internet cafe, seminyak, bali

left-hand shift key doesn't work.

bali at 8 a.m. is a flurry of scooters and cars, and a pedestrian's nightmare. no crosswalks, no lights, no stop signs, anywhere.

somehow, i was able to traverse the street twice, with no disasters, but i don't know how long my luck'll last.

am completely fucked four ways 'til friday. a mai thai and two bali delights (or something similarly named).

woke up at 3:30 a.m. with a raging headache and nausea. head spinning even when eyes were closed. ran to bathroom, puked.

4 a.m.: local roosters start crowing, and in my state (or maybe just because i'm a city girl at heart), i lay there for several moments trying to tell whether it was actually roosters or perhaps howling dogs.

ok, i know they're not actually similar sounds.

no more drinking for entirety of trip. or cigarettes. none.

Singapore, Changi Airport

5 a.m.

Et a "curry puff" and a 330 mL (tiny) bottle of water, aptly named "Aqua" = $6.

Jesus fuck.

I'm going going back back to Bali Bali...

Ok. No. There is no back. But I'm going to Bali.

Anyway, should something untoward happen, such as a bombing of a non-major hotel, like a hostel such as the ones that I will attempt to stay in, this is my response:



I welcome everyone to mourn my death. You shoulda said something nice to me earlier. Before I was dead.

Let this be a lesson to you!

Someone let Rachel know that she must take care of my cats. And she can have what little remains in my bank account.

Baja, Mexico: Cabo (Day 12: 1/1, Thursday)

It's our last day, and the morning after. Take a wild guess at what I had for breakfast.



Correct.

But for an aperitif:



Cigarette and coffee for him, Advil and Diet Coke for me. I mean, Coca Cola Light.

And we're making off for home.

The car rental guy points out the nearly blown-out tire, which, luckily for us, is covered under our insurance.

We watch a pack of paparazzi chasing someone of note through LAX, and dine at, of all things, Chili's--I think mostly so we can bemoan the delicious Mexican (food) we've left behind.

Actually, I think I'm bemoaning the Mexican Mexican, too. Not the hombre hombre who asked me if I was a mujer mujer, but the guy who asked me if I was "una les."

So let it be written, so let it be done.

Baja, Mexico: Cabo (Day 11: 12/31, Wednesday)

New Year's Eve in Cabo.

Another breakfast at Spencer's, con chorizo...yeah, I'm noticing a trend, too.

Another day at the beach. It's finally warm enough to brave the waters, and I manage to snorkel twice, until, of course, I've psyched myself out thinking about bull sharks, which can range in waters shallower than where I'm swimming.

Paranoid?

Oh, yes.

Eric and I beg off spending the midnight hour at Rick's, wary of driving back the already treacherous Corridor after everyone's been engaging in debauchery. We return to Cabo for an early dinner at El Pescador, and we both have the lobster special; Eric with the steak, and I, the scallops, which turn out to be rubbery, pencil-eraser looking things, minus the mouthwatering pink color.

Evening takes us to Las Jarras again, where I'm asked if I'm a "mujer mujer," a woman woman. Presumably, this means he thinks I may be a tranny. [grin]

I answer him in the affirmative, and he gesticulates at me, asking whether he can substantiate my response by seeing my secondary sexual characteristics. I try to dodge the question by telling him, "you first," then hustle on out of there.

The last night we'd been at Las Jarras, I'd been approached by one of the bar employees (this while Eric was disappeared).

...
"Eres una les?" (Are you a lesbian?)

"No." But sometimes wish I were.

"Te gusta/te gusto/whatever." (Some variation of "I like you." I think.)

"Okay." Am I supposed to do something with this information?

"Something something (Can you give me/Can I have) un besito?" (A kiss.)

"Um, no." I would, and would probably fuck you in the bathroom if 1) I didn't feel like my travel companion has ditched me, and 2) you had a condom.)
...

