Hey, everyone! What a week it has been. From eye scares to vipers to bats… oh, my! My original plans for the week were flipped upside down, but I’m happy with where things wound up. Sometimes, we have to just go with the flow.

A few housekeeping things:

1) I have started a podcast on Spotify called Rose Thorn Bouquet. Please check it out!
2) If you’re interested in my art, have a look at my merchandise on RedBubble!
3) I have recently finished the first draft of my latest novel, The Death of Duncan Lee. I’ve sent it out to some friends to get feedback and I’m really excited to have it done(ish) finally. If you haven’t read it already, the link to my first book, Eclipse Me can be found here.

Goa Lawah

From Amed, I took a shuttle bus down to Pedangbai where I would spend two nights prior to heading to Lombok. Pedangbai is a little port town, known for various fast ferry services to the Gili Islands and a slow ferry to Lember, Lombok. At one point, I was planning to go to the Gili Islands, but because my eye was still irritated after the dive/snorkeling experiences of days prior, I decided to save Gili for later. It didn’t yet seem safe to go snorkeling. Instead, I was off to Lombok.

But first… some admin. I wrote up my blog, got a haircut, did laundry, worked on a drawing, and walked around the small port town. The next day, I planned to hire a scooter for the first time. Eek!

Goa Lawah Temple was a place I’d been meaning to visit for weeks now. I originally was going to have someone drive me to the temple from Ubud and back. Instead, I decided to put it off until I was closer to Pedangbai.

Goa Lawah is a public temple that offers ceremonies throughout the day. One of the employees at the temple told me it was originally built in the 11th century. What’s interesting about this temple is that… it is in front of a cave filled with bats. “First came the cave, then the bats, then the temple,” the employee told me.

The scooter ride to Goa Lawah was only 20min, which was perfect for me. It was like dipping my toes in the water after my driving lesson the week before. It was the ideal amount of time – not too long, but still long enough to get comfortable driving on the Indonesian roads.

People drive CRAZILY in Asia, I have to say. But somehow, despite the chaos, it somehow makes sense. It doesn’t matter if I’m driving slowly, because someone is probably driving slower than me. The faster people just pass you – no big deal.

When I originally took a shuttle from Kuta to Amed, I had passed Goa Lawah temple and saw a massive bat-themed structure. I made note that I wanted to visit it when I went to Pedangbai. So, before heading to the temple, I stopped at the structure. It must have been two stories tall – with bats and dragons sculpted around the “cave”. It’s hard to see in the picture, but inside the cave, there are even sculptures of bats hanging upside down. Very goth.

I made my way to the temple, paid a small entrance fee, and found my way to the spot. The employee I mentioned earlier guided me to where I could see the bats. Because there was a ceremony going on, I had to view the bats from the side, so as not to interfere with the ceremony. The ceremonies at Goa Lawah are typically cremation ceremonies. So from what I understand, devotees stop there to be purified following a cremation service. I was at the temple for about two hours waiting for it to get dark, and there must have been six ceremonies throughout that time.

Temple employees dipped brushes in water, then flicked droplets of water at each seated person – on the hands, on the head. From person to person they went, flicking water. They also held out bowls of salt, which people took pinches of. I believe that is a purification ritual, too.

The employee also told me that there are four different types of temples in Indonesia. If I’m remembering correctly, they are: public, family, professional, and land temples. Goa Lawah is a public temple.

During my stay at the temple, I checked on the bats periodically. It was neat to see them hanging out in the cave. Because it wasn’t yet nighttime, most of them were still hanging upside down, resting, but simultaneously restless. They knew night was coming. As the sun dipped lower, the bats became more active. They started flying around the cave.

Eventually, dusk arrived. Another ceremony began and one by one, the bats made their way out of the cave. It started slowly. Then there was a swarm of them. They just kept fleeing. There were so many! The employee had explained to me that the cave is about 60 meters deep. There must be hundreds of thousands of bats in there.

It was quite an amazing sight. It reminded me of the flying foxes back in Melbourne – but this was a unique experience, too, because the bats were exiting from a cave.

I’m really glad I made the journey to Goa Lawah. Once I’d had my fill of the bats, I hopped on my scooter and returned to Pedangbai. The next morning, I would take the slow ferry to Lombok.

