Farewell to Bali

By the time we left Bali, we were both completely ready to go. I had lost all my dewy-eyed optimism about the place.

After our Ubud homestay B&B proved intolerable, we quickly used its excellent wifi to hop onto hotels.com.  There, we were lucky enough to find a resort that met our basic needs: air conditioning and an available room for two nights--New Year's Eve and Day--that might well have proven difficult to book.

Wanting no hurt feelings, we told our hosts, Wayan and Noman, "We like you, really. Your home is lovely. Your grandchild and roosters couldn't be more charming. But we are old and need air conditioning in order to sleep."  More important, we assured them that we would not demand a refund for the pittance they had charged. In return, they seemed content enough to be free of such unreasonable requests as asking Wayan for a fresh towel when his hands were covered with mud from an ongoing re-sodding project.  Noman, a sturdy little Balinese woman, hauled our massive suitcase to the curb, and Wayan drove us free of charge to the new hotel in his well-air-conditioned van. At that point, I wouldn't have minded sleeping in it.

Far outside of the downtown area, on the nearly vertical road to the Monkey Forest, The Sungu Hotel and Resort features traditional Balinese architecture and a wide-open garden layout. We felt certain that this would be a pleasant and refreshing stay.

Hotels.com reservations always go smoothly. Within seconds we had received an email confirmation, with reservation number, and the full payment was immediately extracted from our bank account. 

"Reservation for Wade," I announced at the front desk. 

The desk clerk perused a printout from the back office. Then he uttered words that strike fear into the heart of even the most seasoned traveler. "No reservation here," he said. The last time I'd heard these words was when we booked a hotel for a Rolling Stones concert in Foxboro, MA; backtracked down the highway to find a different place to stay; and then had to retrace our steps through dense concert-going traffic to get there on time. It had worked out then, I thought, but it was a bit stressful.

"Oh, we just made the reservation an hour ago," I chirped. "Perhaps it's a bit late coming in."

"Wade?" And he consulted the same printout again. "No have reservation."

"But I received a confirmation email from hotels.com," I insisted. "And the money has been taken out of our account. Maybe  you could go online and see if it has arrived."

"No reservation," he repeated.

I tried a different tack. "Do you have a room for tonight?"

"Yes."

This was progress.

"But no reservation," he went on.

Now I was getting testy. "Do you have Internet here?"

"Yes, have Internet."

"Well, is it working?"

"Haha. Yes, working."

"Perhaps you could check to see if the reservation has come in, then?"

"No reservation. No."

"Look, I can prove that we have a reservation!" I cried.  I pulled out my laptop, set it up on the check-in desk, and asked for the wifi code.  There was the confirmation email, still in my inbox.  

"See? This says we are confirmed.  And I can open our bank account to show you that the money has been withdrawn!"

"We no have reservation." 

At least this guy is consistent.  Sensing trouble, his manager approached me and managed to explain that, without their own archaic system's recognizing the reservation, they simply could not let us in. He suggested that I sit down and wait on an unyielding piece of rough-hewn wooden furniture in the lobby. 

Not one to sit and wait indefinitely, I solicited Bill's help. I knew what he was thinking, and so do you. Nevertheless, he proposed the elegant solution "Look, we pay cash now; you let us in room; then you give us cash back when reservation come in."

Cash broke the deadlock. The manager turned on his hospitality switch in the blink of an eye. "Please have seat, and we bring you welcome drink!"

The wooden bench didn't seem quite so unyielding with a frozen towel and a honeydew melon/Sprite concoction in hand. 

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The Sungu was not without its continuing rough spots. As I've said, it has an open layout, which means that it is set in a meandering garden, emerald-green and covered in the same moss that engulfs every surface in Bali as soon as it is placed there.

View from bedroom. Note complimentary
New Year's horns on credenza.

 

There were open pools everywhere, even outside our bedroom window and in our bathroom, which was open to the air and featured a heavenly outdoor shower with a large resident snail.






All this openness and greenery meant two things. First, our nostrils could never escape the pervasive odor of mold. And, second, the threat of mosquito infestation called for all-out combative measures. Our largely outdoor bath had a locking door separating it from the sleeping area. (Though it probably locked less because of mosquitoes than because intruders have been known to climb over its wall.) A mosquito coil, matches, and an offer of help with lighting it were among the hotel's basic services.















