Bali, Indonesia, February 15 – 29, 2016

I would not try it without Immodium. Since arriving in this bedeviling world of contradictions called Bali, I have lived on the edge of an impending intestinal thunderstorm. I can see the clouds in the distance moving obliquely to my given path. I can hear the distant rumble of thunder. I fear getting caught in the storm and it restrains my movements as well as my schedule. And, although I have been wet from the rain, I have not yet felt the full force of the storm. I wish I could say the same for my wife, for even though in the pre-trip she dismissed my “silly”, fears of the “Bali Belly”, as it is commonly referred to, she in fact was the one who spent two days in alimentary canal distress. It was not pleasant for either of us. She looks and feels wonderful now, by the way. Me? Near the end of our stay, I am still cowering out of concern for the pounding rain I can see in the distance.

 

Why Bali?

But why lead with a subject so morose? Let me tell you how we ended up in Bali for two weeks in the midst of a two month adventure to Australia. I realize most of you see me as an alpha male (insert smiling emoticon), but as often happens I lost this battle of wits with my significant other. After staying a few weeks near beautiful Melbourne, Australia, lounging lazily in an apartment on the beach of Port Phillip Bay at the top of the Mornington Peninsula, she hit me with a question for which she already had an answer.

“What else would you like to do during our time in Australia dear?” She asked in a leading fashion.

As I was shaping my lips to say, “Well, even though we have seen many wonderful sights here in Victoria, and we have visited Sydney and New South Wales on other occasions, as well as Adelaide and Perth, and found them delightful, I have never seen Tasmania, which I would love to do, and I have never been to Queensland to see the Gold Coast, or to Cairns, where we could hire a boat to see the Great Barrier Reef, and I have always dreamed of making the trip across country from Sydney to Perth on the Indian Pacific Railway just like Bill Bryson did in his travel book on Australia, In A Sunburned Country, you know, that we read before we came here to visit Adam (our son) on our first trip twelve years ago? That is such a great question because this is such a huge country and there is so much we have yet to see…And of course, being here with you makes it all doubly special, because you know how I adore you, and quite honestly dear as long as I am with you….”

“I want to go to Bali!” she spouted before the first soundwaves of my intended, never to be heard, response crossed my lips.

“Bali?” I repeated with a sense of impending dread.

They say that some animals can sense an upcoming earthquake and become instinctively agitated the nearer the natural disaster comes. So it is with me. I seek shelter with weak arguments. “Do you even know where Bali is on the map? Isn’t Bali in Malaysia or Indonesia or some other place where we know neither the language nor the culture? Why would we go to Bali when we are already in such a great place with so much to see? I mean for god’s sake, we have not even seen a kangaroo yet here on this visit. Can we at least see a kangaroo before we go off on some half-baked, poorly planned, god-forsaken adventure? What are you going to say to your grandchildren when they ask about the kangaroos?”

“Bali is where Australians go to play.” She replied.

“I am not Australian.” I whimpered.

“Bali has great temples, great art, wonderful food, and the Balinese are the kindest and most accommodating people in the world.” She read as she stared at her phone.

“Damn Trip-Advisor!” I replied.

There is no doubt that she is manipulative and I make no disingenuous, self-serving attempt to paint a flattering picture of her here. Straight away, as the Aussies say, knowing how these disagreements have tended to work out over the last forty years, I was soon on the internet scheduling the flight and hotel package. We booked a relatively new hotel in Seminyak because we have heard it is the safest, and most centralized area for tourists in all of Bali.

I say to Donna, “You know honey when they say this is the safest part of Bali, does that raise any warning flags for you?”

Of course she answered with questions, “Did you book the hotel? What does it say about the weather? Will I need something long sleeved for the evenings? How close are we to the beach?”

 

You Are Going to Love Bali!

Many Australians talk about their affection for Bali. I suppose it might be a combination of inexpensive adventure and an anonymity unattainable in the home country. Australians have a well-earned reputation for partying hard and being conspicuously loud. The island evidently meets their needs on many levels as it offers surfing, hiking, mountain climbing, scuba diving, dancing, night-clubbing, sex, great food, and cheap drink. Although we are here in the off season, most visitors are Aussies and represent over 50 per cent of the tourists year round. Chinese, Japanese and Europeans come in large numbers seasonally and we are told that July through January the hotel rooms are full. As it is now, I would estimate that only half of the hotel rooms are occupied at this time of year. We have only met two or three Americans while here.