Lombok

At 7am, I packed up my things and walked five minutes to the ferry terminal. It was easy enough to buy a ticket and hop aboard the ferry. Fortunately for me, there were a bunch of… beds? Sort of? Basically bunk beds, but instead of mattresses, they were just mats. I somehow managed to sleep throughout much of the 5 hour ferry ride.

And then I was in Lombok. Lombok is an island just to the east of Bali (past Nusa Penida). I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it yet, but Bali is sort of a unique island in Indonesia because it is largely a Hindu culture. All the other Indonesian islands are primarily Muslim, so this was my first foray into Muslim culture in a long time. Last was, I think, the United Arab Emirates, many years ago.

As I got into a taxi and drove to my hostel, I began seeing mosque after mosque. The domes were all decorated uniquely, beautifully. I wish I’d managed to snap a picture but I was never close enough to get a good view. Also, evident immediately were women in hijabs everywhere. And call to prayer playing over mosque loudspeakers (some of the singing voices were not that impressive lol. Noar offense!)

The drive was a little over an hour and then I checked into my hostel. I had booked a 4 bed hostel dorm in what looked like a really cute bungalow. The shape of the bungalow looked lovely but upon entering, I realized it was not super functional. The bunk beds didn’t make contact with the wall, which later became a problem when I was trying to prop myself up in bed (see: eye injury in a few sections).

I’ve stayed in some really shitty hostels in my time and this one was… fine. It just wasn’t the best haha.

After checking in, I went for a walk down to the beach. I had read some reviews saying it was quite polluted, so I was prepared for the worst. It was… okay. I’ve seen better beaches, but I’ve also seen worse. There was a shipwrecked boat on shore which I thought was pretty cool. But they were also burning plastic. If you’ve never experienced it, it is AWFUL. I can just tell my body is like, “No, stop! This is awful!” every time I passed the smoke. There has been so much plastic burning in Indonesia.

Anyway, I walked along for a while and then stopped to journal. I had a bit of a breakthrough while seated. It has been some time since I’ve journaled and I was able to kind of open up to myself. It felt like a revelation. I realized I had completely disregarded so many routines that I had established for myself. Journaling, reading, reading AA literature, meditating, drawing, focusing on breath work. I’ve lately been living a life of indulgence which – I deserve, but it also isn’t healthy for a recovering addict to constantly indulge without balance. I need my routines, even if I am traveling. I found it to be an odd thing because I don’t feel particularly stressed anymore, which is probably a contributing factor to why the routines slipped away, but it’s also dangerous territory when I have unconsciously abandoned all of my self care practices. Since that moment, I’ve been trying to recommit to these practices, and I’m feeling really good about it. I need this stuff, people! I’d been in a bit of a rut for a couple weeks and after that journaling session, I seemed to instantly come out of it.

When walking home, I spotted a monkey walking along a fence across the street from my hostel. Wild. I hadn’t yet seen them so near to sea level before. I thought they were usually in higher elevation.

That evening, I went out to a delicious vegan restaurant and had a falafel salad. It was divine! I also connected with my herping guide on Instagram, asking if he wanted to go on a tour the next night instead of the night after as we originally planned. He agreed.

Target: Blue Pit Viper

The following night, my guide Juna picked me up from the hostel and we drove 30min east to go on our herping tour. We stopped near the ocean where he talked with some friends. I think he was trying to see if anyone else wanted to join the herping tour to help be an extra pair of eyes.

The target of the night was a blue pit viper. Green vipers are much more common and the blue variation only exists in a couple of places in the world. Lombok is one of them.

Before even getting off the scooter, Juna spotted a snake. I was worried at first that it was dead – it’s body looked wiggly and crinkled, like that of fresh reptilian roadkill. Upon inspection, I realized it was not dead. It was a wolf snake – a species I’d never seen before. It lay practically still on the side of the road. It was so small. We observed it for some time. As we shined our lights on it, the scales shone like an iridescent rainbow. Very pretty – I wish it picked up on camera. Alas.

The snake ended up slithering into the bush, where it belongs. Get off the road, crazy!

We continued driving but then Juna stopped over again. I have no idea how he spotted it, but he saw a baby vine snake in the bush. It was SO teeny tiny and just adorable. A fraction of the size of the ones I’d seen on my last herping tour in Ubud. What a cutie patootie this guy was!