The bed was romantically swathed in mosquito netting, which the staff offered to help us undo if necessary.

And another odor periodically wafted throughout the resort grounds: mosquito spray, which at least carried the pleasant, anise-like scent of Thai basil.  Given all this, not a single mosquito survived to enter the cracks in our room door or the door from the bath.

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New Year's Eve is apparently as big a deal in Ubud as it is in Florida. In other words, we spent the evening in a war zone, comforted only by the staff's assurances that all festivities would end promptly at midnight, because that was the law. 

It all began at around 8 o'clock with a few local firecrackers, and continued on into full-sized, call-and-response mortar rounds bursting and fizzing directly over the tall, bamboo ceiling of our room. That everything didn't catch alight is a wonder. But it was, indeed, all over shortly after midnight. 

The next morning, we took turns surprising each other and waking the neighbors by blasting the New Year's horns without warning.

The street shrines of Kuta

Even in the most modern of Thai cities, one can walk down the street or stroll a university campus and suddenly happen upon a stupa, an ancient Buddhist shrine around which the city has grown up as if the structure were protected by a force field. Some of these objects date back to the reign of Charlemagne or to the early Middle Ages, when Notre Dame of Paris was being constructed. Some are so old that, like primeval mountains, they are eroded down into pitted mounds. They aren't nearly as grand as the vast wats, Thai temples with which the tourist soon becomes watted out. They are simply part of the urban landscape. But people still leave offerings of flowers, food, and drink at them, and they remain undisturbed no matter where they stand. To stumble across such remarkable artifacts in the midst of a bustling city, unnoticed and unheralded by plaques or guided tours, is a constant revelation.

  

Here in Kuta, Bali, there are even more such structures, though here they are Hindu and not usually so archaic. Some of them are parts of actual temples, pura, but even the little back-alley neighborhoods of Bali look like temple complexes because of their coronet finials, internal courtyards and shrines, and tiled or thatched rooflines.



Apparently, once these edifices are installed, they are never removed.  There are remnants everywhere, still rising silently amid the empty spaces surrounded by ongoing hotel construction.

                                 

Some are now doorways to nowhere, protected by leering guardian demons, dvarapala, who bear weapons and fearsome scowls.

Some dvarapala stand in front of bars and surf shops that have sprouted around them. They are respectfully draped in checkered robes or shrouded like mummies. 

                                                

Barely noticeable twin shrines, contained by iron fences, flank the vacant lot that cuts between The Pad Bar & Grill and our hotel, giving it the illusion of being a bit safer at night.

Antique stone walls coated in emerald-green moss surround a muddy parking lot off Legian Street.

But the newest shrine erected in Kuta has a grimmer origin. Regrettably, it is listed as a top TripAdvisor attraction, in front of which one can see visitors in Santa hats taking one another's grinning photos and their own selfies. On the site of the destroyed Paddy's Pub, a busy corner off Legian Street, stands the massive carved-stone Ground Zero Monument, a memorial to the 2002 terrorist bombings in the Kuta tourist district. It lists on a black marble plaque the names and nationalities of all 202 victims, most of them Australian partiers. One of our drivers, Gede, was among the lucky, bartending at Paddy's when first one, then another bomb went off, leaving him with a permanent tinnitus in one ear and covered with the blood of customers whom he had been serving just moments before.

                                        

The monument bears a handful of smaller, more poignant memorials from the families of individuals who lost their lives there: Jerry & Andrew, Happy Birthday Joey, May Family. One wonders why there are so few of these remembrances.

Like the other mute shrines around the city, it will no doubt stand forever. But it is unlikely that it will ever be as solemn as they. There is now an annual "Kuta Karnival" media promotional event--originally an attempt to bring tourism back to Kuta, but now a big beach party--that celebrates the anniversary of the bombings,

The lemonade stand

Most of us don't opt to spend our birthday, never mind Yuletide, in the hospital. Events conspired to compel Bill to do so.

Being a give-her-lemons-make-lemonade sort, I try to see the good in all circumstances, including this one. I tried to explain this to the girls at our favorite hangout, who gathered round to hear why Bill wasn't with me and how I felt about it,

"Optimist, you know what means?"

