Bali Peace Before the Panic

At the start of a new month, I Ieft my surfer’s home in Lombok and made my way to the Island of the Gods, Bali once more. I wanted to catch up with newly made friends and do a surf wear shop before returning to the land of my birth and upbringing. When my surf sisters and I went bikini shopping one evening in Kuta Lombok, I came across a surf and beachwear brand, that has designs I just love, love love.

Bali Shopping

As I mentioned in another post on Bali, the island can be a lot of things to many different people. Whether it is culture, beach chill and hedonism, spiritual pursuit or luxury pampering you are after, Bali can give you your fix. The island is also a bit of a shopping mecca with plenty of upmarket boutiques flogging their fancy goods. This beachwear brand I think is fabulous, is a Balinese label with the naughty name 69 Slam. Like a lot of Balinese brands, they are not cheap as such, especially not to Indonesian standards, but then, they cater to a western market. Although 69 Slam is sold globally, I had never heard of them and that is probably because their stores outside Indonesia are located in seemingly less obvious places. You can’t find them in global centres of fashion such as London or New York, or closer by Sidney, Australia. Yet, they do have a fair number of shops in Russia, none in the Americas, and they have shops in locations including Dakar, Senegal,  Saint Gilles Les Baines, Reunion, and Okinawa, Japan. As a local brand, they have several stores in Bali’s main tourist towns, including an outlet that happened to be located within walking distance from my hotel in Seminyak. I am not a big shopping fan, unless it is online, but at the outlet I got myself lots of quirky surf wear gear for a fraction of the standard price. As a nomad I don’t tend to buy a lot of clothes. Either I’ll be dragging it around and when it comes to luggage, for a nomad less is more, or I need to store it somewhere. If I store it somewhere it means I won’t wear it, which is reason enough not to buy it. Also, for some reason, using laundry services on the road tends to fuck up your clothes, so I only buy something when I feel I really need it (and not just when I want it). The exception being my latest purchase of funky surf wear.

Seseh Beach

 I addition to doing a happy shop, I visited some friends I had met during my first visit to Bali, at their dream mansion in Seseh beach. Seseh is a quiet beach town with plenty of upmarket resorts and residencies and a rich cultural life.  One of my favourite surf breaks in Bali can also be found at Seseh. Like the town, the surf break too tends to be less crowded compared to other breaks further down south. My Seseh- Beach friends are an older couple from the Netherlands who have been living in Indonesia for several decades. They have been leading truly adventurous lives and have great stories to tell, which is fabulous inspiration for what older age could look like.

 After a few days in Bali, I was mentally ready to return to Europe. The weather forecast seemed promising as returning from the tropics to a grey, wet, windy and/ or cold country is rather depressing. However, not all would be well.