Traveling hard! 3rd World

I Know I wanted to share some perspectives regarding my long summer travels and my trip to Indonesia was such the ying and yang for me that really I am completely still processing it.

I will give this blog an honest shot! I have been traveling my entire life and this trip had more external adversities than any trip I have ever experienced! I mean I have gone camping as a child & in tents, I have stayed on boats for 5 or plus days in Catalina, cruise ships, beach camping, mountain camping, etc. The reason I’m speaking of boating & camping is because that’s exactly what took place on this incredible journey. However, I’m more like the 5 star/ Four Seasons type of girl. I do like the raw experiences so do not get me wrong, I will be the first one to jump in the back of a dirty pick up truck with surf boards hanging out of them or pristinely enter the nicest Bentley.

It started out of LAX where I met complete strangers & a man that was our guide that I had only met one time before with one of my best friends to go over details & hand deliver our deposits. See doing a huge surf trip, in Indonesia from LA, this in itself is a big deal & this type of trip is dealt with mainly in cash.

I also do not normally fly in coach this far away any more but I didn’t want to be a “DIVA” & I really wanted to emerge myself with our group & fly with one of my best girl friends. She had previous work in Tokyo so I flew from LA to Tokyo to meet her. Then we met up & flew to Singapore, then Jakarta, then Garuda, to take a one hour drive to Pandang. In Pandang we waited at a hotel for hours before we got on our boat. This waiting period did give our group some bonding time which was really nice now that I look back.

When we boarded the boat everyone got situated in our little bunks that reminded me of being on a tour bus in the beginning years, plus our luggage took up half of our beds & the hallways. Poor guys that had to deal with all our girly stuff on their surf trip as well. It’s pretty funny if you think about it!

So feeling like a teenager & sharing bedrooms as a grown woman was interesting & it’s one thing with your best friend & then it’s another when you add another woman who is the photographer & a total stranger to the mix. Three woman in very tight quarters. Thank GOD we all are wordily, open minded, & became great friends! Ying!!!

Our captain & his girlfriend are very lovely people. I just adore them! Very evolved, laid back humans with very positive perspectives. Actually, I really liked everyone on our trip. Our group had mainly Brazilians on the boat & I didn’t speak Portuguese, so that made it a bit challenging but some spoke English. I thought they all new one another but everyone new one person in common & that’s it. Surprise! We are all strangers now living together in tight quarters & it’s about to get really real, really fast!

I had a very hard time with two men from LA. I am not used to men complaining as much as these two guys complained. I’m used to rock stars & these LA guys made very demanding privileged rock stars look like boy scouts. Actually let me say, “rock stars are just artists doing their passion, incredibly gifted & normally easy breezy”, They get a bad wrap sometimes because they work so hard traveling from different state to state or country to country & managers have to help keep schedules etc. so I do not mean to sound derogatory about any musicians aka “rock stars” out there. Really it’s just a figure of speech. Now let me continue…

One of them liked me & I was just out of a relationship & I had just completed the Advanced DNA Theta Healing so this surf trip for me was more of my personal spiritual journey. I wasn’t very interested but didn’t want to offend him in any way. I kept him at bay & was hoping we could just enjoy our trip & play it by ear when we returned home. I was honest & forth coming. This to say the least did not make him happy. The Yang…lol

The other LA guy was so incredible selfish, that he would always reference this trip as “HIS Vacation” as if non of the rest of us paid & were on the boat. It was all of our “Dream Trips” in one way or another. Every time I wanted to paddle board this guy would end up taking it or expressing how the waves weren’t good that day & so he wanted to paddle board. It wasn’t worth the fight. This guy complained about a lot of things, so over the top! I could barely handle it. He constantly told my girl friend, “I think Sam thinks I don’t like her?”. Ha ha Really..??? Yang!
A lot of the guys complained, about these waves are too big & these waves are too small! They would always yell & scream. I think this was part of their culture. The Captain would explain things to me. Yang!

Every morning I was happy & cheerful! I mean really happy!! All smiles & HUGE “Good Mornings” & I wasn’t surfing. I was on my “Spiritual Journey” so everyday I would open water swim, lay out, yoga on the boat, collect sea shells, find private beaches, make friends with locals at near by resorts if we were lucky to be at a resort! I was doing my own thing & I was in paradise! Ying!!

They didn’t understand how I could be so happy & not be surfing. This was a Yang!

I continued to make friends, met locals & other surfers from other boats. Met some great surfers from Aussie & San Diego! I should have jumped on their boat & was going to do an impromptu photo shoot but never made it over there. I wished I did because my oldest brothers (Brother -Scotty) very close friend was on that boat! We said hello hung out & he didn’t put it together until I was back in LA & he had dinner one night with my Captain. Then when he arrived in LA we had a nice reunion!. Love ya Greg Hunt! I wanted to give you a little shout out 🙂 Ying!!

This one day with language barriers with one of my favorite young Brazilian, we became good friends he reminded me of my youngest brother (Brother – Davie), regarding photo’s where my name got brought into a convo & then an argument & another one with an LA man who couldn’t get over the fact I wasn’t into him. I was like what the hell is going on here?! Literally I went on a trip to hang with my best friend, be in the most beautiful remote places in the world, and literally subjected myself to chaos!

I had good moments because the glass is always half full but the bad out weighed the good by far.

I have sat on writing this blog for some time because I do not have many great things to say about it.

Our boat wasn’t ready because one captain was in jail for god knows what? Went through storms & lost our dingy first night in (that was our safety boat), I had to share a bedroom with a stranger, My girlfriend bailed on me for a guy, we had cockroaches everywhere on our boat & in our beds, we ran out of food, our photographer sliced her finger open first day out & should have been air evacuated to a hospital, two LA assholes, & one LA guy got sick & we didn’t have enough meds, on top of that sea sickness was heavy! note: organic ginger dramamine works the best!

To top it off when I could finally get half way home & was in Singapore I was stuck with drunk, broke, surfers that ruined my evening although they had fun with hookers & transvestites… I prayed that they would miss their flight home.

I got sick on the way home & have some weird bug “Bali Belly” doctors are fixing me as we speak.

Will I go back??? Yes but with my peeps & see the new friends I met & stay at a 5 star resort! I will have amazing experiences along the way and dine at the restaurant with three towers with a boat on top in Singapore.

I will not stop experiencing this beautiful world & I will not lie and say every day is rainbows & skittles. I love my life & I am blessed! Truly blessed!

I am a survivor….I can make it through anything 1st world to 3rd world. Nothing is beneath me & I am not exempt from trials & tribulations.

You stay strong, you make the best of your situation, & you grow through it & past it.

I was & will remain rewarded by my efforts, hard work, choices, & the ability to love & appreciate even the hard times.

In all honesty I tailored this blog to be a little easier for the read. some details spare you the reader with horrible visions of your imagination. If at any time someone would like me to express in more depth, I will do so. Through adversity we grow the most.

Cheers to evolution!

Light & Love Samantha Bennington