He was a cutie, and I'd lamented my decision to dismiss the occasion on account of not knowing Eric's whereabouts that evening and feeling like I was maybe going to have to either die destitute in Mexico or have to fund my return to the States through dishwashing and whoring.

So tonight, I consider boning the waiter, but alas, I think, "I've been celibate for so long. Why fuck up a good thing?"

(Actually, it's more along the lines of, "it's been so long, I've forgotten how.")

At any rate, I take another breather outside, and there's the "mujer mujer" guy again, this time with his cell phone, which he thrusts in my face. Lo and behold, it's a picture of his dick, in living color, and great resolution (cell phone cameras are really quite advanced these days).

It's somewhat heinous, and, not having photographed my genitalia myself, I'm a little disturbed by the angle of the photo, in addition to the strange trapezoidal-quality of his junk.

I give a little a shriek, and flee--since neither the penis nor its possessor was particularly prepossessing--and so ended my 2008.

Baja, Mexico: Cabo (Day 10: 12/30, Tuesday)

Spencer's again: huevos con machaca.



It's another day at the beach with the boys, and a lunch of chicken mole (apologies to the accent purists) from a local joint, a place that felt just a corporate step below the chaininess of a Quizno's.



I'm not the biggest fan of mole; the smoky sweet and chalkiness of it doesn't do it for me, but, of course, I ain't one to turn down food.

The evening takes us to Rick (h?) and Luc's place, a luuu-verly place where Luc's been installing a new bathroom (black tile and slate). Alberto's also got a place, just up the way, all avocado and cream and gray and burnt orange, a place that opens up to the source of much panty-creaming: an infinity pool.



At Rick and Luc's, we dined on a salad washed in water sanitized with iodine, and a very quotidian and yet utterly spectacular spaghetti with meat sauce, then tried to make our way back to the hotel, after several glasses of strawberry frozen margaritas, without being turned into a tangle of steel and chunks of unidentifiable viscera.

Yum.

Baja, Mexico: Cabo (Day 9: 12/29, Monday)

It's here that my notes from the trip go from tight, geometric scribbling, verging on the cross-hatching they used to do to save on postage--you know, when they used to write a letter, then turn the page 90 degrees and continue...

What was I saying?

Anyway, it's here that my notes go from tight, geometric scribbles to intermittent scrawls trailing across the white vista of my Lonely Planet "Notes" page. I suppose it's just the product of the ineluctable languor of the End of (Vacation) Days, the eschatology of Good Times.

No, that's too simple. It's...I'm not...

I'm not inured to the New Experience of International Travel as an Adult ('though I suppose Mexico is not exactly a far-flung locale), exactly, but I'm filled to the brim. As an incurable introvert, the receptivity that travel requires, receptivity to uncertainty, new people, places, is overwhelming after a while.

It'd be hard to keep up with Eric, who's my polar opposite, energy-wise. Fortunately, he's blown off some steam with the 24 Hour Party People, and while he peels himself off a strange couch and finds his way home from wherever he was, I dine on huevos con chorizo and some purported papaya drink that tastes strangely like orange juice.

Hungover Eric and rested, but travel-surfeited Nancy have found equilibrium, and we're both ready for a day at the beach, one recommended by a colleague of his, an administrator who has a summer home in San Jose del Cabo. SJDC and Cabo San Lucas make up, for all intents and purposes, one big travel destination, and are connected by "The Corridor," a scenic stretch of the Transpeninsular on which you can meet your untimely end by your own drunken hands (or someone else's).



We spend the day taking "laying out," taking facebookian photos of Eric, and are lucky enough to glimpse another fusillade of rays ejecting themselves out of the ocean.

We're joined by a gaggle of gay men, Rick, who owns a home with Luc, Rich and Rick, house guests of Rick, and Alberto, who also owns a home in SJDC. Everything is mostly awesome, like 99% awesome, except for the fact that the situation only reifies my inability to relate to MSW (men who have sex with women), but I suppose that is another entry (or blog) altogether.

