Snapshots of Bali

In lieu of the camera which conveniently broke as Stephanie, Sarah and I waited at the airport—and because I’ve just spent 20 hours in the last two days helping my school write a last-minute many page grant proposal (so I never want to write again)—I’ll just give some brief “snapshots” of our Bali adventures.

Snapshot 1: Canggu “Girl’s Night In”
We arrived in Denpassar at midnight and drive into the dark countryside, towards a private villa Maura managed to rent through charm and chutzpa. We make it to the villa—a beautiful building circular in formation, with a central outdoor patio circled by a fish find and adjacent pool in the center—to find half of our friends already asleep or passed out. Maura and Julianne were awake, though, and Maura, god bless her soul, had managed to smuggle 12 bottles of wine (an extremely rare and precious commodity in Indonesia) from the Embassy, onto the plane, and to our private villa. Exhausted though we all were, we snuggled up in and around Maura’s bed with some lovely, velvety red wine and talked and laughed and gossiped until 3 in the morning.

Snapshot 2: “Earthquake”
Stephanie and I, in our king-sized bed, awoke 4 hours after concluding “Girl’s Night In”, to some violent shaking. Stephanie mumbled something about a “machine being broken”; I, thinking the shaking was caused by a giant gecko with which I was conversing in my dream, couldn’t figure out what she was talking about. It turns out that although machines and giant geckoes are common in Indonesia, they’re not as common as earthquakes. 6.7 on the Richter Scale earthquakes. We jumped out of bed, peeped out the window to find that the rice paddies and rolling hills outside the villa seemed serene (other than some panicked birds), turned around, and went back to bed. Until Adam, with his booming voice, elicited conversation with someone much quieter and also awake, 30 minutes later. It was go time for the Bali vacation.

Snapshot 3: “Ubud: Cheap Stuff”
Ubud, a lovely little town (albeit a touristy one) is a fabric and textile-lover’s mecca—the bright jewel tones of swathes and swathes of beautiful sarongs, scarves, and cloth, the tables covered with hand carved art and pottery, all at discount prices, are hard to resist. And I didn’t. At all. Not the least bit.

Snapshot 4: “Fine, I’ll just sit here then. Fine, you do that. Fine.”
Stephanie, Mark and I decided to stay in Ubud for a kecak performance. Having seen kecak before, I knew it was going to be hypnotic and beautiful, and it was. A large chorus of Indonesian men and boys of all ages sit in a circle surrounding a fire, chanting in unison for an entire hour— “kechak-kechak-kechak”— as a traditional Hindu story of love, good vs. evil, war and such things is played out by beautifully-garbed dancers twirling around the fire. There were bonus dances this time, though: two beautifully-garbed little girls, in a trance, danced in unison for 15 minutes straight—with their eyes closed; and a man straddling a bamboo horse ran through coconuts. That were on fire. With his bare feet. Not bad. Flash forward to our ride home: Mark, after explaining that he hates taxis, convinces us to board a black SUV, owned by some guy on the street who agreed to take us back to Canggu for a modest price. We get to Canggu—we literally drove over the town line, and the guy stopped. And says, “We’re here.” “We’re where?”, we all ask in unison. “Canggu,’ he says. We look out the window at the dark rice fields surrounding us—there’s not a house in sight—and realize he has taken us to the town, but not to our villa. So technically he’s right, but really? We ask him to take us to our hotel, at which point the guy yells, “You lie to me; you said Canggu; you pay me more!” Mark the taxi-hater, gestures out the window and yells, “Do you think we sleep here? Here? Do you think so? You lie.” Silence. And sitting. We sit there. The driver sits there. At a stand still. We don’t want to pay extra. He doesn’t want to drive. We sit. Our silent dialog, communicated through body language alone: “Fine, I’ll just sit here, then. Fine, you do that. Fine.” After 15 minutes and a call to villa security, he drives us to our villa. And we don’t pay extra. And he calls Mark “crazy.” Indeed.

