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.