As chance would have it we booked our Bali trip while our Aussie AirBnB host was spending a week in Bali with her co-host daughter. Sally does not like to travel, with flying being the great stumbling block. She had been to Bali once before years ago, but went reluctantly this time only to please her well-traveled daughter. Sally is our age, and given to eccentricities of personality. When she returned I immediately inquired as to her trip and her impressions. She said, “Bali was great, except I was sick with the Bali Belly for four days and had to be hospitalized overnight.”

I replied with a, “Hmm.”

Continuing, she began an unsolicited description of her experience in her rugged Australian brogue. “I was vomiting. Not just regular vomiting mind you, but projectile vomiting!” She seemed oddly proud and emphasized projectile as though as a naïve American I might never have heard the descriptor used with vomit before. “Not only that…” I was afraid she would go here, “…but I had the poo.” As she said “poo”, she directed the index finger of her right hand toward her ample nether regions and then pointed directly behind her while fully extending her arm in an aggressive fashion.” She looked anxiously at me for confirmation of my understanding. I staggered backward half a step and nodded my comprehension hoping to settle my runaway imagination.

I held up my right hand and said softly, “I got it.”

Not being one to readily interpret slight nuances of conversation, she began a fuller description of her illness, but I quickly interrupted to tell her that we just booked an upcoming two week trip to Bali when our lease was up with her.

She brightened. She said to me, “You guys are going to Bali? You will love it!”, grabbed the dog’s leash and left for the daily walk.

 

Photographs Won’t Tell the Story

Bali is beautiful restaurants, ancient holy temples, five-star hotels, unique bars, discotheques, clothing shops, furniture stores, rice paddies, scooters, open sewers, garbage, feral dogs, and hawkers. The unregulated commerce is endless. Wherever a space exists along the road there is a business enterprise, making for a veritable endless stream of storefronts. Storefronts are mostly separated by a common wall and stand one meter from the edge of the road, except where there is an open sewer, which is commonplace, then the road is about one and one-half meters away. Scooter traffic is endless and scooters are parked haphazardly along every roadside. Add bicycles, schoolchildren in uniforms, pouring rain, plastic waste, and honking horns.

Just in our area, uninspiring frontages open into restaurants the likes of which you would find nowhere in Indiana. Opulent interiors with immaculately attired staff, cascading waterfalls, and waterworks filled with Koi fish are interspersed among the warongs and scooter fuel stations where men sit on the curb and smoke cigarettes one after another and sell gasoline by the liter in old Absolut Vodka bottles. Smoking here is a sport, especially among the men. The occasional field of cattle or solitary rice paddy is banked by plastic trash and homes that make westerners like me cringe. Should I? Out of the alleys come scooters carrying people, particularly young people, to their many jobs in the tourism industry. Maybe to a restaurant or a hotel. Possibly to a retail store, or to work as an artisan in a woodshop or batik shop.

Our restaurant in the hotel is open to the street with ample frontage given that it is new. The food is wonderful and presented with great attention to detail. Plating is a practiced art. The wait staff, cooks, and bartenders are kinder and more attentive than can be imagined. One night in the restaurant, we were the only customers. We counted seventeen people working, each smiling and eager to meet our needs. When we inquired of an American in the know as to why so many staff in the off season for so few customers, he smiled a sad smile and said, “Well, they pay them almost nothing. So.”

Directly across the street from us is another new, very elegant restaurant and hotel. The hostess of this hotel, where we ate one time, greets us verbally and with a huge smile and wave every time we step out of our own hotel. Uniformed guards front each establishment and stop traffic for vehicles or scooters entering or leaving their small parking lanes or for pedestrians just trying to cross the street. One does not want to attempt crossing the street without such help.

Just down the street a few yards from our hotel is the entrance lane for one of the most famous bars on Bali, Potato Head Beach Club. There is a great deal of traffic entering here to a 300 meter walkway/road down to the bar on the beachfront. The entire exterior of Potato Head is covered in window shutters. Very cool. Inside there are multiple bars and eating areas in horseshoe fashion around a large open air green space that borders an expansive lounging area with couches and beds. The beds and lounges are peopled by masses of magazine worthy young men and women in swim attire and holding exotic drinks. Donna punched my ribs many times when I stared too long. Fronting the beds is a huge glass like swimming pool that opens directly on to the beach. It is absolutely visually stunning. Reservations are required for the lounging area. Did I mention that to get in to the Potato Head one must pass through a metal detector and work past wand waving guards flanked by men prominently shouldering machine guns? At the beach end, machine gun toting, fatigue wearing guards prevent anyone from approaching the bar from the beach side.