I was wondering if the trip would just be on the scooter the whole time, driving around the area and looking for snakes on the side of the road. Nope. We ended up going on some proper bushwalks that night. We got to the area around 6.45pm and finished at I think 1am. It was a long night.

We had a few different sections that we explored. I was wondering if we would be walking a trail or just tramping along in the bush. It ended up being the latter, which… well, I prefer being on a proper trail hahaha. Especially when snakes are involved. But hey, it was definitely an adventure.

The first area didn’t really have many snakes, but when we crossed to the other side of the valley, we started seeing quite a few. Up high in the canopies, we spotted Asian vine snakes. We spotted vipers. But they were so far up there! Damn. The vipers we saw were green, too. Which, I’m not mad at that – but our goal was a blue viper. I asked Juna what his favorite snake was and he replied, without missing a beat, a blue viper. I follow him on Instagram and he’s always posting the blue vipers. The background on his phone is the blue viper. So, I knew he was really trying to find one – not just for me, but for us both.

We began driving to another spot. Along the way, Juna spotted a viper near the side of the road. A green one. With his snake hook, Juna redirected the viper onto a log. While I prefer to leave the snakes in-situ, Juna was doing his thing. It allowed us to observe the snake for some time. It was interesting to see how docile the viper was. They are a highly venomous species, but it didn’t try to strike at Juna at all. If anything, eventually it was like, “can you f*** off and let me go back to my spot, please?”

I was grateful for this viper because it ended up providing some of my favorite reptile shots of the evening. Thanks, l’il guy. Eventually, I said to Juna, “okay, let’s go find a blue one and stop harassing this guy.” We continued along.

We met up with Juna’s friend, who Juna employed to help us find a blue viper. The more eyes, the better. But still, nothing. We would see green vipers up in the trees, some more vine snakes, but no blue-y.

Some of the bush walks were a bit gnarly. Ahead of me, Juna was cracking branches with his shoes, bending/breaking them to create a path for us. At times, we had to duck down under branches to get through to another area. I ducked around huntsman spiders, who were standing at attention. Some of the branches/twigs had little spikes on them and would attach to my clothes. I wish I could say I escaped the night unscathed, but that’s not true.

We did manage to find not one, but two scorpions. How random! I knew scorpions were in Indonesia but I was still surprised to see them. They were pretty tiny! Maybe just two inches. I was happy to spot one, Juna spotted the other.

Juna’s friend ended up parting ways with us and we went to one final spot – which ended up being the most intense. Along the way, we saw a green viper crossing the road. This guy was a total fatty! After seeing so many vipers at this point, I’m definitely surprised by the size of them. I always thought they were much larger than they are in reality. I think that’s because the photos I’ve seen are usually pretty close-up, making them look thicker than to the naked eye. They’re pretty small honestly. Even the “fatty” we saw crossing the road.

At our final tramping spot, we walked really deep into the bush. So much so, that by the end of the night, Juna was looking at his phone GPS to find where he parked his scooter. We would try to cut through some bush only to realize it was too dense. Backtrack, try a new path, etc. Ducking under branches, pushing through bushes, etc.

I had been monitoring my eye every day after the mask squeeze/diving/snorkel irritation and it was finally back to normal again – pretty much completely white. Well, in the final 30min of the herping experience, that all changed. Keep in mind, Juna and I were walking around at night with head torches. When using a torch… it can be a bit difficult to see every single thing in the bush. So, yeah, when ducking under a branch, I took a twig to the eye. It slapped my glasses off my face. And, of course, it was the same exact eye that had just healed.

I found my glasses right away but knew that my eye was… once again, irritated.

Luckily, we made it back to Juna’s scooter shortly after that. We were both a little defeated that we hadn’t been able to spot any blue vipers. But I was still happy – we did see, I think, 10 snakes! Just not the one we were both hoping to see. It was almost comical just how many vipers we saw… but all were green. I think 6 of the 10 snakes were vipers.

Juna drove me back home and I tried to go to sleep. Unfortunately, my damaged eye had other plans for me. Much like after the mask/diving incident, my eye was weeping throughout the night, trying to heal itself. Damn it. Back to square one.

