Indonesia: To Main Island, Yogyakarta, Java (Day 12, Friday, 080709)

Have a 3:45 wake-up, so we can make it to Denpesar Airport for our 6:10 flight. This is slightly easier for me, as Eric was "busy" last night at a chalet.

We shuffle down an empty side street to the main drag. Still no vehicles.

Finally, a private car slows, and I approach it to ask for a ride to the airport when a cab finally swings past. My civilian driver, moments from earning a fare, noting, "oh, taxi," waves me on.

People so nice here.

At Lion Air, they scan our baggage, but do neither a liquids check, nor do they...even check my ID. I think you have to be carrying a cannonball with a lit fuse and screaming "72 virgins" in order to attract the notice of security.

Breakfast at the airport!

It’s a short hop from the Jogya airport (it looks like the name’s not been standardized, and I spot three different spellings) to our hotel, the Peti Mas. We marvel at the stupendous air conditioning, its intensity, the pure pleasure of it after days of humidity, and the quantity of toilet paper in the bathroom. It looks like the hording I’ve been doing (the roll I brought from home, as well as the half-finished rolls I’ve been pilfering from our multitudinous lodgings, were quite unwarranted.

David, Eric’s friend currently residing in Singapore and making a living as a Bikram yoga instructor, has arrived already and when he returns, we set out to gather some intelligence about the area.

There's a nearby mall with amazing...donuts, sez David. And so we're off to feast on all manner of J.CO's wee donuts with flavors ranging from chocolate, tiramisu, green tea, mango with...cheesy cream (?) to savory cheese, to an absolutely foul pizza flavor called "Mona Pisa" and described as a "striking rosy beauty with tomato-cheese spread and chopped chicken sausages."



A stroll down Malioboro Jalan generates an onslaught of haranguing, mostly from becak, or pedicab, drivers. We walk in the endless heat, maneuvering our way through incessant traffic (Times Square ain’t got nothin’ on this shit), past colonial (Dutch) era structures bright white in the noonday sun, and I’m about to collapse from the effort of keeping up with tall men with long strides while wearing flip flops.

My resolution to eat durian in Indonesia is ultimately fruitless; this is the closest I get to eating the stanky stank:



We pause to gawk at some fashion show nightmare, something more tawdry pageant--rhinestones! satin! too much eyeshadow!--than fashion, and David goes to town with his SLR, click-clicking away, his shutter fluttering...



There are a bunch of buskers--I dunno what the name is for folks who aren't performing, just scamming--suffice it to say, everyone wants to show us something. One dude tells us that the Palace is closed--it’s not--and wants to take us somewhere to “show us something.” Another informs us that he’ll take us to the Palace and that he lived near Barack Obama, whose residence he’ll show us if we want, which is funny because Obama lived in...Jakarta, on the Western end of the island. Lies, all of it, though it’s probably something I would’ve fallen for had I not been accompanied by two travel-hardened souls. Everyone’s trying to earn a commission from guiding tourists to batik shops, silver shops, even to the easily accessible bird market (teeming with maggots and crickets, and no doubt, avian flu).



The Sultan Palace is unimpressive and Eric and David snark the entire time. I, on the other hand, decide to take the high road and indulge in simpler pleasures, such as photographing the display of MSG, as well as cackling like a 12 year old boy about homographs.



After the bird market--



bad smells! crawly bugs! captured birds!--we break for lunch, stopping first at Legian Restaurant (which looks completely unappetizing) before moving on to "New Superman's."

Look, how delicious! Indonesian pizza!



[head, desk]

Indonesia: Gilli Trawangan (Day 11, Thursday, 080609)

It’s our last day on Trawangan. Breakfast = fried egg, tomato, and shallot (???) on toast and a papaya, orange smoothie. And the remaining mangosteen. We leave to confirm our flight from Denpesar to Yogyakarta (pronounced Joe-jia, not Yo-jia), but are foiled again, and return to the room to pack, and convince a trio of white European chicks to take the room for 450,000 RP a night (45 bucks). They’re unconvinced, and we’re off to await the BlueWater Express.

Mm, fake Pringles.


I’m sitting astride starboard again—-the same side I sat coming-—in a vain and ill-conceived attempt to catch some rays. Eric insists I’ll fall off, so I slide back onto the seats, lie down, and proceed to pass the fuck out. Next thing I know, I’m filled to the brim with piss (and vinegar?) from the watermelon juice we had while waiting on the BWE. (Incidentally, I saw them adding simple syrup to the blender while making my juice, and saw therein all my illusions of “fruit is sweeter than usual because it’s a tropical country and closer to nature and thus creates superior harvest”…dashed.)

It’s a slightly less charming speedboat ride this time around, partly because going towards azure waters is typically better than leaving it, and mostly because I’m sitting in the shady, chilly side while still getting doused in spray.

We cab back from the dock in Benoa and return to Seminyak, and our home away from home, Inada Losmen, drop our bags, and head immediately for Callego Beach, where we bake pleasantly for a few hours, and Eric consumes his fish in garlic, butter sauce with mushroom and spinach, and I make an ill-fated decision to have the…chicken Cordon Bleu. With fries.

Adi’s back again—-the dude from the jungle—-and we’re invited to a party, an invitation to which I promptly send my regrets (in my mind). Adi’s “darlings” and his kiss-kissing, it’s not grating per se, there’s just something so affected about it. Colonialism? I don’t know.

And then we’re off again, with me still feeling guilty for not getting a massage and making the lady’s day. Eric showers, and we take a brief stroll around town, scrutinizing the goods on display, mostly slutty dresses for foreigners.

Eric and I split up, he to his party, and I to continue my stroll.

There comes a time, I think, when there’s little that makes you feel simultaneously “grown-up” and as though there are infinite possibilities still in store. Walking around another country by myself is one of those few things for me, and it’s pleasant.

Stopping by a K-mart (no relation), I’m spoken to in Indonesian by the clerk as I’m checking out, so I give, again, my apologetic smile, a shake of the head, and squint at the display for the price of my water. The refrain: “Where are you from?” And again, my hesitating response, where I try to choose from four options: US? California? Oakland? New York?

“You look like an Indonesian,” he says, gesturing to his face. I smile; it’s good, if only for the purposes of my ongoing tanning venture.

The Bali and Lombok LP gets packed away tonight. It's Indonesia LP from here on out.

Indonesia: Gilli Trawangan (Day 10, Wednesday, 080509)

This morning, Eric’s off for nitrox certification, but he’s kindly ordered my breakfast, and I, cross-legged in a chair on the “patio,” dine on a triangle of toast with jam and an OJ-papaya smoothie, and contemplate whether I want to get out of bed.

At some point, I wake again, but have no clue as to the time--the light looks the same as it did earlier, something about the proximity to the equator perhaps. I take a stab at late afternoon because of the relative coolness of the day.

It’s off to the Snapper Bungalow--I like to stick with what works, especially after a debacle such as the Pseudo-Tandoori meal--for watermelon juice and fish and chips. I’ve seen the same French family four times on this tiny island, the mom and pop carting their Gallic-lookin’ moppets on bicycle adventures that the little fuckers won’t remember. But at least they’re a picturesque little bunch.

There’s Americans, so I ask them the time--12:30--nice, I haven’t “wasted” the day in bed.

So I proceed to while away the rest of the afternoon on the beach.

