Jon wondered about my Balinese experience, so I dug this up.
This is the only thing I ever wrote with the help of a mushroom omelet. Back in the 1980s, I wouldn’t have admitted I had a hallucinogenic helper. It’s fun to share it now, exactly how I wrote it — exuberantly over-the-top — as a twentysomething travel writer.
Bali is great. And an evening super-sensitized in that tropical Hindu world is magical. Recalling just three hours in the village of Ubud, the “Balinese Florence,” I realized that some of the greatest moments in travel are yours when you become a mute poet. Just observe. Put yourself in a personal tiki hut, let your jaw hang loose, permanently awestruck, and open your eyes and ears so wide they touch.
I sat under my thatch writing by flickering light while the smoke from my quiet mosquito coil did a cobra dance. Here are some thoughts straight from my journal recalling just one evening on the road in Asia.
*****
Lanterns painted a rutted dirt road through the new darkness. Thin, unloved street dogs played with my shadow, which walked before me…as if leading me to the candlelit temple.
Batik smiles ushered me to a bamboo chair where I joined 30 people seething like barnacle tongues to the churning beat of a 20-piece gamelan orchestra.
A gamelan is a kind of xylophone, usually accompanied by a busy Balinese bamboo band of flutes, strings, and percussion instruments. To the casual tourist who gives it no more than an ear-glance, it is a jumble of jungle noise worth a photo and a few minutes, but nothing more. But if you look into the musicians’ eyes, you see they are dancing as one, high above that dirt floor, and making music in tongues that’s as pure as Mozart. Children hide attentively on the laps of the performers, and all are lost in the same musical beat.
The temple was a peacock of happy candles; its warm outline against a starry black backdrop empowered the music below.
Through the temple’s door danced a goddess-gowned girl. Just another sorry sight on the street, now her Krishna eyes dug deep into mine. She quivered like entranced butterfly wings. Then, suddenly, there were four dancers waving like sea leaves; their eyes, fingers, and the gamelan mallets are puppets from paradise tied to the same god’s strings.
They throb with the gong and flute, like fish Eskimo-kissing, intensifying to the speeding gamelan churning like a train in heaven. Orion reaches for the temple, and I find myself breathing heavily in this seductive tide pool.
Down the lane is a volleyball court, the local equivalent of “Chuck E. Cheese,” where 25 kids sit cross-legged in fake Levis under a TV on an eight-foot pole with a mini-thatch. “TV Jakarta” is beaming in an Indonesian Donny and Marie. “Marie” has big heart-shaped lips under jet-black hair, and “Donny,” every bit as dreamy, plays an organ with a rhythm box. The kids eat peanuts, clap after each song as if the performers were actually in their midst, and wonder why I’m sitting with them.
Ten o’clock is late in this town. As I wander home past huts with well-combed bangs and sleeping dogs, I enjoy smiles and eye contact with the few locals who are still out. Couples sit on rails enjoying cheap talk, genuinely focusing on the present as all that matters.
Back home in my simple, dimly lit bathroom, a 10-inch lizard startles me. Then I’m literally driven out of the place by a ferocious three-inch beetle. I fall asleep wondering what creatures will crawl over me in tonight’s darkness. Dogs are barking Morse code for miles around, and soon the roosters will tell me the sun has risen and another day has begun.
*****
This kind of experience can be yours. Find a culture like India’s or Bali’s where if a drop of menstrual blood touches a man’s head, he’s sterile, and a child’s first toenail cutting is a sacred and magical ritual.
And I hope you will get around to an entry about frequent flyer miles……I think you mentioned them in a previous post.
Rick, I smiled all the way through this entry as it reads like an A+ paper for an upperclass discriptive writing course. Kudos to you for sharing even your most intimate travel and life experiences. And please know you’re not alone in appreciating the mind expansion of this soft and harmless little veggie. My experience with it years ago in Amsterdam enriched my life forever. I hope others that follow your blog will be so forthcoming, it would make for the most provacative blog/comment yet.
