I was restless last night. I couldn’t fall asleep and was up again at 5:00 AM. I went out to the beach to see the fishermen taking off in their boats, but the beach was silent and the jukung remained on the shore. It is not a good day for fishing apparently.

I went for a walk up the road. This town is so schizophrenic—lots of local life going on:

And then there are hundreds of signs like this:

I felt antsy and uncertain about the day. I met a couple of British tourists last night and they said they were going on a 45 K downhill bike ride with the East Bali Bike Company, and I decided to join them. But before I went to bed last night, I read the brochure more carefully and realized that I would be careening down very muddy (big lightening and thunder storm last night) hillsides on a mountain bike, and that is not me. I hate going downhill. I’ve never gone mountain biking or wanted to go mountain biking. Give me a flat road and a street bike, and yes, sure, sign me up. But this ride sounded like a lot more than I really was prepared for physically or mentally.

And then at breakfast, the young man from last night (let’s call him Ketut) came over to chat and asked if I wanted to attend a ceremony with him in his village this afternoon. If I wanted to go, he would pick me up at 2:30. How could an organized activity for tourists possibly compare to an opportunity to experience village life? The choice was a no-brainer.

While I was waiting for the bike guy to arrive so I could tell him I didn’t want to go after all (we couldn’t reach him by phone), I chatted with one of the staff members, Ketut Eka, at the front desk. Eka means “one” and she has that name because she has three brothers and she is the one girl in her family.

As we talked, Eka discarded the old petals from this offering bowl and carefully replaced them with fresh ones. She slid a couple of blossoms on the counter underneath the business cards. That is so Balinese—always creating beauty.

When Eka turned and faced me I realized she was pregnant. I asked her due date and found out she is due the same month as my daughter-in-law, Brinn—just two months from now. That gave us a lot to talk about.

Eka told me about all the ceremonies families have for babies: a ten-day ceremony, a one-month-and-7-days ceremony, a three-month ceremony, another at six months, one for cutting the hair, and so on. Babies’ feet are not allowed to touch the ground for three months. They are carried constantly. That’s what the three-month ceremony commemorates—when the baby’s foot is first allowed to touch the ground.

Eka’s whole family, her husband, four-year-old son and in-laws live in one compound. She, like everyone else I’ve met in the last 24 hours, can’t understand why I’m here alone. When I told her that my partner and older son are in California, that my daughter on her way to Morocco, and my son lives in Boston, she looked at me as if she really felt sorry for me. And I felt sorry for me at that moment too. “In my country, we live very spread apart. Families do not live all together.”

When I said I thought things were better in her country, with everyone under one roof, Eka laughed and said, ‘Yes, unless we are fighting.”

Eka told me that both she and her husband both commute to work in tourism. She is 33 years old and comes from Sebetan Village, famous for its salak (snakefruit) harvest. She could either farm snakefruit or work in tourism and tourism pays better. 

Eka’s in-laws care for her son while she and her husband work to support the whole family. Since her village is an hour away, sometimes when she works the evening shift, she sleeps over here and goes back home the next day.

During a Google search about Amed the other day, I read about Bangle Village nearby. In the village, there are five holy springs. The Bangle Holy Waters, also called Toya Masam (Acid Waters) include five springs, each with a different taste. They are believed to contain healing properties – curing cancer, diabetes, kidney stones, stomach and skin problems. The first spring is supposed to be sour (or acidic), the second, sour and astringent. The third one is supposedly sweet, the fourth neutral and the last, extremely bitter. The springs get their tastes from the mineral-rich, volcanic rocks of Mount Seraya.

I told Eka I wanted to go there. I asked if I could walk and she said I’d need to go on motorbike. Ketut was standing nearby and offered to take me. He said that he had been wanting to get some holy water himself. “When do you want to go?” he asked.

“Now?” I replied.

“Now is good,” he said. He told me it would cost $25,000 rupiah to pay a local guide (about $2.50) to lead us to the springs. I went to get the money, the poncho I bought yesterday (it was drizzling) and to exchange my flip-flops for my Keens.

I didn’t know what to expect, but I hopped on the back of his scooter. He bought a liter of gas, handed me a clean empty bottle to hold his holy water, and we took off into the rainy morning. We passed the tourist strip and Ketut turned up to a small road on the left. Suddenly we were on a very rough rutted curvy road. I leaned into him and into the curves and he leaned his elbows on my thigh. It felt like we were one body. As he drove through flooded roads and up windy, steep, pockmarked roads, he asked, “Are you scared?”

“No,” I said. “I love it.”

Very quickly, we were in rural Bali and there was no sign of development or tourists or anything but the local people living their lives much the same way they have for centuries. Whole families were working in the communal rice fields (which Ketut told me also grow peanuts and corn, depending on the season). Little children were planting and carrying plants. Men were plowing with huge yoked oxen and wooden plows. Everyone was working together to create their sustenance:

We pulled over onto the side of the road once we reached Bangle Village. Ketut quickly found a teenage boy who agreed to lead us to the spring for a small fee.

And we followed him up a rocky path that overlooked the rice fields:

The path meandered for a long time:

But then it grew rocky and more challenging. The pathway was muddy and slippery and wet. I was grateful that I was wearing Keens rather than sneakers or flip-flops (like Ketut and our guide were). But still I had to clamber up and down the path using my hands to steady me on rocks, tree trunks, anything I could grab that was stable. This was more of a hike and quite a bit more rigorous than I’d expected.

“Like a trek?” Ketut asked.

“Yes,” I replied, smiling. I was loving it. This was way better than a bike ride down a mountain. And I was definitely getting my exercise for the day. We even had to forge a stream crossing:

Finally, we reached the first spring. I don’t know I expected—a neat little row of spigots coming out of the ground?  We had to hike to each of five separate springs, up and down muddy slopes, rocky outcroppings, and a wide variety of terrain.

There was a shrine at the first spring. And I paid a donation of $10000 rupiah ($1.00) and signed a guest book. And then I tasted the water.

And we climbed to the second spring and the third. The fourth and the fifth. I tasted them all. I couldn’t tell that much difference between them, though the water definitely tasted different. Ketut said they were diluted from the rain and all of the run-off.

The whole time, with each sip, I was definitely thinking giardia, parasites, (and worse), but I went ahead and tasted them. I figured that the Gods were either protecting me or laughing at me.

I prayed for healing, even though I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to heal from.

Each time we came to the next spring, Ketut prayed and sprinkled the holy water on his head, and then on mine, and added a little to the bottle I had carried for him.

After we drank from the fifth stream, we had a long hike back down to the village road, and we had to cross the stream again. Partway down, Ketut’s foot got stuck in the mud and when he slurped it up out of the mud, his flip-flop was broken.

He left them by the side of the trail and clmbed the rest of the way down barefoot. The views from the bike on the way down were exquisite. It was the old, real untouched Bali and I was so grateful to see it. When we got back to the hotel, I had Ketut go to the warung across the street and I bought him gas for the bike and a new pair of flip-flops. And then I went back to my room to rest.

This was my six-dollar lunch: a huge piece of fresh grilled tuna, rice piled in a cone with a banana leaf, Balinese vegetables, and fresh sambal. To quote my friend Allison, “yum!” The food is excellent here. No reason to eat anywhere else during my stay.

Now I’m resting and reading until its time to go to the ritual. It is quite a rainy day, but it’s a warm rain. It doesn’t look like its going to let up, but here in Bali, you never know.

Later….I napped and got dressed and packed my sarong and temple scarf in my backpack, threw a poncho over it all. I went out front to wait for Ketut to pick me up for the ritual. It was pouring and he didn’t come. Fifteen minutes later, he called the office to say he couldn’t come because it was raining too hard in his village. I was disappointed, but happy he had made the effort to get a message to me. I feel connected to him. I will never forget him. I hope I get to see him again before I leave Amed tomorrow.

Now I am alone, the only guest in this whole hotel, on a very rainy day with the rest of the afternoon stretching out before me. My immediate impulse is to want to DO something, but maybe it is okay to just rest. To read. To head out of here early tomorrow morning for Candidasa and the Lotus Bungalows, the first place I landed in Bali last year.

It’s interesting for me to note that even here in Bali, I want to be doing something, that the idea of the rest of the day with nothing but dinner in front of me—dinner alone—is a challenge. It’s hard for me to sit with just feeling lonely, but I think that’s exactly what I need to do.

