It's been 12 and a half years since my second travel memoir, Balilicious: The Bali Diaries was published, and before I trot back to Bali again later this summer, I thought I'd celebrate the milestone by sharing a little excerpt of the book! Time flies, friends, I can't believe it's been that long, but I still look back on that time with a beaming smile, because Bali was... is... such a special place. 

Enjoy x

A series of unfortunate encounters 

What they don't tell you before you set up camp in Bali is that even if you've previously prided yourself on your grace and agility, you're now going to spend a hell of a lot of your time falling on your ass.

The pavements in Ubud in particular are a maze of broken slabs that in any western country would only be found, say, on the site of a demolished building. While extremely charming and adding to the character, they're so perilous and often set so high above what seems in places like an underground water system, that you'd be forgiven for wanting to take a helmet, flashlight and rope ladder with you when attempting to pop out for lunch.

There must be thousands of tourists stuck in holes all over Bali. There's probably an entire underground movement going on, literally beneath our feet, of lost Chinese and Americans who all thought they'd go for a nice little walk to the Monkey Forest but never made it back to the tour bus. Bali may well know this, which is why, to save grace and keep us flocking in, they play the gamelan so loudly, all day and all night, to cover the screams.

You're also going to step on a lot of flowers. The Balinese make daily offerings to positive (high) and destructive (low) forces that must each be appeased in order to coexist in harmony. The offerings to the low spirits are the ones left on the ground, which is great if you're a demon or a stray dog looking for a little snack, but not so great if you're a tourist on your way for a latte and you accidentally skid on a marigold or burn your ankle on some incense.

If you don't wind up destroying someone's carefully placed offering to a force unseen as you walk along, staring at your camera, you're going to wind up unseen yourself, stuck in a hole with the Chinese. You've been warned.

Today, while exploring on foot (keeping my eyes to the ground, of course) I found myself walking past a bar with a very happy Buddha on its sign, which sent me into even more of a sweat. I sped up, hoping to get past as fast as possible but a dog raced out in front of me. I was forced to stop and an excited voice called my name. 

Nyoman was hurrying towards me from inside. He's grown his hair, I thought. It looks good. Dammit.

“Hey! Where have you been, Becky?'' he asked, grinning and holding up his hand for me to high-five.

“Um, Thailand,'' I said as I slapped his palm awkwardly. And hiding, from you.

I could tell my face was beetroot red, but bless Nyoman, he just looked happy to see me, and cute in a way that only a carefree, super sexy, twenty-three year old Balinese bartender can look.

I should explain. Back in June, on the night I met Paul at the literary event at Bar Luna, I also met a fabulous lady called Cat Wheeler, known in Bali as Ibu Kat. She's lived here for years and writes for the Bali Advertiser. She's also written a brilliant book about her experiences here called Bali Daze. Anyway, we got chatting and she introduced me to arak.

Arak is a drink that God made by mistake and promptly threw down the sink, only to have it collected underground in a goblet by Satan who snickered evilly to himself and distributed it all over Bali. They quite like it here, and I quite enjoyed my first one, and my second as I chatted to Ibu Kat about her adventures. Like any sane person would do, Ibu Kat went home at the end of the night, after just one drink. Me, however, well, I ended up in the happy, smiley Buddha bar talking broken Indonesian to Nyoman who continued the theme by whipping me up a few of his special 'Arak Obamas.' Once he'd finished his shift, I also got him to take me to a club on the back of his motorbike.

Somehow (and only Satan knows how) I woke up on my own in my hotel room the next day, covered in mud, sprawled on the bed and needing four hours' worth of stomach-emptying time with the toilet. Flashbacks of snogging Nyoman in a rice field haunted me all week, as did the taste of arak. And then I left for Thailand.

“I'm so glad you're back!'' he said, beaming as I shuffled uncomfortably in his doorway.

“Oh, me too, I've been meaning to come and say hi,'' I lied.

We exchanged small talk for a few minutes. He really was very nice and unlike a bunch of guys I can think of who might have mocked my shameful, drunken behaviour, the lovely Nyoman never found the need to bring our embarrassing encounter into the conversation. The arak night was never discussed and thankfully I was able to leave with a restored ability to walk past his bar without feeling like a knob.

If all Balinese guys are as nice as Nyoman, I'm going to like it here a lot. But I'm also never going to drink arak ever again.

Continuing my walk, I discovered a popular cafe called Bali Buddha (and no, not every venue in Ubud has a Buddha in it). This one serves up healthy food and drinks and is a cute little purple building with steps up from the ground that make it look as though it might be on stilts. 

I scanned the outside wall, which also acts as a community message board and was bombarded with opportunities for spiritual enlightenment. Just looking at them made my head spin: devotional singing, yoga, reiki, tarot readings, past-life regression, crystal healing, craniosacral therapy, an introduction to your spirit guides, Native American healing, how to eat raw and make more friends. I knew Ubud was a haven of wholesome intent and goodness, but one could get quite carried away here. The sheer number of advertisements suggested it would be pretty difficult not to 'find yourself ' here, if yourself is what you were looking for. With so many people desperate to help you and all of these different avenues, the only way you could possibly get lost would be to fall through one of those gaps in the pavement.

Heading upstairs for a smoothie, I picked up the local paper to read Ibu Kat's latest column. The Bali Advertiser is basically your regular community newspaper, only I'm pleased to say that this one is positively bursting at the seams with life-affirming specials and good advice. 

I read an article about the perils of asbestos. It gives ten useful tips on How to Identify Materials That Contain Asbestos in Ubud and then goes on to talk about how it can cause lung cancer. This could be a seriously depressing article.

In the UK the headline would scream: 'COFFEE SHOP KILLS CUSTOMERS SLOWLY WITH ASBESTOS'.

But here in Bali, where life is viewed in a more balanced way, the headline reads 'Paradise: In sickness and in health.'

I don't know about you, but to me, this headline implies feeling great while you fester; maybe taking a holiday somewhere even more exotic to make your last few months on Earth remotely bearable. Maybe living life to the fullest as your lungs collapse and your equally exposed family perish slowly and unknowingly in your very home, as you all sip mint tea and talk about things like how the geckos get louder when it's about to rain.

I'm inspired by all this positivism. I've lived in misery inducing cities my whole life and they all end up bringing you down, one way or another. From now on I think I'll take a leaf out of Ubud's book and look for a positive spin on absolutely everything. Except arak of course, and falling to my early demise through a gaping hole in the street.

This is an edited extract from Balilicious – The Bali Diaries, by Becky Wicks, HarperCollins, rrp $29.99