It was kind of a rough night. I had to pee a lot (could have been the beer…), which meant exiting the mosquito net and ambling in the dark behind the bed, down a step into the bathroom. Ideally, I would do this half-awake and not entirely wake up.

The third time I got up, at almost 4:00am, I entirely woke up because I was cold from the A/C and needed to do something about it. After my flights a couple days ago, I had been regretting packing an airline blanket. On flights long enough to sleep on, a blanket is provided, and I avoided sleeping anyway so as not to mess up my sleep cycle. But it was perfect for this situation! I decided to turn the A/C off and risk waking up miserably hot and sticky, but that didn’t happen. I also put on my sleep mask and got another almost 3 hours of sleep, getting up before 7:00am.

My back felt really not so good. I went out to the day bed on my porch to do some back stretches, which I would continue to do throughout the day. I messaged my PT to make sure I knew the course of action, and he confirmed. A boatload of “press-ups”: starting prone and propping myself up high into a back bend, using only my arms and not any muscles in my back or glutes. Extension is the remedy for lumbar disc pain and radiating nerve pain from flexion (forward bend). Just gotta ride it out.

Amed is a hot diving spot, the most famous site being a Japanese shipwreck. I don’t dive but I snorkel, and yesterday I messaged my host, Made, to ask if he has snorkel gear for rent. He asked when I wanted to go, and I said after breakfast. He would have his staff bring some by.

During breakfast (no noodles or Indonesian fare on the menu, so eggs and toast it was), I found myself hoping the gear wouldn’t come. I have been on the move daily for two weeks, and an agenda-less day was sounding pretty good. It’s a half hour walk east from the villas to the coral reef, and I wasn’t sure my back was up to it, plus it’s really goddamn hot here. As it turned out, I got my wish. The staff must have forgotten because the gear never showed up.

This created a new dilemma, at least in my mind (where all problems reside). Doing “nothing” meant lots of laptop time as I’d fallen behind in both blog posts and photo management. I felt like I should be doing something else in my beautiful. tropical environment. I used to aim for a tan in these locales, but it’s tricky for me now to tan without burning and I prefer to avoid super-intense sun. So really, sitting on my lanai in the shade with a view of the gardens and the sounds of the sea was taking advantage of my environment, even if I was on my laptop. I could have been reading a book, but I could also let myself do whatever the fuck I wanted without giving myself a hard time.

I wrote words until noon, when my villa neighbors said ‘hello’, and we chatted for a half hour or so, which was really nice. For the most part, I’m doing just fine being solo for most of my time, but I was feeling a bit of a social deficit (apparently, even introverts will crave some interaction after long enough alone). They’re an Aussie couple in their 50s spending two weeks in Bali now and planning for an 11-week trip starting in September to London, Iceland, NYC, San Francisco, and Mexico. Wow!

I headed out for lunch around 2:00pm, ambling slowly down the main road until I found something that pulled me in. Where I landed was a place called The Cup. If they mentioned it on a sign outside, I missed it and got lucky: they have upstairs seating with stunning views of the hills and Mt. Agung and the sea. I had been in Amed for 24 hours without realizing Mt. Agung is its backdrop!

I picked up some more bottled water at the Indomaret and went back to my room. It was 4:15 and I had a plan: there was still some direct sunlight on the pool but it wasn’t intense and there was also shade. Sunset was around 5:45, so I would first hang by the pool, then grab a drink at the villa beach bar and watch the sunset on the beach.

I brought my iPad to the pool, thinking I could either manage photos or read some more Henrietta Lacks. I didn’t realize how sublimely beautiful and tranquil floating in the pool would be. In one direction were the green mountains in the background and above me some trees with white flowers that surround the pool. In the other, the infinity pool spilled into the sea, with some beach huts and two wooden swings in between.

I reluctantly got up and out and walked the maybe 25 steps to the beach and set up a lounge chair for some sunset viewing. The villa bar serves arak, which Made said was like Indonesian wine. It was mixed with honey and lemon and sparkling water.. strong but refreshing. I looked it up later and found that it’s the Indonesian version of moonshine, so I won’t be having any more of it, but I didn’t die of my one sample, which was good because I had a sunset to marvel at.

The sun dipped behind the tail of Mt. Agung and made some glorious colors in the sky. I waded into the sea and continued to watch as clouds turned pink and then eventually as the mountain became a silhouette and the beachfront restaurant lights came on. Utterly divine.

I changed out of my wet bathing suit and hung it on the drying rack provided on the lanai (nice). Dinner tonight was at the other beach warung (one to the left of the villas, one to the right).

As I prepared for bed, I tried to charge my laptop but could not. I first noticed the frayed cable back in Auckland when an overnight charge didn’t take. I realized the cable had to be in just the right position for the current to flow through the exposed wires. Tonight, no amount of finagling would do. It finally sputtered out, sparks and everything.

Since I can type much faster on a computer keyboard than my iPad (and haven’t really gotten into talk-to-text), this adds an additional challenge to keeping up with blog posts!