My favourite spot to chill out: Gili Meno, Indonesia

I am in love 💜with this island 🏖

In case you don’t have any clue where it is – Google Maps will tell you

Gili Meno is the smallest of the three Gilis, it is the one in the middle. Once you arrive here, you go back in time. No motorized traffic but cidomos (horse cars); they use them as taxis and carry cement, wood, water gallons, and even fridges around the island. No proper roads too, often just sand. Jalan kaki (walking), on a bike or an electric scooter, are better ways to move yourself around on the island.

Cidomo – to transport building materials

Talk of the day on this island is when a chopper 🚁is landing. Yes, a chopper! For people who don’t want to take the boat or are seasick 😉, or just because they can. It’s just 2,500,000 million (roepiah 😉), per person, one way, not that expensive actually 😉(2,5 million is around € 150). It goes straight from Sanur to Gili Meno, definitely faster than the speed boat. I may try it next time😇🤣.

To give you an estimation of the size of the island: you can walk around the island in less than 2 hours (slow walk)! And that includes taking pictures and zigzagging to avoid the dead coral. At least, that’s what I did 😉. In the morning, instead of my usual ritual (yoga on the beach), I decided to take a walk. In bikinis and barefoot, feeling the warm water and sunshine on my body🙌.

The first time I got here, July 2008, there weren’t ATMs, so you needed to carry millions 💰 💰 💰 with you. And when you had spent more uang (money) than you had estimated, you had to take a boat to Bangsal, the mainland of Lombok. Now there are 3 ATMs on the island, but I think 1 is broken haha. Still, 2 left, enough for the few tourists here to get money (so no need to fix the 3rd one😅.

However, I recommend, in case you want to go here, take enough cash with you, just in case the ATMs aren’t working. And because you can’t pay with a card in shops. Even changing a note of 100,000 is hard. I had this after my supper. I ordered gado-gado, Lombok style (enak sekali!), it costed 25,000, I only had 100,000 (around US $ 7), I had to ask 3 places to change it, then went back to the restaurant and paid.
FYI: 25,000 is around € 1,50.

This island has been a healing place for me, ever since the first time I got here. The peaceful, quiet nights (ok, until 5 am, then the show ‘Gili Meno has talent’ starts, or in other words: the prayers from the mosque 😉). The clear blue waters, white sandy beaches, the silent whispers of the sea, the waves touching the sand, the genuine kind people, kids playing around, good food and the tanned beach boys trying to sell their snorkelling trips.

Besides the beach and snorkelling, there isn’t much to do here and I like it. It is stimulating my creativity, my intuition. I slow down and enjoy life much more. I am still working though, not yet enough passive money coming in 😉 (working on that!).

And, I realize how grateful 🙏 we should be for all we have in life! Drinking water from the tap, here it is not possible, not even to make tea because it is salty water. Taking a shower? Salty water. Washing your clothes? Salty water. 1 thing that I sensed is that my soap bar doesn’t foam, probably because of the salty water🤔. Can anyone explain this to me?

Cockroaches🪳 don’t mind salty water, I got one, a GIANT one, on my toilet seat, of course in the middle of the night! The first night I got here! What a nice surprise. I screamed and that must have helped. I haven’t seen it again, thank God 🙏.

Oh, after 3 weeks in Sanur, Bali, I must say: the food here is amazing, although having a food buddy, like I had in Sanur, would make the food taste even better. Gado-gado Gili Meno style and tempe curries, my favorites, really yummy. I even found delicious brownies. The landlady makes especially for me nasi goreng pedas (spicy fried rice) as sarapan (breakfast) and she is surprised at how spicy I can eat without having a runny nose or starting to sweat. Yup, from the inside I am more Indonesian than I look from the outside 😜☺️.

Yummy, tempe curry!

Short summary for my upcoming travels: first Sanur, Bali until 12 September. Then back to Belanda, the Netherlands for a few weeks (not sure if I should be happy 😕). Then cat sitting in Portugal (Algarve) and most likely visit Porto before or after the cat sitting. But…. Changes are coming up🙌. Which ones? I keep you posted!
1 hint: 🎵🎶Welcome to my paradise🎵🎶.

You can find more pictures about Gili Meno & Bali here.

If you like to know more about Gili Meno (good places to stay or to eat), or about the other Gilis or Bali or you just wonder why I don’t gain weight but you see me eating all the time, just ask 🙌😇.

With love 💜 & light✨,
littlemissyoga

P.S.: If you want to meet me in the Netherlands, reach out quickly because I have a full agenda already and I am travelling to Portugal as well in October. I would suggest, visit me in Portugal 😊.

P.P.S.: Who wants to join me for a few days to visit Porto (and you can also meet one of my friends there, whom I met in Laos). Let me know when you are interested 😊.

P.P.P.S: This island is also known as the Honeymoon Island. Who did I bring with me? Let me see… me, myself and I 😉. Hopefully next time I am here with my Prince Charming🤴.

Taking the lead or being led? The choice is yours!

Reading time: 4 minutes

As a kid, I wanted to become a princess, a teacher and a (ballet) dancer (secretly, I don’t remember that I told anyone). When I grew a bit older I heard questions like: ‘How do you think to earn money with dancing and music?’ And: ‘To become a princess you need to marry a prince. And since you are a farmer’s daughter, forget it.’

2 dreams smothered, 1 dream left. A dream that seemed within reach and would give me a proper future: becoming a (school) teacher. *

I always believed that my parents, grandma, my closest friends and some teachers knew best for me. I followed their advice without taking any consideration. Now I know: they didn’t know best for me.

Studying and getting your diploma, finding a good job, that was what I was told to do, or better I say: I thought that people expected that from me. So I did it all.

