Stuck in Bali. Send a Driver.
Updated: Aug 29
I’m standing in the Singapore airport at 7 a.m. with all of my possessions strapped on my back. I don’t know which plane I’m getting on. I don’t know which country I’ll be in by the end of the day. This wasn’t the plan, but here we are.
The plan was to fly to Vietnam. But when my visa approval took a few days longer than expected, I learned the morning of my flight it was time for Plan B.
Which is hilarious of them, really, to assume I had one of those.
I was lucky enough to push back my flight, but that didn’t solve my new dilemma: where do you store an American for a week in Southeast Asia? I didn’t want to stretch my budget for another week in Singapore, and I wasn’t especially keen to return to the streets of Kuala Lumpur.
And I definitely wasn’t going to Indonesia. It’s the next stop on the trail for a lot of backpackers, but I'm reaching the point in my trip where I have to start making some tough decisions. Plus, I'm tired of jumping borders every week or two. It feels like travel whiplash. I decided I couldn't give Indonesia the time and attention it deserves, so I'd save it for the next adventure.
Even if I did go, I'd follow one piece of advice I've heard from travelers on repeat: don’t go to Bali. Indonesia is made of more than 17,000 islands, which means there are at least 16,999 islands less touristy than that one. The last thing I wanted was another temple town or monkey-ridden beach pulling at my dignity.
But at 8 a.m. in the airport, dignity was not the question. There was only one question: “What’s the cheapest flight out of Singapore today?”
I sighed. I bought the ticket.
Welcome to Bali.
Building Character in Bali
The word of the week is impromptu.
I like impromptu because it sounds better than oopsie daisies. I’ve made my fair share of oopsie daisies on the road over the years: I’ve slept in airports and vans, spent nights in all-night bagel shops, and worn three layers of clothes and stuffed my pockets with bags of French sea salt to keep my luggage underweight.
I told myself at the time these were character-building adventures. Years later, I'm shocked to report that was actually true.
After living in uncertainty (and in the consequences of my own actions) for months at a time, I can now face most scenarios with a sense of peace that's only built by diving in the deep end without arm floaties.
It reminds me of a Jesus quote I've never been able to get the hang of until recently. It's one of the greatest hits: "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
Considering that Jesus was basically the ancient Israel version of a backpacker, this verse makes a lot more sense now coming from him.
He goes on to talk about the birds and the flowers not worrying about where they’ll eat or what they’ll wear. I thought I was becoming one of these unworried birds or flowers; each day really did bring enough novelty and trouble of its own.
However, it only took a few days for Bali to spoil this newfound sense of enlightenment. I was no longer a bird who didn't fret for tomorrow. I was a stressed and occasionally irate pigeon who couldn't wait to fly far away from Bali.
I know what this sounds like — life hands me a ticket to Bali, and I have the audacity to complain. Where’s Miss Attitude-of-Gratitude now?
She's surrendered to the inner tourist, who was still upset we didn’t go to the zoo in Singapore. But the inner tourist had a point: if I only had one week in Bali, it would be a shame not to make the most of it. Rest would have to wait as I threw myself into the coconut culture one more time.
Ubud: the Spiritual Capital
The first thing I learned about Bali is that it’s bigger than you’d think. It contains beaches, volcanoes, and cities of stone; there's no way to cover it all in a week. I decided to start in Ubud, largely considered the cultural and spiritual capital. When you think of Bali as a beacon for yogis and soul-searchers, you're thinking of Ubud.
You can tell you’re getting close when cafés start serving smoothie bowls and hostels offer banana pancakes for breakfast.
From a distance, Ubud looks like one giant temple where each house, religious site, and business seems to be made from the same gray stone. On my first scooter ride through the streets, I couldn't distinguish home from holy place.
As it turns out, sometimes it was both. Traditional Balinese houses are compounds that include courtyards and individual temples for daily worship. Buildings and rituals in Balinese Hinduism are designed to invite the divine into everyday life, and the home is the center point where the sacred meets the ordinary.
Ubud’s downtown has everything you would expect from a bustling city center: markets, cafés, organic stores, and a forest of cheeky monkeys. It also includes men who stand outside the temples and attempt to flag you down to buy a ticket for the nightly theater shows.
Temple theater was one part of the tourist experience I was actually excited about; I watched an hour-long show that retold parts of the Ramayana. (If you remember our time in Bangkok, I saw excerpts from the Thai adaptation of the Ramayana, called the Ramakien. Watching scenes from the epic it was based on in Bali was a full-circle moment for my theology-loving heart. Plus, the inner tourist said this made up for the zoo.)
Ubud feels like a two-sided coin of commercialized religion for tourists and deep religious connection for residents. One of the most visible displays of local worship are small offerings in palm-leaf trays placed abundantly throughout the city. Worshipers make fresh trays each morning and place them anywhere they will fit: in homes and businesses, on scooters, in cars, in rice fields, and even on sidewalks. Each one is a call to prayer, worship, and gratitude to start the day.
