Well, 5 days ago was the year anniversary of the first time I stepped off the plane into Bali. In some ways I can’t believe I’ve been here a year, but mostly I feel like I’ve been here forever and my life before I left the UK and even my life when I was travelling around Asia feel like completely different lifetimes. Today is another anniversary – one year since I met Made. I was so unimpressed on the night I met him when he was trying to impress me with some very bad magic tricks – I would have never thought in a million years that a year later I would still be here living with him and his family and we would be married!
So I thought I might do a little summary about the things I love about living in Bali and the things I miss about living in the UK (although I don’t miss anything terribly much – I’ve had various visitors from home recently and I can never think of anything I miss enough to ask them to bring over).
I miss:
- Clothes shopping -particularly H&M and Primark
- English TV, although I download anything I’m particularly bothered about watching, which isn’t much to be honest
- Cheap reliable broadband
- Baths!!!!
- Cheap but decent wine
- Seasons – oh autumn, how I miss you. I am not, however, sad to have missed winter this year
- pic ‘n’ mix :p
- Girly nights out (and in)
- Not eating rice every day
- Long summer nights
- and my baby kitty cats (RIP Star) and my friends and family obviously…
But all this things are far outweighed by the reasons I love living in Bali :
- Sunshine every day
- Being able to go to the beach whenever we’re in the mood (and actually swim in the sea without having a cold-induced heart attack)
- Riding around on motorbikes
- Watching the sunset over rice fields
- Being able to buy a yummy dinner for 5000 rp (about 30p)
- Taking part in beautiful ceremonies
- Not having to work 9-5 in an office just to make enough money to live
- Being able to eat tropical fruit every day without having to take out a bank loan
- Eating out in nice restaurants for less than my lunch would have cost in the UK
- The smell of incence smoke everywhere
- 24 hour convenience stores and warungs on every corner
and for the sake of balance, I am not loving:
- cockroaches
- clothes never drying in rainy season
- cold showers
- stirring coffee and putting the spoon back without rinsing it (STOP IT!!!)
- power cuts
- unreliable internet service with isp cacheing that makes me tear my hair out when i’m on a deadline
- the fact that i’ll probably never understand Balinese
- annoying tourists and clinically insane expats
- cockroaches
- and cockroaches
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