A click

by Ankita Ghunawat (India)

I didn't expect to find Indonesia

I didn’t see many people while checking in the hostel. Me and my sister were very tired by the journey. I could feel the peace in the atmosphere of Ubud right after reaching. One’s hostel is located near monkey forest. Very first thing i did was going into the pool. While swimming there was a guy in heavy beard doing alternate laps. It had been only an hour since we arrived. When i went inside the room i saw the same guy outside washroom. That’s when I realised ohhh he’s in my dorm. He was discussing about a route to see waterfalls near ubud with someone. I asked if they knew what waterfalls you can cover and that was the ice break between Kevin and us(me and my sis). From that day till our last day in Indonesia we traveled together. Paul joined us in between. Paul was a teen on his gap year ans had no idea where we were going or what we were doing. Kevin was from Canada and he was travelling south east asia for three months after his divorce. We had two bikes and we went to Tegenungan waterfall where the stream was very strong near the centre and it was going down from the waterfall pool. I went on that side and I couldn’t get up or stop myself from moving along with stream. It was scary but yet funny at same time because how could I not stop as the water wasn’t deep. I was literally laughing and was flowing away. Kevin noticed something was wrong and he came running and gave me a log of wood to hold on. Then we went to Kanto lampo waterfall where kevin fell on his hip on the rocks and almost broke his phone and back. At that point I thought if something serious happened then I wouldn’t know what to do and was thankful that he didn’t get injured. But that wasn’t it. On our way to Tirta Empul water temple there was a bridge on the river. Bridge was narrow and a truck was coming from front and in panic instead of breaks Kevin pressed accelerator and the scootey jumped and was about to fall off the bridge but somehow Kevin controlled. It was so scary. After coming back we met other travelers and decided to stay at hostel and party at poolside instead of going out and celebrate Christmas together. There were 15 people from different nations and it was like as if we were sitting at big Christmas dinner. I was sharing vokda with Paul and didn’t realise when did i get wasted. We jumped into pool at 12 and I don’t remember anything after that. Kevin and Ritika told Katie took me to the washroom and locked door. All I remember was that she was nice and we were talking a lot on table and her boyfriend was gonna come from Malaysia. My sister told she came to my bed and started making out. She was super drunk. Kevin helped me getting back to bed and dropped her too. All this happened in one day. And even in less than 18 hours. We became a family and it was so fascinating to know how similar we were. Even though we live at different places with completely different settings and different socio economic and cultural dynamics. We’d laugh at our internal jokes, we had seen same movies and shows, tasted same food, and even with new things it was so easy to understand each other. That proves that all the things we’ve made around us are secondary and beyond boundaries humans are same if we bond. We just need to fo out there with no preconceived notions. We met Kevin 4 years ago. We still catch up on call with what’s happening in life and do hope to meet one day.