Here’s this thing I forget about being me: I am good at going places; I am bad at doing things.

I shared a ride with a woman from Lisbon today. She was young, gorgeous, savvy, and had been traveling around Indonesia for two months, is heading off to Thailand on Wednesday, then coming back to Indonesia until March. We were taking her to Sanur, to someone’s house, someone she’d met while she was traveling in Java. She’d snorkeled, ridden janky mopeds on twisting wet roads, seen Borobodur, boarded busses bound for places she wasn’t entirely sure were there, going on the rumor of the perfect beach, a hidden restaurant, a hermit artist. She worked in conservation and education. She disliked Bali for its comparative expensiveness to other parts of Indonesia. She was full of tips for haggling and bargaining and finding the cheapest everything. She’s the kind of person that could happily share a dorm room in a hostel and eat plain rice for dinner.

And I felt like a poseur, sitting there, so happy to head back to Ubud because I knew where to find an ATM and contact lens solution. Because I am sick to death of fried noodles and fried rice and dried shrimp crackers that I have to wave big black flies off of with one hand while I eat with the other. Because I could replenish my stock of cash, find a great cafe with decent wifi and write emails and post this missive. Because I could live my life as I always do, just from a very different and faraway place.

I travel. But I am not a traveler. Not in the bold, roughing it way of the Portuguese girl in the car with me, who could so easily live without the comforts of international cuisine, laundry, and wifi. She is the kind of traveler I’d always pictured myself to be, but never quite had the gumption to actually become.

I’ve been in Southeast Asia since the end of December. And for the first couple of weeks, driven by the steam engine of information that was my organized and ambitious travel partner, TK, I did lots of things. I saw Little India, Chinatown, and the many malls of Singapore. I went to Cambodia. I saw 90% of the sights to see in Phnom Penh and then went to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat with my very own eyes. Then to Bali, where we saw things too, the terraced rice fields, the Sacred Monkey Forest and all of its lower primate citizens, and a beautiful temple or ten.

Then TK had to go home, and I’ve been left to my own devices for just a week. And my own devices, let me tell you, are not very sophisticated, informed, or ambitious. They are whimsical. They are given to moods and paralyzing fits of indecision, and total laziness. They are timid, overly cautious, too aware that I am alone here. They result in me eating a lot, because that is one thing I really know how to do, no matter where I am. And my own devices, they always pine for some semblance of familiarity.

So after languishing in Ubud, Bali, for five days, I roused myself to go to Amed, on the northeast side of the island, planning to see what there is to see there, then to catch a boat to the Gili Islands. (Why did I want to go to the Gili Islands? Because they have horses instead of cars. That is pretty much the only reason. See: Own Devices; uninformed, whimsical.)

And thanks to Made (prounounced Mad-day), the driver recommended to me by a friend of a friend, I saw some things. We went to the Palace of Justice where murals taught me that despite the color, beauty, and deep, interesting mysticism of Hinduism, it has the same patriarchal, misogynistic side that most religions can’t seem to shake. But that’s another story. After the Palace of Justice, we went to a beautiful secluded beach (the one where a rogue wave snatched the sunglasses from my face), which I never would have found on my own. (See: Own Devices; lazy, timid.) Then we went to the Royal Water Palace, aka the Royal Wading Pool (seriously) where a natural spring has been channeled into a gorgeous water garden full of fat coy, delighted, wet Balinese children, and lovely sculptures and fountains.

Then, as he drove me into Amed, he said, “Why you want to come here, to Amed? Do you dive?” No. “Snorkel?” Maybe. Then I told him about my plan for the Gilis and he clucked his tongue and said, “Oh, the weather. The crossing is closed right now. The water is big and the boats are not great.” This is information that TK would have likely had at his fingertips, the fact that the crossing is closed in bad weather. And while I maybe sort of remembered reading something about this, I figured things would just work out. (See: Own Devices; uninformed, whimsical) Meanwhile, I’m looking out the window of the car at amazing sweeping views of the Indian Ocean on one side and lush jungle on the other side, dotted with ramshackle bungalows and uninhabited looking outbuildings. There had also been some flooding, just a couple of days prior, and the narrow, twisting road was still under several inches of water in several places, and I was thinking, Wow. There is literally almost nothing here.

Amed is a town in and of itself, but it also refers to this 14km stretch along the coast that is comprised of seven small villages. Made was saying how this was the last place on Bali to be significantly touched by tourism, but now it’s starting to “grow up.” And looking out the window of the car as one tiny village after the other rolled by (blink and you’ll miss one), I could see the signs of busy construction of various hotels and guesthouses and restaurants. When we arrived at my hotel, Barong Cafe & Bungalows, which I chose randomly on the Internet (See: Own Devices; whimsical, uninformed), it was indeed brand-new. It felt like the contractors had cleared out just before I arrived.

I then paid Made 700,000 Indonesian rupiahs, equivalent to about $70, including a tip, which isn’t bad for the fact of him hauling my ass all over the island all day, complete with sightseeing. But as I counted out the pink 100,000 rupiah notes, I realized that I only had one left after that, along with a few smaller bills in my pocket, amounting to about $25 (or so I thought). So that’s a little less walking around money than I like to have whilst in remote and foreign climes, but surely I’ll find an ATM someplace nearby.

When the guy at the front desk looked at me blankly when I asked about an ATM I started to get worried. Then he seemed to divine what I was talking about (and clearly my mounting worry was apparent on my face, as he started looking a little scared), and said, to wit, the nearest ATM was 30 kilometers away, back in the slightly larger town we passed through on the way. (Again, the lack of ATMs in Amed would have been an eventuality TK, or people with his diligence of research, would have known.) The guy at the front desk suggested I rent a motobike.

