One of my earliest childhood memories - crawling up the marble stairs of the Kasteev Museum of Art in Almaty, Kazakhstan. My father and mother often showed their sculptures and paintings in the great hall and brought me along, letting me loose on the gallery floor. Museums to me were enormous halls of wonder which I could peruse without much supervision and on my own terms. Before I learned how to read and fell deeply and irrevocably in love with the world of literature, museums and galleries were my primary sources of education.

These days Lovina is empty of tourists, much like the rest of Bali. Solitary fishermen and dolphin guides roam the streets adjacent to the beach vying for a client among merely a handful of visitors who come down to the shore to catch a glimpse of nature at play. At Lovina Beach, a tall statue of a dolphin made of stone towers above the neighborhood reminding everyone of why they’re here.

The landscape looked almost surreal, sprawling green fields and plantations laid out for miles below us. Towering above them and overlooking the turquoise blue waters of Danau lake was the Batur Volcano.