Unplanned Adventures
I thought with Agung stirring us up for 24 hours on 29 June 2018, a little reminder that we all need sometimes, to travel anywhere has unexpected adventures.
No matter where you travel in the world although you can plan as much as possible, there may be something that changes your plans. These can then become unplanned adventures.
It does not matter whether you are going to an island with a volcano, and boy there are a lot of Islands around the world with volcanos.
It does not matter if you go up the street, everything is out of your control, but you can plan for many things so you don’t have too much stress.
Some people stress easily, especially after spending a long time planning their dream holiday
They may even get stressed if the room isn’t like the brochure, or the beach is not like they expected, but the good thing is these are easily solved problems.
In Bali, the best way to solve these problems is to not complain. The Balinese/Indonesian culture is not to complain, complaining to reception is not the way to get a result here. Well, you may get a result, but not the one you hoped for. Explaining calmly your disappointment instead goes a lot further here. This is a culture that does not like to disappoint. That is why you can often find a driver who will ask you to confirm him 2 days before, you think well I am confirming now, he will insist that now is fine, 2 months prior, but just please confirm with him 2 days prior. You will be thinking “hey, do you not trust me to use you, or this is not professional”. He will be thinking Ï don’t want to disappoint you, and if something comes up then I will know 2 days before, they really don’t like to disappoint.
Having a Contingency Plan for Travel is a good idea, some may think, well that’s a bit much, but you do it all the time in your day to day life:’
Taking a first aid kit or even just some band-aids on a long hike means you planned for the unexpected bump on the knee. You may not have known it but you had a contingency plan
Putting on your seatbelt means you had a contingency plan for “just in case of an accident”.
Many mothers have a contingency plan every time they leave the house, it’s called an extra-large bag, that takes forever to pack and has too many diapers, but just in case.
Some people come to Bali and don’t get the correct insurance, such as for riding a motorbike, then they do a “Go Fund Me”, which annoys many people, as they gave the impression they did not care about insurance, so why should anyone care about them. Half the time, these people did have insurance, they were just not aware they were not covered, and they did not look at the fine print.
What Agung has also shown us, is some beneficial information on how to plan for a trip to Bali, or really any travel to an area with a volcano.
Agung has shown us, is that it does like to stir up some trouble and close our airport, Rinjani was doing that for a while as well.
What have we learnt from Agung?
Well, we have learnt that the airport does not close forever.
We have learnt not to panic.
We have learnt to have masks (and goggles) just in case.
We have learnt not to jump too quickly on to flight changes, some people jumped on so quickly the other day, 29 June 2018, that they now must wait 6 days before their next flight, instead of 6 hours.
We have learnt that there are alternatives out of Bali, for example, Lombok airport was open all day the other day.
When travelling, it is important to plan for delays, they happen all over the world.
Even going up the road can be an adventure. We once went trekking to find a waterfall, it was supposed to be a 30-minute walk, after 3 hours of walking and hearing about that waterfall, but never finding it, we gave up. However, this was an amazing trip where we found a hidden Temple in a Cave, met some locals and saw some beautiful scenery. We asked a Policeman yesterday about that waterfall, and he explained we took a path 20 metres too early, and it’s probably only a 15-minute walk.
So, in closing, we would say, no matter whether you plan to come to Bali or go to Figi, or up the street, if you don’t like the unexpected then just plan for the unexpected. Then you can turn the unexpected into an Unplanned Adventure.
Happy Adventures!