Eric and I are off to Scallywag’s again for dinner, and on the way, I’m kindly made the following offer, given with a lascivious leer:

“If you not happy, I’ll make you happy.”

Thanks, dawg.

Dinner (potato salad, quail eggs, tomatoes in with basil vinaigrette, bread):


More dinner (butterfish and baked potato):


A kitty with whom I share dinner:


Note the tail, crooking abruptly at a 90 degree angle. Nearly all the cats here are built this way, tails askew or docked. My guess is that there's no easy way for cats to get on or off the island, and the felines on Trawangan are a genetic consequence of isolation per Darwin's Galapagos finches.

Indonesia: Gilli Trawangan (Day 9, Tuesday, 080409)

Wake to find Eric's left to dive again. There's five minutes left to breakfast hour, but I don't want to be a pushy tourist, so I satisfy myself with the mangosteens bought two days ago in Ubud.

When Eric returns, we return to Snapper Bungalow for more guava juice and a fried fish platter.



Not exactly sampling much of the regional delicacies, but pleasant enough, except for a trio of Spaniards arguing with a scuba/snorkeling provider. The men are all "puta mascara" and calling the local a "payaso" and foam-flecked lips because there's some disagreement about the non-return of a snorkeling mask or somesuch. The woman, of course, is relatively more conciliatory and makes some propitiating gesture of cash money.

Relax, people.

I wonder how it is that only Americans have earned the reputation as assholes abroad.

We break for the beach--Eric's off shortly for another dive--and I set up camp a short distance from a group of Brits.



There’s a particular breed of Brit that travels here, poncy and posh, drawling in round and elongated Oxbridgian tones, none of the clip and garble of the Mancunian, or residents of other industrial revolution type towns.

The Poncy Posse keep creeping forward, shifting their lounge chairs, following the movement of the sun, and I endure their plummy voices and cigarette smoke until I start feeling grateful for the American Revolution and finally decide to flee.

When Eric returns, we grab a quick snack at the suggestively named "Horizontal," shrimp skewers, bad onion rings, and papaya juice. Rummy.

Then a nap before...uh...real dinner on the southern end of the strip. An Australian owned restaurant at Scallawag's, plastered with cheeky signage boasting the quality of the place's food. We've met up with two older French tourists, Philippe and Joelle, whom Eric met while diving. The three of them wax eloquent about the far-flung locales they've traveled to, comparing notes and such, while I feed a pair of strays my fish of unknown provenance.

Philippe and Joelle are both teachers, but Joelle's currently teaching in Barcelona, while Philippe works in Rouen, Normandy. They regale us with stories of...cleaning (human) bones for cremation with a kris dagger while on Bali, and Philippe keeps waggling his fingers and making sound effects of mock horror and disgust.

I expect him at any moment to let out a "ZOINK," at which point I will fall over in a paroxysm of giggling.

Indonesia: Gilli Trawangan (Day 8 Super-cont'd, Monday, 080309)

Upon my arrival at Lightening (sp?) internet cafe, I'm addressed in Indonesian again, but they switch to English when I shake my head apologetically. I slip off my flip flops, then pad into a poorly-ventilated room to virtually interact with friends and my-one-family-member and bask in the lonely, blue glare of a computer screen.

Blah blah.

I'm reminded--again--of Indonesian economic realities. The 50,000 RP bill (around 5 USD) I try to use to pay for my 8,000 RP internet usage is deemed too big, and I have to scrounge around, finally identifying smaller denominations, all of them more worn than bigger bills, soft and wet-feeling in the hand.

Backtracking, I purchase two liters of water for 1,000 RP, and return to the bungalow by way of the beach, dangling my flips from the tips of my fingers. I'm avoiding Friendly Weed Guy because while there may not be any local law enforcement, I'm still in Southeast Asia, and frankly, I don't relish the thought of subsisting on Indonesian prison fare.

Because Indonesian food sucks already. So prison Indonesian food is probably like eating fermented leather sandals.

Maybe also because I'm a pussy.

Speaking of which, the strip is alive with them. Pussies, that is, felines. Tiny kitty cats pouncing in the gloaming, which of course puts me in a near-orgasmic frenzy, but Eric's warned me enough times to not touch strange animals, so I don't.



(Squee!)

But I want to. I really, really want to.

Moving right along. One of the highlights of my Indonesian Adventure is the following:



Okay, it's not exactly the most artfully composed shot, but it is what it is: an outdoor shower. Imagine that.

And then, imagine this: a night sky abloom with stars, warm, salty water, your skin goose-fleshing in the air, then tightening when the water evaporates.

I crawl into the mosquito-netted bed, dozing in and out of sleep, with call to prayer startling me--twice, I think--until Eric returns from diving to wrench me out of bed. I'm exhausted, but it is, apparently, only 8 pm, and we're off to dinner. What I have is an awful not-really-tandoori-tandoori-chicken (more curried than tandooried, and lacking the masala), and a soda water. The only saving grace the fact that we're recumbent on a beruga, a raised platform on stilts, making it very "exotic" and "authentic."

Or a tourist trap.

Back to the bungalow to play (lose at) rummy and continue list-making, top 10 people to bring back from the dead just so's you can smack 'em, top 10 favorite books, top 10 artists, etc.

Indonesia: Gilli Trawangan (Day 8 Cont'd, Monday, 080309)

The "BlueWater Express" slows to a halt at Lebongan, and I perch precariously, just the slightest bit o' ass keeping me aboard, over the edge of the boat to dip my toes in the green-blue.

Then we're off and away again, and I'm almost disappointed when I realize we're nearing Trawangan; there's something in me that craves the ineffable combination of speed and ocean water, and rarely the twain shall meet in my day-job as an urban, high school English teacher.

I'm neatly consoled by the sight of boats bobbing in the even clearer, even more vivid water surrounding Gilli Trawangan.



(We disembark directly into the water, sloshing ashore with our bags.)

And even more so after Eric deposits me, bags and all, at a restaurant--mere yards from the water--called the "Snapper Bungalow," where I order a guava juice and a basket of fries that turn out to be The World's Best Post-Speedboat-Ride Fries.



I polish off the fries and slouch insouciantly in the plastic chair, as befits a jet-setting world traveler, trying to disguise the fact that I'm about to break open with excitement. I can feel the sand sifting through my toes, and I keep scanning the road for Eric's return.

When he does, we haul our bags onto a cidomo, small, horse-drawn buggies--there are no motorized vehicles on the Gillis--and I experience a few pangs about the fact that the horse is lifted several inches off the ground by our collective weight, and the driver has to quiet the poor thing by clicking his tongue.



We're lucky Eric has found a room for something like 45 USD a night (split between the two of us). It's a one-room bungalow with a wee porch and an outdoor bathroom (a ticket to Bali? $1,400. Showering under the stars: priceless.). And the inn-keeper's name? Ding Dong. Ding, motherfuckin' Dong.



Jetting back to the beach (again, yards away), we lay out in the sun, dozing, catatonic, which, for me, is interrupted by a few twinges of "sand is whiter on the other side" because we can see the next island over, Gilli Meno, which looks largely empty and thus, fuck-my-life, more beguiling to my Blue Lagoon-y (minus the teen sex), Swiss Family Robinson (minus the family), Robinson Crusoe (minus the cannibals and breadfruit) sensibilities.

