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?