Canguu: 

The shore off Brawa beach is a yard sale of flying boards and bodies as the Indian Ocean devours beginner surfers on its unrelenting march to the shore. Kite surfers crisscross the horizon, arcs of neon orange and green suspended for hours in the salt breeze. Blasphemous women in bikinis lounge in front of a temple perched on the edge of the beach, prayer chimes serenading sunbathers as they bob in the wind. Beach chairs in tan, emerald and cobalt line the warungs along the beach, their shop owners asking a small price for respite from the sun and a cold lemon Bintang. We chose five empty chairs and settled into the Balinese pace of life. 

I see the size of the wave on my friend’s face before I feel it. Jaw open, hands on head, she watches helplessly with horror in her eyes. I am knocked halfway back to Canada as I try to wrestle my nine feet of rented piece of styrofoam ashore. 

Like many of the beachside cafes, Warung Pojek appears to be a family business. The urgent smile of the matriarch wins us over, and before long we’re eating nasi goreng and watching the littlest Pojek chase puppies in the sand. The sun burns low on the horizon, swallowed by a thick haze of cloud. Surfers turn into silhouettes as the light disappears for the day, their shadows gliding across the surface of the water until the first stars appear. 

Ubud:

Ubud is about as Eat Pray Love as you w imagine. An idyllic hideaway nestled amongst rice terraces, dotted with an abundance of Hindu temples and waterfalls, and protected from the outside world by the encroaching jungle. 

Jim the Jazz Man is 85 and retiring from his long-time residency at the Laughing Buddha. He is heading back to San Francisco in 10 days, and tonight is his swan song. We learn this from the drummer of Jim’s band, the Soul Brothers Bali, after inviting ourselves to join his table for a better view of the stage. We talk about Canada and he makes a joke that his hometown, Kintamani, is the Bali equivalent of Saskatchewan (clever).  A few rounds in, we begin adding limes to regular Bintangs to help them go down easier. A few more and the Soul Brothers have us out on the dance floor. 

***

I wake to the sound of an engine sputtering to a halt outside the gate. Our scooters have arrived. I drop my feet to the cool tiles and rummage for an Advil before facing our lovely hosts. (The Laughing Buddha bar got the best of us last night). Up close the scooters are heavy, unbalanced machines, not the nimble two-wheeled vehicles we’ve seen weaving like silk through the organized chaos of Ubud. What have we done.

I creep into the adjacent room to wake an accomplice, and find Reanne already climbing out of bed with the same look of trepidation. Together we check and recheck the switches and levers and that make the thing move, strap on helmets and steal our nerves. I squeeze the throttle and lift my feet off the ground in a leap of dumb, blind faith. 

We practice wobbling up and down the dirt road that separates our villa from the main road for a long while, gaining confidence with each down-and-back. Then, counting the number of right-hand turns between us and town, we set off in search of coffee.

Glli Air:

We learn that there is another way to reach the Gili islands after the fact. A quick flight to Lombok followed by what I imagine to be a peaceful ferry ride, and you can be sipping two-for-one cocktails beachside by sunset. 

Instead, we are on the fast boat – one hundred and twenty harrowing minutes spent questioning your mortality while hurtling over the Bali sea. I imagine the boat’s crew, half a dozen stoic Indonesian men, taking bets on which tourists huddled together like canned tuna in the bilge of the boat will toss their cookies first. 

***

Gili Air has a distinct sound that sets it apart from it’s more famous neighbour. The call of the mosque waking us at daybreak; the jingle of bells on the ponies that rule the scooter-free sandy lanes crisscrossing the island; the waves lapping against rows of dive boats moored along the shore; the chirp of the gecko living in our outdoor bathroom. 

Outside of the sundowner bars that occasionally interrupt the beach, the Gilis are a lazy paradise. The real action here is underwater. Flipping backwards off the dive boat, we slowly descend into the quiet, ethereal suspension of this other world. I focus on slowing my breathing while watching the stream of precious air bubbles racing to the surface, glittering against an endless blue backdrop. A highway of life streams by in all directions. Giant bat fish, flat as pancakes, gaze at us indifferently with one eye as they pass. Unicorn fish, bright white with tiny horns cruise above the fray. A tiny octopus creeps along the ocean floor, changing from deep purple to a shock of white when we get too close. Creatures congregate around a giant corral mound rising from this underwater lunar landscape. Lazing at the top like ancient kings of a castle fortress is a nest of sea turtles. I squeal into my regulator.

