It is unknown how long I will be able to sustain living here in Bali, as I came here with only a very small savings, which, aside from my car back home, is about all that I have in life, at least as physical possessions go, and as such, I see it as necessary, almost a duty to document and make videos of my experiences here, for as long as I am fortunate enough to have this chance to do so. Each time the girls and myself go for a swim at the pool here at our apartment is no less magical than the time before, and so I’ve made another video, as bringing my camera along is pretty well becoming second nature at this point.
Bali is hot. It’s in the tropics, near the equator, so it probably didn’t take me to remind anyone of this fact, but it’s one thing to see a temperature reading of Bali from whatever part of the world that you are in, and perhaps think that the upper eighties (in Fahrenheit) doesn’t seem so bad at all, but it’s another thing entirely to be here for an extended period of time and feel for yourself, that humidity that seems to amplify the heat to about ten degrees higher. What makes this even more difficult to cope with is the fact that the temperature spread between the high of the day and the low of the night is extremely narrow, which makes even a dark, quiet 4am also feel like a hot, mid-afternoon would feel in many other places of the world. So, that makes our apartment’s swimming pool even that much more valuable, and is why we utilize it as much as we can, not only because it’s fun to swim and Mama’s girls love it, but it’s quite simply one of only four affordable ways that I’ve learned to cool off here in Bali.
Let’s for a moment talk about the other three ways that I’ve found it efficient to cool off, just to give you some insight, especially if you’ll be coming to Bali to vacation or to live and/or work for a period of time. One way requires having a scooter to ride. After the sun goes down, taking a ride on your scooter, especially if you can find areas of lessened traffic, seeing as how it’s later in the night at this point, and open the throttle up. Feel the tropical breeze blow past your face at fifty kilometers per hour. This is why I’ve found that getting your errands done later at night is more rewarding, simply because it’s a great time to ride and thus cool off in the process. Another way that I’ve found to cool off is to take cool showers. I realize that to some people, the thought of a cold shower isn’t terribly appealing, but I can tell you that when you spend day in and day out in the tropical, humid heat here in Bali, that having cool water come out of your shower can feel very refreshing. If you have to, time your showers to be in the heat of the day, depending on your schedule. The last way that I’ve found it efficient here to keep cool is a bit juvenile, but no less effective. Know which stores or businesses have a well placed, ultra cold, blasting air conditioner that is positioned as such that you can just go in and stand by it for a good while. In fact, every time that I go out with Mama to pick up food or supplies, I’m often seeking such an air conditioner as she is roaming the aisles for whatever she needs, and the fact that she takes seemingly forever to decide on her purchases, leaves all the more time for me to find a place to cool off. One of the absolute best places by far for cold air conditioning that I can tell you, is at the numerous ATM machines that are all over the island, which are almost all in self enclosed, tiny rooms, with air conditioners blaring at full cooling power. Some of these are like stepping into a walk in refrigerator, which feels absolutely fantastic when you’ve been out riding or walking in the Bali heat. Hell, I even hold off until there is nobody waiting for use of the machine, and then I take my sweet time to make my withdrawal, just to cool off. Here is a picture of an air conditioner that I befriended at The Ramayana Bali Mall.
It is also so hot here in Bali that the pool need not at all, ever, be heated. In fact, on most days, especially around midday, the water in the pool is barely even cold enough to completely cool you off. On some occasions that water even feels warm, almost as though it is in sync with the temperature outside. It is for this reason that I sometimes keep my actual time in the pool in short bursts, because the feeling of the breeze hitting your soaking wet body when you get out can be more cooling that the water itself. Sometimes even, assuming that my chronic illness isn’t bothering me on a particular day, it is that combination of cooling off, having just gotten out of the pool, feeling the breeze hitting my wet body, kicking back in a chair with some great rock tunes playing in the Bluetooth speaker that just about speak to the moment with fascinating synchronicity, sipping on some cold, green tea and taking a hit of some menthol vapor, that all combine to produce quite a wonderful, natural high. That’s a bit more amazing for me than it might seem to some, because I’m someone in life who has most certainly experienced the pinnacle of highs with most of the best illegal drugs in my younger days in the western world, and the reality is, those highs are very hard to beat, if not sometimes unbeatable. Which goes to show just how really great the feeling of these evening swims really are.
Switching now to a lighter pool related topic, I must express just how proud I am of Mama’s little seven year old, as in the time we have spent together in Bali, she has already gone from being fearful of the deep end of the pool, to now being able to swim across the length of the pool completely on her own. We took it step by step, little by little, and each time we went swimming, I would challenge her to swim out to me, just a little bit further each time, until eventually, she developed the courage to make it across, just so as long as I was standing in the middle so that she could grab onto me if she were frightened or could not make it all the way. Well, that quickly evolved into where she’s at now, which is as soon as we arrive at the pool, she is the first one to jump right in, and swim all the way across the length of the pool. It’s a pretty bitchin’ feeling to feel like I have made a positive impact like that on a child’s life, albeit just learning to swim. Here is a picture of Mama and her seven year old, Inas.
Well, as I bring this little tale to a close, I should mention that more videos and likely accompanying blog posts about the rooftop swimming pool are inevitable, as I actually have the next video about it already produced and ready to load up when the time is right. In the meantime, on my YouTube channel, for anyone following the ongoing potential for an eruption of Mt. Agung here in Bali, I have uploaded a public video that I took of steam coming from the volcano, that can be seen from our rooftop pool here at our apartment in Denpasar, which is approximately thirty-two miles from the caldera, less than twenty-four hours prior to posting this blog. That video can be seen below.
Note: Mount Agung has begun several small eruptions since the creation of this blog and video.