 

Millions of Rupiah

The Indonesian Rupiah is worth 1/10,000 of an Australian Dollar (AUD), which in turn is worth .70 U.S. Dollars (USD). Confused? I got money from the ATM at the airport when we arrived. I thought I got one million rupiah, but I only got 100,000, or the equivalent of seven USD. We were accosted by men (three who stuck) who grabbed our bags as we moved toward 150 taxi drivers. The bagmen asked where we were from. Hearing America, they said repetitively, with big smiles, “Obama!” I paid them too well for their short walk. The taxi ride to the hotel was an hour long five mile ride through unbelievable traffic. The worst I had ever seen, except for the next time we went out, followed by the next time, and on it went. Everybody in Bali owns a scooter, and everyone is on the road all at once. Scooters and taxis and dirty hand pulled food carts. Scooters and SUV’s carrying tourists like us with a paid driver. Scooters with families of four. Tourists on scooters. Rules of the road seem nonexistent. Sidewalks, if they exist at all are an afterthought. I was steamed at Donna for bringing me here and I did not hide my displeasure. I pulled out my money to pay the cab driver and he only shook his head as I offered worthless bills with large numbers on them. After a failed attempt to find a local ATM I offered the cab driver $20 USD. He practically hugged me and said yes with a smile.

Our hotel is great, but I am embarrassed to reveal it only merits four stars on Trip Advisor. It is a contemporary work of minimalist art. I know that because Donna tells me so. The restaurant and pool are outstanding. The design is chic. The theme of the hotel is sexual with a giant red, upside down bunny in sort of a vertical missionary position, if such a thing exists, being the iconic mascot. The room is supplied with oils, sprays and condoms to complement our wanton desires. Prices are less than we might pay for a Motel 6 at home (where the condoms are extra). Their best beer is 30,000 Rupiah in the very nice restaurant. That is $2 USD. This way I was able to drink a lot of beer, since one does not want to touch the water. It had to be done.

For 300,000 Rupiah ($20 USD) we were able to get full body couples massages at any of the nearby spas. Donna feted herself generously throughout our stay with manicures, pedicures, and reflexology treatments at ridiculously low prices. It is important to note for future travelers though that cleanliness may vary from one spa to another. The discerning consumer asks other tourists to find the cleanest and most pleasant spas.

 

Making Friends

I’ve spent most of my life avoiding eye contact with strangers in order to expedite my flow through life and avoid unnecessary, time wasting interactions. Donna, on the other hand, has spent her life trying to make eye contact with people so that she may engage them in conversation. I will give you one guess as to which of us is the most popular guest at a party. This trait of hers serves us well as she engages the concierge (I never talk to those guys, fearing they will discover I do not know anything.), the hostesses at the desk, the waiters, cooks, store clerks, and especially other guests. As often happens, she engages a couple about our age at the rooftop grill and begins a covert line of questioning, which leads to her and the wife becoming immediate best friends while the husband and I hang on the edge of the conversation, alternatively looking away and pricking our ears as the conversation begins small and opens into a cornucopia of information worthy of a Wikipedia page on family, work, and travel.

I will spare you the details of their lives, but, as often happens with unintended consequences, Mr. and Mrs. Peter Peterson (real name), of Gold Coast, Queensland know someone who knows someone, which leads us to a local driver, Burhan, for the rest of our stay. This is a good turn of fortune.

An unsuspecting single man sat two tables over from us at dinner during the second week. He was about our age with a pony tail. Donna grinned at me and wondered aloud about what his story might be. I suggested she leave him in peace as he seemed reluctant to make eye contact. We had seen him at various other times in the hotel and even as far away as Ubud. Ignoring me she startles him with a question, “Are you enjoying your stay?”

He spoke without looking up directly, “I take it you are Americans?” We replied in the affirmative and his lack of perceived accent dispelled our assumption that he was Aussie. He indicated he was from San Diego and had been coming to Bali for twenty years. This was routine.

“What do you do here?” Donna questioned as she was undiscouraged by his lack of enthusiasm for the conversation. “This is our first trip.”

Relenting, he put down his fork to say he comes here annually to buy unique woodworks and furniture for his stores back in California. Well, if you know Donna, he might have well said that he was the King of England. Her back arched and her diction improved perceptively as she moaned a, “Really? How interesting.” I wanted to remind her that I was the former tennis champion of Wells County and that I started every game for my high school basketball team, but I remained quiet.

We returned to our own meals and thoughts for a full silent minute, then she looked at me, smiled and said, “I am going to ask him to join us!”