Later still…I went out for another walk in the rain and just took pictures of some of things that caught my eye. On my way back from the hotel, I was practicing my greetings in Indonesian with everyone I passed (more on this another day). I was using the proper greeting for afternoon, Selamat Sore to a man and his wife sitting on a wooden deck outside their shack, right on the road. The man returned my greeting and said to me in English, “Come to my house.”

I did a double take to be sure and he was gesturing me over and he repeated his words. He spread a red blanket down on the wooden deck and gestured for me to sit, and asked if I wanted a cup of Balinese coffee. I hate the stuff, but of course, I nodded yes and his wife, who spoke no English, went to make it.

The man’s name introduced himself as Ketut Sadra. Like many of the people I’ve met in Amed, he was eager to practice his English since English-speakers are more likely to capture tourist business and tourist dollars.

I sat down cross-legged in front of him, being careful not to point my feet at him (an insult to the Balinese), as I tried to remember all the etiquette I learned from Judy and Surya last year.

Ketut told me he was 33 years old. I asked if he were a fisherman. He said he used to be, but then he showed me the large hump on his back and said he was injured and he had to sell his boat to go to the doctor. Now he was trying to work on the beach with the tourists to take them snorkeling and fishing.

Ketut Sadra and his wife have two children. Their Wayan, their oldest, is 11, and the youngest, 7. Two boys. Inside the house, I could hear the voice of his mother, an older voice, and see her hand gesture through the doorway.

I asked about the childrens’ schooling. Ketut Sadra said sometimes they got to go to school; other times they can’t. It costs 5000 rupiah, or 50 cents, every day for transportation to school, and if there are no tourists buying his services, his sons can’t go to school. “The fifty cents,” he told me, doesn’t include their books or their shoes.”

As I drank my overly sweet, thin Balinese coffee, and ate a proffered bright yellow pastry with a bright red sweet center (the Balinese equivalent of a Twinkie), Ketut Sadra asked, as everyone does, “Where is your husband?” I answered as I’ve learned to do, “meeting me in Candidasa,” because to say I have a wife, and not a husband, is just too hard for these struggling conversations.

Ketut Sadra told me there were cockfights 3 kilometers away and made it clear that people were gambling. He asked if I wanted to go and I said no. I’m all for taking part in this culture, but watching roosters peck each other to death in an illegal cockfight was definitely not something I was up for. He also tried to convince me that his cousin could drive me to Candidasa. I told him, sorry, that I had already arranged a ride.

As we talked over the next half hour, I taught Ketut some new English words and he taught me some new Indonesian ones:

What’s your name?  Siapa namamu?

Where are you going?  Di mana anda akan pergi?

Outside: di luar

In front: di depan

Behind:  di belakang

Beside: di samping

He also taught me that the local fishermen only fish for mackerel. Mahi mahi ad tuna, which I’ve been eating on a daily basis are harvested further away.

Toward the end of my visit, Ketut’s oldest son, Wayan, came home and shyly greeted me. Then he sat next to his mother, who immediately took out a lice comb and started working through his hair.

Before I left and said my selamat singal, I asked if I could take Ketut’s picture. He said yes and wanted to pose with one of the wooded boat models he sells to tourists. Then he wrote down his email address for me in my little notebook in the hopes I could send some tourist business his way. I really wish I could. There is such poverty here.

Back at my hotel, I decided I wanted a massage. When I asked if they could set one up for me, they asked if I wanted a local massage or a professional massage. The local massage costs $8.00 an hour and is done by one of the local (uncertified, untrained) woman. A professional massage is done at one of the spas and costs twice as much. I opted for the spa massage and paid 200,000 rupiah or $20 dollars. It was a so-so massage, but it was heaven to lie naked on a table listening to roosters and the wind and the evening call to prayer, to feel a warm breeze on my body and listen to the rain stop and then start again in a downpour.

I was well aware of the fact that I was spending half of a tourist worker’s monthly salary on what I considered a bargain massage.

Now I am warm and clean and relaxed and it’s almost time for dinner. I think I’ll have the mahi mahi again tonight. With a salad. And another piece of that divine lemon cheesecake. You usually don’t get western desserts in Bali. The ones at this place are definitely a treat.

I think I’ll go to bed early tonight, read until I fall asleep. I’ve booked a car for $25.00 to take me to Candidasa tomorrow morning. That’s where I’ll be welcoming Karyn and our group a few days from now. It’s time for me to get ready to be the teacher again.

I only hope I get to see “my” Ketut tomorrow morning before I take off. I’d like to give him a generous tip for being my tour guide and for trusting me with his story.

P.S. To those of you taking this virtual vacation with me, I just want you to know how very much your comments mean to me. It takes me so long to write each post that I don’t also have time to respond to you individually, but I want you to know that from across the world, I savor every comment you make, so please keep them coming. I LOVE hearing from you! In particular, if you have any stories or advice about traveling alone, I’d  love to hear them!

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“She made of her life an offering, a beautiful gift far greater than the sum of the heartbreaks that had come one after the other. She proved, with her life, that great love can eclipse great sorrow.”

–excerpt from a eulogy by Santa Cruz writer, Nancy Grace, for her mother

Tell me about someone who fits this description. (And it could be you.)

This is the first time in my whole life that I’ve ever been on vacation by myself. I’ve traveled for business, gone to conferences, and gone to visit relatives and friends, but setting out for an unknown place without an agenda, a plan or a purpose—that’s new, and definitely outside my comfort zone.

I said goodbye to Allison today. When we left Pemuteran, we shared a car; she was on her way to Ubud and I was on my way to Amed, several hours past her drop-off point. We were both feeling sad about saying good-bye. We’d very successful traveling companions.

As we headed into the Munduk region, we started to see cloves in big tarps drying by the side of the road. Cloves are big business here; one clove tree can produce 20 kilos of cloves, and the price for one kilo is $18.00; that means each tree produces a yield of $165 dollars.

In this area of northern Bali, you see green and brown cloves drying everywhere along the roads. The green ones are newly picked; the brown are dried, ready to be shipped to Java for clove cigarettes. None of them are used in Bali as a spice.

We passed miles of rice fields, a construction site with huge hand-broken boulders lined up by the side of the road. We passed a tree with eggshells poked on top of a cactus by the side of the road. Crates filled with chickens.

We talked with our driver, Whidi Kadek, as very chatty, self-promoting entrepreneur. Allison started referring to him as, “Mr. Special Price,” because he could get us a special price for everything. He was a totally enjoyable wheeler-dealer.

People rent him for the duration of their stay in Bali to arrange all their activities and to take them wherever they want to go. I’m sure he’s a great tour guide.

We asked how he started working for himself. He’d been working at a hotel, getting paid $170 per month, working 26 days a month, 8 hours a day. He said he needed $250 a month to live and so he’d work on his days off to make up the difference. To get ahead, he felt he had to start his own business. And with his drive and initiative, I do believe he will be successful. “I have control,” he told us, “Now I don’t have to miss ceremonies because I have to go to work.” I found that intriguing; his job had gotten in the way of his religion.

Kadek has a baby daughter and when I asked him about his hopes for her, he said he’d like her to be a nurse, but the schooling would be too expensive. In Bali, elementary school and middle school is free, but the family has to pay for high school, 95,000 rupiah a month, about ten dollars, plus the cost of books, and many families can’t afford it.

When I asked if he was having more kids, Kadek replied “I need boys. I want one girl and two boys. Boys will the ones taking care of me at the end of my life.”

About an hour or so into our trip, we decided to mark our separation with a ritual cup of Lewak coffee at our favorite coffee place in Munduk. Allison discovered this place last year, and all of us quickly had to have the Lewak coffee experience, too.

Some of you read about this last year, but for those of you who are uninitiated, Lewak coffee is the rarest, most coveted coffee in the world. Special coffee beans are swallowed, digested and pooped out by civet cats. The beans are then gathered from the ground and cleaned and processed. I kid you not. This is how Lewak coffee is made.

Here’s what the beans look like after they’ve passed through the digestive system of the civet cat:

After they’re cleaned and ground, this most expensive coffee in the world, is brewed in a special machine that looks like this:

Fortunately for us, the owner of A Farmer’s Cooperative: Genuine Natural Civet Coffee was there. This is one of the few places that the civet cat is not caged or mistreated in the production of this coffee. This whole region is big on organic farming.

The man behind the cooperative, a community organizer in this area, I Nyoman Budi Artama, was the man we’d all met last year. But he told us, in his impeccable English, that he hadn’t been around for a while, until today. We lucked out. After we chatted for a while, I told him if he emailed me his brochure, I’d polish up the written English for him.