They looked at one another, totally stumped.

"Um, think positive?" I hinted.

They all brightened and nodded. This one they'd heard from their Aussie patrons, boss, or boyfriends.

"Yeh yeh yeh!" they all chorused. "Think positive! OP-tee-miss!"

So that's what I remain, writing on the iPad beside Bill's bed, as he sleeps and stabilizes.

The first good in the hospital circumstance was that Bill at last conceded that six weeks of traveler's diarrhea was not the norm. This after three courses of Imodium and electrolytes; charcoal tablets generously provided by our barkeep friend Paul; and a trip to an alleyway medical clinic all proved fruitless. At the clinic, he received two shots in the bum and five different medicines, two of which he oughtn't have had in the first place, for which Dr. Umum was delighted to charge us an outrageous sum. Dokter Umum, I now understand, is Indonesian for "Dr. Generic," just as "Dokter Gigi" means "Dr. Tooth." Such honorifics don't necessarily mean you are dealing with professionals.

Do NOT go to one of these places for anything more
serious than a hangnail. Go straight to the hospital.

After that decision to go to the hospital, many other good things followed. For one thing, the food was the best we have had so far in Kuta--and we received a lovely little tea tray between meals, complete with doily and Christmas fruit cake.

In addition, several lovely Indonesian medical personnel, people who don't know him from Adam, ended up laughingly wishing Bill a happy birthday.

                                 


When today's date appears on your plastic ID bracelet, hospital employees figure that either someone made an administrative error or it's your special day! At one point, we sang an impromptu "Happy Birthday" around his hospital bed. By then well medicated, he grinned blearily.

The only thing missing was the blazing birthday cake.  But our endlessly upbeat and compassionate driver, Gandek, not only came to visit Bill and cheer him up, he also promised to make a cake and have his wife and son accompany him to the bedside festivities.

Bill's ailment had forced us to cancel so many road trips with Gandek at the last minute that I felt certain, each time, that he must be cursing our names and would never speak to us again. This has to be dismaying for a guy who schedules his day and his livelihood around long drives up into the hills of Bali. Gandek never complained. In rapid-fire text messages filled with wildly stuttering consonants, I could almost see him grinning, "Yepppp! Hehehe! OK, Sue. I'm easyyy!" Elizabeth Gilbert may have had her rural shaman, but we've got Gandek.

We've also come to know many other Indonesians during our stay here, from hotel staff to servers, all of whom expressed concern, offered prayers, and asked to be remembered to Bill.  "He'll remember me," giggled Lilis, our server at the German restaurant. "I'm the one he complain to about pizza sauce!" Indeed, Germans can't make pizza sauce worth a damn.

That so many people came into contact with Bill and remembered him fondly, despite occasional fits of ill temper over his bowels, is a tribute to the good hearts of the Balinese people. It was a Balinese It's a Wonderful Life.

And then there was Doctor Leonard, a no-nonsense fellow who didn't always convey good news, but laid it all on the table more thoroughly and clearly than any Western doctor ever has, with only a tad of judgmental head shaking. We must watch the liver, the heart, the cholesterol, the blood pressure. And we really must take our prescribed medications, even if we would rather not. I wish I had a tape recording of this guy, to play every night while Bill sleeps. At least we have his picture.

(L to R) Intern, me, day nurse, Dr. Leonard, Bill, day nurse

Never mind transcendental meditation and Balinese massage. All this has been reason enough to come to Bali.

The Aussies of Kuta

By lucky happenstance for them, Aussies and Balinese  are a three-hour flight away from one another. It's a pity Americans have so far to go to get to Bali, and these other two nationalities will tell you so.

For many Aussies, Kuta, Bali, is a default holiday location. It's cheap, it's close, and they come here over and over again, delighted with the hubbub, camaraderie, and time off to do little but sit around in open-air pubs with no air conditioning. Sometimes they even choose to move here for good, to do so all year round.

We've met plenty of these blokes at the establishments where everyone in our Kuta neighborhood now knows our names. Every big city becomes a small town once you've been there long enough.