An Unplanned Visit to a Medical Clinic

I woke up the next morning and was unsurprised, and sad, to see that my eye was back to being red. I had subconsciously been rubbing at it throughout the night, which irritated it further. It felt a little scratchy.

After breakfast the hostel, I hired a scooter to drive around. I was originally planning to go near Mount Rinjani to try and see leaf monkeys. However, it was getting to be around noon and I didn’t want to get too sunburnt. I drove around for about an hour and then drove back. I definitely feel much more confident on the scooter after that. It was nice to go for a ride to build up my experience. On the drive, I also saw the peak of Mount Rinjani, Lombok’s tallest peak.

Once I returned to my hostel, I went and had lunch down the street. They had shakshuka, which is a popular dish from the Middle East. It is SO yummy – tomatoes, eggs, and various spices. It was a damn good meal! (Also, the smoothes in Lombok were next level.)

I took a nap, escaping the heat of the day, but didn’t do too much otherwise. My eye was really starting to irritate me. Lights were hurting my eyes, and that’s when I started to get nervous. In the evening, I talked with my parents and told them about the situation – saying that if it wasn’t better in the morning, I’d go to a medical clinic.

I was apprehensive to go to a clinic because I haven’t had to use my travel insurance yet and wasn’t sure if a) they would cover it and b) if they didn’t… how much it would be costing me.

Sleeping was not pleasant. My eye was swollen, I had a headache, every minute or so, my eye was experiencing a shooting pain. It was not good. But I was also half-asleep, so I wasn’t really realizing just how bad everything had compounded.

Around 5am, I fully woke myself up. My eye was in so much pain, I told myself – it’s time. You have to go now.

I grabbed my things and went in search of a nearby 24hr medical clinic. I knew there were a few in the neighborhood. While walking, I felt slightly disoriented. In pain from the streetlights and still tired, I was pretty desperate to get help. I felt like crying. Why was this happening to me? My eye had JUST healed and now it was starting over again, and was so much worse than before.

A few minutes walk from my hostel, I found the first 24hr medical clinic. The door was open, but nobody was at reception. I walked around the clinic and found some people sleeping on benches, but I wasn’t sure if they were employees or patients or… homeless? There didn’t seem to be a button to call anyone to the front desk, so I went down the road some more. A man answered at the pharmacy and I explained the situation. He offered eye drops but said that sometimes they can increase swelling even more, that I should speak with a doctor, who wouldn’t be in for another few hours. I began to worry – would anything be open? I really wanted to get this taken care of before daylight. If these faint streetlights were causing my eye pain, I could online imagine what sunlight would do. I continued along. At my third stop, I was about to walk inside another clinic, when a young security guard told me that the doctor was on a house visit. He ended up having mercy on me and driving me down the street to another clinic, which ended being the one that took care of me.

I was laid down on a raised bed while sharing my situation with the doctor and nurses. They looked at my eye with a flashlight and confirmed that there were no scratches. THANK GOD! (I was thinking I had stepped into one of those twigs with spikes on it. Maybe I did – but if so, it didn’t tear open my eye at all.)

They proceeded to do an irrigation flush with a saline solution. Afterwards, they put me on an IV with anti-swelling and I think antibiotic properties. They let that drip through me for about two hours and turned off the lights to rest my eye. I didn’t quite notice it at first, but the improvement was pretty immediate. Modern medicine is truly a marvel.

I ended up being discharged with some oral antibiotics and anti-inflammatory pills, as well as some Rx eye drops to take multiple times a day. I was advised to avoid the sun for the next couple of days. NOTED. The nurse dropped me back to my hostel. While I still had another night paid for, I decided to book a private room in a nearby homestay. The hostel bed was not doing it for me. It didn’t have a headboard and wasn’t pressed against the wall due to the shape of the bungalow, so I couldn’t really keep my head elevated. Plus, I wanted to just have some peace and quiet. So I splurged and paid for a private.

I had shakshuka for breakfast and took my first dose of medication. Shortly after, I moved to my new accommodation. I’m really glad I did. It was exactly what I needed. I ended up taking a nap after having a restless and exhausting night/morning.

