Some trips are vacations. This one was something else — part reunion, part adventure, part proof that the people you work with across oceans can be as real as anyone in the next room.
In June 2026, my colleague Yousuf and I flew from Dhaka to Bali. For me, it was only my second international trip ever — the first was India, back in 2011. Fifteen years later, I was boarding a 2 AM Malaysia Airlines flight, transiting through Kuala Lumpur, and landing at Ngurah Rai airport with a mix of jet lag and pure excitement.
The main reason for the trip wasn’t the beaches, though Bali has plenty. It was a person. For five years I’ve worked remotely with Eli Pritykin, the founder of Hudson Creative Studio in New Orleans. Thousands of commits, countless late-night Slack threads, a product we built together that now powers bookings for hundreds of vacation rental brands — and in all that time, we had never once shaken hands. Eli and his brother Dimitry Pritykin were in Bali the same weeks we were, and we finally closed that gap.
I still remember the moment we met. After years of seeing someone only as a face on a video call, there’s something surreal about them walking toward you in person — taller or shorter than you imagined, laughing the same way but somehow more vividly. There was no awkwardness. The trust was already built; Bali just gave us the place to shake on it.
Our first days were in Uluwatu, on the southern cliffs of the island. We had lunch together at Uma Beach House, Melasti Beach — grilled seafood with our feet practically in the sand, the limestone cliffs glowing behind us as the sun dropped. As Muslims, Yousuf and I needed halal food, and seafood turned out to be the perfect common ground for our whole group. Nobody had to compromise; everybody ate well.
The evening at Uluwatu Temple was the highlight of that first stretch. We watched the Kecak fire dance at sunset — a hundred men chanting in rhythm, fire circling the performers, the Indian Ocean crashing far below the cliff edge. Photos don’t do it justice. You have to feel the chant in your chest.
Then there were the scooter rides. If you want to know Bali, rent a scooter. We rode the winding roads around Uluwatu past surf beaches and warungs, then later explored Ubud the same way — through rice terraces, past temples, dodging the occasional chicken. By the time we reached Kuta near the end of the trip, weaving through its busy streets felt almost natural. There’s a freedom on two wheels that no private driver can match: you stop when something catches your eye, and something always does.
June 18th was the day the trip changed chapters. That afternoon, Eli boarded his flight home — and that same morning, Yousuf and I packed our bags and headed north to Ubud. After three full days together, the goodbye was easier than I expected; it didn’t feel like an ending, just a pause until the next Slack message. Ubud is a different Bali — green, artistic, slower. For two nights we traded cliff views for rice terraces, wandered the markets, bargained for souvenirs (rattan bags, wood carvings, little gifts for family), and ate more nasi goreng than I care to admit.
The day trip to Nusa Penida deserves its own paragraph — maybe its own post. A fast boat from Sanur, then a bumpy ride across the island to Kelingking Beach, that famous T-rex-shaped cliff you’ve seen on every Bali Instagram. Standing at the viewpoint, looking down at turquoise water hundreds of meters below, I understood why people cross the world for this. It was raw and unpolished in the best way.
There was one very personal mission woven into the trip too: I bought an iPhone as a gift for my wife back home in Bangladesh. Navigating the purchase, the tax refund paperwork, and the airport VAT counter was an adventure of its own — but handing her that gift after the trip made every bit of it worth it.
Our final days in Kuta were about the small things: evening shopping runs for chocolates and souvenirs, packing bags that had somehow doubled in weight, and missed the last look at the beach. Travel tip learned the hard way — buy your chocolate on the last day and pack it deep in the checked luggage, because Bali heat is merciless.
Flying home through Kuala Lumpur, tired and sunburnt, I kept thinking about what Eli later wrote on LinkedIn: everyone debates whether remote teams can be “real.” Ours flew halfway around the world and proved it already was.
If you work with people you’ve never met — teammates, clients, collaborators scattered across time zones — I can’t recommend this enough. Get on the plane. The work built the relationship; meeting in person just lets you celebrate it.
And if that meeting happens to come with cliff-top temples, fire dances, scooter rides through rice fields, and a boat to Nusa Penida? Even better.
Terima kasih, Bali. Until next time.