Paul Werner and partner Daniel Truslove, Aussie co-owners of The Pad Bar & Grill in Kuta.
More about this place in a later post.

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One sees many Aussies partaking of the three-foot-tall hookahs that are available for about $5 in many bars. It's clear that these devices can be burning nothing stronger than a form of tobacco, given Indonesia's Draconian drug enforcement laws. After all, a British granny is on death row in Bali for the offense of drug trafficking. She isn't exactly your own dear old granny, and the drug was cocaine ... but still.

The substance in the hookahs is shisha, a bowlful of flavored, molasses-based tobacco that is said to be as potent as ten packs of smokes. Although one oughtn't to try smoking a whole one by oneself, some seem determined to try.

This crew of friendly Aussies gathered round a hookah insisted that I have a go of it. 

"But I don't smoke," I protested.

"It won't hurt you! Come on then!" insisted the wheezing gent on the left, both of whose eyes were so thoroughly bloodshot that he looked like an ebola patient. In my opinion, he was smoking far more than his share, wreathing his head in vast clouds of it. When I took a timid pufflet and looked up for approval, he said, "No, no! You've got to really suck it in!"--obviously what he'd been doing all day. I inhaled more boldly. 

Jesus, it was the most revolting grape-flavored stuff I'd ever tasted, like cloying kids' medicine whose  flavor is only worsened when disguised as fruit.

I've already mentioned the two U.S. IT professionals, above right, one of whom took to shisha to such an extent that he might have smoked an entire bowl himself. He was probably giddy with the idea of smoking a hookah in a public place, and quite buzzed by the time we met him. His theory: the ghastly grape flavor is improved by adding mint. 

I didn't test his theory.

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One night we were lucky enough to meet two sweet blokes named Tom and Mel.  Tom, a little guy in a porkpie hat, with scarcely any meat on his bones, was perfectly suited for life as a jockey. Just retired, he'd had the misfortune to have lost his mother and then his sister, without warning, in the space of weeks. Yet here he was, chatting with strangers from America and comparing notes about Joe Bravo and John Velasquez, top jockeys in the States. He was thrilled that we knew and appreciated something of jockeys, and very pleased to be alive.

Mel, an open-faced, dear man sporting a cast on one foot, shoes horses for a living, thus holding the centuries-old vocation of farrier. Just days before his holiday, a client of his delivered the kick that injured his foot. I don't personally understand horses and am intimidated by their size and intelligence. They're also skittish and, I suspect, might bite me at the slightest provocation, rather like parrots or camels.  Mel is a case in point, though he loves the beasts and is sure the horse didn't mean to harm him.

Look at what this horse is doing, for example. In fact, it was nearly toothless and
simply asking for attention.

"No, no," swore the kindly Tom and Mel, who have gotten into training. "Horses have their own personalities, just like dogs and people. Ya just have to get to know 'em." 

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A cricket match between Australia and India was afoot when we arrived in Kuta. A week later, due to the byzantine intricacies of the sport, it was still afoot, because these contests drag on for five days. Michael, an owlish little Aussie who owns a villa here and spends the better part of the year in Bali, filled us in on as much of it as we could absorb. It looks deceptively like baseball but is even slower paced, if that's possible. So, seven days after we'd first met Michael hanging out at a local pub to watch the match, the five-day game was somehow still continuing, unresolved.

"Is this really the same match? Who's winning?" we asked.

He shrugged and made a mezza-mezza gesture. "It could still go either way," he explained, but didn't seem to care particularly about the outcome. It must be a more laid-back spectator sport than American baseball, what with each game's lasting as long as a whole playoff round.

Michael proved to be a font of useful information for Bali newbies like us.

"You want to use Blue Bird taxis. They're always honest, charge you only what's on the meter, and won't drive you in circles. Of course all of the taxis in Bali are blue, with birds on, which can make things a bit confusing. They all started imitating Blue Bird, y'see."

The trick is to look for a particular baby-blue or dark shade, with "Blue Bird Group" on the side and in white lettering across the windshield; drivers in crisp blue shirts; ID numbers that begin with letters like VV; "Bali Taxi" on the front door; and bluebirds in rounded diamonds. You'll see knowledgeable tourists turning aside until they see a bona fide Blue Bird coming, then going into a taxi frenzy.

