in Bali rather than surfing, but it will make me much more happy than sitting around feeling sorry for myself.

Bali and Thailand were great. I had amazing experiences, grew as a person, and made new friends! What more can we ask for?

One guy was teasing/annoying the other guy in a quite juvenile way (in my opinion). While in the first place, it doesn't concern me at all I immediately start thinking: "This is not what I am here for", "Is this the culture here?", "This will not be fun". 

Without realizing it I have already judged a situation without knowing anything about the background, and the people involved and even worse copied it to the rest of the camp and everybody in the camp also. While it is an unconscious process in the beginning I was not able to turn it around for myself when I realized it (probably because I already spend to many energy on my boat adventure - hence snowball).

Reading list:

Thinking, fast and slow from Daniel Kahneman