I enjoy your personal descriptions very much. Very colourful and interesting. Also your blog is more fun and interactive when you spend some time responding to specific people’s entries. Enjoy the superbowl. GO Packers!! (I know but they are my team).
Hi, Rick. The mushroom experience is interesting. I enjoy your writting. I have to work on mine. It’s not so descript. Have a good week.
There’s a lot of interesting things in the South Pacific. I didn’t see many of them as a 17 years old in the Merchant Maine at the end of W.W.II. I visited Manila (I thought the ceiling painting at the movie was wonderful, until the moon moved!), All the buildings in Singapore (on my 18th birthday) were leveled, a thousand sunken ships were in the harbor, and Calcutta was a mess. But 30 years ago My Sweetie and I took a Freighter Ship Cruise to the South Pacific. On the Island of Pohnpei we saw the fascinating Kepirohi Waterfall, and found the most amazing ruin we have seen anywhere, Nan Madol — — no one knows who did it. On the Island of Turk, where they have outlawed all liquor, the newspaper said, “We are caught between the Coca Cola can and the Coconut tree.†On Saipan we visited Garapan Prison, where Amelia Earhart was imprisoned, and went snorkeling in the lagoon. What you see in an aquarium pales compared to what we saw on the reef at Saipan! What colors! What form! What beauty! And that was just Sweetie in her swim suit.
Oh my, that should be “a 17 year old in the Merchant Marines”= = = Well so I finally made a mistake!!
Great posting from Rick and from Jim Humberd too, for that matter. (Glad to see Rick has wrestled some of his adjectives to the ground since then. But still, the future successful travel writer was apparent even back then.) Haven’t made it as far as Asia yet, although it may be in the cards for my big 5-0 next year. That and the Southern Cross. If not now, when? Anyway, Ricks travels (and Jim’s too) are an inspiration. Weirdest thing I ever ate: fried grasshoppers once upon a time in the Sudan. :-) Happy 2008 travels to everyone!
Fried grasshoppers in the Sudan, Tom, that is impressive! Weirdest thing I ever ate? I dunno, that is a tough question, but the first thing that comes to mind happened just a week or two ago. I had half a jar of marinated herring and onions and thought it be the perfect thing to fry/sautee up. Big mistake! Turns out the herring was packed with vinegar and vaporized during the frying process making the entire apartment reek. Doesn’t really compare with fried grasshoppers, but my Sweetie wasn’t too happy with me!
interesting. i understand why it was a beetle that chased you and not a peanut. in your narrative you state: “kids eat peanuts” – many thanks
Hi Rick, I visited Bali last year, and I remember thinking before I left, and while doing my trip research.. I wish Rick Steves did more than Europe! And I sure hope it’s in the works for you some day. I’m sure you’ll “conquer the world” some day! I’ve gotten so used to your guide books, I find it so difficult to use any others. I love the personal comments, opinions and ratings and hotel choices. And the fact that you love to travel the way I do.. thru the “back door”, and meeting/experiencing the locals. My trips to Spain, France, Portugal, London, Dublin and Italy have been fabulous, thanks to you. I keep thinking I’m going to send you a very grateful email after each trip, but never get around to it. And.. the locals adore you!! For example, the barber guy in Arcos, Spain. He had the dates you were visiting Arcos marked on his calendar, and he was like a little boy, so proud to show it off to us… as much as he was proud to show off his picture with the Pope! Anyway, my husband and I will be going to Prague, Budapest, Italy and Croatia in May. And you can bet “you” will be coming along with us again! Oh yes.. and we loved Bali and Ubud a lot. Our hotel (great find) had a huge terrace that had a grand view of rice padi fields. Aside from the cultural aspect, Bali was luxury for cheap.. we had a $7/hr massage every day. But I hated those lizards…