This is a Blue Bird.

Not a Blue Bird

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Also bewitched by the never-ending cricket match was Jules, a dour-seeming Aussie who brightened considerably when we told him where we were from. He had spent so much time in the States, traveling for work, that he could tell the tale of having been arrested for doing 90 in a 55-mph zone in upstate New York. The arresting officer who clapped him in a cell was quite stern, he said, but the sergeant in charge was delighted to learn that he had an Aussie in his jailhouse. He told Jules, "I knew Aussies in Vietnam, and they were the best fighters of all. No worries, brother. I'll even represent you in court."

So Jules was able to continue his travels, the sergeant stood up for him in court weeks later when Jules was in San Francisco, and he got off with a $45 fine that could easily have been $500.

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As you will have noticed, there are probably more Aussies here than there are Balinese. They are all big talkers and big drinkers. I had imbibed so much one night that I failed to notice that these two gentlemen, a father and son from north of Perth, were rather inebriated themselves.  It took Paul, the bar proprietor's, saying, the next day, "Those two were quite drunk, eh?" for me to see the light. He kindly added that we didn't seem at all tipsy at the time. On the other hand, we are too old to seem drunk, as well as very loyal customers.

Dave and Daniel. I suppose they do look a wee bit sloshed.

In one of those muzzy, lovable interactions that take place in bars, the two of them swung their seats around from the sidewalk rail and scootched right up to our table--so that none of us would have to strain to hear, I imagine. How charming that a father and son should travel and get smashed together, I thought.

The son, an impish fellow who seemed only about thirty, was, as I recall, quite smart about minuscule details. He had apparently read widely and was possessed, I'm sure, of an outrageous IQ. Then, out of the blue, he volunteered the rather private information, "Dad's a doomsday prepper. Have you seen that show?" He then rolled his eyes as only a son can do. He continued to roll his eyes dramatically, as his da took the ball and ran with it.

"The thing is," Dave proclaimed, "If you have a shelter, you got to keep it a secret from the neighbors.They'll be wanting to take it over otherwise, when the bad times come."

We told him about a friend who holds a similar belief and had in fact suggested, when we lived in the wilds of New Hampshire, that our two households band together against the low-life marauders from across the railroad tracks who would surely overwhelm us if we stood alone and had no guns. This friend, we went on, also believed so thoroughly in the silver standard that he purchased a great deal of it as an investment for the end days when the entire economy would collapse, as he has been predicting it will for longer than we've known him. He then found a safe place in the woods to bury it, and promptly forgot where it was.

"Well, that was stupid, wannit?" chortled the old man.

"No, da, you'd never do such a thing, would ye?" quipped the son, rolling his eyes.

We eventually hugged sloppily all around before turning in for the night. The son, who had looked no bigger than his da while sitting around with us, must have been 7 feet tall.

Or maybe I had shrunk under the influence of alcohol.

Spa Visiting 101

I admit it. I wait until I'm somewhere in Southeast Asia to get as many as a dozen manicure-pedicures--largely because they're so cheap there ($13.50 max), I've got nothing else to do, and I have no dishes or dog care to ruin the job the instant I return home.

Of course, there's more to the mani-pedi experience than just getting one's nails trimmed and painted. As much as an hour and a half of oiling, nipping, pushing, abrading, cleaning, massaging, undercoating, painting, top coating, and bouts of vigorous fanning to dry the polish can be involved. Courtesy cups of water, fishing things out of your purse for you which might ding the manicure, local language lessons, and helping you back into your sandals can also be included. This is your day!

One of my several manicures somehow took place on the beach--
not usually advisable, given how sand adheres.

Bill lacked the patience required for a simple
mani-pedi. Barely able to tolerate
this simple clinical procedure in Pattaya,
he was twitchy as a cat. But his toes
have never looked better.

First (unless you're on the beach), you hop up to the entrance, kick off your sandals outside, and step into an air-conditioned salon where peaceful meditation music is playing. Then you determine whether the salon has the right color for you. Usually it does. Otherwise, you would have to beat an embarrassing retreat.  Because I'm nonconfrontational, I've always managed to find a passable color, though Balinese polish tends toward Halloweenish orange hues.