Snapshot 5: “Dancing with the Ocean”
Having arrived in Seminyak three hours before any of the “action” started (we’re too old for this midnight business), we wandered down to the ocean. Adam, having imbibed one too many large Bintangs, careened off towards the dark water, wearing his large white shoes and khakis. He then proceeded to roll up his pants—in case they got wet, of course—forgetting that he was still wearing his shoes—so that he could dance with, who else, but the ocean. The entire ocean. And Adam doing the robot with the entire ocean. Flash forward to 11 pm (almost going out time). Stephanie begs the DJ at the sleepy bar we are at to play one, just one, hip-hop song: Beautiful. He eventually does. We bound out to the dance floor. Adam, wearing his sparkling, bright red hat bearing the single word, OBAMA, begins to shout “Obama” to a crowd of shocked Euros and amused Indonesians. We dance. The way Americans dance when they’re the only ones on the dance floor. Flash forward to midnight: we find a hip hop club. And we dance the way Americans dance when they’re the only ones on the dance floor. Until a mob of Indonesian boys encircle Adam—not us girls, mind you—and begin to mimic his moves. Men don’t dance too close in Indonesian clubs. I like that. Because I sweat and I have a boyfriend, thank you very much.

Snapshot 6: “There’s Something Under the Bed" or "A Swamp Rat Ate Through my Balinese Purse.”
After a three hour drive through lush mountains, we arrive at Menjegayan (sp?) Resort, which is located inside a national forest near Pemuteran. As we drive down an extremely bumpy road to our cabins on the sea, the breeze is cool and dry (a rarity in Indo) and the landscape is California-like—dry brush, ocean, shrubs, trees—except there are jungle animals everywhere: tiny red deer, large deer, monkeys, jungle fowl. You name it. Our cabins, situated in a mangrove forest overlooking the ocean, are rustic—with only a screen to separate us from the wild, thatched roofs, and outdoor bathrooms with no hot water. But the scenery is gorgeous, and right around the corner from our cabins is a white sand beach overlooking a gorgeous turquoise ocean. Not bad. After hiking around a bit and eating supper in a giant treehouse (or at least that’s what it looked like)—which evidently the tallest structure in Bali—Stephanie and I headed to bed.
I fell asleep listening to the sound of the ocean and creaking mangroves and I awoke two hours later to the sound of crunching. Underneath the bed. Mind you, we are in a king-sized bed that leaves roughly one foot of free floor space in the entire cabin—so there was little doubt that, whatever it was, was underneath the bed. I wake Stephanie up, whispering, “There’s something in here.” Afraid to reach around the mosquito nets to turn on the light, we both turn on the flashlights on our cell phones. She doesn’t believe me at first, until we hear the thing scuttle around a bit. We simultaneously scoot to the middle of the bed. And we sit there. I ask, “What do we do?” Stephanie answers, “I don’t know.” “We’re trapped on this little island called our bed,” I whisper melodramatically (OK, I didn’t actually say that at the time, but that’s what I wish I had said). Eventually, we make a simultaneous move, clearing the bed and exiting the cabin in one fluid jump. I volunteer to look under the bed. I timidly shine my flashlight under the bedskirt, and see my flip-flop, pushed all of the way under the bed—something I didn’t do. And then I see it. A 10-inch swamp rat, huddled next to half-eaten peanut packets and an empty Emergen-C packet. The bastard not only ate my peanuts, but it attempted to take my flip flop hostage…and, to add insult to injury, while in pursuit of said items, it chewed through the strap of my brand-new hand-beaded Balinese purse. We go to get the security guard, but the rat is gone when we return…dunh dunh dun.