Whatevers. We return to the room and Eric naps while I putter, then we walk out, stopping for ice-cream (I have a swirled popsicle of indeterminate flavor/origin, wrapper characterized by the lion from Madagascar--is that copyright infringement?), so that Eric can join his diving group, and I can explore and search for the internets and water.

I'm traipsing in the dimming, crepuscular light. A local kicks a soccer ball to me, I return it (awkwardly), he kicks it back again, and I acquit myself more decently the second time 'round. Another local accosts me and holds onto my hand long after I've released his (I think they are more touchy here), trying to convince me to sit with him, to smoke weed with him, telling me that I look Indonesian. I decline for the moment and promise to return.

I don't.

Cuz I'm a cunt.

But I shoulda.

Questions of Tourist Photography, or I'm Another One of the Camera-Wielding Lampreys

At kecak, I'm taken aback by the cataract of camera flashes that goes off every few seconds.

It's very Kanye...

But what do I know?

The accumulation of each whirring flare make me a little Tourettesy, and I quickly fall prey to a paroxysm of navel-gazing, douchebaggery, preoccupied by the fact that I have to admit that I'm one of these camera-wielding lampreys, an amateur photographer, a professional soul-sucker...

I console myself with the fact that my camera is too antiquated to be as parasitic as the more high-powered, professionally-lensed among us, but it's no excuse. I'm just as consumed by the diabolical desire to document, document, document every meal and every "experience."

What compels so many of us to do this? The relative monotony of our "real" lives?

Quoting Bishop, "Is it lack of imagination that makes us come / to imagined places, not just stay at home?" And then, do we have to take a picture of it for it to be "real"?

Are we so determined by image-making that we have to exist in some media--any media--to have existed? What does it mean that I distrust memory so much that I refuse to let more than 24 hours slip by without jotting down my itinerary for each day?

It's all very tedious, and my neuroticism and morbidity immediately lead me to the point of no return, wherein I brood about who will even care to scroll through these hundreds of digital photos...once I'm dead.

I shake myself out of it. I'm getting better at that now.

Indonesia: Ubud to Gilli Trawangan (Day 8, Monday, 080309)

We're just sitting down to breakfast on our balcony when the manager comes up to inform us that our transport to Benoa's International Marina, where we need to catch a speedboat to the Gillis, has already arrived.

We were told that the shuttle would arrive at 8:30, but it's 8:05 and Eric hasn't finished packing. He shits a mini-brick and returns to packing while I scarf breakfast down, a panini sort of thing, but essentially just bread cookie-cuttered around an egg. It's dee-ricious, and I wrap Eric's in a napkin for the road. Later, I find out this Indonesian Hot Pocket sort of thang is called a "jaffle."



When we finally climb into the van, we apologize to the driver for making him wait, telling him that we'd expected him at 8:30, and he responds by shrugging it off, explaining that in Bali, 8:30 could also mean 9, 10, or 11 o'clock. He ain't trippin'.

I make my grand reveal--showing Eric the jaffle I saved from certain death, and he's cranky and not very interested until I insist he take at least a bite. He's not quite as impressed by it as I am, so I polish off the rest.

When we arrive at the dock, the guards out front check the van for bombs with a mirror welded to a metal pole, passing the mirror slowly under the...er...undercarriage. The trip'll be two and a half hours, with a pit stop at Lebongan before we arrive on Gilli Trawangan (gilli simply means island, so what many tourists say--"Gilli Islands"--is a redundancy).

It is, apparently, lunch-ish time when we arrive in Benoa, so we hunker down in the marina restaurant, and since we're both a little mie gorenged out, Eric orders a tuna sandwich, and I have a BLT (which comes without mayo, and is thus a crime against humanity).

When we're told to board, Eric cautions me to sit in the rear of the boat so as to avoid seasickness, and though I'm usually ill-inclined to prudence, I defer to his greater experience. This trip, I've learned a number of things, that 1) drinking excessively disagrees with me, 2) I am capable of burning, especially under the equatorial sun, and 3) Eric knows a shit-ton about travel.

I don't get sea-sick. There's no way of telling whether it's because I simply don't, or because of the motion-sickness tablet that Eric made me take that morning, or because I'm sitting in the stern.

Shortly after we leave port, one of the crewmen crawls over the engines and performs a subdued ritual, dropping flowers off the stern and murmuring a prayer. I don't think it was for our benefit, but rather, a real custom. (INSOFAR AS RITUALS ARE REAL AS OPPOSED TO SIMPLY EXISTING WITHIN THE REALM OF A LACANIAN SYMBOLIC--AAHH!)



I am, as usual, seduced by the boat-ride, every moment before this, the two and a half day flight to get to Bali, the miserable night spent listening to elevator music while trying to sleep on the carpeted floor of Singapore's Changi Airport, the room-spinning hangover of my first evening here, all of it transubstantiated into a vacation Eucharist.

[grin]

Melodramatic, much?

Whatever; I lerve it.

Sitting astride the port, one leg curled around the railing, one hand gripping the pole, I trail my left foot in the spray, periodically getting walloped with a particular strong surge. The crew grins at me as they monkey up and down from the top deck, stepping over me each time, and comment on the fact that I'm enjoying the ride. I alternate between this exhilaration (a name of a brand at Target, btw), and falling back into the cushions, letting my hand drift in the wind, letting it float in the updraft, reveling in what feels like exquisite happiness.

Arriving at Lebongan:

Indonesia: Ubud (Day 7 Super-cont'd, Sunday, 080209)

Eric wants dessert, so we make a stop at ART "kafe/bar" for his tiramisu and my fudgy (fudgey?) brownie a la mode and a giant young coconut. The thing is actually quite monstrous, but not what I imagined.

I know young coconut is a clear liquid, but I'd imagined it to taste a little more...coconuty. Not the electrolyte-rich, WWII emergency...plasma...substitute (???), hot, hipster accoutrement spotlighted in yesterday's NYTimes. (I quite agree with the description of Young Coco, in the aforementioned article, as "slightly musty." Not in a bad way, though. As paradoxical as that may sound.)

(Wouldn't Young Coco be a great stage name? Almost as great as my burlesque name, the one that I shall not share for fear someone will take it. In case I ever want to be a burlesque dancer.)

Eric and I have misapprehended the distance to our evening show, so we power-walk through the streets, on an island where "Bali time" is fluid and subject to great individual interpretation. We must look a sight, bookin' it to get to our kecak show at Pura Batu Karu.

The program describes kecak like so:

...a special dance that's accompanied by human music voice, called the gamelan suara. In this dance, the story develops through a choir of more then [sic] one hundred men. These men shit in a concentric circle. (Italics obviously mine.)

Imagining this, E and I collapse into a gale of giggles, one appropriate to our senses of humor as 13 year old boys.

I've seen kecak in three other contexts: teasers for Baraka, in Tarsem Singh's lovely little film The Fall, and on the Travel Channel.

It is, as it's always described, haunting. The polyrhythmic, belted out yelping, the near darkness except for the fiery structure at the center of the (shitting) circle. [grin]

The men are all wearing black and white checked sarongs, and they sway back and forth, the sound of their hands slapping skin when they alternate arm positions making a collective thwack.

The dance, despite depicting part of the Ramayana, however, was only created during the 1930s, by a German by the name of Spies, in order to appeal to tourists.