Before I could issue my rejoinder of, “Oh for god’s sake, leave the poor man alone!” she was boldly on her feet. One could see the look in his eyes. He had taken the bait and was now trapped. He slowly shook his head in the affirmative, finished the last bite of his dinner, and then joined us for the next two hours of conversation and laughs. He brightened visibly as Donna peppered him with precocious questions about his history as an artist, store owner, failed businessman, successful businessman, furniture buyer, husband, divorcee, father, grandfather, and hair style. Steve said he rarely speaks to strangers. We met him on two subsequent occasions where the conversation continued. By the end he had described for Donna how to be a successful buyer in this resource rich world of Bali furniture. She looked him up for a picture the night before we left. Steve smiled broadly.

 

Touring the Island

Burhan is anxious to take us anywhere we like. He is knowledgeable, kind, and punctual. We go to batik shops, volcanos, temples, jewelry stores, rice paddies, restaurants, furniture stores, woodworking shops, wholesale centers, and a tiny tailor shop for me to be fitted for a new suit by men with big smiles and bare feet. In approach of each establishment Burhan schooled us on how hard and how much to bargain for. How did we do? Let’s just say the porters at the airport baggage counter labored hard and long, and exchanged many an exclamation of Indonesian language disbelief as they helped rearrange and repack our luggage for the flight back to Australia.

Donna wanted to stay part of the time in Ubud, an inland area considered the spiritual center of a spiritual destination. I said I would accompany her to Ubud as consolation for staying in the one hotel for our entire stay. Chalk up a victory for my side. Our first guided trip to Ubud was a full day of tourist attractions, ending in the city of Ubud and it’s never ending market. We stopped at temples, batik shops, and the iconic Monkey Forest. Traffic along the entire route was heavy through small roads and tight spaces. Throngs of scooters sped through and around the larger vehicles where they would collect near intersections, slowing in unison like a swarm of bees in an effort to find a way through the morass of intersecting traffic.

The long-tailed macaques at the Monkey Forest were very aggressive and take any and all food directly from your bag or person. The huge sculptures and bridges sport a green moss patina in the ever present heat and high humidity. Signs warned not to look the monkeys directly in the eyes as they consider this a form of aggression. Absolutely, one should not try to touch the baby monkeys as their mothers are very defensive as well as aggressive. After reading all the warnings and schooling Donna at some length on the proper decorum around monkeys, one did jump on my back unexpectedly and I shrieked, I think Donna said like, “a seventh grade school girl”. Just another brick in the wall of my masculine reputation.

Instead of fighting our way back to Ubud for a third visit, with me shielding my eyes from the scooter traffic, we did find for Donna’s pleasure a yoga retreat very near us just a five minute ride away. This immaculate yoga center was sheltered from the dirty road by a very large hedge. Walking through the entrance was an Epcot like experience. All was green. Gardens of vegetables and herbs and flowers were thoroughly and beautifully manicured. The grass in between the gardens and walkways was being trimmed with hand shears by small smiling men on their haunches. Each greeted us warmly. Centering the retreat was another stunning glass like pool surrounded by large colorful umbrellas and upholstered lounges. There was one person at the pool. It was a woman in a small bikini facing away from us and I could see her from head to beautiful toe. I gasped as I realized that it was indeed Charlize Theron. I said breathily to Donna, “Hey, I think that is Charlize Theron”. She took note of my respirations and inquired as to my health. Approaching closer and my heart rate dangerously high she rose but took no notice of us. However much she favored the Oscar winning actress, I was disappointed to finally admit that it was not Charlize. However, she did not miss my much. We moved on to a beautiful lunch in a small thatch covered restaurant next to the pool. I took the seat with the view of the pool.

Did I mention the ubiquitous scooter? On one particular trip, it was raining intermittently hard. This made all the shops a complete mess as scooters flew by in each direction. As we sat in traffic, our car was a foot from the broken curb. Scooters moved confidently through this small space and past us in a quick and steady stream. On the adjacent excuse for a sidewalk just up on the broken curb, scooters moved even faster. On the other side, scooters going our direction were flying by against traffic and far over the center line. All the same was happening in the other direction. The center line here seems to mean little. Great risks seemed routine as scooters flew into and out of small spaces. I am not a strong man. It was often difficult to watch.

 

Where is Bali Anyway?

Bali is one of a series of islands that make up Indonesia, slightly northwest from Australia’s Northern Territory, and near enough to the equator to make it uncomfortably hot all the time, and a six hour plane trip from Melbourne. In area, Bali would be equal to approximately the size of Adams, Wells, Huntington, Whitley, and Allen Counties combined in Northeast Indiana. Just over 2,000 square miles. The population of Bali is approximately 4.3 million people, or a population density of about ten times that of where we live in Indiana. It is crowded.

