Bali
20.01.2026
rained out
When I first got to Bali, I felt like a square peg in a round hole.
Unseen, out of place, faintly wrong.
I know this nerve.
I've met it before.
And I know its only balm is time, which is annoying, because time is the one thing I can't optimize.
So I did what I do with everything: I built a routine and clung to it like a life raft.
Beach walk, 6pm, every day.
An anchor.
Very healthy.
Very stable.
Until the anchor tried to kill me.
The plan was the usual walk.
The execution was two-plus kilometres in the direction with the fewest people, because apparently my instinct for safety is "go where no one could possibly help you." Denim shorts, black strapless top, hair gone full feral in the humidity, big bulky headphones on.
I tried to lose myself in the music.
I succeeded.
Completely.
Literally.
I stopped tracking the direction because ABBA was on and priorities are priorities.
6pm became 7.
The moody sky became a raging storm.
Fine - not a storm.
A torrential downpour.
But you know how Mumbai girls are.
Rain?
Meh.
Drizzle.
We don't run.
Only it wasn't drizzle.
Five minutes in, soaked through to the bone.
I finally look up and take stock of my surroundings, and my surroundings are: nothing.
Every shop shuttered.
No clubs, no hotels, no people.
Just me, standing in what appeared to be the aftermath of a minor flood, dressed for a rooftop bar.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
ABBA is still here.
That's something.
I turn back and walk into the rain, and then, like a lighthouse: a roof.
An Indonesian shop owner waves me over, offers me somewhere dry to wait it out.
Bless him.
I figured ten minutes, tops.
These were not ordinary locals.
These were surfers.
Yeah.
You see where this is going.
Reggae playing, heads bobbing, impromptu dancing, a vice or two in rotation.
The full cast: five surf instructors, two tourist girls, and me, dripping.
The girls turned out to be their surf students - one French, one Dutch.
A local concoction started going around that I can only describe as tasting like vodka and cranberry juice, origins unknown, questions unasked.
Ten minutes became an hour.
I did not notice the rain stop.
I was too busy yapping with a room full of strangers I'd known for forty minutes, which, for a woman who arrived in this country feeling unseen, was a suspiciously fast recovery.
Eventually I decide to leave.
And here's the thing about my sense of direction: it should not be trusted, and it never learns.
The path I'd walked in on - or thought I had - was now a river.
Beach water, overflowing, moving with intent.
But: strong, independent girl.
I decided to wade in.
Chest-deep.
No worries.
Except - small issue - I could not actually get through.
The water was flowing with the confidence of something that has taken lives.
I stood there, chest-deep in a flood, buzzed on mystery cocktail, reconsidering several life choices at once.
Enter a local fisherman.
Stick in one hand, flashlight in the other.
He assesses the situation - tourist, flood, poor decisions - and simply holds out the stick.
Tells me to hold on.
Walks me across the whole thing like I'm a stubborn goat he's herding home.
I made it back to the hostel.
Soaked, tipsy, alive.
And here's the thing: I felt like I'd earned an indulgence.
Survived a flood, forded a river, made a room full of friends.
Owed myself a treat.
Also - some quiet accounting told me I hadn't taken _quite_ enough consciously bad decisions for one day.
So the lactose-intolerant girl ordered a smoking plate of french toast with caramelised bananas and a mango martini.
You know where this is going.
The next day was a wash-out.
Cramps, start to finish.
Which, given the day before, felt about right.
6pm beach walk.
Never missed a day.
We never learn.
Keep going.