My New Article Published in BootsnAll

I've been traveling and writing a lot lately.  It's good to come back and see a published article. 

In this story, I lose my hearing in Bali.  Please, click the link below and let yourself succumb to a journey back to the five senses...

http://www.bootsnall.com/articles/10-09/the-irrigation-bali-indonesia.html



Knife wielding author/world traveler/ and oh yea, chef, Anthony Bourdain was featured in the main article. 
Give it a read. 

The Irrigation

It was spring break and my wife and I were in Bali when my hearing began to fail.  It was only in the right ear, thankfully, but the condition was definitely getting worse.  I might have blamed the tropical heat or the humidity, but we had flown a long way to enjoy these things, and I wasn’t quite ready to curse a foreign god...

  This story has been published at BootsnAll

http://www.bootsnall.com/articles/10-09/the-irrigation-bali-indonesia.html

The Vanishing Guru

Takayo and I flew to Bali for Chinese New Year.  When we first arrived in Kuta, a beach town near the airport, we dumped our bag in the room and threw on our bathing suits.  We had finally made it -- Paradise, throngs of bronzed bodies laying on white sands.  Or so we thought.  The only thing covering the shoreline was plastic bags, packs of wild dogs, and fly-swarmed coconuts.  Was the illusion of paradise just one big farce?  It was hard to believe, but we kept our shoes on just in case. 

    We later discovered that Kuta Beach was the budget seeker’s answer to Bali.  It didn’t explain the condition of the beach, but at least now there was somebody to blame.  I didn’t feel the magic that people associate with Bali until we reached our palace-style hotel outside Ubud, the art community in the center of the island.  Our hotel was eerily vacant and surrounded by rice paddy fields on three sides.  We saw men balancing large baskets upon their heads in the distant bogs.  I had never seen a paddy field up close before.  Right away, those emerald rows had a strange draw on me.  They were perfectly manicured and spanned out to the edge of the jungle.  A distant volcano towered over the palm line and clouds wreathed its midsection like a tutu.  A band of teenagers awoke us at six each morning, giggling and sweeping the paths with hand brooms. 

    There was a ramshackle hut on the edge of the paddy field about 50 yards from the hotel.  I sat on our patio and watched the small man (who lived in the hut) go about his day.  His presence somehow added to the mystery of this crumbling palace.  The hut man sat on a wooden box every afternoon, whooping and clapping like someone at a Lynard Skynard concert.  At first, I figured he was trying to scare away rice-eating birds, but nothing ever flew away.  Then I figured him for a lunatic, but that only made me paranoid about the locks at night.  How many hacks does it take to get through an old teak wood door.  Finally, I got scientific:  Perhaps he was whooping at the rice, encouraging it, the way classical music is supposed to stimulate growth in houseplants.  Personally, I couldn’t imagine working in a rice paddy, no matter how mystical it seemed.  Just once, though, I wanted to walk through it, just to feel the slender leaves rubbing between my thighs. 

    “Go for it,” said Takayo.  “I’ll watch from right here.”

I thought about hopping the barbed wire fence, but the idea of coiled snakes and sprained ankles from rodent holes gave me the heebie-jeebies.  

    The next morning I sat on the patio looking out toward the hut.  The man was crouched behind a palm-thatched screen attached to the side.  He was taking a shit, but only the top of his head was poking out.  All of a sudden, a rooster emerged from some thicket and strutted along the screen toward the front of the hut.  When the rooster rounded the corner, he saw the man, or what the man was doing, and lunged back with wings and feathers flying everywhere.  The man’s head disappeared, and the rooster darted back into the undergrowth.  It wasn’t much, but compared to the shows on TV, this little incident was downright compelling.

    Another noteworthy character on the property had waist-length dreadlocks, and was known only as "The Guru."  His picture was at the reception bungalow.  I spoke with him one morning, hoping he might impart a jewel of wisdom upon me. 

    “Call me,” he said.  “Twenty minutes in advance, and I will drive you to Ubud in the shuttle.” 

The ‘shuttle’ was a flesh-colored mini van.  We took him up on the offer and hit the art markets of Ubud. 

    We didn’t know it, but living in China had turned us into ruthless street bargainers.  Some Westerners described bargaining as a ‘stressful’ experience.  For us, it was more like a game of bring-the-merchant-to-his-knees.  Takayo and I walked around, discussing what we wanted and what we were willing to pay.  We saw a meter-long painted mask, so I walked over to the booth.  The dealer noticed me so I feigned interest in a bongo drum.  Rule #1:  Never reveal what you’re interested in right off the bat.

    “You like,” asked the dealer.  “200,000 rupiah.”  That was about $22.
    “Two hundred?  I can’t afford that.  How much is this?”  I picked up a smaller instrument and began plucking the metal tabs.  Rule #2:  Get them involved.  This went on for a minute or two.  Takayo stepped over. 
    “This mask is nice,” I said, ‘nice’ being our codeword, enacting the good shopper/bad shopper routine.
    “How much you pay for mask?  200?” 
    Takayo stared at the thing as if she could give a spit.  “Fifty.” 
    “No, that too low.  150, OK?”
    “Fifty,” she repeated.  Rule #3:  Stand firm.
    “Where you come up with FIFTY?”  The man was dumbfounded.  He pointed to a mask half the size.  Of course, we didn’t want that one, so the whip song continued. 
    “Okay, 100.” 
    “Fifty.”

At this point, the man was shaking.  I offered him 80 which must have sounded a heck of a lot better than fifty.  He thought hard about it, but declined.  Rule #4:  Walk away. 

    “Okay, okay,” he said.  “Eighty.”  He started wrapping it up. 

