Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

Liz arrives in Bali without a plan, without logistic preparation, and without a friend who expects her. She thought she was coming for three or four months, but the immigration officer who stamps her passport tells her she has permission to stay only thirty days. She doesn’t tell him the medicine man prophesized she would stay for three or four months. She isn’t sure exactly what the medicine man said. Did he say she would live with him? Did he say she should or would come back? She hasn’t communicated with the medicine man since that one evening and doesn’t even have his address. He was old then. Is he still alive? She only knows his name, Ketut Liyer, and that he lives in a village outside of Ubud.

They accept credit cards and speak English in Bali, making it easy to navigate. Liz changes money at the airport and asks her taxi driver to suggest a lovely hotel in Ubud. The hotel has a pool, a tropical garden, a complimenting Balinese staff, and a breakfast of piles of fresh tropical fruit. Liz’s room overlooks the treetops and costs less than ten dollars a day.

Liz seeks help in finding the medicine man.