Here is Nyoman making our coffee:

This process takes a long time; the coffee is brewed three times before you drink it. You cannot be in a hurry for this coffee! But why rush, when this is your view?

While we waited for our poop coffee (as Mr. Special Price called it), we got in to a discussion about how to deal with the garbage problem in Bali. Allison was optimistic about a solution, but Nyoman seemed to feel it was much more intractable.

Our driver, Whidi Kadek

Kadek and Allison and I shared two pots of Lewak coffee. Our driver laughed, “Two angels drinking poop coffee!” We laughed. “Well, it’s better than calling it shit coffee, right?”

Allison (referring to me): “She’s drinking a lot of it.”

Kadek: “She loves poop!”

We all laughed again. The coffee was delicious and I’m not a coffee drinker.

After three small cups of Lewak special blend, we were all sailing high and got back into the car and headed to Ubud, where Allison and I would finally part ways.

This is typical of what we saw along the road:

We passed an Italian pizzeria advertising wood-fired pizzas. We could see a huge pizza oven inside the open walls of the restaurant. We passed a town where a monkey was using the crosswalk.

And then we got to the place where Allison had booked the rest of her vacation. Obviously we both felt sad about parting:

It was another several hours to get to my destination. Kadek drove me through all kinds of towns and terrain. Deep tropical forests. Palm trees. Smaller and larger cities and villages. An election was going on. Posters like this were everywhere:

What I was struck by is how much of Balinese life happens by the side of the road: boats and built and rebuilt there, construction materials and supplies are stored there. People are hammering, drying their clove crops. There are machine shops and fruit stands and piles of scooter tiles by the side of the road. A woman sat cross-legged on the ground, right at the edge of the road, selling mackerel. So much of life happens out in the open, on the side of the road.

We even passed a billboard that advertised, “Bug Bug Beach Resort.” Who the hell came up with that appealing name?

If it weren’t for the diesel fumes, and the fact that Kadek was passing cars and scooters far more frequently and with greater abandon than I would have liked, I would have been truly happy. Curves, slick roads, nothing stopped him.

I noticed the car had become much quieter since we dropped Allison off. I realized how much she carries the conversational ball. Or maybe it was just fatigue from the long drive. I kept the windows open for ventilation, but the smell of diesel was everywhere. I couldn’t wait to get out of the car. And then we passed through Cutik, and its community rice fields. That view alone made the whole trip worthwhile:

As we approached Amed, the setting grew much more rural..and that made me happy. I could see the water on my left as we curved into Amed. But then the last mile or so into town was one blaring ad for tourist dollars after another—mostly dive shops and hotels and guests houses. Billboards advertised fast boats to the Gilly Islands. I saw a sign “Dharma Yoga Homestay,” and another that said, “Om Shanti Villa,” and I immediately thought of Karyn back home, and couldn’t wait for her to arrive. There were lots of vacancy signs everywhere. Tourist season had not yet begun. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. This wasn’t the idyllic little fishing village the advertising had led me to believe.

And then it was my turn to be dropped off. I could see that the resort was almost empty, and once I’d been led to my room, I started to feel as if I’d made a terrible decision in coming here.

I’d wish I could report how happy I am in my new surroundings, but I’m not. I feel lost and at odds. When I first arrived here, there was blaring music across the street that was unrelenting—and the complete antithesis of “peaceful.” It looked as if I were the only guest here. When I wandered down to the beach to check out the snorkeling scene, locals, trying to sell me fishing trips and massages, immediately surrounded me and suddenly, as a single woman alone, I didn’t feel safe.

I came back to my room with only one panicked thought in mind, how the hell can I get out of here as soon as possible? All my courage and all my spirit of adventure drained right out through the bottom of my feet.

Yet I also felt like leaving was admitting defeat before I even got started. And where would I go? I wasn’t going anywhere tonight.

I was hungry, so I headed up to the dining room to eat. Their food had gotten rave reviews on Trip Advisor. I was the only person in the restaurat. Later I saw there were two other guests—a French family of five, who passed through the dining room and didn’t even bother a grunt of hello as they passed, and a British couple eating at the next table. We are the only guests. Apparently, despite all the huge signs down the road hawking everything, tourist season here has not yet begun.

I called one of the local recommended dive shops and set up a dive to Gili Selang, one of the best dives in Bali. But I was the only person who wanted to go and would have to pay a premium. That was okay with me, but when the divemaster talked about the strong currents in the area, I had an uh-oh feeling that told me I might be out of my depths, despite my advanced open-water certification. I booked the dive, and twenty minutes later, trusting my gut, canceled it. The man on the phone said they had no business at all for tomorrow—he would have said yes if I’d said I wanted to dive to 200 meters looking for whales. Everyone here wants a piece of the tourist dollar.

I couldn’t bear the panicky feeling I had, so instead of just sitting with it, I wanted to launch into action. So I looked at the notebook of all the things to do in this area and decided to try the downhill bike ride from the top of the mountain. But when I called that man, once again, I was the only person who wanted to go, and he couldn’t run his tour for just one person. But he said he’d try his friend who runs similar tours and get back to me.

Half an hour later, as I was eating my dinner, he came by to basically explain that he couldn’t run his tour for just one person (me). I understood and we started joking around with each other. When I told him my name was Made Laura (2^nd born Laura) he burst out laughing as do most Balinese when I introduce myself that way. “You’re almost Hindu,” he said. “But to become Hindu, you have a lot of rituals you have to do.”

He explained that to convert to Hinduism, I’d have to go through all the different life cycle rituals that all Hindus do—beginning with birth all the way up through my current age. We kept laughing and he apologized again for not being able to take me on the bike tour.

My conversation with him—another human being—improved my mood. So did my dinner: fantastic mahi mahi and organic green salad for dinner—my first salad since arriving in Bali. As a treat, I ordered myself a piece of triple lemon cheesecake. It was fantastic, light and fluffy with fresh grated coconut on top. Nothing at all like the dense, super rich, heavy cheesecakes at home.

And that’s when the most amazing part of the day happened. One of the local guys who works here came over and since I was the only person in the restaurant, we started to talk. He was standing and I was sitting. He wanted to practice his English and I wanted someone to talk to. I wanted a human connection.

I had to concentrate completely to be able to understand his English and so I was totally focused on him. We began talking about the cheesecake and how good it was and then the conversation began to deepen. He told me how lucky I was to be able to travel and how he’s dreamed of going to Europe. He said he would never be able to travel because in order to travel, he has to show that he has enough money to do so and that will never happen for him.

I asked him enough questions to keep him talking. I told him I was a writing teacher and that I always listened to peoples’ difficult stories and that I was very good at keeping them private. And then instead of standing like a waitperson, I invited him to sit down next to me. And I leaned in toward him and listened, and he leaned in toward me and talked.

Slowly, and then with increasing intimacy, he started to tell me the real story of his life, his family, and his unhappiness. I had to stop him often to try to clarify something he said and occasionally, I taught him a word he was reaching for.

I can’t reveal his name or what he told me because he spoke to me in confidence, but he did tell me how much he smiles for work, for all the guests, while inside his heart is hurting so much.

We spoke for almost an hour—one of the most focused intimate conversations I’ve ever had. I felt such love and concern for this young man and I taught him the phrase, “You have the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

At the end of our conversation, he smiled and said, “My friends don’t know about my life. No one knows what I’ve told you. But my heart feels lighter after talking with you.”

It was one of the most profound and intimate conversations I’ve ever had—just one of the rare moments that can happen across cultures and across worlds.

I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, if I will stay here or head out again, but this evening taught me how many mood swings I can go through in just a few hours. The despair and panic faded and was replaced by connection and awe. Just like that. Maybe I came all the way out here just to talk to that one young man.

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I dove this morning—wonderful visibility and a great variety of corals, many of which I’d never seen before. Even better, when you haven’t gone diving in a while (in my case a year), it takes time to remember how to be underwater. Today, I felt like I got my groove back. I was no longer struggling with buoyancy, I could move slowly and conserve my air and I could hover in the water to study something without surging upwards or downwards, constantly inflating or deflating my BCD.