The day ends at Taqueria Mexico, an open air restaurant designed to look like a palapa.



I dine, and dine well, on a Coca Cola Light and fish and shrimp tacos, heavily garnished with salsa, creamy guacamole, cabbage, and pico de gallo...



and an order of papas asadas.

Baja, Mexico: Cabo (Day 8: 12/28, Sunday, 2 of 2)

We leave the Mango Deck with plans (for Eric) to rejoin the Party People on a booze cruise. I didn't think locals did booze cruises, but then again, I'm just a simple girl.

I, on the other hand, have opted out.

Whilst Eric is off boozing and cruising (and dancing and, as it turns out, whale watching), I wend my way down to the famed Cabo Wabo for a looksy (super branded and disneyfied), then to a lil plaza cum food court cum tourist trap.

I mosey through stalls of souvenir t-shirts, sarongs, silver, and stuff made out of straw. None of which is particularly appealing.

What are appealing are the fish tacos at Taco Loco, which is probably just another one of those bullshit places where gringos eat, but shit, homes, I can dig it.

I wish I could say that I don't take a photograph of my fish tacos and Pepsi Light (food photography being my genetic birthright as an Asian tourist) because I simply have too many photos of aforementioned tacos, but it's mostly because I left my camera in the room, for fear of being robbed.

One of the worker bees is shocked--shocked--that I'm eating alone, but surely women travel alone in Cabo. Non? I smile and shrug my shoulders at the dude, then polish off my dinner for one and end with a cigarette.

I am solo and singularly free. It's the first time I've been alone since our trip began.

One may well be the loneliest number. But I likes it.

Baja, Mexico: Cabo (Day 8: 12/28, Sunday, 1 of 2)

I am, of course, hungover, which prevents me from photographing my lovely breakfast of huevos con machaca, courtesy of Spencer's, the hotel dining establishment, and a 1/2 liter of whatever flavor Gatorade "yellow" is, from the hotel amenities and gift shop.

(Apparently, they sell sports drinks in squeeze bottles, which makes it quite convenient when one doesn't want to lift one's head off the dining table. What would be more convenient is a baby bottle, which would make it unnecessary for the imbiber to even use his or her arm to squeeze, but that is a conversation I should and will be having with PepsiCo.)

We've agreed to meet Miguel and Crew at Playa Medano, and from hence, we go, driving to a beachfront resort, where a golf-cart for 20 shuttles us from Point A to Point B, covering a distance of less than 50 yards, but I guess people who stay at resorts don't like to walk or something.

Already, picking my way through a sea of prostrate bodies in varying shades of tan, I think I much prefer La Paz to Cabo. This whole spring break mentality, the too old and too young, both groups egging their peers to profligacy, constant haranguing by beach peddlars trying to sell you sarongs for 30 bucks, bikini contests on crowded beaches, and the MC screaming, "The judges must be one hundred percent macho, not fifty fifty. No one from San Francisco" and "I don't hear you shouting! If you are not shouting, that means you're a FAGGOT"--I die, but not in the Rachel Zoe good way.

I know it's all cultural, just as they, apparently, have Mexican bingo with pictures (a beach, a sun, whatever) and one card named "El Negrito" with a black person on it.

But, fuck that.

Anyway, Miguel is an event coordinator, party guy, very rico suave, and so is his crew of folks, among them one Frenchman who speaks better Spanish than English and a Londoner named Kaylie who is what I imagine sorority girls to be like, but nice, a "dancer" (does that mean gogo?), and lacking in the ability to detect sarcasm (strange, because I always conceive of the British as having dry wit, but...maybe that requires wit. Schwing).

Kaylie shares her British Cosmo with me. I get more tan (tanner?). Life, as it were, is decent. Sitting on a beach, ogling and resenting the filthy-rich their gleaming yachts, all burnished metal and helicopters perched like alien dragonflies. It could be worse.

Addendum Baja, Mexico: Cabo (Day 7: 12/27, Saturday, 2 of 2)

Of course, the coda to the previous, Stranded in Civilization entry is that Eric was not disappeared, and we returned to the hotel together.