[head desk]

Somehow, this makes the blessing at the beginning of the performance a little less legitimate-seeming, the tourists' hushed respectfulness now reeking of naivete, but...

Oh, well.

It was still nice.

We make a number of detours into photo shops to find me another memory card, as mine only holds a gig, while Eric's holds 12. My antediluvian, and apparently obsolete, camera won't hold a 12, 8, or even 4 gig memory card, and I have to settle for a piddling 2 gigs.

Indonesia: Ubud (Day 7 Cont'd, Sunday, 080209)

More shopping (unsuccessful on my part), and then a two hour spa treatment--massage, body rub, flower bath (sounds more exotic than it actually was)--for less than 30 bucks at the Wibawa Spa.

The whole shebang is named the "Royal Lulur" and described as a 17th century Javanese royal treatment. Right.

What it is though is a massage with essential oils, then an exfoliating rub of turmeric and jasmine, finished with a coating of--brrr--yogurt. It is just straight up dairy product, and for the first time in several hours, the sharp smell of yogurt whets my appetite. This is significant because I am never a) not hungry or b) not ready to eat, hungry or no, and my lack of appetite has been bothering me inordinately.

It's okay. Nothing to write home about--in a blog, yes--but not home. Much of the essential pleasure of a massage having been dimmed by the single gamelan song played ad nauseum. Every time the closing bars would sound, my body'd clench in trepidation of the song beginning again.

Finally, I'm told to wash off in an outdoor tub filled with multi-colored petals of bougainvillea--fuschia and coral and white. I soak for a few nervous minutes, as I'm unsure as to whether I was supposed to take off the paper-cloth panties I'd been told to don earlier, and I'd gotten in the tub with 'em on. And it's funny sitting in a bath with wet paper cupping your ass-cheeks. And 'cause it's quickly getting chilly. And I need to pee.

I feel considerably less guilty about my patronage of this particular hospitality industry outstation, probably because I'm cranky from my newfound distaste for food, and the endless trudging nature that is our stay in Ubud. Or maybe I'm just succumbing to my role as an inevitable financial lord and master...my measly American salary having risen in worth far above its original state in its country of provenance.

Alas, the yogurt-lust is but a red herring. My next meal is an attempt at a gastronomic security blanket: I order a margherita pizza and a soda water. But the pizza turns out to be an insane concoction of garlic, onion, and shallot on a tortilla crust, and despite my reputation as Garbage Disposal of no small renown, I'm only able to choke down a slice or two before pushing the plate over to Eric. FAIL.



This concludes tonight's installment of the third, but no less consequential, element of this blog's eponymous triumvirate: bitching.

Indonesia: Ubud (Day 7, Sunday, 080209)

I wake up at 10:30, for once getting a decent night's sleep. Breakfast of crepes with palm sugar syrup and a fruit salad of the usual papaya, banana, etc.



Today's Eric's big shopping day, and he's hustling in and out of this curio shop and that while I make only the feeblest attempts to buy a sarong, and identify something for Andy, a co-worker who's insisted that I bring him back something from Indonesia. (I am unsuccessful.)

The problem is twofold: 1) something reasonably priced and 2) something that is "authentically" Balinese.

But how does an ignorant Westerner recognize authenticity? And then I'm bothered by what I recognize as my drive to purchase something to, in however small a sense, encapsulate, reify a culture.

I'm overwhelmed, and the Indonesian spices perfuming the air are making my stomach lurch. We stop by a cafe, and I have a glass of iced tea. By the time we're done, Eric's starving again, so we head towards Ibu Oka.

Despite all my assertions that I'm to subsist on suckling pig while in Ubud, my body's not having it. Was it the Balinese chunchullo? I've no idea. I can only jealously watch Eric savor his lunch. In a reversal of R. Kelly's "Bump n Grind," my mind is telling me "yes," but my body, my body is telling me "no."

The only thing I relish right now are the mangosteens, an aubergine-colored, rindy fruit that you have to gouge open with your fingernails to expose the white, fibrous edible inside. It's a persimmony in texture, pulpy with that snappy kernel. It tastes of...tangerine, but better. A tang. (Interestingly enough, the tangerine's name doesn't come from "tang," but rather "Tangier.")



(There's an apocryphal story of how Queen Victoria promised riches to whomever could bring her an edible mangosteen. (Whoever?))

I suggest going to the market located kitty-corner to Ibu Oka, and we pause at the entrance where a woman is selling fruit. She offers us a taste of salak, a fruit recognizable by it's snake-skin exterior.



It's dry, with a texture like an old potato, and, at least for the piece we try, tasteless. We take a pass on it, and opt to buy a bag of mangosteens that I promptly toss in my bag.

Eric and I lose each other in the market. I spend a few moments caressing a sarong or two, but am unable to make a decision, and soon, I'm just trying to navigate the maze of tourists, vendors, and tchotchkes without knocking anything over or melting into a hysterical heap from confronting, head-on, the paradox of choice. I endeavor to amuse myself, to give Eric, wherever he is, a reasonable amount of time to shop, while simultaneously not offering merchants false hope about my intentions.

When I come to the end of my rope, I make for the entrance and encamp next to a lovely pile of litter. I watch tourists come and go.

Indonesia: Ubud (Day 6 Superduper-cont'd, Saturday, 080109)

We're going to watch the Gunung Sari troupe perform legong, a type of dance that has religious origins, and also portrays warriors, love stories, and mythical characters.

So the evening finds us waiting for the shuttle at the unfortunately-named UTI. I spend some time lounging exhaustedly in a waiting area armchair, while the impatient, huffy, dick-possessing portion of an older French couple expels air through his mouth as if that's going to make our transport arrive any faster.

Like, dude, chill the fuck out. You's in someone else's country awaiting their services, for which you have paid, what, four or five euros. Stop being a douche-cock and relax.

Jacques/Pierre/Monsieur "Ffffff" keeps at it, and I keep ignoring him (and hating him with all the strength of my being), while one of the Balinese Tourism employees comments on my fatigue, glancing knowingly and suggestively towards Eric, sitting two seats away. I presume that he thinks E and I are some dissolute, fucking-up-a-storm, interracial couple.

If he only knew.

The shuttle drive finally arrives, about half an hour late, to take us to the Puri Agung Peliatan Palace. Monsieur "Ffffff" has already decamped with his wife in tow, and when we arrive, the show hasn't started, I dare say because the UTI had been honest when they told us the show wouldn't start without us.

Oh, well, Pepe Le Pew, hope you had a good time being a cunt and not watching legong.

There're only two, three rows of plastic chairs arranged in front of the stage area, and we watch the first set, a gamelan instrumental, with an audience of about twenty or thirty.

It's totally dope: an ensemble of metallophones, gongs, and drums, all playing in a coruscating, opaque, cataract of sound, the gongs liquid, blooming, bubbling into sound, quite unlike Western gongs, which, as I hear 'em, make more of a...tang, a metallic noise.

Dope.

My fave dance of the evening was the first, the Gabor/Pendet dance, a religious dance performed by a set of young women, each holding a tray of flowering offerings that they eventually throw as a blessing. The dancing, in general, is characterized by a lot of stylized movements, particularly in the flicking of the eyes, and every glance to the side or down or widening of the eyes is, I think, supposed to mean something. For women, there's also a curious waggling of the ring fingers that they do. And there's something very lovely about the economy of the movement, a foot carefully kicking away the long train of a sarong before the performer takes a step back.



