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.

Indonesia: Bali (Day 3 Cont'd, Wednesday, 072909)

$65 for a last minute Garuda Airlines flight from Surabaya, Java, Indonesia to Denpasar, Bali.

(Interesting factoid: Garuda is the mythical bird that Vishnu rides, found in Hindu and Buddhist cosmology.)

I think I'm scammed out of 5 USD on my way to my gate, when a guy tells me I have to pay for "flight health insurance." He's sitting in a booth with another uniformed dude, but I'm less than convinced when I don't get any form/ticket/slip documenting this exchange of money; my flight's in final boarding, so I hand it over.

The boxed lunch/snack includes one of those Asian jelly/gel/jello food-like substances with small cubes of "coconut" (wow, it actually is coconut, specifically nata de coco), which I, using the tiny and unwieldy plastic spoon provided with it, slurp down messily and clumsily as I sit between 1) overweight, sweaty, sleeping Indonesian dude to my left and 2) slim, hairless, nervous at having to sit next to wide-eyed, bat-shit crazy English-speaking Chinese girl, Indonesian dude to my right. He helpfully tells the stewardess to give me an English-language newspaper when she offers me an Indonesian one.

This, after I ineffectually attempt to ask him how long it'll take to get to Bali. Speak English, goddamnit! I am in your country and you should be able to communicate with me. Memememememe.

(When it comes to the jello snack, I can probably down the thing in a single gulp, but I eat it decorously with the utensil so as not to be perceived to be the unseemly slut of an American whore that I am.)

It's 65,000 Rupiah for a ride from the airport to Seminyak.

Conversion is about 10,000 RP to the dollar, and, should you have any interest in going to Indonesia, they 1) give you a better rate for large American bills, but 2) frequently seem unable to make change for bills larger than 20,000 RP (2 bucks).

I've a distinct feeling that the cabbie does not like me. The LP about Indonesia, while not always accurate, is usually pretty on the mark with regards to describing cultural norms, and the Balinese are supposed to be super talkative and friendly.

The majority of our conversation focuses on my protesting that I'm just a poor public school teacher and his observing that while I am able to visit his country, he cannot do the same with mine. Touche.

So the cabbie is oppressed by me, and I'm oppressed by his oppression. And he doesn't know where Inada Losmen, #9, Gang Bima (cryptoanalysis: Losmen = family-owned, home-stay style accomodations, usually very cheap, Gang = street, Inada because family/owners are Japanese) is located, and says we'll have to call.

I ask him if he has a cell phone, and he responds that I'll have to pay extra.

[sigh]

Somehow, it doesn't seem too farfetched to expect that a cabbie should be able to locate a destination without the passenger having to pay additional for a phone call to find said destination that he should be able to locate, but whatever.

We make it, and he asks for 15,000 RP, and I give him 20. It's the first time he smiles.

Yes, I will pay you to like me, comparatively much more-oppressed person.

Indonesia: Singapore, Changi Airport, En Route (Day 3, Wednesday, 072909)

Despite Elton John's reassuring presence on my flight (it seems to me statistically unlikely that a plane could, would, should plummet into a fiery ball of jagged metal with Elton John on it), I haven't slept for most of the gajillion hour flight over the Pacific to Seoul, and now to Singapore's Changi Airport.

In fact, I've watched the following highly lauded and critically acclaimed films:

He's Just Not That Into You
Bride Wars
Push

It's about 1 a.m., my connecting flight to Surabaya, Indonesia isn't 'til 7:50, where I'll have to purchase a ticket to Denpasar, Bali, and I'm feeling like I've been bitch-slapped with a wrench.

Fortunately, a Lego exhibition, and what should greet me but the following:



There's this thing, it starts with a "d" and ends with an "-estiny," and it's exerting a powerful force on me, and will manifest itself throughout my trip.

After ineffectually contorting myself on a row of seats outside my gate, I curl up on the carpeted floor behind a pillar to eke out an hour and forty-five minutes of sleep--until the unrelenting whine of airport/elevator music inevitably bores its way deep into my brainpan, and forces me awake.

I do not smell good, and I'm starving.

I'm fundamentally opposed to eating at the Starbucks and the soup and sandwich place, so I find myself at this weird little coffee shop serving presumably Singaporean meals, but as it's 4:30, 5 a.m., none of the meals are available.

What are available are: chicken pies and curry puffs.

I opt for the curry puffs, because it sounds slightly more adventurous, and a tiny bottle of water.



Bad decision. This curry puff is like the retroactive catalyst of distaste for all the disgusting airplane food I'm devoured on the flight(s) over here. It's greasy and cold and lardy and off.

In my nearly three decades of life, I've convinced myself that all food (including airplane food, particularly if it's ethnic-inspired as is Singapore Air fare) is good, and this is my reckoning.

My phagomania and liberomanical desire to be open to all experiences has led me to this point, and oh, how I shall pay on this trip.

Returning to my gate, I drop in the bathroom to check on my hair, which I'm convinced is an oil slick, and come across an airport employee gobbling down a snack.

It brings new light to the aphorism "don't shit where you eat," and I say "hi," like it ain't no thing, and bounce out of there. I don't judge, cuz it's either that 1) the trickle-down policies of fascist-democracy Singapore has led to extremely limited break and meal times for employees, or 2) lady's on some other kind of kick.

And who am I to nitpick? I just et a curry-flavored Shit Pocket.

Indonesia: SFO, En Route (Day 1, Monday, 072709)

I watch a man gliding down the escalator with a mini entourage (a hippy-ish woman with her long, gray hair in a ponytail, an older gentleman in a cowboy hat).

The Important Personage is wearing: a loose-fitting black suit, shiny, red (and possibly glittery) trainers, a wide tie printed with piano keys, and rose-colored glasses. In his left ear dangles an earring of an inverted cross.

He floats up and down the escalator a couple of times, and I become increasingly agitated. Is it like Michael Jackson impersonators? I mean, surely his wardrobe is too stereotypically him and contrary to the Incognito Celeb.

And could I be the only one who recognizes him? There's not even a flicker of recognition on the part of the other bystanders.

But we are at the International Terminal of SFO, after all, and everyone here is Asian and thus, obligatorily ignorant of the identity of this man.

Yes, ladies and gentleman, it's Elton John.

After consulting Tony over the phone, I stalk over and ask his cowboy henchman if he is "who I think he is." Cowboy Henchman coyly smiles and says, "maybe." I ask if he would mind taking a photo with me, because I'm polite like that, and Cowboy Henchman shakes his head in the negative.

We conversate briefly, I asking Elton if he's headed to Bali, he responding with, no, Kathmandu. A google search confirms it: his AIDS Foundation.



(He touched my back!)

This is the best vacation ever. I may as well get back on the BART and head home.