East Pray Love

 10th Oct 2022 Amed Traveling solo is easy. Decisions are made over a cup of coffee and its easy to roll. Ubud has seen ‘El Nino’ type rain and with the damp thronging hippy dippy tourists, it just isn’t what I’m looking for (hippy dippy is fine but not in the rain). A friend of mine, Iggy, is an Ubud fixer and offered to drive me to Amed on his scooter. Amed, I was told, always has better weather than Ubud and the internet talked of snorkeling. There is a cool jungle temple on the way too, so if Amed was a bust, I reasoned, the famous winged gates of Lempuyang temple would have been seen.  With a tiny bag (its amazing how little you need), I jumped on the back of Iggy’s trusty yellow Scoopy and we set off in drizzle for a famed temple and sunnier climes. Getting out of Ubud felt like a good decision just after the city limits. The space around opened up and I could see Bali - rural and village life. One of the things about Bali that is interesting is that dogs are really conf...

Getting through the airport at Denpasar was quite something. I remembered what I’d been taught at Doi Suthep about using any moment to meditate and so I breathed, not breezed, through the endless queues and administration. I got to my hotel after 3am and thankfully slept. What the airport lacks in efficiency it makes up for in creative expression. It must be one of the most beautiful airports I have ever seen with an abundance of art of all types on every wall or even ceiling. I was too tired to photograph anything sadly, but not to tired to notice how stunning it is. I left the generic airport Hilton in a rainstorm heading to Ubud. I have wanted to go for a long time and when Rosy told me that the last book my Mum read was ‘Eat Pray Love’ I had to put it on the list. Driving through Denpasar I was struck by the number of temples - not Buddhist like Thailand but Hindu - and how intricate they all are. Brightly colored offerings sit on the steps as the world wanders by; the sacred and p...

After leaving Chiang Mai, I had a few days in Bangkok finishing off at the hospital and sorting out a dental emergency (cracked tooth - all sorted). Monsoon rains started in earnest while I was there and everything had to be done between downpours. Bangkok is amazingly efficient and as soon as it started to rain water sweepers would appear with great big wipers guiding the rainwater into drains. It was good to catch up on sleep and communication after the radio silence of the retreat. I felt grateful for all the small freedoms and choices we normally take for granted but I hadn’t had while I was on retreat. Just a coffee (or two), or choice of what to eat (overwhelming in Bangkok). I missed the quiet however, and Bangkok is sensory overload for most people, but felt quite brutal after my time at Doi Suthep. I’m not a check things off a list type of tourist, but I did want to see the Reclining Buddha before I left Bangkok. The whole Wat Pho temple complex is amazing and it was a relief ...

Wat Phra That Doi Suthep International Buddhist Centre I saw my friend Linda for coffee in the park before catching a Grab (Thailands version of Uber) up to the temple in the mountains north-west of Chiang Mai. At the bottom of the temple steps is a little village of shops and stalls selling a vast range of Buddhist merchandise. The temple is one of Chiang Mai’s top tourist attractions and there is a steady stream of visitors both international and Thai flowing up the 300- stairs to the famous golden temple. I left the tourist throng and wearing the required white followed the signs to the meditation centre. With as few words as possible I was given my key and directed to my room. I switched my phone off, and felt both relief and anxiety at being cut off for the next five days. Before the arrival ceremony I had time to unpack and clean my sparse room. The surrounding jungle was much noisier than I could have imagined with cicadas cranking the volume by the minute. The arrival ceremony ...