Soul-searching in Ubud
People come to Ubud hungry: for nature, for yoga, for healing, and for God in many names. Ubud feeds them enough to stay – I met several travelers who came to Ubud for a week and never returned home.
Many had similar stories. They came when money, success, and achieving dreams didn't deliver the happiness they promised. It's a lesson everyone has heard, but we still all have to learn on our own. Money lives on a tight leash that can't reach a deeper space within us; our souls want roots we can feel.
I sought to discover what people tasted in Ubud that reached the deeper corners, so I followed the soul-searcher's path. I did yoga on a rooftop and sipped ceremonial cacao. I trekked through terraced rice fields. I watched theater in the temple and stared into the bulging eyes of the Bhoma, stone faces carved over doorways and throughout temples to ward off evil spirits. I listened to travelers who screamed beneath a waterfall in water purification ceremonies, a genre of baptism that promises to wash the old new.
But after following the soul-searcher's trail, my heart didn't find the contentment it was looking for. Even the peace I had before I started was stripped away by an undercurrent that echoed the warnings of travelers before me. It has tugged at me in many cities, but none as strongly as Bali.
I'm calling it the Economy of Enlightenment: where there is hunger, there is opportunity to capitalize. And Bali is really, really good at it.
Ubud's Enlightenment Economy
I have yet to find a city that gives enlightenment as a gift; it's one of the biggest businesses you can find. Westerners having their Eat, Pray, Love experience is what thousands of local livelihoods depend on. I make a lot of broke backpacker jokes, but even broke American backpackers carry a global economic privilege that's difficult to confront.
To put it into perspective, many workers in Bali earn only a few hundred U.S. dollars a month. Local drivers watch American families burn through more money on resorts, massages, and coconuts in a week than they will make in an entire year – while listening to them talk about how cheap it all is in the backseat.
It's a global trickle-down effect. I've experienced this in other countries, but Ubud was the first city that felt like it knew how to best play its hand. From the moment I arrived, I slid through a well-coordinated funnel designed to squeeze me coming and going. If the economy is a trickle-down, Ubud is going after the last drop.
This tension showed itself every time I sat on the back of a scooter or in an Uber. Sometimes it came wrapped in subtle pressure, like when my driver shared he works three jobs and spends days at a time away from his family to save for his daughter’s high school expenses. Then we pulled into our destination, and I had to select a tip.
Often, confrontations were bolder. On my third day, I took a scooter to trek the famous terraced rice fields. The driver, like most, began a specific conversation.
“Where are you from? Oh, very nice. I love America. How long are you staying? Where have you been? Do you like Bali? Is this your first time?” It's the traveler's interview I could give in my sleep.
We began to drive through a strip of small shops. “Do you like coffee? I know of a great local place, no tourists.” He seemed sincere, like a local friend showing me his hometown.
When we arrived at the rice fields, he asked me to put his number in my phone and hire him for a local tour. Many drivers gave me the same pitch, as if they learned it in scooter school. He also gave me a ticket with a number on it and told me to hand it to a woman at the counter.
But as I looked around, I realized he didn’t take me to the entrance I had asked for. He took me to one of the busiest and most popular tourist stretches of the fields that was packed with scooters. It came with heavy entrance fees plus extra costs to take your picture in a swing, or in a heart-shaped nest, or with water buckets on a stick across your shoulders. When I turned away and walked toward a free entrance down the street (that was almost deserted), the driver followed me like a heckler, insisting the paid entrance was the only option.
I later learned that drivers have a network of local businesses and attractions that offer commission for every tourist they bring in. This applies to rice fields, restaurants, souvenir stores, and — sure enough — coffee shops.
Even on the trekking paths, “local workers” waited in the fields. They smiled at me, waved me over, encouraged me to take their picture, and whether I did or not (I didn't), tapped their finger into their hands, which means one thing: put money here.
When I called a new driver to take me home, he tried to persuade me to go to the Water Purification Temple, but I'm getting very good at the word no. As we drove home, he struck up the interview.
“Where are you from? Oh, I love America. How long are you staying?”
We soon passed through the same strip of shops as before. “Do you like coffee? I know a place with the best coffee, no tourists…”
After three days, I had taken part in very few meaningful conversations but dozens of sales pitches. I was tired of being a fruit squeezed through a juicer; I needed an escape, and a few travelers tipped me off on the best place to find it.
They told me about Mount Batur, an active volcano on the island that promised the best sunrise views in Bali. Batur was a bit hard to reach, but it guaranteed a few days to rest, write, and enjoy the heavenly scenery Bali boasts. I booked a room that said it was surrounded by fruit farms, hiking, natural hot springs, and stunning volcanic views.
Now that’s my kind of Bali.
I took one last car out of Ubud, and the usual interview began. He asked his first question as soon as I buckled my seatbelt: “Where are you from?”
He asked his last question when he stopped on a darkened dirt path in Batur, and flies began to drop on the windshield like black rain.
"Are you sure?"
Absolutely not. But I sure am hopeful.
Love,
Megan
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