August through late September 2025 — roughly sixty days on one island after Saigon closed wet. Not a holiday replay: kost and Airbnb rooms, standups at dawn, lunch breaks that ended in the sea. The tourist years are one essay back: Hello, Bali.
Kost, Airbnb, and the vampire shift
I split the season between a kost — Indonesian boarding-house rhythm, shared corridor, college girls on the landing — and short Airbnb stretches when I wanted a kitchen or a desk by a different window. Remote work from a kost room looks suspicious to neighbours who think daylight is for the beach. I kept curtains drawn for standups in US/EU time zones and emerged at odd hours like a polite Dracula.
The kost mates were kind about it, but not quiet about it — flirty looks at the stairwell, jokes about the guy who never leaves except to eat. I was not flirting back; I was trying to ship tickets before monsoon turned the Wi‑Fi petulant. Still, there is comedy in being the oldest person in the building who treats a laptop like a second lung.
Morning runs: Legian to Canggu
Mornings I earned back my humanity with a run — Legian northbound until Canggu blurred into rice and surf shops, legs burning, Garuda on my chest already sweat-dark. Running was health insurance for a body that otherwise lived chair-first. Afternoons belonged to screens; mornings belonged to pavement and roosters.
Some days the run was the only proof I was still an animal, not only a calendar invite.
17 August: Merdeka, Merah Putih, Garuda di dadaku
17 August — Indonesia’s Merdeka, eighty years of independence and the island wore Merah Putih like skin. Red-and-white flags on every pole, on scooters, on school gates; the anthem in warungs; children in costume rehearsing nationhood. I had a Garuda tattooed on my chest from an earlier trip — suddenly the old patriotic line felt literal: Garuda di dadaku, eagle on my chest, not propaganda but coincidence made loud.
I stood in the crowd as a foreigner nomad among neighbours who belonged to this soil — waving a borrowed flag, throat sore from singing I only half understood, pride without passport. For one morning Bali was not backdrop; it was republic. I cried a little, embarrassed and sincere. A tourist collects photos; something else happens when you cheer in another country’s birthday and mean it.
After Merdeka: Jakarta unrest, Coinfest, Denpasar
What followed was a harder August. Jakarta entered a riot month — parliament allowances, cost-of-living rage, a delivery rider killed by a Brimob vehicle, cities lit with anger I watched on phones before standup. The news had names I could not always pronounce and grief I could fully understand.
Between dread and deadlines, a co-worker flew in for Coinfest Asia — Nuanu Creative City, Tabanan, ten thousand crypto faithful treating Web3 like weather. We met after my screen went dark: booth badges, Balinese cultural interludes, the surreal comedy of discussing tokens while the republic argued in the capital. Work sent a colleague to a festival; I stayed on the island as resident, not delegate.
By month’s end the unrest reached Denpasar — students and ojol drivers at Polda Bali, tear gas on streets I had used for groceries, checkpoints where yesterday there were only school uniforms. I watched Denpasar Hari Ini on local news the way expats watch typhoon trackers: not fluent, but fluent enough in fear. Seminyak felt far; the capital of Bali felt real. I did not march; I listened, stayed off rally routes, kept shipping code — guest again, but no longer innocent.
Denpasar errands: Badung Market and morning prayer
Most days Denpasar was not riot but rhythm. I made frequent grocery runs to Pasar Badung — produce stacked like geology, fish on ice, bargaining in broken Indonesian, plastic bags cutting fingers, the market teaching humility before noon. Every morning before laptop glow: small canang sari prayers at doorsteps, incense on pavement, offerings to Balinese Hindu gods I did not name correctly but respected without mimicry. Faith here is hourly, not Sunday — flowers and rice in palm-leaf trays while scooters negotiate destiny.
There is a street that sells gold — windows of yellow wealth beside pawn logic and wedding season — and blocks of schools and universities where students in uniform flood the sidewalk at bell-time. I passed Pura Jagatnatha on the way to errands; stopped at Taman I Gusti Ngurah Made Agung to watch nothing urgent — mothers with toddlers, old men on benches, city breathing without tourism script.
Once I paused for a school dance rehearsal — gamelan through an open gate, teenagers correcting posture, culture as homework. A shopkeeper heard my name and grinned: here you are Made Surya. In Balinese naming, Made marks the second-born child; I am not Balinese, but I accepted the joke like a blessing — second in order, second to none in stubbornness. Neighbours started using it. Identity stopped being passport-only.
Something shifted in those weeks. I was not sightseeing; I was observing — remote worker, repeat customer, morning prayer witness. The island was no longer a travel destination to consume before a return ticket. It was becoming residence: Badung bags in the kitchen, Denpasar traffic memorized, Merdeka flag memory next to tear-gas memory, Garuda on skin and Made on tongue.
Lunch breaks at the sea
Standup ended, lunch became a sudden sprint to sunshine — flip-flops, no ceremony, straight into the Indian Ocean until shirt and hair were soaked and salt replaced coffee. Remote work in Bali rewards this heresy: the meeting can wait twelve minutes while the body remembers buoyancy.
I ate after — warung nasi campur, fruit plate, whatever line was shortest. The pattern was work, soak, eat, work again. Cheap medicine.
Australian breakfast mornings, Tequila Sunset evenings
Mornings had their own expat archaeology — Australian breakfast cafés that understood bacon timing, eggs done properly, coffee that did not apologize. After a run or before a standup, that was the meal that said daylight still belonged to me.
Evenings were different punctuation — bangers and mash when rain made Indonesian spice feel like too much honesty; Tequila Sunsets after the last merge of the day, watching the sky do its cliché while my brain unwound. Not culinary discoveries; English pub gravity when the body needed familiar heaviness before sleep.
Singing gigs and city rides
Bali also gave me a microphone — casual singing gigs at bars that tolerated a software engineer with a notebook of covers. Riding the city by motorbike between gigs and the Pasar Badung runs stitched the island into one continuous lane: Seminyak glitter, Denpasar errands, Sanur exhale. Gojek when I was tired; helmet when I was proud.
Chinese food hunts: mala, dim sum, longing
I missed Chinese gravity — mala heat, dim sum steam, the kind of meal that does not require translation. Bali is not short on food, but my tongue had memory. I chased Sichuan oil and dumpling carts the way some people chase surf breaks: never quite faithful to the origin, always faithful to the hunger.
Azuna, my father, and fear as unnecessary nuance
Evenings I read — including stories of Azuna, a character whose stubbornness felt familiar. My father’s voice arrived in memory: never give up; treat fear as an unnecessary nuance. What needs to be done needs to be done. That is not macho; it is maintenance. Sabbatical did not remove obligation — it moved the office to a kost desk. The line kept me typing when imposter syndrome offered easier exits.
Sanur fatigue and the storage unit
By late season I was tired in Sanur — east-coast calm turning into east-coast repetition. Big luggage had become a moral failure for someone preaching one-bag philosophy. I rented a storage unit, left boxes like a bookmark, and felt immediately lighter. Travel should not mean dragging every maybe across borders.
Jie Mao stayed in JB; Garuda stayed on skin; excess belongings stayed in Bali until I knew whether return was real.
Exit toward peninsula
Late September: peninsula next — a quick JB check-in on the cat and router, then Kuala Lumpur for the October arc I did not know would be so loud. Bali did not end with ceremony; it ended with storage keys and a Grab to the airport.
Continue:Kuala Lumpur: You are my Gateway — the year KLIA and AH2 moved me through; one long month inside the hinge, October 2025.