Snapshot 7: “I was following a big fish and they left me” or “This is fucking horrible!”
The morning after the rat ate my purse we went snorkeling near an island close to Menjagayan Resort. The fish were absolutely lovely—they were blue, yellow, red, white, black, purple, striped, flat, fat, slithery, star-shaped, fast and slow—and they weren’t scared of me as I floated above them (a position which, unbeknownst to myself, helped me burn my back and booty to a crisp despite copious amounts of sunscreen). Like any self-respecting snorkeler, I chose a giant, rather aggressive fish with pouty lips and a blue stripe to follow. And follow I did. Until I surfaced and realized I couldn’t see the boat. I swam for 5 minutes in the open ocean to the nearest boat—only to realize my friends weren’t on it—and then I swam another 5 minutes to another boat—only to realize my friends weren’t on it. At this point, I was tired of fighting the current so I decided to float a bit. And a dude in a snorkel mask comes up to me and asks if I’m OK. I say I’m fine, (pride), and begin to swim again. And he follows me. I thought, how creepy, and swim faster. And I can’t find the boat. How creepy. It is only then that I realize it’s Agus, our guide, following me. He must have thought I was really strange to swim so rapidly away from him after he asked about my well-being…he explained to me that the boat had left me to pick up our scuba-diving friends. And he had stayed behind to find me. Moral of story: don’t follow big fish too far. Your friends will leave you behind.

After they finally came to pick us up, we began our journey back to the mainland, only to realize that rather than hiring a real boat for our excursion, we had, in fact, hired a skiff. Three foot white-caps and 30 mph winds made our ride back less than relaxing. After about 5 minutes, everyone had donned their snorkel masks to avoid seawater in their eyes. Adam, who had been paid by a seasick Mark to be quiet for one hour so he could be sick in peace (seriously), finally broke the seawater, wind-induced silence, with “I know it’s only been 35 minutes and Mark paid for an hour, but this is fucking horrible!” Indeed. The white sand beach next to our cabins at the end of the trip sweetened the deal though.

Snapshot 8: “Getting there is half the battle: Kawa Ijen volcano”
At 5 in morning the next day Stephanie, Mark, Julianne, Courtney, and our lovely guides Wayan and Agus headed to our hike up Kawa Ijen, an active volcano. After driving an hour, taking an hour-long ferry ride (which was stunning, as we got to watch from sea as the sun came up over the Balinese mountains), we drove into a beautiful rain forest. And we discovered the only thing in this entire indirect, meandering, haphazard country that could be called direct: the road up to the volcano. When constructing mountain roads in the U.S., we build switchbacks so that cars needn’t climb at a 65 degree angle over gravel and potholes. Not so in Indonesia. At one point, in the middle of the rainforest, on a particularly steep climb, Agus had to jump out and put a rock under the back tire until it got traction so that we could continue the climb. And he repeated this. Many times. We finally made it, and, as the hike began, we realized the same concept applied. The 2.5 mi trail to the top of the volcano was straight up as well. Luckily Nate trained me this summer to run up a similar mountain in MA (Skinner, for those of you in the know), so Agus didn’t need to put a rock behind my boot so that I could get traction…

The hike was worth it, though. As we climbed, the temperature dropped to 60 degrees, and it actually felt like fall. At the top, we looked down and down and down into a turquoise green lake, steaming with sulfur and surrounded by caramel colored sulfur deposits. I hiked to the very top alone (I couldn’t just almost make it to the top—I had to go all of the way) and it felt like I was on top of the world. Bare rock, red wild flowers, sandy deposits, large views of the lake and surrounding volcanoes. Beautiful.

Snapshot 9: “Hot Water, Good Beer, Amen”
We ended our trip in Padang Bai, a sleepy beach town, where there were no swamp rats or mangroves, but there was cable TV, hot showers, and a bar that sold more than Bintang. And that’s what we did. Showered and drank delicious Bali Storm Ale. For two days. OK. Maura, Stephanie and I took a batik class, where we created beautiful works of art using just wax, some dye, and a little imagination, but for the most part we showered and drank delicious beer.

Now you just have to fill in the blank spots in my narrative with beautiful flowers, funny friends, towering mountains, Hindu shrines, smiling Indonesians and delicious food and you’ll get the whole picture.