We also see:

baris, a warrior dance performed by a single dude who spends a lot of time widening his eyes and making flourishing movements with his arms, reminding me of those old-timey villains who are constantly twirling and tightening their mustaches;
kebiar trompong, where a single, male, dancer performs primarily in a sitting position and eventually joins the orchestra by playing the trompong, the Balinese horizontal gongs, arranged in a row;
legong keraton, a historical romance based on a 12th/13th century love story;
oleg tambulilingan, a dance depicting a flirtation between two bumble bees (errr);
jauk, dude in a monkey mask loping around with some verisimilitude;
and finally, barong dance, where two mythological creatures representing good and evil, Barong and Rangda, come and...bob, rather uninterestingly, around each other.

I'll be honest, after the first three performances, I'm good to go. But that's primarily because of my lack of attention span, I think, and no fault of the production.

Ok, so maybe they could have cut the uninspiring, bobbing Snuffleupaguses at the end, but two thumbs up, nevertheless.

Indonesia: Ubud (Day 6 Super-cont'd, Saturday, 080109)

After the Monkey Forest, we return to the hotel, taking a circuitous and tortuous route that forces us to take yet another nap. I'm roused by Eric's stage whisper: "there's a monkey on our balcony," and I leap up for a careful look through the (very large) crack in our door (held shut with what looks like an absurdly insecure...sliding block of wood).

There's a decent-sized adult male (how do I know he's a male? Balls. Huge monkeyballs. And, no recognizable penis. Though I suppose I wasn't really looking that hard--really. Bestiality = booooo!). He's rummaging through our trash can, where I'd thrown a bottle of green tea. What does he do but deftly unscrew the cap, shake the bottle over his open mouth, and then toss it aside with a little flick of disgruntlement when he finds it empty.

Exhibit A:



We head back out for dinner--picking a tiny restaurant that has as its primary attraction a view of a very authentic rice paddy in the middle of downtown, tourist Ubud. Eric has the roast duck, which turns out dry, and I have the garlic potato wedges and ginger ale. Evidently, the celestial suckling pig was just a prelapsarian interlude before my Satanic/Indonesian Fall from Gastronomic Grace.

Because I am feeling sick. Every smell that hits my olfactory organs makes me feel sick, so much so that I attempt to puke (earlier? later? I can't remember.) in our hotel room. No luck.

I think it'd be safe to say that a large percentage of why I'm so interested in travel is because I like food. Not just eating it, but looking at it, taking pictures of it for posterity, thinking about eating it, planning to eat it, remembering it...you get the drift.

Now far be it for me to dismiss an entire, multi-faceted nation's food, but...that's what I'mma do.

The main problem with food in Indonesia, I think, is that it's not good.

Too salty and over-spiced in that muddy way that turns into blandness.

And it's indicative, it seems, of a lack of attentiveness to food, when it's customary to cook the entire day's meals early in the morning, and then eat them, room-temperature, throughout the day. This is, I know, a function of climate and class. You want the food to keep, and you presumably have better things to do, like, make a living, than to be rustlin' up three hots.

What this means, then, is that my bratty, little, middle-class, used-to-variety-Ethiopian-Japanese-Mexican-Korean-soul-pizza-burgers-Indian-Thai-Vietnamese, American palate eventually has a meltdown on day six of this trip, and is unable to consume anything approaching "authentic" Indonesian. Not the omnipresent nasi goreng and mie goreng (fried rice and chow mein, respectively), not even another meal of babi guling, the suckling pig I'd fantasized about months before the trip, had enjoyed while on this trip, and had manically chattered about having for every meal in our remaining time in Ubud after having a single taste of it...

The only other food I'm able to worry down that evening is a bowl of...potato and leek soup, and a Sprite. Eric attempts to reassure me, telling me that travel sometimes does this to you: your stomach just isn't used to local bacteria--it feels upset; it's okay to be craving familiar, comfort foods. And he gets me started on some probiotics.

I try to regain my composure, but I've always been the type to pile high my plate, and order the weirdest thing on the menu, let the dice fall where they may, and eat shit other folks won't, and I've always talked a big game about eating anything (eyeballs, tongue, ear, dick, balls, whatever) but that horrible Filipino balut monstrosity.

And it's like that bad shroom trip where you feel like you're never going to be sane again, and that you should just run out onto the street and let a car hit you because you are fo'rills insane and ain't nothin' ever gonna change that. Except now you're afraid that food will never taste delicious to you again, and while that's a most excellent diet plan, you already aren't getting laid, and so the list of achievable earthly pleasures is quickly diminishing, and oh my fuck, WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT*?

(*Reference to stupid ads for stupid movie that I never saw because it so clearly was going to be stupid, stupid. See: The Reaping.)

Indonesia: Ubud (Day 6 Cont'd, Saturday, 080109)

We take a turn inside Ubud Palace--where the royal family still resides--just across the street from Ibu Oka.



It's...diverting, and beautiful, but I've just had one of the top ten best meals of my life; at this point, Buckingham Palace and the Magic Kingdom could drop on my head and I'd still be walking around post-coital and unseeing.

It's purty, though, ain't it?



Eric and I trudge back home for our first nap of the day, and I'm still floating away on a cloud of porky bliss, when we wake up to visit the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary, where hundreds of Balinese macaques, also known as long-tail macaques, have free reign.

They sell bananas at the entrance, and one woman's gigantic bunch is plucked from her grasp by a particularly cheeky little fucker. (I wish now I'd gotten her email info so's I could send the vid to her.)

Eric's attacked from behind by one macaque as he's trying to fake-out another one; they're smart as all fuck, and probably used to finagling bananas from naive tourists, and I'm in my usual frenzy of "oooh, look at animicles!"

We pause for a bit at the wading pool, watching the younger macaques gamboling in the water, rough-housing from limb to limb. It occurs to me, while watching them have at it, to marvel how you could see them play like this and still doubt that we are not in some way related. Yay, Darwinism! Boo, Creationism and Intelligent Design!

We're mesmerized, until I manage to shake it off and drag us onward, to a separate, gated sanctuary. Before we enter, we have to don green sarongs and yellow scarves and hand over a small donation. There's a man who Stacy Londoning it up, helping us get in gear, and giving a chuckle at one tourist's backassward attempt to tie her own sarong. Foolish whitie.

Inside, shockingly enough, are...more macaques. They're actually demonstrably chiller in this compound: three youngins sleep together in a huddle of cuteness that has me shooting baby unicorns out of my asshole, there's a playgroup of mothers with (three) bebes in tow, and one guy on a raised platform has a decent-sized rock that he's dribbling obsessively, like a second grader on crystal.

Indonesia: Ubud (Day 6, Saturday, 080109)

We arrive, I think, onto the windy stretch that is Monkey Forest Road. Almost immediately, a slew of men trying to earn commissions swoops down on our van-load of tourists.

Asked if we have a place to stay, we respond no, and one guy hustles us on out towards a place, driving comfortably ahead of us on his scooter while Eric and I, okay, mostly I, struggle in the heat and the upward incline and the hiking bag we each schlep. Okay, so probably if this were Eric's description, he wouldn't be bitching, but this is Eat, Drink, Bitch (emphasis mine).

(Let me note that I make sure to ask, before agreeing to go with him, "Is the hotel close to Ibu Oka (site of what is reputedly (and experientially) the best suckling pig on the island of Bali)?" Boy, I ain't goin' nowhere less'n I can eat that gotdang pork.)

