Back home
Just got back home around midnight last night from my diving trip to Tulamben which is in the north-east coast of Bali. My friends and I completed our advance PADI course with our good friend and great dive instructor Angela. One of the things I love the most about these trips are the unique characters of people that I encounter and share my travels with. Listening to their stories, and seeing their interactions with their loved ones always inspires me to become a better person.
I had arrived in Denpasar on Thursday night meeting Katsura and our driver at the airport to take us to Tulamben where most of our friends already arrived earlier. The road to Tulamben is a smooth cemented road with a curvy snake like path slithering in the wee-hours of the night. I took some antimo (medication for motion sickness) before I left so there were no worries about sudden hurls in sudden whirls. We passed by traditional balinese houses, still and quiet with their sleeping livers and doers... paths to bungalows and resorts... and small vertical billboards advertising communication providers and presidential candidates. In this late night there were many dogs in groups and some in solitude, free and independent in their glory, taking their midnight stroll.
There were many big trucks traveling with their beaming lights. Some with simple headlights, others with simple marker lights, and there were creative ones that used a rainbow of colored lights to mark their edges and give off their distinctive character flair. When a huge truck comes our way, my breath stops for a few moment in fear... as the truck takes 3/4 of the road, and our driver, weary and sleep deprived is moving in a fast speed. But as he is experienced and actually quite alert, he always knows just the amount of time to slow down and dodge our way to safety, letting me breathe easier again.
On our way we passed by a rustic tented "warung" on the side of the road. It is dark out with hardly any street light, with only the single flickering yellow light in the tent. Two trucks are parked beside it and the drivers sit on the old wooden bench with one feet up, resting their legs and chatting away. I wonder what they speak of, is it about the families waiting for them at home, work, people they have met or just random conversations about their day. Did they even know about each other before their paths crossed this night. I wonder where they have been, what their life story is and all the details that finally crossed their paths to the moment on that bench.
Now that I am back home I wonder where this life will take me as at times I trap myself in my own mind and limitations. I realize it will be a process and each day I will be closer and closer to ultimate freedom, knowing that this whole existence is a journey and that every day I am traveling to unchartered places physically and mentally...
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