Which was the Hotel Mar de Cortez.

The name of which I took care to remember.

Mar. de. Cortez.

Baja, Mexico: Cabo (Day 7: 12/27, Saturday, 2 of 2)

The evening's spent chasing elusive (and we find out later, shuttered) gay bars: Rainbow Room and the Hangover.

Traipsing around town, up and down dark alleys, in and around tourist hordes, past restaurant promoters and "street merchants" peddling their soft and hard drugs, I'm hating on Cabo.

Cabo's a horror show.

Cabo is for spring breakers and ugly Americans in cargo pants and polo shirts, bleached blonds and black polyester and that particular kind of ugly orange that some white people get when they're too tan.

Cabo's for club-crawling, and saying yes to overpriced merchandise in brightly-lit storefronts on the strip; yes to muttered proffers of ganj and coke and what have you, yes to Cialis and yes to hillibilly heroin.

Part of it is my already dimmed mood, I'm sure, but I can't imagine enjoying, even on a good day, this Cancun 4 Grown-ups.

But I've been feeling guilty that Eric hasn't gotten laid on this trip--can it be that I'm not only my own best cockblocker, but for others as well?--so it's chin up and legs in the air, metaphorically speaking.

An hour or more, trudging the strip, the empty back alleys, rear entrances of hotels, looking for a gay bar, which, as it turns out, is actually the gay bar because, apparently, a provincial, isolated town the size of Cabo can only support one watering hole for homosexuals? I funno.

My feet are tired from flip flopping up and down dark streets, but my impeccable and implacable sense of duty (to Eric's sexual gratification) keeps me going, and it's only until Eric tires that we turn back to the hotel. Let's get the car, I offer, and give it another shot.

And there it is. We've given up, and there it is: a mere five blocks from our hotel. Goddamnit.

Las Jarras, yes, the same name as the one in La Paz (is it a chain of Mexican gay bars? Like Blimpies?). Chagrined, we get up in there, and try to make up for lost time. I have whatever Eric's ordering at the bar, and I dunno what it is about dudes and their need, regardless of who they prefer to sex (hehe), to get me fucked up.

One thing leads to another, and we strike up a friendship with a London transplant to SF, Paul, who's there with Omar, who fills me with chills of apprehension in his pathetic and frenzied attempts to be sexy by rolling the "r" in his name. O-marrrrrrr, he says, swaying ever closer.

Drunkeness. Time telescopes. We step outside for cigarettes and a breath of fresh air (yeah, yeah, ironic), when I experience the luxury of my first time being gay-bashed. A pick-up lurches past the bar and someone throws a full can of beer at us, shouting, "Maricones" (faggots). I'm lucky enough to be in the line of fire and am drenched. Fortunately, I'm just wearing a teeny tunic over my bikini, and all I do is shrug it down to my waist.

This, apparently, is Miguel's "in." He's been eying Eric, and smooths on over with inquiries about my state of semi-nudity. Conversation ensues.

More time passing.

Eric's made a new friend, and Paul's using me to get away from his "little pet" (Omar), so I'm bopping on the stage with Paul and couples that are feeling sexy (even if they're not).

On another break, I go out to find Eric's disappeared.

Which is unfortunate.

Because he has my ID.

My money.

The keys to the hotel.

And.

I have no idea what hotel we're staying at.

Which is great.

Being in a country where you kind of don't speak the language that well. Not having any identification. Or any idea where you are staying.

I return to Paul and relate my state of affairs, and he promises me a place at his bungalow should Eric fail to appear.

I'm fucked, I think to myself. Fucked.

My Anti-vacation

I like this girl's website as a general, superficial, mind-numbing, consumery rule.

But the following entry is my idea of The Horror: an all-inclusive vacation.

Gah!

I mean, let's be real, it's not that I wouldn't take it over working. But still.

Maybe I'm just jealous. [grin]