We come to a fight of steep stairs, drop our bags in the half-cleaned room, admire the woven ceiling, the ceiling fan, the balcony view, then make our way immediately to Ibu Oka.

"Right around the corner," he'd said. "Very close," he'd assured me.

It's a walk, especially in the heat of the day and with the sidewalks in Ubud, which jut up and down and up and down in what I can only consider a folly of urban planning, but I suppose ultimately good for your quads.

We finally come to Ibu Oka, a place I recognize immediately from Anthony Bourdain's Indonesia episode, and it's like coming home.



To the left of the entrance is where they shred the carcass, separating the crisp skin from the fat and the meat, then doling it out for patrons:



This is one assembly line I could get behind.

The waitress seats us under an umbrella with French tourists (what Kuta and Seminyak are to Australians, Ubud is to the French), and we order up two specials and two bottled green teas.

It's a glorious symphony of pork: meat tender like love in your mouth (not that kind of love), a crisp flake of skin the color of sunset, a burnt-orange crackle, and this salty, crunchy snack that I find out later is deep-fried small intestine, essentially a Balinese chunchullo. All this tops Balinese white rice, and a side of spicy chili relish.



And I fuck that shit up. Tears are springing forth, my eyes rolling back into their sockets, my eyelids flickering in an orgiastic tumult, and I gesticulate helplessly.

Who are these magical people who can make this? Unicorn-human hybrids? What is the point of living if you can't make it too? Or eat it every day?

Indonesia: To Ubud (Day 6, Saturday, 080109)

Bali's been a bit of a disappointment thus far. Though I haven't encountered those packs of Australians that have so horrified Eric--hot, strapping, dumb-as-dirt-dudes and their hot, "skanky, one strap hanging off their shoulders" girlfriends--it's been too touristy. Everyone you pass in Seminyak and Kuta is a tourist, and the white sand beaches and crystalline-blue waters that I'd been envisioning are nowhere to be found. I'm ready to go.

We have a 9-ish shuttle to Ubud picking, so we breakfast:



And I take photos and make video of the famed merbok (zebra dove), prized for its distinctive call (they even have competitions for the best-sounding in parts of Southeast Asia). The Inada has three of 'em hanging just outside our room, and they've been cooing us awake every morning (in conjunction, of course, with the slightly less mellifluous sounds of the roosters). Listen carefully, half of it is me whistling, trying to get them to respond, the other half is the birds themselves:



When the (late) shuttle finally arrives, Eric and I climb into the remaining seats, him in the front, left-hand passenger seat (they drive on the left side of the road, because in Indonesia, the right side is...suicide), and I in the backity back of the van. Shortly thereafter, I'm grateful for the motion-sickness tablet E made me ingest, as we're receiving little of the A/C (the German in the row in front of us gets persnickety about it being cold when my neighbor, an Indian dude, asks him to turn the air up so that those of us in the back can, I dunno, not die of heat stroke), and Indian Dude next to me is in a cold-sweat and making weird, I'm-going-to-be-sick, grunting noises. I cross my fingers that he doesn't hurl on me or in my vicinity. Direct it at the German, man.

The ride is actually fairly pleasant since the zigzagging, oceanic swerving typical of Balinese driving is more tolerable when you're inside an enclosed vehicle as opposed to on a scooter and subject to the whims of...your fragile flesh and bones.

We pass scooter after scooter of boys in traditional garb, sarongs and white tunics and headbands and, I think, tilakas, basically the same thing as bindis, but worn for different reasons.



Shortly thereafter, there's a stream of beskirted girls riding sidesaddle. They're belted in gold, long hair in ponytails, all demurely cradling a small covered basket in their laps. (My boo boo camera is unable to catch this with any semblance of a decent image.)

I dunno what any of this is about, but it's lovely nevertheless.

Same for the yard after yard filled with stone Buddhas: Buddhas forming this mudra or that, in different asanas...skinny, upright Buddhas, pot-bellied, reclining Buddhas. Also, nippled ladies who'd do any cut-rate L.A. plastic surgeon proud, tits all bolted on like grapefruit halves.

(I cynically assume that they're...like...concrete poured into molds, but Eric scoffs, since he's seen 'em working at slabs of stone with power tools. Folks are not exactly chipping away with chisels and mallets, but their symmetry, their "grace of accuracy" is man-made, at least.)

And you can't go 50 feet without spotting a stone altar or figure stacked high with offerings.

This is more like it.

Indonesia: Last Consecutive Day in Seminyak, Bali (Day 5, Friday, 073109)

1. Have breakfast:



2. Make plans at a local travel agency to take a shuttle to Ubud, a speedboat to the Gilli Islands, and a flight to Yogyakarta.

3. Return to Callego for a sun salutations where the water meets the sand, a mango shake,



a honeydew juice, and the Mahi with spinach and mushroom garlic cream sauce

.

Eric has another one of them Bali Sunrises, which I read is comprised of arak/arrack, a sugarcane-based liquor, grenadine, and, I think, pineapple. It's purty:



4. Watch a beach employee in spiritual contemplation at the shrine on site, his hands chasing incense smoke.

5. Meet Eric's friend from one of the clubs, a Balinese host. I'm told (not having been clubbing myself, having taken a vow of abstinence from bars & alcohol), that employees are expected to be super cordial to clientele and serve as a sort of social lubricant; they know your name, snap, immediately, and it's in doing so that they maintain a constant flow of customers. Really, it's the Cheers ethos of "everybody knows your name." Adi tells me that the blossoms I've become obsessed with, are natively called the kamboge, their word for Cambodia. I find out later that the English name is frangipani, or plumeria:



Adi's from the jungles of Java, no university, but speaks French and English, and briefly went into baking with his mom during the '97 financial crisis. I also try to wring from him the admission that there are so many joints serving pizzas because the Balinese actually like pizza, but, no dice. His observation is that it's a tourist demand.

6. Also meet a horrific Liberian dude, which leads to a whole debacle of supposed "crying, puking, blisters" from "sunburn" as an excuse to not hang.

7. Find that one purchases gas at roadside dispensaries that sell petrol in Absolut vodka bottles. One USD for 2.

8. Dinner at a traditional padang, sort of an extension of Indonesian food customs, which entail cooking all the dishes in the morning, and then setting them out, luke-warm, for family members to pick at throughout the day. I'll go into this some more when I write in more depth about the local food. At any rate, I order by pointing at the dishes, all encased inside a glass counter, and we have (again, room temperature):



beef rendang, mixed sauteed vegetables, a spicy, shredded chicken salad, tempe, fried chicken, corn fritters, white rice, on a banana leaf. None of it particularly impressive.

9. But sunset, earlier, was:

Indonesia: Bali (Day 4 Super-cont'd, Thursday, 073009)

The 45 minute drive home from Nusa Dua is a clusterfuck. I think an accurate description would be to say that, what is in America a two-lane road, is in Bali ample room for three to four cars, plus a school of scooters careening precariously around whatever remaining space is available. There's no concept of staying in a lane because there frequently aren't any, and when there are...well, there's no concept of staying in them, really.