You are then ushered to your own cushioned seat and invited to soak your feet and hands in warm baths. In some cases, I've had two nail technicians working on me at once; in others, only one efficient one.

Usually, a little hand or foot massage costs extra, but some girls will throw one in for free.

Then begins the whole routine involved in making all twenty of your nails more flawless than you could possibly make them.

In Jamaica, a pedicurist insisted on scraping away at the soles of my feet with a grater until I thought I would scream, and left them nearly raw but softer than a baby's behind.

Here in Bali, my perfectionist pedicurist went to town, scrubbing away at every callus on one of my feet until she was satisfied, then picking up the other. Trouble lay ahead. I have been saving a very special, particularly painful corn on the ball of that foot for a U.S podiatrist. She began scrubbing it; I went "Ow"; and she inquired, with concern, "Pain?"  I nodded, and she began to take things very seriously indeed.  Out came a pair of lobster-like pincers with which she began enthusiastically digging away at the thing.

She worked away for a good while, as I thought: Are pedicurists in Bali also trained as podiatrists? Are these tools sterile? Will I need a Band-Aid? How about antiseptic? I asked all these questions of her, to which she smiled agreeably, continuing to work and chat quietly with her colleague--no doubt about how she had never seen such feet or heard such whining in her entire short career.

Eventually, she proudly presented me with a small granule that she had dug out of my foot. Her colleague admired it. Wow, I'm like an oyster to have created such an object, I thought. I didn't tell her so, lest she dig around for more.

She did anyway, despite my occasional protests that, really, it was fine and we needed to finish up. She paid no heed. This was a mission now. I began to fear that I would have to pay an additional 100,000 rupiah for this excavation. In the midst of it all, she applied alcohol. Shouldn't that have come first?

At length, the word got out. The boss lady and three or four other girls gathered round the operating theater. They goggled as they peered at my foot.

Now truly alarmed, I asked, "Is it bleeding? Can I see? Don't I need an antibiotic now? Is there a podiatrist around here?"

They smiled and went on about their business, while my pedicurist went on about hers.

Finally, I could take no more, made keep-away hand motions, and uttered my safe words: "Ti dahk!" ("No problem!").

The whole process took so long that I was unable to avoid a violent  Balinese thunderstorm that I'd seen approaching. Lightning cracked overhead; the alleys turned into ankle-deep, warm mudbaths filled with rotted offerings, rat droppings, and dog and horse shit. In all this I walked home on the sandal-shod foot that had just been operated on. If I'd had a Band-Aid, it would have washed off.

When I got back to the hotel, I washed my foot more thoroughly than it had ever been washed. I hope Neosporin really works.

The nails look great, though.

News at 11.

Full circle in Bali

The people whom one meets in Kuta, Bali, are likely to be either Indonesian or Australian--two of the most fun-loving, outgoing nationalities on the planet. They, and the island of Bali, where our journey will end, could not be more different from the people and the island where the journey began: Iceland.

It was thus a serendipitous surprise to learn that the person with whom we've conversed the most around our hotel pool is a pale Icelandic youth who has been at the hotel for over a month, even longer than we will be there.

Siggy is a web designer by trade and thus able to work wherever he can find a good Internet connection. Who can blame him for choosing workplaces other than his frigid and, as he puts it, insanely expensive homeland?  Of course, we don't see much evidence of his toiling away on the hotel's excellent wifi connection. After all, he has found a lovely Indonesian girlfriend, with whom he cuddles by the pool when not chatting with us about his worldwide adventures.

And what adventures Siggy has had! From his deposit's being held hostage by a Kuala Lumpur hotel to running out of money in New York City.  And yet, voluble as he is, he shares his countrymen's peculiarly frozen demeanor--a reserve that keeps their bodies swathed in soft control and their ice-blue eyes nearly unblinking.  Icelanders make no sudden movements.