I’m going (I think) on another night dive tonight. I did one last night and I loved it. I adore the sensation of being underwater in the dark. Each diver carries a lantern that’s strapped to her wrist, so each person has her own light source. When you’re underwater at night, you stick close to your guide. And there are all kinds of creatures that only come out at night. Last night we saw a number of swarming schools of fish, lobsters and other crustaceans. And when I shut off my lantern and swished my arm in front of me, little bright lights came in the wake of my movement—phosphorescence. Whether I go again tonight will depend on conditions in the water. I’m waiting for a call back from the dive shop as I write this post.

The dive shop is a ten-minute walk down the beach. This is what the back of the mosque looks like on our walk:

This afternoon, Allison and Rebecca (a young German woman, traveling alone, who we’ve been diving with), hired a guide to take up to West Bali National Park. It was mostly a flat forest hike with a steep uphill portion on very muddy (ie. treacherous) ground. That was a bit of a challenge, but we were rewarded with incredible views of the whole surrounding area and the island of Java looming on the horizon.

At first, our guide, Nyoman Kawit, took us to see the mangrove trees. The trees and their seedlings were twisted and looked ancient to me. I found them to be powerful spirits, and according to Nyoman, many creatures breed in their complex root systems.

The one thing that destroyed the view, is unfortunately something you see all too often Bali—trash. Plastic. Empty bottles and packaging. Wrappers. Plastic bags. It’s ubiquitous and that’s sad. Even the school children yesterday—when they finished their snacks, they just threw their garbage on the ground. This is pretty typical of many parts of Bali—and here it was happening right in the national park:

This fishing boat appeared suddenly on our pathway, near the mangrove swamp.

As we hiked further in to the monsoon forest, we saw more and more amazing species of trees. I loved these tree roots. This tree is known as a Looking Glass Mangrove. The snaky roots on the ground look like a crocodile.

This is man-made cistern created for animals in the dry season. Unfortunately, the animals starting killing each other and the project was abandoned:

This mushroom is from the wood ear mushroom family:

This is what a banyan tree looks like:

And this, with its spiral corkscrew branches is called a Lion Tree. I thought it looked really cool, but Allison says it’s a pest because it destroys all the other life around it. Aussies call it, “the strangler vine.”

Nyoman asked if we wanted to climb up to a vantage point to see a great view of Bali. We all said yes, but I found the ascent harder than the other two women did. I lagged behind and was breathing hard and struggling with the mud.

My Keenes were great when we had to cross water, but not so great on a muddy pathway. I was covered with sweat by the time I made it to the top, but the view was definitely worth it.

This is Rebecca relaxing.

I love the way relationships between travelers can be surprising intimate, companionable and fluid. She’s going to meet up with Allison tomorrow night in Ubud for dinner—as I go on my solo journey to Amed, a town I’ve never been to before. I have to admit, I’m a bit jealous. But then again, I wanted challenge myself by spending these next days on my own.

On our way out of the park, we had to cross this stream. This is where my Keenes and Nyoman’s steadying hand really helped.

From there we had a lot of steps to climb. And then we came to this temple:

From there we kept climbing up steps until we finally came to this pathway:

It led to a major temple and there were monkeys everywhere, eating the food left in offerings:

A group of Balinese, dressed all in white, had just finished some kind of ritual or ceremony and as they were leaving the temple, we fell in right behind them.

Now see this woman with the basket on her head? She approached Allison and seemed to be scolding her for something she did. Allison felt chagrined. What had she done to offend this woman?

But the next thing we knew, this matchmaker was trying to fix up Allison with our guide, speaking very loudly in Indonesian to anyone who would listen. It was all in gestures and inflections. We suddenly knew exactly what she was up to.

As you can see, Allison and this woman became best buddies:

And here’s the whole party. They were laughing and joking with us and wanted to pose for this picture:

 When we got dropped off to our hotel, sweaty and sticky, Allison and I both showered and sat down to check email and relax. Right now I’m sitting on my lovely white bed, looking out at an incredible view, wrapped in a towel and feeling lazy.

I think you could say we are making the most of our last day in the Pemuteran region. It’s not a big tourist center, although there are definitely tourists here. But it feels more local—and deeply relaxing.

I feel sad to leave this place, but ready to move on. And I’m no longer feeling anxious about my days on my own until the tour group arrives on the 22^nd.

I’ve learned that I can be spontaneous, that’s it’s pretty easy to meet fellow travelers, and that the Balinese people are always generous and welcoming. By just making a small amount of effort with their language—they are so appreciative.

So tomorrow morning we head out in a shared car. Allison will be dropped off in Ubud and I will continue on another few hours to Amed….and who knows what adventures that new place will bring. More diving? A bike trip? A fast boat to one of the Gilly Islands? Snorkeling just across the street? Or just sitting on my veranda contemplating the universe?

When I came on this trip, I had this idea that I’d work on my memoir—not! I’m enjoying writing every day, but really I’m only interested in writing about this trip—not doing anything else. Why waste time in Bali doing something I could do anywhere? That’s how I’m feeling today. And I’m letting go of any idea that I “should” be doing something other than what I’m doing and what I feel like doing everyday.

Just a word of forewarning: From what I hear, internet is very shaky and uncertain in Amed, so I don’t know whether I’ll able to get these posts to you or not. So if you don’t hear from me for a few days, you’ll know why.

Sending love from Bali….

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I woke up early this morning to the sound of torrential rain and thunder. It was a huge storm. By early morning it was still raining, but more a drizzle. Since some of our plans today were outdoors, we weren’t sure what would happen, but ever since I lived in Ketchikan, Alaska, where it rains 137 feet a year (twice the precipitation of Seattle), doing things in the rain doesn’t bother me. All that happens is that you get wet. What’s the big deal?

Allison and I signed on to take a Balinese cooking class this afternoon; in fine print at the bottom of the menu of our favorite restaurant was a little statement about being able to take a cooking class for $35 each (and a trip to the market was included.) We told them what dishes we wanted to learn to make and the next step was going to the morning market to buy what we needed.

We were picked up at 7 AM to go to the market and the roads were flooded all the way to the market. Sometimes it was like driving through a small lake:

I love outdoor markets. And this one was no exception. Once again, we were the only tourists there, as our guide chose the ingredients we would need for our cooking this afternoon.

Here’s a bit of what the market looked like:

We were dropped back at our hotel and had breakfast. We asked for extra cut up chilis because Allison and I both like spicy food. But I poured the whole thing on my mie goring (noodle breakfast) and I felt like my mouth was on fire. I needed to eat a whole cup of white rice, but I didn’t have one. I settled on the sliced watermelon on Allison’s plate:

At 9 AM the two Kadeks picked us up for another scooter adventure. We told them we only wanted to do what was local, nothing for tourists. And that we wanted to see some beautiful countryside and some rice fields. The first stop on our tour was the Sumberkima Village Primary School, where they were having an end of school performance. It took a long time to get started (I get the distinct feeling the sense of time in Bali is very different than mine at home). The kids who were waiting were gorgeous, full of big smiles for us. Here’s a few who said I could take their pictures:

The “auditorium” was an open-walled pavilion with a stage at the front. The room was full of enough wooden benches to accommodate a few hundred people. After a very long wait, three Balinese came out and did a traditional dance. They were dressed in brilliant pink and lime green clothes flecked with gold patterns. They had on a ton of eye makeup to accentuate their eyes since the movement of the eyes (as well as the fingers) is an essential part of Balinese dance. I loved seeing the head wiggles, eye movements and precise movements of the fingers.

This was one of the dancers:

After the dance, a girl got up and made a very long speech. She was followed by a man who had the school principal vibe, and he gave a welcome speech that went on and on and on and on. Of course we couldn’t understand any of it. At one point everyone stood, so we stood, had a moment of silent meditation and a prayer. We all chanted Om Shanti Shanti Om—at least that much was familiar. And then we sat back down.

After the first man spoke, another man, who is the older Kadek’s teacher, started giving his speech. I kept waiting for the change in inflection that might indicate, “And so now, without further ado, let’s turn it over to your children so you can see how well they perform for you…” But that never came. Kadek said it was a motivational speech, but we had no idea what this man was saying so passionately and for so long.

After we’d sat there for an hour listening to speeches in a language we didn’t know, and still the children’s dances didn’t come, we gave Kadek the signal that we wanted to move on. Luckily we were sitting at the far end of bench and it was easy to slip off, though of course, as the only white people in the room, I’m sure our quiet departure created a spectacle.

On our way to our next stop, my Kadek had to get gas in his scooter. He pulled up at a station and handed over a 10000 rupiah note—the gas cost a dollar and we peeled out of there in a minute.

