Learning to walk in Bali

A few days ago I moved from the serene, beautiful cultural capital of Bali—known as Ubud to the happening city of Kuta surrounded by the teal-grey ocean, where a simple walk down the street results in countless offers for transport by anyone who has a working vehicle or motor bike, multiple opportunities to buy massages, sarongs, mushrooms, key chains and canopeners shaped like genitalia, manicures and the list goes on. Nothing in this city has turned out quite as I imagined.

I got the bargain price of 100,000 rupees of $10 U.S. on my hotel room, which doesn’t include blankets, towels, toilet paper or hot water but does include infinite mosquitoes and a rooster that begins crowing exactly at 4am. Sleep deprived and covered in itchy sweltering red bumps resulting from allergic reactions from my mosquito bites, I wasn’t in a clear frame of mind to decide what my next move should be after all of my traveling companions went their separate directions. Over a bowl of Es Champur (a delicious icey drink/desert filled with fruit, beans, jelly, condensed milk and infinite calories), one of my American friends and I discussed and analyzed all of the interesting characters and experiences we’d encountered on our journey and had that sobering moment of realization that always comes with traveling, when you are acutely more aware of your weaknesses, your habits and yourself. After my friend left, I contemplated skipping my last day and grabbing the 10pm flight, which would have me arriving in Malaysia at 2am. I knew there wouldn’t be roosters or mosquitoes in the airplane and I could just start fresh. But, I decided to indulge in some self care first. First, a Balinese massage for 90,000 rupees (or $9), next a relaxing cup of tea in a beach warung or open air lounge and then an intended $9 hair trim (which due to a misunderstanding, resulted in my very long hair becoming just shoulder length) and then some dinner back at the beach warung. As the clock approached 8, I walked towards my hotel holding on to the possibility of grabbing my luggage and getting a standby flight out of here, I decided to let go and accept where I was. I showed a shopkeeper my sweltering mosquito bites and got some Balinese herbal medicine, herbal mosquito repellant and a box of tissues for my bathroom. When a man in the street offered me a newspaper for 45,000 rupees, I smiled and told him I’d buy one if he charged me the real price of 6,000. “Ok, last price 25,000,” he said. Then, after his eyes met mine, we worked it out. “Ok, 7,000—then I can get a little commission.” I smiled and completed the transaction. I got back to my hotel room, covered my bed with my beach mat, organized my luggage, covered my body first with herbal mosquito treatment, then with repellant and then went to sleep feeling at peace. When the roosters started talking at 4am, rather than getting upset, I got up and wrote for a little while and then drifted back to sleep until almost 7am.

Now as I’m sitting by the beach in an open-air warung, enjoying my final serving of Indonesian Nasi Goreng (fried rice with a fried egg on top), the sounds of sizzling food, combined with whistles, engines of motorbikes, horns, cars and voices combined with the sites of the blue-grey ocean and eclectic mix of tourists and locals, I am thankful for the opportunity to have waken up in this wonderful country one more day. I have a vivid image of the sign that caught my eye on my walk to the beach this morning with a quote from the Beatles, ‘the love you take, is equal to the love you make.’ That is what sums up my time in Bali. Bali is the place that I learned to walk again—first in six hour long dance classes where I held my body in positions that I didn’t know were possible while my teachers patiently counted satu, dua, tiga (1, 2, 3) and instructed me on how and when to shift my weight, hold my arms and maintain my patient, and second, in my daily walks around the city of Ubud, where I’d dodge huge holes in the sidewalk, share the narrow roads with cars and motor bikes without getting hit. Bali is long nights at the temple participating in Balanese Hinduism ceremonies and then dancing as an offering to the universe. Bali is a driver named Wayan, a Japanese hippi artist who has renamed himself Hummer Artisian after being called to Bali more than a year ago, a bike seller named Putu who quietly sat at the lounge everyday until I asked him to join our table. Bali is a 24 year old woman named Arga, who befriended me after I interviewed her and took me to her village to meet her husband, child and extended family and then out for lunch, so we could discuss the universal mystery of relationships. Bali is sleepless nights spent covering the elections, motorbike rides in the middle of the night, mosquitoes, oceans, Hindu offerings, temples, gamalans and hookas. It’s the place where karma comes to life and a place that you are reminded that the love you take is equal to the love that you make.