Later in the day, I inspected my eye and realized it had improved tenfold. It was somehow no longer red at all. No swelling, no headache. Outside light was still a little irritating, but I kept the blinds closed and worse sunglasses inside.

It has now been two days and my eye is back to normal. I still have another couple days of antibiotics/anti-inflammatory pills and eye drops. I’m confident that everything will be good to go.

I’m so grateful that the medical team was open and were able to help me out at such an early hour. I was feeling scared/vulnerable but they helped me feel cared and treated for. And look at me now!

From Kuta to Kuta

My plans just keep on changing. I am taking it day by day at this point haha. Originally, I was going to make way up to Northern Lombok, go to the Gili Islands, maybe take a sailing trip to Komodo, but I decided to change that plan, too. Because of my eye, I wanted to take a few days to just recover and not have anything planned. I ended up commuting from Kuta back to Kuta. From Kuta, Lombok to Kuta, Bali – the place where I first started my Indonesian adventure. My sanctuary, sort of.

So I left the hijabs and the Muslim mosques playing their call to prayer and took the slow ferry back to Pedangbai. And then I hired a car to take me to my private room in Kuta.

That’s where I’ve been since yesterday. Continuing to mostly stay inside and take it easy. My eye no longer is in any kind of pain. Basically, I am healing. Thank God for that!

On Monday, I am going to get my visa extended. I’ve spent so much time healing in Indonesia. And there are so many places I have left to see that I haven’t yet. If I want to visit these last few places, I definitely need another 30 days lol. I felt conflicted at first, because I’m like, “Indonesia doesn’t want me here!” with all this random shit going wrong. I told that to my mom and she reminded me, “you can leave any time.” But the thing is, despite certain things going wrong, I don’t want to actually leave Indonesia. I told her and my dad, “I just have a few more things I want to see… if I even have eyes by the time I leave!” Haha. Joking aside, I think being here has actually been pretty valuable to me. Lessons to be learned and all that. I think it has been a reminder to slow down. And I don’t think it is necessarily even in the literal sense, because I have been having a lot of chill time in Bali. I think more so, it’s – slow down and focus on yourself. On the meditation, on the art, on the writing, on the breath, etc. Self care.

Once I am granted my extension, I will fly to Labuan Bajo to go to Komodo National Park and see the Komodo dragons – the #1 thing I wanted to do in Indonesia. Then I may do a sailing trip back to Lombok, go to the Gili Islands from there. And then to Java to see the blue flames/lava, and then maybe to Borneo to go on an orangutan safari. So much to do still and not enough time! I feel like I just keep zig-zagging around all over Indonesia. It’s not as simple as traveling west to east, because everything is in a different direction.

Tonight and tomorrow, I won’t do much. I had some back and forth with my insurance claim today, so I was trying to get an updated medical record from the clinic. They provided that to me, so hopefully my claim will be approved and reimbursed soon.

Otherwise, I’ll just be taking it easy. I’m feeling very grateful that I am in recovery mode and that I’m no longer in pain. VERY grateful.

Miscellaneous

I’m just going to share the crazy photos I took documenting the progress of my left eye from mask squeeze to improvement and then from tree branch to improvement.

That’s mask squeeze improvement (above) and below is from the tree branch. Admittedly, the mask squeeze ones looked worse… but the tree branch felt 100x worse. Thumbs up is today and back to normal!

One day in Lombok, a restaurant worker was standing outside the shop, asking me how I am. I said, “I’m doing well… Bagus!” Bagus means “good” in Bahasa. He responded with, “Bagus..! Bike, bike!” Which had me laughing – because he was making a joke about how Indonesian people are always asking tourists if they want to hire a bike.

Art of the Week

I really like this one! I wanted to try something new, with the white highlights around the edges. At first, I wasn’t sure about it. I took a photo before adding the highlights, just in case I didn’t like it, then took another photo after. I ended up preferring the highlights. One of these days, I really need to upload my recent designs to my RedBubble site!

Reflections

I feel like there has been plenty of reflection throughout the body of this blog post, so this may be quite short.

Basically, I’m feeling relieved that my eye has healed so much and so quickly. I’m looking forward to getting my visa extended and doing the final portions of my time in Indonesia. Who knew 30 days would turn into almost 90? Yeesh.

Until next time, sending you all my love. x