From there we went on a long ride through rainforest on a narrow road, past community gardens, rice fields, and people working by the side of the road. Chickens were both running loose and being held under wicker cages waiting to be sold at tiny stands along the road.

We finally ended up at Melanting Temple, one of many Hindu temples in the area. Hindus outnumber Muslims in Bali; it’s the only province in Indonesia that isn’t Muslim.

Once we got there, we had to put on proper temple attire. This meant wrapping ourselves up with sarongs (bought on our last trip to Bali) and temple scarves and covering our shoulders.

Once we climbed up into the temple itself, we removed our shoes and observed for a while.

The older Kadek told us we, too, could make an offering, and he proceeded to show us what to do. We bought small little offerings, the kind you see everywhere in Bali, for 50 cents, and then sat cross-legged on the ground in from of the temple. An older man was playing bells. Beside him were two bottles with ornate dragon tops—one black and one white—to represent the need to balance good forces with evil forces. He sprinkled water from those two bottles on the offering at his feet.

I took my cues from Kadek who was praying beside me. My silent prayer was as follows: “Help me move from my heart and my belly, instead of my head.” Then I did as he did—smashing one flower petal at a time and putting it behind my ears. Then a woman came by and poured rosewater on our heads and into our waiting palms and we drank it. Finally, she brought some grains of rice and these we pressed into our forehead. And then the prayer was done.

This is the walkway out of the temple:

It was sad saying goodbye to our Kadeks.

After a rest, we went to the restaurant for our cooking class. I’d taken a cooking class with Lizzy and couple of my students last year, in Ubud. It was a westernized cooking class for tourists taught by a native English speaker. It was great fun and Rosemary, who taken the class, and I cooked a Balinese reunion feast a few months after our return.

This cooking class was nothing like that one. It was in the restaurant’s kitchen and all those helping out, including the children all seemed to belong to one family. There was very little English spoken by anyone and although we got to chop and stir and use a huge mortar and pestle to create ‘basic spice paste,” we realized right away that we weren’t really going to learn how to cook. Once we got that, we looked at each other and decided to enjoy the experience.

These are the ingredients of basic spice paste

We learned through observation—like the fact that these two young people were spending an amazing amount of time separating the “heads” from the “tails” of bean sprouts—they said the “tails”—my term, not theirs—were no good, so they were discarding them.

Each time we made a new course, they’d plate up the food for us and send us out to a table to eat each new dish.

Everything was delicious: the curry paste which is the foundational spice used in most Balinese cooking, Urab (vegetable salad), Jukut Mesanten (curry-coconut soup with mahi mahi), sate lilit (minced fish satay cooked on lemongrass spears), our favorite tofu/tempeh dish which featured this beautiful freshly made tempeh, wrapped in banana leaves, and our favorite dessert, Bubh Injin, black rice pudding.

The best part of the cooking “class” was the food-yum! But more than that, the loving family who we palled around with in the kitchen. This is Komang Enix (16) and her little sister, Komang Lia (10). Aren’t they lovely?

The other thing I found delightful was the father of the family (who also took us to the market—I can’t remember his name) made the most exquisite little arrangements to decorate our food. Here he is at work:

And here’s what our dessert looked like with his beautiful handiwork.

Oh, and I’ve been meaning to tell you, I finally decided where I’m going next—to a small fishing village called Amed, about an hour north of Candidasa. This was the part of my trip I was nervous about—being on my own and making things up as I went along. But I found a highly recommended small guest house and made a reservation starting tomorrow night for three days. It’s a part of Bali I’ve never been to and it looks fantastic.

However, just as we were booking a car for tomorrow to take us to our (separate) destinations, the woman at the front desk informed us that we were actually booked to stay here one more night! And here I was all geared up to move on.

I haven’t yet decided what I’m going to do. I feel kind of “done” with this area, though Allison and I are both sad to be going our separate ways. We’ve been very compatible travel buddies—we both like spicy food and adventure and are up for pretty much anything. Yet we also give each other space.

I have a night dive tonight—my favorite—diving in the dark when all kinds of new creatures.

Wayan, taking a dip in the sinks used to rinse out our dive equipment.

Maybe when I’m down there underwater in the dark, I’ll decide whether to stay another day here with Allison or if I want to move on, on my own, to Amed.

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This afternoon while I was getting my massage I began to feel tired of being the pampered tourist. I don’t like being in the tourist bubble surrounded by local people waiting on me. It makes me feel too much like the ugly American. And although the luxury of our accommodations and the care taken at this resort to meet our every need is deeply relaxing and wonderful on one level, I starting feeling the need and desire to experience something more real.

Tonight I got what I asked for.

At 7:30, Allison and I met up with the two drivers we’d asked for, Kadek and Kadek. They arrived, sans helmets, ready to take us wherever we wanted to go. The older Kadek (still a young man—by my guess he’s about 30) is married with two young children. The younger Kadek is 20, my son Eli’s age, and he was my driver. In Bali, Kadek means second born—and that’s why our two scooter drivers had the same name.

The older Kadek spoke English fairly well. The younger Kadek and I communicated with his minimal English and lots of smiles, nods and gestures. I immediately felt great pleasure wrapping my arms around him from behind as we took off into the night. I imagine that I was hugging Eli!

We told the Kadeks that we wanted to go back to the traveling fair we’d seen on our drive from the airport to our hotel last night. They knew just what we meant–they called it “the night market.” And we were off. I felt perfectly safe behind Kadek driving down the road with no helmet. I know Surya and Judy (our tour leaders) would tell me I’m crazy, but I was happy with the feeling of wind on my shoulders, my arms around a young man my son’s age, laughing and trying to talk but rarely understanding each other.

Allison and I were the only non-Balinese people at the fair. It was a completely local’s scene with a funky Ferris wheel, a couple of throw a bean bag at a stack of cans booths, a mesh fenced ball pit full of scrambling kids, and lots of big outdoor stores selling clothes. Things looked similar to a little traveling fair at home, but everything looked different. This, for instance, was a ride that traveled around the perimeter of the park:

We saw this man running a gambling game that looked like a Balinese version of roulette. And we browsed all the garment stores lining the edges of the field. Allison bought a sweatshirt. I bought three brightly colored cotton diaper covers for my second grandchild-to-be, who’s due in August.

The definite highlight of the fair was paying 50 cents each to climb up a steep flight of rickety metal steps up to the perimeter rim around this huge deep metal pit which Kadek identified only as “motocross.” We had no idea what was up that flight of stairs but it was incredibly loud with the sound of revving engines. The four of us edged our way around to an open space around the pit, among the spectators lining up against a circular railing. This is what the “stadium” looked like before the racers got inside:

Then a dashing young Balinese daredevil (the older Kadek said these are “the bad boys”) came in with his motorcycle and started driving around the perimeter of the huge metal circle. And before I knew it, he was climbing the walls with the bike, his circles come further and further from ground level, until he was driving right around the rim, WAY UP where we were standing, even grabbing rupiah bills extended out from the spectator’s hands. The noise was deafening and the smell of intense diesel, unbearable. I think the smell (not to mention the noise) would have driven us right out of there if we hadn’t all been so transfixed on this daredevil’s antics. He made huge sweeping arcs of the inside walls, actually riding horizontal to the floor up the walls.

Then he started doing tricks—removing one hand and then two from the handlebars. Then standing on one leg, hooking his legs over the handlebars, all the while the motorcycle making very fast huge loops up and around the walls. It was terrifying and fascinating and I couldn’t wrench my eyes away. This is Indonesian motocross; that’s what I got from Ketut. When I thought things couldn’t get any more extreme, a second young guy started riding a bicycle up the walls of the same huge container and it looked at every moment like the bicycle and the motorcycle were going to crash. It went on and on for a long time, with huge applause when the two finished their “act.”

After an hour, we’d pretty much exhausted the possibilities of the fair, but we weren’t really ready to go back to our hotel. The older Kadek got on his cell phone and made a call, and a moment later he said something like, “There’s been a wedding a few towns over and they’re having some dancing after the ceremony. Would you like to go?”

Guess what we said? YES!

Twenty minutes later we parked on the side of the road by a huge underground space with a dirt floor and a corrugated metal roof. It was packed with a couple of hundred (or more) Balinese friends and family members who had attended the wedding. They were eating, and the Kadeks told us we’d have to wait until they finished eating and were ready to start the dance.