First, I don’t drive motorized two-wheeled things. I took a motorcycle-riding class when I was 23, but all that knowledge is lost forever. Second, I definitely don’t drive them on the wrong side of wet roads full of blind curves and sudden potholes. I glanced outside at the small fleet of motorbikes, dusty, road-worn, definitely not as sparkly new as the rest of my little bungalow hotel was. I tried to picture myself on one, whizzing down this curving jungle road, on the left-hand side, in the rain that was really starting to make a commitment to the afternoon. This little vision quickly culminated in me being medically airlifted to Singapore—in a best-case scenario. So, I decided to put as many of my meals and beverages on my room as possible, thinking I’d be able to pay for that with my credit card, and spend my cash judiciously.

(What I’m leaving out here is the sheer, quiet panic I felt, which was only enhanced by the fact that the sweet boy working the front desk took my passport, and when I asked for it back, he said cheerfully, “I give to you tomorrow!” It’s a long story, and not that unusual, but usually you get your passport back in a few minutes when you check into a hotel, not the next day. But the combination of being low on cash and sans-passport put me in something of a state, which culminated in panicked and whining emails to a couple of carefully chosen people whom I hope will love me despite my occasional hyperdramatic breakdowns.)

So I settle in for the evening, to find my room, so pretty and brand-new at first sight, buzzing with big black flies, the kind that have no fear. Then realized the shower didn’t work, the toilet barely flushed, and there is a determined regiment of tiny black ants making their way under the gaping door frame.

My automatic inclination was to pine for San Francisco, with its multitude of ATMs and its public transportation, its sidewalks, its cooling fog, its beer that is not a watery lager, its super burritos and all the rest. But I shut that down as quickly as possible and pined instead for the relative functionality of Ubud, also with sidewalks (though with gaping treacherous holes in places), ATMs (that usually work), and many, many lovely places to go, whether you’re willing to walk five seconds or five miles.

And I wondered when I became such a fucking princess. When had I lost my ability to just roll with the punches? I should be happy with the working air-con and the lovely view and my comfortable terrace. I should be thrilled to be confronted with what is, in reality, an inconvenient situation, not a truly challenging one. This is why I come to these semi-broken tropical backwaters: to learn to live without things that are familiar, to put myself in positions of figuring things out when there’s not an obvious answer, to simply be present, to have an experience, to have a story. That is what travelers do. That is what that the lithe Portuguese woman, with her perfect Indonesian pronunciations and her excellent English and her wispy peasant blouse could do, and I, somehow, could not.

I woke up the next morning, determined to make the best of things. I would figure something out. I’d risk my life on a motobike. Or I would just hire a driver to take me to an ATM. Gili was definitely out, for the time being, as the story of the big water and the bad boats was repeated to me by a couple of locals.

But immediately, things were further complicated by the revelation that the hotel does not take credit cards. Even at $20/night and $5 dinners, my dwindling rupiah was not going to cover it.

I brought this up at the front desk, and as it turned out, my princessy, complicated needs required the English language skills of the manager of the property, who was called in by the sweet, hapless boy, all smiles and apologies for his English, which made me feel like a complete asshole. I was cursing myself for not having bothered to learn how to apologize profusely for being an obnoxious needy twit in Balinese.

Then the manager came twenty minutes later or so and I told him all of my troubles, RE ATMs and cash and settling the hotel bill and getting the fuck out of dodge, though I didn’t put it quite that way. And, in the admirable way that I’m finding typical of the Balinese, he basically said, no worries. He said, we can add up your hotel bill, then I will drive you to Ubud whenever you want to go, and along the way we’ll find you an ATM. You can just pay me for the ride, the hotel and the rest when we get there. He smiled and seemed mystified by my worrying, which made me suddenly realize how I’d gotten so worked up over what was all solved so easily.

It wasn’t even a real real story. It was just me lost without my first-world expectations being met.

My own devices, as it turns out, are pretty pathetic.

I made do the best I could with almost no cash my next day in Amed. I went for a long walk, found a gorgeous beach, waved off offers to snorkel, which I told the people offering it and myself had more to do with my cash flow problems than with my caginess of the rough surf, the plentiful rocks, and the prospect of leaving my bag (that had nearly nothing of value in it, save my iPhone and camera) unattended on the beach. (See: Own Devices; timid, overly cautious) Much like the painful and bloody end of my motobike-riding vision, I saw myself tumbled against the reef, rendered unconscious to drown anonymously in the Indian Ocean. I mean, who has thoughts like this?

On my way back to the hotel, I found a lovely little cafe and checked the prices and decided I could have lunch and a beer for what less than what was in my pocket. And I whiled away an hour eating grilled fish and bok choy and rice and sipping wonderfully cold Bintang. Then my bill came, and I realized with dread, the note I had that I thought was 50,000 rupiah was actually only 5000, leaving me 30,000 short on lunch.

Mortified. And of course they did not take plastic.

But here is one of the things that makes Bali wonderful. As I was near tears, trying to explain to my poor waiter what my problem was, the owner/artist-in-residence (the cafe was also his studio) swooped in all smiles and told me not to worry about it. “Only a few rupiahs,” he said waving his hand dismissively. “I only want that you enjoyed lunch.”

The way you say “thank you” in Balinese is termia kasih (pronounced terry-mah kass-ee). Its literal translation is “I accept this with love.” But in that moment, even terima kasih wasn’t sufficient for the total gratitude I felt at this man’s largesse.

I might not ever find it in myself to travel in that adventuresome, no-frills way that girl from Lisbon could. Like I’ll probably never be able to rock the wispy peasant blouse look. I might not ever see that deserted beach on the coast of Java or go spear fishing or camp in the jungle or stay in the home of a local I met someplace. But I will always try to accept my experiences with love, no matter what they are. That is what traveling reminds me to do.