As many as 50 percent of them also hold a guarded belief in elves. These are not the tiny, pointed-green-cap, curled-up-red-slippers species of Santa's Workshop, but rather the powerful huldufolk ("hidden folk"), human-size, somewhat-invisible beings straight out of Lord of the Rings. One researcher in Icelandic folklore has written: "You've got to get right up close before you can be sure it's an elf and not a human." These creatures are said to be mostly benign, and in fact protect humans who accommodate them nicely, but they dislike having their territory monkeyed with. If it is, dire accidents can befall both equipment and humans. In fact, I am having trouble posting this entry.  I may have offended them.  If so, I heartily apologize and accede to their power. Really. I now fear returning to Iceland without their approval.

Once you've seen the craggy lava fields between Reykjavik and its airport, where hunched gnome-shaped rock formations dot the landscape, belief in such beings begins to seem downright rational. Icelandic seers over the centuries have claimed to sense the energy of elf churches and underground dwellings, and still advise such governmental departments as the Icelandic Road and Coastal Administration. Work on a recent highway project near Reykjavik was halted until a plan could be devised to avoid disturbing well-established elf habitat.

It's all a bit strange, though Siggy is not. On the other hand, perhaps he is an elf rendered visible by the warmth of Bali. I suppose we must get right up close to be sure.

Eat Pray Survive

Elizabeth Gilbert published her best-selling Eat Pray Love eight years ago. The "love" third of her year-long journey--following a four-month gourmand orgy in Italy and a four-month sweat-drenched meditation retreat in India--took place in Bali. According to Gilbert, Bali is a heavenly oasis of fantastical verdure, peace, and rural medicine men eager to tell your fortune and lead you to your heart's desire.

I now realize that the spot in Bali where she lived for four months was Ubud, an unspoiled, rice-paddied hillside paradise merely two hours away from the spot where we now sit, in Kuta.  Ubud seems to be eight years and a universe removed.

Because Gilbert made everything about Bali sound so damn easy and delightful, we were as unprepared for Kuta as we were for the Indonesian rupiah.  As a result, we are committed to staying here for three weeks, innocent as swans and slowly learning the ropes.

Picture the frenzied, thumping-neon zaniness of Pattaya, Thailand. Okay. Now, mix that all up with tattooed Aussie surfers (some of them wearing raw new tats swathed in Saran Wrap), bony late-middle-aged hippies with grey hair trailing down their leathery backs, and alleyways with haphazard sidewalk space that dwindles down to a footprint's width without notice, threatening to pitch you into the constant flow of traffic.

Shopkeepers here also have a disconcerting tendency to hurl water from their storefronts out into the street, just as pedestrians are passing by. And motorbikes bearing surfboards share a Zen-like right of way with each other and with those on foot. Store proprietors chortle when they see newbies startle and squeak at being brushed by such vehicles. The trick, I understand, is to walk with attitude, as if in the jungle, secure in the confidence that they wish to harm you no more than you wish to be harmed. Accidents are less frequent here than in Pattaya, after all.

This intrepid worker kept on mortaring a hole in the street, oblivious to motorbikes
brushing his shoulders. He no doubt believed the cone protected him well enough.

Kuta traffic jam, involving a jumble of motorbikes, a large truck (no longer visible), and a horse-drawn rickshaw.
Its stressed-out four-legged laborer relieved itself in the road, in which the two-legged laborer slid
about helplessly before moving on.  In case they needed it, a clinic wasn't far away.

Even the Kuta Post Office poses its own hazards. The local office is basically an open storefront with a chest-high counter where one steps up to make one's transactions. A large color poster on the wall warns you not to try mailing puppies or kittens. A single express-envelope mailing here costs $25 but is promised to arrive somewhat more quickly than the "maybe two weeks, maybe three weeks, maybe a month" time frame of normal mail. Mail deliveries arrive at the post office without warning, in great twine-wrapped plastic bales tossed with a loud thump off a passing motorbike, heedless of customers waiting at the counter. Here, too, attitude and trust are essential to one's safety.

This display, out front of the post office, is either a very blessed (note Hindu offering) pile of
packages en route to Australia or samples of how one's packages ought to be prepared. 

In Thailand are a wide variety of elaborately gilded, raised Buddhist shrines bearing such offerings as sandalwood incense, garlands of yellow marigolds, bits of food, bright-red fruit drinks, and whiskey shots, all designed to bring good karma. Taxicabs there have marigold garlands dangling from their rearviews. Bar girls drape their establishments with offerings, to ensure rich bar fines. All these are lovely--and completely nonthreatening.