At one point, a group of scooters streams onto the sidewalk in an attempt to evade traffic, and though I try to deter Eric from doing the same, he follows. It's all well and good until we have to merge back onto the street, at which point, Eric, actually an experienced motorcyclist, thrown off-balance with me on the back, drives us into a tree. I participate in a bit of shrieking, and the Balinese zoom past, laughing raucously at us.

It's here that the mantra of "If I never have to get on another scooter again, it'll be too soon" becomes my custom. The rest of the drive back to our neighborhood is done mostly in silence and prayer. Also, awe and disbelief at the folks on scooters steering with one hand, and holding a surfboard with another.

We dine at Ryoshi's, a restaurant Eric's gone to before, with locals, and we order fantastical amounts of food. Really, I'm the one who pushes us to the extreme, as I tend towards culinary bacchanal. We have:

Greens with roasted, crushed sesame seeds
Egg custard with seafood
3 types of yakitori: mushroom stuffed with shrimp, leeks, chicken skin with salt and pepper
fried silken tofu
daikon (least favorite dish, since it tasted of detergent)
an 18-piece sushi plate

That's nothing, right? Eric has some compunctions, but the evidence of empty plates and bowls at the end of dinner suggest that I was correct in my estimation. And, I'm never not right when it comes to food.

The bill at the end of the night comes to a total of 20 bucks. Bliss.

We head over to "Ku De Ta," pronounced coup d'etat, for sunset. To get in, they search our bags (for bombs), and we pause to rinse our feet before we enter the property proper. It's a beachfront restaurant/club/bar/lounge, very chi-chi, all white lounge chairs and red umbrellas, very L.A., except we're in Bali, and this is not my scene. Especially when mojitos here cost $15 a pop. The funny thing is that in addition to the see and be seen crowd, there are also families here, with children in tow. The contrast between folks insouciantly smoking cigarettes and tow-headed bags of juice and crackers running amuck is a little disconcerting.

While Eric chain-smokes, I nervously nurse a beer and fret about the walk on the beach back to the scooter. We'd had to tiptoe across sewage being released by some other property (and watch in horror as other tourists traipsed obliviously through it in bare feet), a fact to which I would have been oblivious had Eric not proffered it, and which is making my feet itch in psychosomatic response.

We catch the sunset:



And I say hello to Orion, vow to Eric that I want nothing to do with Amsterdam and him simultaneously, and reflect on the principle that I should no longer be putting leaded gas into a marijuana tank.

The return walk has me inadvertently walking into the fishing lines of two night-fisherman, in my attempt to cleanse myself of the sewage. Then, home to Inada Losmen and bed.

Day's tally of mistaken (ethnic-)identity:

Thai: 1
Japanese: 1

Indonesia: Bali (Day 4 Cont'd, Thursday, 073009)

Back at the hotel, I order breakfast--included with the $11 per night for two people rate, and dine contemplatively on the bench outside the room.



(It isn't 'til our next meal that I am to understand that the lime is not simply for show. Banana with a squirt of lime? Who woulda thunk? Delicious.)

Eric returns in a flurry, since we have, as I indistinctly recall, made plans with Carlos and Francois to rendezvous. While Eric's in the shower, I again reaffirm my decision to cease and desist all drinking, half because its horrible aftermaths, half because, should I come down with Japanese Encephalitis, I want to be able to tell that my brain is swelling for reasons besides alcohol consumption (half because I'm paranoid?).

We scooter out of Seminyak and through Kuta, where we pass the site of the 2002 Bali Nightclub bombings. There's a memorial and plaque commemorating the dead on one side of the street, and an empty lot on the other, where they refuse to rebuild out of a sense, I think, of outrage.

We also pass a number of designer diffusion/aspirational lines (euphemism for "cheap shit that designers make to sell to trashy Australians in Bali"): Versus (cheap Versace), D&G (cheap Dolce & Gabbana), and Polo (cheap Ralph Lauren).

We meet C&F at...Bubba Gump's, which I only realize is a reference to that dreadfully long film when we arrive at the restaurant, where signs on the table read "Run, Forrest, Run!" and "Stop, Forrest, Stop!" and a bench outside has a pair of sneakers that you can tuck your feet into, along with a...box of chocolates. Apparently, it's a fairly well-known chain. I'm appalled, but we're moving immediately on to Nusa Dua, where we've been told have better beaches.

Unfortunately for me, in addition to this:



...there are also swathes of sand covered in tangles of dried-out kelp and trash, and hovel-type structures (no photos; I rarely remember to take photos of the ugly and un-picturesque, though I start to prevail over that as the trip goes on).

This juxtaposition of gated resort area against poverty throws my boohoo-people-are-oppressed-look-at-the-disparity sensibilities into overdrive.

15 USD gets you a lounge chair, a meal, and access to their pool, and, of course, a strip of the resort-owned sand. We're at By the C [rolling my eyes], and their menu is "Continental," meaning Mexican, Aloha, and standard burgers. I order a poorly made virgin Pina Colada called a "Punch Colada," and a papaya lassi. The fish in the fish and chips I have is appallingly bad, and the burgers the boys have are only slightly better (and I get to feel virtuous about not eating beef in a Hindu country), causing the boys to wax rhapsodic about the Mahi with spinach and a mushroom, garlic cream sauce we had yesterday (again, I only remember this indistinctly). Eric also has a nice melon cocktail, and this becomes a general rule over the trip: decent to great drinks, decent to horrible food, which is not limited to meals that are resort-made and "Continental."

We pass the time chatting with the Australians--though really Carlos is a Jewish-Mexican and Francois a white South African (specifically Afrikaner, I think). Eric and I are treated to the intricacies of Australian bar laws, where, in an inept attempt to curtail binge drinking and bar-fighting, law stipulates that bar-goers cannot buy drinks at ten to the hour, can't enter or re-enter a bar from 2-5 a.m., and have a four drink maximum when purchasing a round (sort of like, "no double-fisting"). Additionally, we learn that South Africa, 'til very recently, had anti-pornography laws, which led to folks sending themselves Playboys when abroad, but which meant that such materials were frequently shared among deprived South Africans, and that South Africa also had "informants," so that you could be arrested, forced to pay a fine if/when you were caught, and furnished with a criminal record.

Indonesia: Bali (Day 4, Thursday, 073009)

I wake up with the bed to myself, as E's off getting his swerve on. This is fortunate, because I feel like shit. It's about 3 a.m., having gone to bed at an unearthly early hour, and the room's spinning despite the fact that my eyes are closed.

Finally, I've had enough, totter to the bathroom, and projectile vomit clear liquid from my stomach, a fact that I communicate to my boss in an email later that morning, along with the famous last words "never drinking again." I largely keep to this vow, except for a sip to taste once or twice, and half a large bottle of Bintang, the most widely sold Indonesian beer (and a subsidiary of Heineken), some days later in an attempt to be convivial at a beachfront dinner.

An hour later, the roosters outside start crowing. Partly because I am still drunk (My notepad reads: "I may still be drunk at this time."), partly because I am a city-girl by upbringing, I'm having a hard time distinguishing between rooster crows and dog howls. It's such an alien sound, half gurgle and half squawk.

I fall back asleep, finally, the regurgitation having done its job, and then 8 a.m. pulls me back up again, to look for an internet cafe and a beverage for my Advil, with which I have a tender moment just prior to leaving the room, shaking the bottle and murmuring, "soon we shall become one, my darlings."