A similar situation took place at a silk table.  Takayo was stonewalling one woman when another silk vendor across the aisle started negotiating.  Everyone began shouting and shaking scarves, or staring in disbelief at the amount of noise these small Asian women were making. 

    We called the Guru later that night and he told us he’d pick us up in twenty minutes.  It was always twenty minutes with him, so we ordered another milk tea and waited.  Thirty minutes went by, but there was still no sign of him.  After an hour, whenever a vehicle approached, we stared into the headlights like a moth, asking “Is that him?” or "Marishka Hargitay!" Perhaps it was karma for the grief we caused those poor vendors, but the Guru never arrived.  After calling the hotel, one of the thirteen year old groundskeepers eventually showed up in the shuttle.  He had to sit on phone books to see over the steering wheel.  I lost my faith in the Guru that night.  Strangely enough, we never saw him again.

Temple of the Thug

The Uluwatu Temple in Bali sits atop a lip-shaped cliff overlooking the Indian Ocean. It's the sort of place that seems to say "forget all your troubles.  This is paradise."  Of course, my wife, Takayo, and I did not know this just yet.  We were a quarter-mile away, roasting in the parking lot as an old man wrapped a purple sarong around my waist.  I was patient.  Next, the man fished around a basket of sashes before choosing a pink one. At least I think it was pink. The sun was bright, but our driver was adamant that we leave our sunglasses in the car.

"Monkeys.  They are very greedy animals."

The old man pointed us toward the path from his stool. We began our hike to the temple when all of a sudden, a woman was walking with us through the wooded footpath. She was probably sixty years old, but the weathered lines in her face made her appear much older. Good for her, I thought, she's still got it.  She said something to me, but her voice carried like a whisper over the squawking birds. I slowed my stride and leaned down to hear what she was saying.

“I come with you to temple” she said. “I protect you from monkey.”
I nodded my head. “Sure.  Whatever you’re into.”

With the prospect of a monkey guard, I became excited and picked up my stride.  The path meandered and sloped toward the ocean, which was still just a blue glimmer of hope beyond the palm fronds.  Unable to keep up with me, the woman spoke to Takayo.

“So, you pay me 50,000 rupiah.  OK?  I protect you from monkey.”
“Uh, wait a minute… what?” said Takayo. “Noah, hold up a minute. This lady wants 50,000 rupiah to do what?”

I stopped and turned.

“Your driver, he ask me to come with you. I protect you.  OK?”

It was strange, but not surprising.  Our driver had spent the hour-long drive to Uluwatu trying to sell us a volcano tour.  The odd thing was that she didn't inspire the sort of fear one expects from a hired thug.  It wasn't the fact that she was 80 pounds that raised doubt, but rather, her weapon of choice:  A stick the width of a chicken bone.

She assured us, “I protect you when monkey attack.”

Now it was no longer if the monkey attacks.  It was a matter of when.

“Um no,” Takayo said. “We don’t need protection from the monkeys, OK?”

The woman stopped in the path and we continued without her. It made me wonder:  How many people, on average, pay for this woman‘s services?  Monkeys are the quintessential clowns of nature.  The thought of physical harm does tap into a persons psyche, especially on vacation.  But hiring security?  Personally, I enjoy the rush of plunging into the unknown.  A safari is one thing, but if you need to fork over cash to avoid contact with nature, should you really be traveling?

As we continued down the trail, I wondered what the monkey protector would have done in a monkey attack. Would she lay down her life, like a secret service agent protecting the president? Had that ever happened? Her services, in all likelihood, were not licensed by the Indonesian government. It's not like you can take her to court or anything.  I began to wonder about the temple, its money-grubbing underbelly, and the undertones of her violent insinuations.

Was it all necessary? Perhaps the monkeys had mastered the art of primitive tool making, chipping away day after day, perfecting the meat slicing blade. They probably had stock piles hidden all over the temple preparing for the strike. First the tsunami wreaked havoc, and now it was evolution -- the return of a primate New World Order. They’ve always been bloodthirsty, but now they were prepared. The closer we got to the temple, the furry paw of paranoia began to tighten its grip of me.

“Can you believe that?” Takayo said. “I could’ve carried that woman with one arm. Protector of monkeys? She should call it ‘Adopt a Grandparent’ instead.”

“What if we made a mistake? What if we do need a monkey guard after all? Suppose they‘re crazy monkeys…evil monkeys.”

“Well, it’s too late now. Unless you want to go crawling back to her.”

So much for apocalyptic delusions.

We had already put on the sarongs, so we would just have to take on whatever came our way. As the path lead out of the canopy, it edged along a steep cliff overlooking a remote sandy beach and an electric blue sea. Moss covered boulders cluttered the shoreline, assaulted by sets of broad white crests. We spotted some monkeys when we approached the base of the temple. There were a lot of Japanese tourists congregating in groups around their monkey bodyguards. Things seemed under control.  Like small furry humans, they munched bags of chips, took hand offerings of peanuts, and drank from plastic water bottles.

An old man was sprawled out under a stone doorway, reciting some ancient chant. I watched him in passing, unaware of the low-slung tree branch just ahead of me. By the time I turned forward it was too late -- a monkey sitting on the branch whacked the back of my head with its tail. I felt ringing in my head, numbness, and then finally, betrayal. It wasn’t particularly painful, just humiliating. Thankfully, this particular strike didn’t warrant the services of a medevac team.

As for the temple, well, it’s made of stone and it’s old and inspiring, but you already knew that. If you’re interested, take Anthony Bourdain’s advice and catch it on the Discovery Channel. Better yet, go and discover it for yourself. Just know that there are options when it comes to protection from monkeys. My wife and I may not have needed monkey protection services, but we respected the way she laid that monkey hustle down.