A particularly elaborate shrine outside the Hua Hin Railway Station

Simpler flower offerings for sale

But here in Bali, one must beware of the seemingly harmless canang sari, Hindu offerings in baskets fashioned of palm leaves, which hold white, red, yellow, and blue or green flowers representing the major Hindu deities. These small sacrifices often also include incense, bread, candies, fruit, the intoxicating stimulant betel nut, and tobacco--thus the occasional rolled smoke or cigarette butt makes an appearance amid the other goodies. These ephemeral gifts are, daily, swamped and washed away by the shopkeepers' hurled buckets of water. By day's end, every tilted walkway turns into a treacherously slippery slope strewn with broken offerings, and new offerings are put out each morning, to appease evil spirits and trip up the unwary once more.

Rats especially delight in the candies, if not also the smokes and betel nut. They are probably higher than kites. On my first night here, I was greeted by one careless rodent who had been flattened in the road like Wile E. Coyote hitting a canyon wall. Later, I encountered more hyperactive cousins of his, skittering down the sidewalk into ragged cracks, then peeking out at me, whiskers twitching impishly.

After you spend a while there, with eyes wide open, every place on earth will show you its own charm.

"I could live here!" I exclaim, every time.

In which we undergo conversion

After surviving the unintelligible Czech alphabet and tram system; getting around quite well on a bit of spoken Thai in Pattaya and Hua Hin; and mastering the Czech koruna and the Thai baht in a matter of hours, what could be so hard about acclimating to one more new country?

Ngurah Rai International Bali Airport, to begin with.

After retrieving our luggage there, we were plunged into a throng of Japanese families and European backpackers, all  busily filling out immigration cards at two small stand-up tables in a vast entry hall. But where had they obtained these cards? No one seemed to know. We turned to a uniformed official, who, we thought, would surely help us. Instead, he informed us that we needed to pay $35 apiece for a Balinese entry visa. We hadn't yet gotten any local currency, but he was content to have all our Singapore dollars, from a layover there. Now we had no money.

Meanwhile, three immigration cards had appeared on one of the tables.  I seized two of them at once, before anyone else could, and began filling them out--a detailed process that took about as long as penning a college application essay.

After we had successfully navigated immigration and customs, an ATM became an obvious priority.

Now, a word about Indonesian currency. One Indonesian rupiah is equal to the wholly unfathomable amount of 0.000018 U.S. dollar. Grasping this is like trying to comprehend how many atoms are in an elephant. Why even have a piece of currency so worthless? Sometimes, in fact, Balinese convenience store clerks will hand you little hard candies as small change.

Confronted with an inscrutable ATM that dispenses such pieces of paper, but shows oddly truncated amounts on the screen, we had no idea how many we ought to withdraw in order to pay for, say, a taxi.  By now, Bill was tired and a bit testy with me for not having figured all this out ahead of time.

I hazarded a guess at, oh, 500,000 rupiah, which sounded like quite a lot of money. The ATM replied, "CANNOT PROCESS REQUEST. CONTACT YOUR BANK." Well, I must have asked for too much then. A few other amounts yielded the same result. Okay, the thingy must be out of money. On to another ATM. "CANNOT PROCESS REQUEST. CONTACT YOUR BANK," it repeated.

Sweat begins to trickle from one's armpits when this sort of thing happens in a foreign airport. But then, blessedly, a young man who was trying to pay the fee required to leave this damn country received the same grim message and was moving, drenched in sweat, to a third ATM. This machine was in a better mood.

We took out the princely sum of 200,000 rupiah, which turned out to be about $20 and not nearly enough to pay for our cab ride.

To obtain some kind of benchmark, I ran into a Circle-K while our cabbie waited. I grabbed a pack of M&Ms and blurted, "How much for these?"

"10,000 rupiah, about $1," answered the clerk, who stood there dumbstruck as I dashed off without buying them.

Henceforth, our default withdrawal would be the mind-boggling amount of 1 million rupiah, or $100, dispensed in thick wads of bills that bloat one's wallet, blow about when paying for something, and end up being flashed much too obviously.

It takes about three days to master counting one's change after any transaction in Bali.