Attention, family: please sell my house and possessions, and send me the money so that I can stay on Bali forever … unless the island council enacts a rule barring excessively sweaty foreigners, and who could blame them?
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Jogja roommate Jeannie, who just got back from a week in Bali, suggests a strategy: catch the late flight to Denpasar, taxi straight to a cheap hotel in nearby Kuta, then travel to Ubud in the morning. Which is what I do.
Hotels in Kuta, you should know, are cheesy, and not even Vegas cheesy. Reno cheesy. But my plane was two hours late, it’s almost midnight, so what the hell yeah this is fine. The bellman shows me the room, which is dark and a tad musty but acceptable.
“You want massage?” he asks. “Hundred thousand rupiyah, one hour. You want massage with pretty girl?” And here he makes the hourglass shape with his fingers. “Three hundred thousand. What happens after that, up to you.”
This could be my Eliot Spitzer Moment! Or not – I doubt we’re talking a 4-diamond girl, here.
I turn out the lights and try to sleep, which is not easy because now all I can think about is how many hookers have done what-all with how many Johns on these very sheets? Whores! Fornication! Ewww!
Sleep, finally. Then, much later in the night, my dream cycle stops abruptly and my eyes fly open, and I realize that my room light is on.
I lie there, frozen, waiting for the sound of an intruder. Nothing. I get up to find the doors and windows are secure, my backpack beside me on the bed. Near as I can figure, the light switch was only half-off and had flicked back to the “on” position. No more sleep tonight, folks!
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The next morning I finagle a good price from an airport porter to drive me to Ubud and happily throw in a little extra, once I see the town – it’s such a pleasant destination and he did bring me in by a scenic back way.
In no time I secure what is the polar opposite of my previous nights lodging: clean, spacious, tasteful, with a garden view. And if anyone has been whooping it up in the bed, I am certain that it was in the context of a virtuous and loving relationship.
Ubud is a tourist town for sure, but nicely integrated into the ruins of a much older Balinese culture. Crumbling palaces and places of worship are interspersed with small shops devoted to local arts and culture, guest houses, eateries, and personal pampering spas. But wander just a few hundred feet off the main drag and you are in rice paddies and jungle.
This morning I stroll through the nearby monkey sanctuary, a tropical jungle park of pathways, Balinese ruins, and monkeys everywhere. For two hours I hang out with hundreds of healthy, frisky monkeys, wild but acclimated to humans and unafraid to climb up on my lap or perch on my shoulder. Wrestling, frolicking, feeding on local fruits, making baby monkeys, but thankfully not flinging feces. I wish I had a good analogy for what this place is more fun than.
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