So we waited up by the side of the road. While we did that, we shared pictures of our family members on our phones. Kadek (older) showed his two kids, I showed Eli (Kadek, this is my kid your age). When I showed the picture I had of Lizzy on my phone the younger Kadek blushed. “Would you like to meet her?” I asked and he burst out in embarrassed laughter. A moment later he showed us a picture of his girlfriend, a very pretty girl who looked about thirteen. “She’s nineteen,” he told us.

We asked if and when the two of them were getting married and that’s when we learned that you need 4 million rupiah to get married, which is about $4000 dollars, a fortune to a Balinese family. There wasn’t enough language between us to get more of picture of the details of these negotiations and who gets the money, but it sounds like it’s expensive to get married in Bali. And it takes a long time to save up the money to do so.

We could hear the gamelan orchestra warming up, but our wait for the dance to begin stretched on and on. Allison finally said she was tired and wanted to go back to the hotel to bed. So she hopped on the back of the older Ketut’s scooter and headed back, and the younger Kadek, my Kadek, said he’d be happy to wait with me. Now I was the only westerner in sight. This was a real wedding, a real community ceremony, not one staged for the benefits of tourists.

I was sorry I didn’t have sleeves on my shirt or the temple scarf I bought in Bali last year tucked in my fanny pack, so I could be dressed more respectfully, but I didn’t. At least I’d had the forethought to put on long modest pants. I asked if it was okay for me to go in dressed as I was and Kadek said yes.

As we waited, he texted his girlfriend in Balinese and it was so strange seeing him do such a familiar activity in a completely different language, standing out on the street outside a Balinese wedding.

Twenty minutes later, Kadek said we could go in. He led me down a wooden ramp into the underground pavilion. There were several hundred people milling around, from small infants to old people. The place was full of kids and families. Kadek warned me to keep my hands on my fanny pack, but I already was, I’m no fool.

The dance that followed lasted for more than an hour and was the most spellbinding thing I’ve ever witnessed. Different young girls or women of different ages would fall into a trance and begin wielding a sharp knife, known as a kris, against their own breasts in a circling stabbing motion, their eyes closed. Others, often a group of young boys would encircle the stabbing girl (or woman) and yell at her, exorcising the demons that were possessing her. The girls or women sometimes fell down or suddenly spiraled across the room and the focus of the whole dance would shift again.

First one girl would grab the kris and gyrate with it again her chest, and then another and another. Sometimes there were four or five different centers of activity in the room. The dancers often had their eyes closed, and others standing nearby to make sure they didn’t fall over or into the musicians. The music never stopped, driving the dancers deeper into a collective frenzy. It was as if the whole community was in a trance together. The energy was so powerful, I began weeping.

From the little bit Kadek could communicate to me, this dance has to do with exorcism of evil. And he said this particular dance was performed much longer than usual. He made it clear that is a very spiritual, very special dance. We agreed I was very lucky to see it. And when he dropped me off, I tipped him with all the Balinese money I had with me. I wish it had been more.

I tried looking up using the name of the dance he gave me (Deweyu dance), but I couldn’t find anything. But I did find this information about the kris.

I can’t wait to see Surya (one of the guides on our writing/yoga retreat) when the writers arrive in ten days. He’s a master of Balinese dance and I can’t wait to ask him all about what I just saw tonight.

I’ll let you know what he tells me, I promise.

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My first morning in Bali, as I was awakening, the first thing I heard was the call to prayer at the local mosque. The sound in person is so different than the pale imitation I’ve heard on TV. The sound was riveting, haunting, compelling. It reached right inside me and touched a place that a normal voice could never reach. It comes from such a visceral place, and then after five minutes, all was silent again.

I slipped on a pair of calf-length leggings, a tank top, and grabbed my flip-flops. I grabbed my phone (for the flashlight and camera) and the tiny notebook and pen I carry with me everywhere. As quietly as I could, I slid open the door and slipped outside into the warm, dark morning air. There was no resistance when my skin met the air; I felt welcomed, enveloped in the warm dark blanket of still-dark sky. I sank into the dark morning air.

There were some very small lights on the grounds, but mostly I made my way in the dark. I love walking in the dark; there is something so elemental and real about it, the way you have to keep all your senses turned on. I trusted my gut. I felt safe. It felt okay to do this, and so I followed the sound of the waves at the beach and found a pathway out to the water. I slipped off my flip-flops and carried them in my hand. The water was warm and delicious on my feet, lapping up around my ankles, and I began to slowly walk the curving shoreline of sand in the dark.

There was a large boat of some kind—a tourist ship probably—anchored out off shore. I used that as my reference point so I could find my way back. If I couldn’t, I knew it would be light in an hour and I would have eyes to guide me as well.

At one point, someone shone a flashlight at me; a security guard I imagine, but I’m sure I appeared harmless and I continued to walk. The morning felt too still and quiet to break it with a morning greeting, Selamat Pagi!

I saw signs on the beach about reef protection and diving, lit with gentle 24 hours lights. I could tell that I had left the premises of the Amerta Bali hotel and had passed over to the resort next door or maybe the one beyond that. I couldn’t see enough to tell.

As I walked through the water, I was completely alone. My senses were vibrant. As I took my morning walk, I thought of my father, Abe Davis, dead almost 14 years now. When I was young and we traveled, wherever we went, Abe would go out and buy the local paper to read and tune into the local radio station. He’d look for the local events that we could take part in: a county fair, an all you can eat pancake breakfast.

He’d slip out early in the morning for a cheap plate of eggs and hash browns and toast, coffee black and hot, at the local greasy spoon. And he’d talk to the locals. And invariably he was back from his early morning adventure before we even woke up. It was his way.

And now, I was channeling him at this predawn hour; I could feel his loving presence around me.

Allison, who likes to sleep nine hours every night was deep in the arms of Morpheus while I drank in the start of the Bali day.

When dogs started barking to my left on the shore, I decided it was time to turn back, but again, I reached into my core and took the pulse of things. Safe. I was okay.

I turned around and waded through the surf back the way I had come, not sure if I could find our rooms. I knew if I couldn’t, that would be okay. I would just sit and wait for the sunrise, which is lightening the sky right now as I write this.

But I did find my way back and discovered an outdoor day bed overlooking our private swimming pool, and that is where I am sitting now, writing this to you as the morning sky grows light and an increasing complexity of roosters and bird song joins the chorus.

Unfortunately, as the sky grows blue, the morning mosquitoes (or as Allison and the Aussies call them, “moshies”) are making themselves felt up and down my arms. My memory from last year was an hour or less of mosquitoes at dawn and dusk. I am going inside now for some bug spray and my wallet, flush with colorful Balinese bills, and will head into town to see what I find.

Just as I was getting ready to leave again, Allison woke up hungry and we decided breakfast was a better idea. But before I take you to breakfast, I wanted to show you what Villa #5 at Amerta Bali looks like:

our outdoor swimming pool

our outdoor lounging bed

our outdoor kitchen

the pathway to our villa

my bed

our outdoor lounging bed

another of our gardens

another outdoor sitting area

and another place, for cocktails perhaps?

This was the view from breakfast.

And here's the fruit that was my first course.

And finally, here’s how they made my bed once I went back to our room.

We’re in the northwest corner of Bali in the town of Pemuteran. It was a long way from the airport, but well worth the trip. Don’t you agree?

After breakfast, we packed up some simple gear and walked fifteen minutes down the beach to our dive shop, the Sea Rovers DiveCentre. We did two simple boat dives about 5-10 minutes off shore so Allison could get her diving legs back—it’s been seven years since she’s been diving. She was all smiles after the first dive and positively grinning after the second. They were both slow, drifty dives with lots of fish and coral to see.

I love diving because of the physical sensation of floating effortlessly in the water. I do love all the beautiful things you can see underwater, but more than anything I love the way diving feels. We were taken out in the boat, just the two of us, with our own Balinese divemaster, Wayan. I’ve never had that happen before in my life as a diver. Usually there are at least six or eight people on the boat, but this time it was just us. This was very personalized service. They even washed all our gear for us and schlepped our tanks, our BCDs, even our flippers back from the boat.

Right now I have that post-dive physical bliss I love so much. My whole body feels like it’s floating still. I feel dreamy and contented and slightly stoned. And in a little more than an hour, we’re each getting hour and a half massages at the spa right on the property. I am getting a “Body Scrub by Dewi Sri.” This is described as “a traditional body treatment that begins with a full body massage followed by body exfoliation of lulur, a yogurt cleansing to leave your skin feeling healthy, smooth and glowing.” I’m not quite sure what all of that means, but I did say I wanted a deep massage and I promise to surrender to the experience—whatever it is.