Walking through the small alleys to the main road, I pass an older woman balancing on her head an offering of incense and food in a flat-bottomed basket. I think about asking her to take a photo, but dismiss the thought as presumptuous and...culturally appropriating. Then regret not asking.

Traffic is debilitating; ditto the ubiquitous dogs, particularly the ones who sense my fear of unloved animals. There are no stop signs, no traffic lights, no crosswalks, and it takes ages to cross the road. And it is, however you want to look at it, a shopaholic's dream/nightmare. The entire strip is simply store after store of clothing, sinks embellished with mother of pearl, woven furniture, surfboards.

Already I sense my resolve wavering, particularly with regards to a white, off the shoulder, v-neck Audrey Hepburnian sheath, which is in stark contrast with the email conversation I continue with Kim about the paradox of "too much choice" and its connection with consumerism.

There's an open-front "corner store," really more of a counter, selling beverages, and I cross (after many abortive attempts) the street and purchase a Nu (with an umlaut) Honey Green Tea for 5,000 RP (50 cents).

Meandering onwards, I find an internet cafe, where I spend half an hour and 60 cents.

The walk back is a pleasure, punctuated by the honking of horns, not the aggressive blasts of angry American drivers, but friendly I'm-behind-you-or-right-next-to-you-don't-make-sudden-move beeps.

I'm grinning like Miss America, partially because I feel my hangover leaving me, but mostly because this seems to be the Indonesia I came to see, the old woman earlier, everyone beaming, offering their hellos, the two men sitting at the bus stop greeting me and asking me how I am. Normally, I'm a suspicious lady, but I'm led to believe that folks are just genuinely friendly here, that there aren't ulterior motives.

I watch a man step out his storefront and place an offering at an alter, wafting the smoke towards the pinnacle, glimpse the palm-leaf trays everywhere, the sidewalks, tucked into nooks, on structures the size of grown men. They consist primarily of rice and flowers, but I notice one on the sidewalk with two goldfish crackers balanced on top. This seems to me...sweetly anachronistic. The reach and regularity of this ritual is like balm to the soul, even my heathen, non-existent one.

Intersection of Travel and Class

The 8 dolla massage I received on arriving in Bali has oppressed me to no end.

It is, initially, quite lovely. The cresting and crash of waves just yards away, the single flower placed directly underneath the face rest, the ocean breeze...

the dry, incessant cough of your middle-aged masseur.

Despite the soporific effects of drink and jet lag, I tumble out of blissful stupor and into the grips of what Eric termed my "White Man's Guilt." Not being white, I think it may be more apt to consider it..."First World Guilt"? And complicated by, I think, the funny feeling that this woman might very well be my mother, that there, but for the grace of God go I--given the relative similarities in phenotype.

I become gregarious in my flurry of self-reproach. So, rather than wafting away on a sea of pleasure, I conversate.

She has two sons, one 17, the other 4. A husband who works hours at odds with hers. I joke about the lack of romantic prospects at this particular beach for me. She commiserates. She tells me that she wishes she had a daughter, because a daughter would understand her. I suppress the comment "don't count on it, lady," being an unfilial offspring myself. I chat for nearly an hour, and then tip so much it's likely vulgar.

It is here that I begin to see why the very wealthy cloister themselves away the way they do. I'm made ashamed by my relative ease, my ability to travel, my disposable income, the bottle of antidepressants in my bag. I can see why silence is a necessary trait of those who serve in the hospitality professions. I think we don't want to be reminded of our sameness; there, but for the grace of God...

I exit the room dimmed and diminished. Maybe humbled.

And even this, this remorseful navel-gazing, it's a luxury, isn't it?

Eric makes a perfectly valid argument about the benefits local folks gain from my tourist dollars, particularly when I patronize non-corporate businesses, how my masseur likely doesn't receive much business at this particularly locale, since it caters to gay men.

And to reach it's logical conclusion, it's ultimately more self-serving of me to not continue to get $8 massages simply because of the twinges of my conscience, but the next day, and the days that follow, when she comes and shakes my legs as I bask in the sun, asking me if I want another massage, I'll defer her, saying, brightly, "maybe later."

And then adorn that first layer of guilt with a fondant of worry that I've made her think that she's not a good masseur.

Neuroticism is definitely an affliction of the privileged, ain't it?

Indonesia: Bali (Day 3 Super-cont'd, Wednesday, 072909)

Travel buddy Eric's left me a business card scrawled with "I will be here waiting for you!"

So I dip into our room for a looksie, this room that Eric has, via email, assured me is much superior to the one we'd previously reserved.

It's dank and dreary, and sports a depressingly dim light, a fan, a burnt plate cum ashtray, and a slightly frightening looking bathroom.

I change out of my days-old outfit, into a bikini, tank, and shorts, switch the glasses for contacts, don my stunna shades, and make my way out to the main road, where I ask a European-looking man with family in tow whether there's a good place to hail a cab, since it's all single lane roads and it seems to me that one would not want to stop a taxi in the middle of this traffic; surely there's an area for stopping.

Oh, no. Not a problem. He tells me I can get a cab "anywhere," so, disconcerted, I raise my arm and quick as a wink, a taxi (along with all the cars and scooters behind him) rolls to a halt.

I tell the (new and nicer) cabbie to take me to Callego Massage and Warung on Petitenget Beach, Jl. Taman Ganesha/9, Kerobokan Kelod, Kuta.

The card informs me that they offer "Intensife Relaxing" and "Reflexologi," which is good, because I, funnily enough, am looking for some intensife relaxing.

The cabbie's name is Third, per Balinese naming practices, marking an affirmation of info found in both LP and that stupid book by that stupid woman, what is it called? Eat, Pray, Masturbate: One Woman's Inflated Sense of Entitlement Leading to a Book and Inevitably a Movie Starring Diane Lane?

Something like that.

He tells me, and this is more in keeping with the aforementioned cultural norm of openness I'd arrived in Indonesia expecting, that he lives far from his "bang" (which I can only infer means something along the lines of family home/complex), that he used to work in furniture with a Swedish guy, that he thought I was Jakartan until he heard me speak. Right on.

The ride totals 16,300 RP. Less than 2 bucks.

Arrive at Callego (hard "g" sound, not, as I keep attempting to say it, with a Spanish-y "h"), and, as I scan the area for Eric, I realize that Callego is a gay beach.

Of course.

You don't just share a flight with Elton John for no reason.

I bop Eric upside the head as he lies there in all his suntanned glory, and betwixt our gasps and gurgles, he's ordered me a Mai Thai and a massage.

I meet two locals, Ismael and Ryan (a 19 year old stripper, go go dancer, and McDonald's employee), Francois and Carlos, a couple from Sydney, and a random creepy guy who I'm pretty sure is a PLU, and yet has his hands all over me. I submit to his groping because 1) I presume here's merely being friendly and 2) I'm monstrously jetlagged and on my way to drunk.

The Mai Thai's followed by two Bali Sunrises, the last of which I inhale in one long draw, and which prevents me, as Eric recounts, from rising from the beach chair to gaze at my first Bali sunset (this, I do not recall until he reminds me the next day).

The last thing I remember of the evening is strapping on a helmut (Eric's very considerately brought two in anticipation of my arrival), clinging carelessly to Eric as he maneuvers us back to Seminyak, and loopily wondering at the palm-leaf trays of flower blossoms, rice, and incense placed on the roads.

Offerings placed on the ground are for the demons.