But when I look back at high school and college, I was a rebellious student, always going against the grain, just because I could not accept the strict rules and the rigid system. I reacted in the same way when I was working at the office. Always asking questions like: Why work from 9 to 5, why not when I wake up?, Why can’t I work on the weekends and have Mondays off?, Why can’t I work from home?
I could have invented ‘working from home’ long before Covid forced companies into it 😉.

I finally dare to speak out loud: I don’t fit in this existing system. Blessed with a good working brain and a good coping mechanism I managed to survive.**  But, I could not ignore that little voice inside of me. So, at one moment I decided: I am going to design my own life, living my best life.

My best life is not perfect yet. But hey, what is perfect? I don’t know and basically, I don’t care. I like it the way it is at this moment, and, perfect would be boring at the end 😉. Being imperfect makes me unique and it leaves room for improvement🌟.

There is always something to complain about, you basically have 2 options: you either accept it or change it. Plain and simple. Maybe you think (and I bet you do): I can’t change my life. I dare to say: YES, YOU CAN. Even a small simple change can improve the quality of your current life right away and it might be the first step to YOUR BEST life.

In case you feel that life is leading you instead of you leading life, I have some questions for you.

What are you waiting for? That your best life is knocking on your door one day saying ‘ Hello, here is your best life’? It is already here, you just don’t see it or not ready to see it.

Are you waiting for the right moment? Well… surprise: The right moment is always NOW.

Is fear holding you back? Most likely.

But… what if you take that leap of faith and fully trust that life has your back?

The only outcome is… your best life!

So…again: what are you waiting for?
Start today with living your best life, just (fucking) do it. Because you, yes YOU, beautiful soul, deserve it 💜💫🤍! Go for it!

With love 💜 & light✨,
littlemissyoga

* I made it as a teacher, (luckily) not a school teacher though. I am a yoga teacher but I prefer to use the word instructor or guide, and I am also a RPM/indoor cycling instructor and maybe I can become a role model of how to design and live your best life😉.

** I am actually surprised at what is still left of my brain, after drinking a lot of bottles of wine per week, for almost 2 years in a row! I could have become the new Einstein if I hadn’t killed all these brain cells 😉.

Bom día! – an update from Portugal 🍀🧘‍♀‍💃⛱️☀️😎🌻

(average reading time: 3 minutes)

Bom día! Tudo bem? Tudo bem! And that’s basically all my knowledge of the Portuguese language. Ok…I also know: Uma mulher tem uma maça, meaning: A woman has an apple. Very important knowledge, isn’t it 😜😅😂? Especially for me, I love apples (not to confuse with Apple, Annet and Apple don’t go along 🥊👎😉).

Ok, enough blahblah, to the point! I had the idea that I would escape the winter in the Netherlands, Algarve should be warmer. Well… I know now that Portugal can have cold winters too! It started mid-December 2020 up to mid-January 2021. Happy that my winter clothes are quite oversized, and that I had brought so many clothes! I was wearing many layers to keep myself warm. The apartment I was in, had no insulation, an aircon to heat up the place, but it was quite noisy so after 10 minutes I had to turn it off. The fire 🔥 place was out of order, because I had put all my yoga stuff there (and I must admit: I don’t know how to make a proper fire and it’s an open fire place, so the apartment would either burn down, including the whole building 🚒 or everything inside would smell like burnt wood). Average temperature in the apartment: 11 degrees Celsius. It was often warmer outside….

I got my lovely winter toes back, I forgot how painful that is. The bathroom was so cold that I was already an ice queen before I could turn on the shower. I wrapped myself completely in the bed covers, preventing my nose from freezing off my face when I was asleep😉. Eventually, it turned out to be the coldest winter since 15+ years. In Laos (October – December 2019) we had 1 week of really cold weather. Why is winter following me… is there a hidden message 🤔? One thing I promised myself (Covid or not): I am on a tropical island from October 2021 until March 2022. No more winter toes 👣, no more winter clothes and a-sexy thermo-underwear 🩲🩳! Just summer clothes, SPF50, bikinis 👙, sunglasses 😎 and flip flops 🩴.

Luckily, the temperature is back to normal (around 12 at night, around 18 at daytime). And I exchanged the apartment for a mobile home at a holiday park😊. I am here for almost one month, and up to now, it is the best move (this is the 3rd place I live in within 3,5 months😅). Currently, we have a curfew 🔒 (8pm – 5am on the weekdays and 1pm – 5am in the weekends, beaches are closed too, unfortunately); luckily, the park is located in the countryside. We can go for a stroll in nature without seeing other people (and also no GNR/police 🚓), and if you want to socialize with people, there is always someone sitting outside on the veranda (except when it’s raining 😉).

All in all, I am living my dream: a lovely tiny home, lovely neighbors, beautiful nature, working now and then 😉 (I started a new job at Meditation Moments – https://meditationmoments.nl/). I can say I am definitely enjoying life 🧘‍♀️🧚🏼‍♀️💃 💫✨🍀💜🙏🥳🍹. Do you want to design your own life too? Stay tuned, I will share shortly what I did to make it happen🙏 😇. Ok, one piece of advice in advance: listen to your heart ❤️, it has all the answers to your questions💜🙏.

💜💚 With love 💜💚
         littlemissyoga                          

P.s.: I started to teach some online yoga classes – see https://littlemissyoga.com/about-littlemissyoga/new-online-yoga-classes/, also check my Facebook-page to subscribe to my classes: https://www.facebook.com/annet.gosens/

P.p.s.: I have put some pictures of my life in Portugal – check https://littlemissyoga.com/gallery/pictures-portugal/.

P.p.p.s: Meanwhile posting this blog, it is raining cats🐱 & dogs 🐶… it looks like autumn in the Netherlands😉.