My 90 minute treatment is going to cost 200,000 rupiah or $20.00.

After that? A glass of wine and then dinner…we may go back to the lovely warang we found out on the road where we had the most delicious tofu/tempeh dish either of us had ever eaten, for lunch:

We’ve hired two scooters (and their drivers) to take us out tonight at 7:30 to cruise down the road back to the local market and the fair with the Ferris wheel we saw on our drive up here last night. It’s a locals’ event and we both thought it would be fun to see it. Who knows what else we’ll see along the way?

Just as an aside, this is where scooter drivers get their gas: right by the side of the road.

The Balinese are always showing gratitude through the offerings they leave literally everywhere. Here’s one that was in front of the dive center today.

And here’s one from the day spa:

And I couldn’t agree more. There’s so much to be grateful for!

P.S. No Bali belly. I’m feeling just fine.

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Today was a very, very, very long travel day. It was the day I said goodbye to Australia:

We left the house at 5:45 AM. It took us two hours to drive to the Brisbane airport. We waited an hour to board, then an hour on the tarmac. The flight was 6.5 hours. We sat in two hours of traffic leaving the airport in Denpasur, and then had a five hour drive to our hotel.

We are staying in the upper west corner of Bali, about as far from the airport as you can possibly get. But we have landed in paradise! I just took a fantastic outdoor shower and am clean and in my jammies in my huge king size tropical bed…but more on that later.

I want to tell you a little about our arrival in Bali. After we cleared customs and paid $25 for our instant visa and walked past all the signs that say if you are caught with ANY drugs in Bali, you will be put to death (and believe me, they’re not kidding), we walked out into the humid (but pleasant) air of the late afternoon and our Balinese driver was holding up a sign with our names. He took our luggage cart and packed our bags into a very comfortable air conditioned van and we took off.

Aside from the fact that we were stuck in horrendous traffic for almost two hours, traffic that is a constant in southern Bali around the airport, I was much more aware, not of the diesel fumes or the insane dance of cars and scooters on the road, or the constant honking, but at the wonderful familiarity of this country that I fell so much in love with last year.

A year ago, when Lizzy and I arrived a week before Karyn and the rest of our group, I remember just gaping at the incredible cacophony of sounds, bizarre sights, sensory stimulation that was completely new and unfamiliar. My mind was blown a hundred times on that first drive from the airport to the Lotus Bungalows, our hotel on the eastern coast of Bali. I couldn’t absorb even half of what I was seeing.

But today, I reveled in how familiar it all was: all the warings, small shops by the side of the road with their fruit and food and live chickens and roosters and liter bottles full of gasoline stacked on shelves for motor bikes. Hundreds of scooters were weaving in and out traffic. A napping child wedged between his parents on the back of one scooter; an upside down silver stepladder was strapped to the back of another. A whole little steamed bun shop was attached to the back of another scooter rider. The cars and scooters were weaving across the road in an endless dance with no regard at all for the lines painted down the center. Last year, that unnerved me. This year, I enjoyed the dance.

Allison and I ticked off all the familiar things we saw outside our windows: temple scarves wrapped around statues at intersections, double-walled temples by the side of the road, rice paddies in all stages of their evolution: flooded, burned and verdant green. Black and white checkered cloth on street corners and at intersections. Mangy street dogs who all looked as if they were starving.

Allison laughed out loud as she read me a sign advertising a blood drive:

“Welcome to all bloody participants. Thank you for participating.”

I’d never driven this route before; I was surprised to see the occasional traffic light. And the traffic and congestion and honking whenever anyone passed another vehicle—which was all the time—went on and on and on. It was almost two hours before we moved into a quieter countryside, the Bali I remembered most. We opened our windows as the exhaust diminished and took in the smells and the warmth of the tropical air. As we climbed into the mountains, we closed our windows and I put my sweatshirt on.

Our driver didn’t speak more than a little English and we spoke only a few phrases in Indonesian, so our communication was rudimentary, but after a few hours on the road (and it was dark by now—it gets dark in this country every day, all year, by 6:30 because Bali is so close to the equator), we made it clear we were hungry and he took us to a restaurant. We invited him to eat with us—he declined. Allison and I were the only customers.

The first few pages of the menu featured western foods; we skipped right over them and went to the page with Indonesian foods. We ended up ordering Mie Goreng, a basic noodle dish that is a staple of the Balinese diet, and it wasn’t even on the menu. Our waitress asked us what we wanted to drink. I chose a papaya juice and Allison ordered apple-mint.

Then we watched as the woman went behind a counter to make our juices. I watched her put some ice in a blender, some fresh papaya and a little water. Then she poured the resulting frothy mixture into a tall glass. It looked so refreshing. Then I watched her make Allison’s: apple juice, ice and fresh mint.

Before she brought our drinks to the table, we discussed whether or not we should drink them. I didn’t know where the water came from and the ice was probably not from purified water. It looked like a decent restaurant, but getting Bali belly from the water was something to consider seriously. Allison told me how sick she’d gotten once in Mexico from ice melting in a drink.

I weighed my options and looked at the lovely waiting papaya-colored drink in front of me—I realized if this drink had been made in the kitchen, I never would have known it had water and ice in it. And on an impulse, I picked it up and drank it. It was my risk for the day. Maybe it was the stupidest thing I could possibly have done, but it tasted wonderful.

I reached in my purse and pulled out the small glass vial I had of colloidal silver, which is purported to help with hints of illness before they develop—but which can only be used in small doses or it can turn you permanently blue (I kid you not). I only use it traveling, like when the person next to me is coughing on an airplane, and this seemed like a good moment to spray a little into my mouth.

Allison did not drink her apple juice and ordered a beer instead.

Whether I was being completely foolish or merely drinking a great papaya drink remains to be seen. If you don’t get any posts from me for a couple of days, you’ll know why.

In any case, the mie goreng was just as delicious as I remembered it. And dinner for the two of us, including the three drinks? Fifteen dollars, and that included a bit of a tip.

After dinner, it took two more hours to reach our hotel. During that time, we had to swerve around a huge pile of dirt in the road with a cross on top of it. We debated whether it was a grave—or the marker for someone who died in a collision, but the Balinese cremate their dead. And the huge pile of dirt seemed more likely to cause a fatality than prevent one. So that remains a mystery.

We passed a wedding in progress, a temple ceremony, and a mosque. And only a couple of kilometers from our hotel, there was a giant Ferris wheel by the side of the road—part of a Japanese circus. It looked like a small county fair. I think we’ll definitely have to go check that out while we’re here.

It was a very long travel day, but we’re relieved to be here. We’re in Bali!

P.S. I want to tell you about this incredibly elegant suite we’re staying in, but I’m running out of steam. It’s been a very long day—I’ll take pictures tomorrow in the daylight and post them for you.

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Walking the beach this morning, the day was pure sunny and clear. Striding through the water at the edge of the ocean was completely comfortable temperature-wise—not chilly like Santa Cruz and not tropical like Hawaii.

The cloud formations were once again amazing. Allison says she’s been walking here every day for four years and every day, the sky is different. It’s hot today….I’m wearing pants just below the knee and a tank top and am leaving my sweatshirt at home for our repeat bike ride. And this is winter. All the rain we’ve had, she said, is not typical. But today’s clear, sunny expansive weather is.

Allison says this area of Australia is the most like California; I feel that, too. Next time I visit, I want to go to some places that feel truly different. But this has been a good way to get my feet wet in this country.

After our walk on the beach, we did an abbreviated version of yesterday’s bike ride. Kevin’s bike is wonderful and easy to ride, but the seat is definitely made for a six-foot tall man. As soon as I lowered myself onto the seat, it really hurt, but I toughed it out. If I were to ride his bike for many more days, I’d be building up a good set of vaginal calluses.

In the afternoon, I had the great fortune to have a long bodywork/energy healing session with Buddita, a healer/masseuse highly recommend by Allison and Kevin. Buddita is 64-year-old local who has been talking to spirits and healing people since she was a little girl. She’s apprenticed with Gerry Bostock, a Bundjalung Elder and Aboriginal energy healer.

Buddita’s massage table was outside in the sun and she worked on me with hot macadamia nut oil, so I had heat penetrating my body in two ways.

