Finding the "Medicine" I was looking for

by Jennifer Cain (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

A leap into the unknown Indonesia

It all started with seeing a few friends Instagram stories of them arriving in the rice paddies of Bali, Indonesia. I had been travelling around central Europe for the last couple of months and was currently in Seville, Spain with the winter quickly approaching. My body was telling me it needed to be somewhere warmer this winter, somewhere much warmer. So I began to make my arrangements and before I knew it a week later there I was arriving during the night on a tropical island in Indonesia, 8,093 miles from home. Walking down the narrow path to my air bnb in central Ubud, which in Sanskrit means “medicine” I stumbled across some very colourful frogs. My senses where heightened being in this new, tropical and very unfamiliar environment. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. Being my first time in Asia and further away from home than I had ever been it was like having a complete chance to reset. With no idea what would be coming around the corner at the next turn. I found a plumeria(frangipani) on the ground while walking up the steps to my first nights accommodation. It was a bright yellow with tinges of orange and the smell was so sweet. I smiled and carried it into my bedroom, dropped my backpack and went to sleep. The next morning I woke up to the buzzing of life, bugs, birds and critters of all kinds making the jungle setting come alive. I opened my wooden patio doors to see bright green palm trees and here the sound of a foreign language being spoken by locals. I was only in this space for 1 night as I would be embarking on a 2 week retreat in the middle of the rice paddies that day. My host said good morning to me in the local language Bahasa “Selamat Pagi” and offered me a bright pink dragon fruit for breakfast. I sliced it in half and the colour was bright magenta pink with some black pips inside I scooped it out and tasted it. What a flavour! This was paradise and I couldn’t wait to get out and explore my new surroundings! I chose to take a walk into the town and find a rice paddy field just like the ones I had been seeing my friends post online… As I walked in my shorts and tank top, the sweat quickly began to pour through me from the midday heat. The constant humidity and blazing sun was an assault to my senses, but I was so intrigued by what I might find I kept going. I could only walk to the edge of a local path but then I saw it, the lush green field with local workers wearing pointed hats made from bamboo. Wow! This is what I had come for and here it was in real life! It was beautiful, total magic. I was getting dehydrated very fast, so I found the safe haven of a nearby café or “warung” as it is locally known meaning restaurant in the shade with some fans to cool me down. Soon after ordering the waiter came out with this HUGE bright green coconut, not like the small brown furry ones we get in the supermarkets in the UK. It was bigger than my head and filled with about 1.5 litres of pure natural fresh coconut water. I quickly began to cool down from the intense heat outside. Looking down again I noticed the top part of my coconut had been carved into a love heart and it made me smile. When it was time to pay I got to use my Indonesian money. I pulled out notes of different colours with faces on the bills I did not recognise and looked at the numbers…. 50,000, 100,000 …. I was getting used to the currency and saw my coconut was 20,000 rupiah. Which is about £1.20 or $1.50! I wasn’t aware at that point that my trip to Bali would span 8 months … I would move from beautiful villa to beautiful villa, Hike to waterfalls, visit ancient temples, make lifelong friends and crash a motorbike for the first time!