Indonesia proper has a population of 260,000,000 and is expected to surpass the United States in the middle of this century to become the third most populous country in the world behind China and India. Indonesia is the world’s largest predominately Muslim country in the world. Bali, a province of Indonesia, is predominately Hindu (85%), making it unique in this regard. Twelve percent (12%) of the population in Bali is Muslim, and 2.5 % Christian. How this came to be, I have no idea. Most of the Balinese working in the tourism business do speak English, however, each interaction and conversation is replete with blank stares and delayed understanding. Their English is much better than my Indonesian.

As we sit here on our last day, Bali is under high alert for terrorist attack from Islamic terrorists. The reports in the Australian news say there is evidence that attacks may be in the late stages of planning and to be alert as tourists. There were such reports before we left Australia as well. Our driver Burhan, the smiling and congenial source of most information we have on the local culture, says that the local religious groups get on well but that tensions come from the outside and have increased over many years. In 2002 there was a terrible attack in the nightclub district of Kuta, where we visited yesterday, and 150 were killed in horrible explosions. He personally knew seven people who died in the attack. Some were fellow drivers, a common profession here. Over one hundred of those killed were Australians. The worst after effect of the attack was a sharp reduction in tourism and loss of income. He nearly had to withdraw his three children from school, but was saved by the generosity of an Australian tourist who sent Burhan money for tuition for his children after inquiring as to his safety and well-being after the attack.

There seems to be no sense of impending doom here. Everybody is always smiling. In 1965, during the cold war and the beginnings of Vietnam, the Gambar untuk volcano on Mount Batur erupted, causing thousands of deaths and covering the island in ash. Shortly thereafter, there began a series of vigilante massacres across Indonesia, and including Bali, where estimates of one million people were summarily killed. The government of President Suharto was believed to be compliant as anyone with communist or leftist leanings were killed in a great cleansing. Some claimed that the volcano was a sign that cleansing was necessary. In any case, as I understand it, there is no mention of this massacre in the local school children’s history books. Everyone is trying to forget. We visited the volcano after a twisted two hour drive only to find heavy rain and low visibility. It did eventually clear enough for us to see that people live inside the caldera, even though the most recent eruption was in 2000, and in 2015 ash from the volcano was cancelling flights from the International Denspasar Airport.

 

What About the Suit?

Thanks for asking. I hate to end the story without tying up loose ends. Measured on Friday, the smiling twenty-five year old scooter riding tailor arrives punctually Sunday morning at our hotel with his shoulder bag and my new wool suit. He fitted the suit in our room and smiled broadly as he said in his broken English, “It feets you good!”

I must admit I did admire myself in the mirror for quite a long time, and Donna admired me to an uncomfortable degree. If we were not married I might have been offended. She said that with my long bohemian style hair, which she insists on, that I looked great (with emphasis). What I believe she was thinking was that I looked about as good as a six-foot-five, sixty-five year old, slightly overweight, jowly man can look. Either way, it’s all good.

The tailor parted with prayerfully folded hands and a bow. “Thanks for bringing me business.” he said with great sincerity as he backed out of the room.

 

Will We Ever Return to Bali?

I do not know man! Reading internet warnings and alerts on general safety concerns for tourists in Bali make me thankful we are now back in good old Australia. Of course people here read the news from America and fear a dystopian gun infested free for all if they happen to visit the old U.S.

I will say if you want to see a free enterprise system free of government regulations, it can be found in Bali. Safety is an afterthought. Throw your trash in the river if you wish. There is no social safety net. If the family bread winner is injured in a scooter accident, then the whole family suffers terribly. Elderly people are entirely reliant upon their families. The government issues few regulations, but is rife with corruption. I would remind my conservative, government regulation hating friends that they may want to be careful what they wish for. Sidewalks are not an eccentricity when your own children are walking on the street.

Tensions have run high since Bali executed two young Australian men in 2015 for bringing cocaine here from the continent. The “Bali 9” was a highly publicized case of drug running from Australia to Bali. The lucky seven of the nine not executed are now serving life sentences in the huge very uninviting razor-wire topped jail just down the road from our hotel and next to our Garden of Eden yoga center. Contrasts abound in Bali.

Many Australian groups have organized boycotts of Bali for this reason and for the many perceived cases of tourists being accused unfairly. Then again, the people are wonderful, and so grateful. I would consider the possibility of returning, as soon as my stomach settles down.

 

Ken Ballinger

ken.ballinger@yahoo.com

260-820-0323