Yogakarta: 

Bu marni is half our size. Trophies from her many cooking competitions line the shelves of her modest kitchen-turned-cooking school, and baskets of shallots, garlic and other staples fill every corner. For the better part of an afternoon, Bu marni whirls around explaining the difference between ginger and sand ginger, kafir lime and lemongrass. She patiently instructs which spices to add to her grandmothers’ mortar, and teaches us how to squeeze milk from the flesh of a fresh grated coconut. Peanuts pulled from the ground in the back garden sizzle in hot oil while other family members float in and out of the shadows from the adjacent room. When five beautiful bowls of chicken curry and homemade peanut sauce over steamed vegetables are complete, Bu marni leads us outside to her picnic table to enjoy the spoils of our labour. Dusk begins to settle on the surrounding rice fields. Stomachs, hearts and souls are full. 

***

The first driver rolls up on a motorcycle in an orange and black jacket and matching spare helmet with UBER written in block letters across the front. We all laugh at the scene – five tourists waiting for individual Moto Ubers when certainly one regular Uber would do. When in Rome. 

The path up to the hill is lined with flicking oil lamps giving the trail a sacred and slightly spooky feel. Men with flashlights greet us at intervals on the way up to the lookout. Selemat pagi. Others who have made the pilgrimage arrive and find their place on the platforms and benches to watch the sunrise over Borobudur in the distance as roosters crow prematurely across the valley below. 

Borobudur lives up to its Wonder of the World reputation. A larger than life complex, rising up from the heart of Java, covered in ancient stone carvings telling the story of our shared human and heavenly histories. Each of the monument’s three levels represents a stage on the way to Buddhist enlightenment. I circle the top of the temple, holding loved ones in my mind, reciting a mantra for their health and happiness. 

Instagram vs Reality

Other monuments in Java take themselves less seriously. Exhibit A: The Chicken Church.

Uluwatu:

Tucked away on the southernmost tip of Bali is the unofficial surfer-babe capital of the world, Uluwatu. Here it is physically impossible to travel more than 500 metres without passing a tanned, toned, and typically shirtless man (or woman) on a scooter with a surfboard dangling off the side. 

Days in Uluwatu are best spent enjoying exotic fruit smoothie bowls and lounging on the beach watching these surfer babes attempt to ride waves bigger than are reasonably safe to do so. By happenstance, we arrive in Uluwatu the week of an international big wave competition. Surfer babes from all over the world had descended on Uluwatu to wait for the perfect swell. Every morning the conditions are checked, and the call is made as to whether or not the waves are big enough for the surfer babes to compete.  

WARNING: A more insidious creature than the surfer babe lurks around Uluwatu. It can be found anywhere tourists gather, looking for cameras, sunglasses and iPhones to steal from unsuspecting humans. Our encounter happens just before sunset, along the path skirting along the edge of the Uluwatu cliffs. Like a scene from a horror movie, a monkey the size of a toddler pulls itself over the rock face, as if it had been resurrected from the depths of the ocean below. Jumping onto the path, it splits our (now screaming) group in two. When faced with a crazed Indonesian monkey, you discover very quickly if you are wired for fight or flight. I am ashamed to have learned that my instinct was to grab my best friend and use her as a human shield, while the monkey pounced on her backpack, grabbed a dangling Bath & Bodyworks hand sanitizer, and retreated into the jungle. (Sorry Laura).

***

In Uluwatu, it is almost impossible to resist the call of those windy roads that lead to untouched beaches where the aforementioned surfer babes are chasing the big waves. So you will find yourself renting a scooter, emboldened by your vast previous experience in Ubud practicing up and down the dusty laneway of your Air BnB. And for a brief shining moment, you too will experience the freedom of the surfer babe, winding along the palm-lined roads of paradise from one beach to the next. But for as many days or months or years that you are fortunate enough to live this surfer babe life, there will come a day when it is time to return home. And when this day comes and you plan on visiting one last beach on your scooter, you should use the same principle as downhill skiing and other extreme sports and not taunt the universe by speaking of the ‘last run’. Call it something else. Anything else. Do not name the final beach trip that you are about to take hours before heading to the airport, and the universe may guide you around the large gravel chunks scattered around the hairpin turn that you take probably too slow because scooters are kind of scary. 

 

The end.