Before she worked on me, Buddita told me all about the junjarri, the little hairy men, the spirits in the trees. She had me take a picture of her and said the spirits might show up in the trees. Can you see them?

Buddita worked on me for almost two hours; but frankly I completely lost track of time. The work was deep, at times it was as painful as rolfing. She’d reach into a point in my inner thigh and say, “This is your adrenals. The energy is a bit stuck here,” and she’d deeply enter the spot and then draw the energy down my legs and out my feet. At times, it was excruciating, but I know how to breathe into bodywork, and then her lilting voice would say, “There it goes, now we’ve got it out of you.” She worked deeply in my lymph nodes, all around my breasts because of my cancer.

She was deeply intuitive and seemed to know exactly where to go.

She read my body and my stuck energy and narrated back to me the story my body was telling her. I just surrendered. At times she drummed over my body or clacked with sticks or made different sounds. And then she’d target another place and ask me about my father or my mother or the grief I carry. Or she’d touch a spot and say, “You have been rather hard on yourself of late.” It was as if she were reading a map. I felt deeply relaxed despite the intermittent pain of her treatment, and I could feel, with her, each letting go. I thought, Well, she’s only got one shot at me, I’m going to let her do exactly what she wants.

By the time Buddita was finished, I was spent, like a limp noodle. I could hardly get off the table, I was in such a wonderfully relaxed and altered state. I knew I’d been worked on by a true healer.

Can you see how different I look after her treatment?

Now I’m home to rest and relax. I’m reading a novel Kimberley Sun about one of Allison’s favorite places in Australia, Broome, on the Kimberley coast.

All I need to do for the next few hours is repack my things. We leave for Bali very early tomorrow morning. I’ll be taking Allison and Kevin out tonight for a thank you dinner. I can’t imagine a better introduction to Australia than the one they gave me.

No koalas and no kangaroos—the wildlife didn’t seem to appear for me this time. I take that as a sign that I’ll definitely be back.

Australian vocabulary today:

• Bonnet: hood of car
• Windscreen: windshield
• Buggered: tired, exhausted, can’t be bothered
• Arvo: afternoon: “See you in the arvo.”
• Bitumen: asphalt
• Bull bar: a large metal bumper that extends in front of many Australian vehicles, particularly off-road vehicles and trucks. If you hit a cow or a kangaroo, they can come through your windshield and kill you. A bull bar tosses them off your car and saves your life, though it does nothing to save the animal.

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After my walk to the beach, I came home to write. Allison and I were going on a bike ride and suddenly the weather report was for rain so it was, “Let’s go right this minute.” I closed my laptop, put on my Keens and met her in the garage. Kevin loaned me his very nice bike and a helmet, and five minutes later, I was following Allison down the street. I hadn’t been on a bike at all in several years, but I’d been working out regularly at the gym and my legs were strong.

We rode 15K in about an hour and a half. Luckily for me, the whole trip was basically on the flat and gorgeous.

We rode along the beach and through wooded pathways on an endless bike/walking path, much like West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz, but this bike lane was much longer and went through much more varied terrain.

At times it was a flat path, at other times a wooden walkway with railings edging the water.

Basically it was the prettiest bike path I’ve ever seen, and coming from Santa Cruz, that’s saying a lot.

The pathway paralleled the endless beach, just a bit more inland. We rode through sun and into rain, passed through a small town and took in a couple of viewpoints, got soaked, and kept right on going.

I felt like I was having a good workout, even though the boy’s bike seat was killing me you-know-where, but for Allison, our 15K ride was a mere cruise and at the end of it, when I was feeling well-exercised and very proud of myself (the long walk on the beach and then the bike ride), she said, “Well, I guess I’ll have to get some real exercise this afternoon.” Being physical and working out is a very important part of her life.

After a quick lunch, Allison drove me out to visit a friend of hers, Julia Williamson a singer, teacher and workshop leader who teaches voice and also uses singing as a healing modality. Allison wanted me to meet her because if I ever come to teach in Australia, she thought that a bit of song therapy would be a wonderful addition to a writing retreat.

Julia’s home was beautiful and spacious and her 16-year-old daughter had recently returned from studying Italian in Italy. Her daughter had wonderful energy and I had a real twinge of missing Lizzy, who will be going on her language learning adventure in Morocco in less than two weeks, and I will not be home to see her off.

Julia served us homemade almond bread with a very special, very expensive honey, native to Australia and New Zealand. Manuka Honey costs $50 for a small jar and is often used medicinally. It was delicious.

I’m sure it may just be the two people I’ve visited, but my very tiny sample of local people here are that they are very focused on healthy eating, more so than most people I know in Santa Cruz. It may also be this area of Australia, which has quite a Santa Cruz vibe to it in terms of healers, alternative therapies, healthy diets and the like. There is something that feels very familiar, yet very different about this region of Australia.

Back at Julia’s, we did some kind of divining card I’d never seen before and the message from mine was basically to let go of the masks I carry. Then she set me up with a foot wiggling machine, the Chi machine, a passive aerobic exerciser, something I’d never seen before. Basically you lie down on the floor, put your ankles in two slots in this very heavy little machine, turn it on and it wiggles your entire body as you lay there. It felt very good, very relaxing, but I was only allowed two minutes because I’d never done it before and apparently it is very powerful therapy.

On our drive home, it was pouring. Allison and Kevin had invited some of their closest family friends over for a barbie, and so we came home and started to cook. I was the sous-chef, and spent an hour finely chopping garlic, onions, and all kinds of vegetables. Allison and Kevin made chicken burgers and a great green salad. Then we made a salad from of something I’d never heard of before, a ancient grain that has come into vogue here that is supposed to have all kinds of amazing healing properties: freekah. Freekah is a roasted green wheat that was first named in the Bible. Like quinoa, it is considered a high protein super food. The freekah looked like wheat berries and though it was supposed to take 45 minutes to cook, we ended up cooking it for two hours. When it was finally done and mixed with the vegetables, parsley and some very special goat cheese and a pomegranate dressing Allison whipped up, it was delicious.

Our dinner party included two Aussies, two Kiwis (from New Zealand), two American ex-pats and me. I found the company to be open-hearted, warm, fun-loving, and delightful, and they embraced me wholeheartedly. The food was delicious (I especially loved the lamb sausages—I normally don’t eat much meat, but I’d heard about Australian lamb and just had to taste it). Actually, everything was delicious. There are no hormones or other crap added to any of the meat in Australia. Basically you can buy anything and you know it’s going to be healthy.

Throughout the evening, I had a little piece of paper by my side and I jotted down some of the unfamiliar phrases I heard peppered in people’s speech:

Randoms: strangers

Bottle shop: liquor store

Shoulder season: fall and spring, basically the months leading up to winter and summer

Redundant: when you’re laid off, you’re made redundant

Mongrel: you’re on my shit list

Ring up: to call someone

Kiwi: New Zealander

Bestie: best friend

Bin: trash can

Chemist: pharmacy or pharmacist

What I learned about chemists is this: each Chemist has a pharmacist (called the chemist), but they also have a naturopath on duty. So if you don’t want to take western drugs for your sickness, you can ask to talk to the naturopath and describe your symptoms. The naturopath will ask you a few questions and then custom-make you a tonic or herbal blend for your illness and hand it to you right then and there. Can you imagine?

After dinner, at 7:30, when I’d been yawning for quite a while, Allison announced that we had to watch the semi-final episode of The Voice (Australia). We all piled onto the couch to watch the final eight winnowed down to the final four.

We all agreed that 18-year-old Harrison Craig is going to be the final grand-prize winner next week. In interviews, Harrison has an awful stutter when he talks, but just listen to this baby-faced angel sing his final song, an original composition, More Than a Dream.

After the show, Allison and Kevin’s friends left, and I hugged each and every one of them with real pleasure and affection. Aussies and Kiwis are very easy to like, very personable and warm. And when everyone headed for their cars, we (the hosts) went out to the street to wave goodbye. That’s just one of the wonderful things they do here. They do it in Bali, too.

I feel so incredibly fortunate to be a guest instead of a tourist. My experience here is completely different than it would be if I were staying in a hotel, trying to figure out what to do and see on my own. I’ve gotten to meet local people on an intimate basis, not as wait people in restaurants or clerks in stores. And I’ve found them delightful.

Throughout the evening, I kept thinking, I’m just starting to get a feel for this place and I only have one more day here. I’m only seeing one tiny corner of this huge, varied country. I guess I’ll just have to find a way to come back.

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