7.31.08
This last Sunday we made another day trip to Kedungu. The swell was sizable, 6-8 with occasional plus sets, but it wasn't wrapping into the point as good as I've seen it.
After the surf I had breakfast with an older Aussie named Nick who grew up in Burliegh Heads and was giving me the low-down on some local secret spots off the radar. I had a double breakfast: big bowl of noodles and then nasi campur ("champour"), which Nick taught me is rice with whatever else they have around in the kitchen. After breakfast, I went for a solo hike down to the point, where I climbed barefoot around and over massive, craggy boulders.
Every time I reached the crest of another rock, a hundred black little crabs would sense my large shadow and go scittering off into new, safer corners of darkness; sort of made me feel like Godzilla. Instead of walking all the way out to the point, I decided to scale a cliff-face that led to the rice-fields overlooking the beach.
Once in the rice-fields, where you have to walk along a tiny strip of raised dry land that is patterned in squares much like a maze, I stumbled by a young local couple making love in the bushes, who I passed in silence on my way to the point. From the point I got some great shots of empty sets rolling in with the rice patties in the foreground.
Denpasar something
I also had a distant view of Tanah Lot, a temple that can only be entered at low tide, one of Bali's most famous. I decided to march through the rice fields rather than attempt to climb down the cliff; going down is always harder than coming up.
Lara Larita
Within the patti maze I stumbled upon a patch of watermelon, a few startled cows in a makeshift stable, and one very strange, snaggle-toothed old man sitting under a lean-to who's gesticulations were primal and cannibalistic; the rice fields suddenly became a scary place after my run-in with him.
I didn't exactly find a proper path back down to the beach, but rather a workable mudslide that I was able to descend by clinging to exposed roots and sliding on my heels, to the amazement of a wide-eyed Hindu man squatting in a ditch, his sarong hoisted around his waist. All the guests were already packed up and ready to go, wondering where the hell I had been.
After Kedungu, we spent the rest of the day at Batu Balong, which had perfect conditions for the guests, peeling slightly overhead sets. After my fill of roundhouse cutbacks and rebounds off the whitewater, the lovely Sarah bought me a banana pancake, and then we had a temple photo shoot with Bart. That night, the guests talked me into joining them to go see Tom Curren play guitar at Hard Rock Cafe in Kuta Beach.
14 people in one kijang...no problemmm
The concert started at seven, but the other guides and I insisted on drinking two bottles of Arrak as a warm-up before leaving. Walking down the coast road, I kicked a raised section of sidewalk and split my big toe on my right foot wide open with my drunken swagger.
Sometimes in our pool neighbours are welcome
I had surfed reef breaks with no abandon and no booties for a month, and now my first injury to my feet happens walking down the street, thanks in no small part to Arrak. By the time we got to Hard Rock, the show was over; Curren must really be feeling his age to end a show before ten.
The Clash
From there, Ketut took us to another bar in downtown Kuta called Espresso, that had a band playing that not only took requests, but for 50,000 rp let you sing the song while the band played. I was wearing my pink and black leopard striped button-up and one of the guests, Francesca, bought me a matching pair of pink sunglasses on her walk to the bar.
With that outfit on, I couldn't refuse when a few guests put up the money for me to sing with the band. Bart & I pulled off a very punk-drunk rendition of The Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go," which the crowd loved. About a half-hour later, we did "Hotel California," with echoes of Polish and German accents from Bart and Ollie . . . the song fell so flat that the band wrapped it up early, to everyone's relief.
Moped...
U can fit on in whole family...
As that commercial been announced Bali became its-mopeds heaven
By the way...during last couple months been raining maybe 4 times
From hear the night becomes increasingly hazy, thanks to strangers buying me drinks after The Clash song. I spent some time with a very tall, very beautiful Aussie girl with amazing curly hair; she had a great business card on which she described herself as a "wandering philosopher." After she abandoned me, I befriended a random German guy who bought me shots and brought me to Bintang with him. I must've lost him pretty quick on the disco floor, because the next thing I remember is sitting at a table full of local prostitutes, the madame having taken me into her personal care, letting me drink her smoothie due to my apparent inebriated state.
We sat laughing and talking as security herded all the tourists out of the bar. Once we left, we just sat on a street-side stoop, as I marveled at my good fortune that this working girl was being so nice to me, allowing me to ask them questions bluntly and answering them frankly, the kind of cultural exchange you can only find in shady back-alleys, not in any brochure. I was soaking up the vernacular and interactions of the street life, in the tradition of McKay's "Banjo," at least those were my intentions. Time wore on, she offered me "services" of many of her friends, and as the dawn began to tint the night sky, the madame got me a taksi ride back to the Ruko.
Jungle
Once we arrived, and I offered the cabbie all the money I had left, about 8,000 rp, everyone's demeanor changed drastically. The taksi driver was pissed and the madame became furious, saying I owed her 50,000 for her time. I emptied my pockets and explained that she knew all along that I had no money left to the cabbie, which only served to infuriate the madame more. She snatched the camera from my hand, holding it ransom until I returned with money for her. Like a fool, I went to fetch her fee, and when I returned to the street, it was of course ominously empty.
Alles kaput man...from Bali to Babilon, one way...
Super Stephan inda hauz
Over the course of the evening, I lost over 200,000 rp, my hand-phone which was two days old, and my waterproof digital camera that had over 200 shots from my first month in Bali on it. I was furious and hungover when I woke up, stewing in an evil mood of disappointment and depression. As the day wore on, I was eventually able to laugh at my stupidity. I remembered a piece that my grandmother, Mary Beth, wrote after my aunt Molly's wedding, when the professional photographer's equipment malfunctioned and she was left with no photos.
The basic premise of the piece was that perhaps, in a way, it was for the best. Some memories are best treasured only in the mind and heart, not in a 8x10 glossy print . . . it questioned our need of physical memorabilia for emotional events, a very Buddhist notion that she would later go on to develop in her own spiritual wanderings. That following evening Bartek was talking about how his grandparents survived Auschwitz, and how his great-uncle, after surviving the Holocaust, died on his train ride home after the war. It really helped to put the loss of my material possessions into a proper perspective; after all, I was healthy and in paradise . . . what was there really to complain about?
