Bali: Contrasts, contradictions and rubbish

One of the many things I love about Bali is the way that apparently contradictory things coexist so happily.  On the roads, you will find ‘pedestrian crossings’ whose only purpose is to ensure that the injuries sustained by people skittled by traffic are clustered in handy first-aid access zones, instead of being spread over the length of Jl. Legian. Then there are the traffic lights, where red can mean turn left, or turn right, or if you really, really want to, go straight ahead. Less confusingly, a green light only seems to have one purpose – to signal the start of timing for a special Bali reaction test to discover how quickly everyone can blow their horn. The record is apparently held by a local ojek rider who consistently achieves the feat in less than a  millisecond.  

Of course, there is the white line at intersections too - a fat stripe set so far back from the traffic lights, it  couldn’t possibly be where you have to stop, could it? Unfortunately, it is. Its true purpose is to serve as a cunning revenue-collection device that makes Polisi materialise from thin air if even a molecule of tyre rubber touches it. And don’t even mention the ‘footpaths’, so named because they are in fact designed for motorcyclists who run out of room on the road. When selfishly stymied by thoughtless pedestrians who actually choose to walk on the footpath instead of teleporting, these riders need to stop and put their foot down for stability … hence footpath.

Then there are the written inconsistencies. In Bali you can read advertising tabloids containing ads for English classes – complete with spelling mistakes. Reassuring. Ads for pool maintenance people who rarely answer their phones or return emails, and if they should happen to do so, don’t turn up for appointments. Ads with incorrect phone numbers, unchanged over five subsequent editions. Why bother advertising?

Drive down any street and you will find signs assuring you that it has six completely different names in a stretch less than a kilometre long. Lucky I navigate by landmarks, because even street numbers are designed to confuse rather than illuminate. Sure, dwellings are numbered consecutively, but house numbers appear to be allocated in chronological order of construction, not their geographical location. My own villa is the first house in the street, so officially it’s Number 1. But there is another Number 1 in the same street, because it is the first house at the other end of the street. The owner ’solved’ the problem by telling me to use Number 4, because he didn’t think 4 was taken yet. It’s all academic, because none of the houses have any numbers up on the gates anyway. Directions to get to my place involve statements like “keep going until you see a sleeping three-legged dog, then turn left.” I don’t think there is even a word for precision in Balinese …

But to me, the most striking aspect of Bali is the stark visual contrast everywhere around you. Impeccably dressed locals in traditional attire conduct ceremonies that are both moving and spectacular - next to huge piles of rubbish spilling from ruptured plastic bags.  At a recent ceremony, I saw a muscular local, resplendent in udeng, kamben, saput and selempot – all the traditional, respectfully appropriate garb that one would expect for the occasion. Except that he was wearing a perfectly ironed, collared shirt - with a mammoth Harley Davidson logo emblazoned on it. To me, the contrast was jarring, but his compatriots kept stealing frankly admiring glances at him. I wouldn’t have the courage to do that, but it would seem that no courage was needed.

It’s a multi-faceted society here. Bali locals can be seen taking their beautifully groomed, healthy dogs for walks on expensive leather leads, while other locals nearby take well-aimed swipes with brooms and buckets at street dogs. Small wonder that there were 124 dog bites treated last week at one hospital alone. Karma? I was asked by someone recently “You like dog?” Without thinking, I replied “Of course”, and was promptly informed that if I went to a particular warung, they have it on the menu today. Yikes! I have witnessed gentle people sacrifice chickens at ceremonies, and watched excited crowds of what appear to be perfectly normal people cheering wildly at cockfights. There are social and cultural undercurrents here that I can not begin to understand, and that means that I am not qualified to judge them. But it does give me pause for thought …

However, some ‘visual contrasts’ I do judge. We love our Bali beaches, but all along the south-west coast, stunning ocean vistas are interrupted by the shocking contrast of open drains which pour garbage and raw sewage across the beaches. Their once-pristine sands now frequently conceal festering rubbish such as cigarette butts, plastic bags, needles and other nasties. It’s ugly, but it is fixable.  They should do something about it right? Wrong. There is no they in Bali; it’s up to all of us to fix stuff we don’t like. We all know what to do to make it better. Let’s start by binning our butts, reducing plastic bag use, refusing to throw rubbish in the gutter - it will only end up on the beach. Something has to be done. But it needs to start with each and every one of us. Then we can afford the luxury of enjoying the cultural contrasts of this island.

The Zen chaos of Bali traffic

So here I am, riding my motorbike (yes, you scoffers, my girlie bike), thinking about how to write this article.  Being an active participant in Bali traffic is quite an illuminating experience, by no means limited to complex vehicular dynamics. It is a social and cultural phenomenon as well, not to mention a crash course in logistics, strategic planning, tactical implementation and group psychology. Well, maybe ‘crash course’ is a poor choice of words …  

Nevertheless, it’s an immersive learning situation and I actually enjoy being in the thick of  it. One can contemplate the fluid chaos around one’s bike while interacting with it. Staying alive is always such a good motivator, too. One has to be completely involved, the theory being that this provides practical insights which lead to better understanding, which in turn leads to being a more effective participant in said chaos. So much for theory. I really should have concentrated more on the road instead of spending so much time in the Daliesque abyss of my head. But even if I had my full attention on the traffic, I could not have predicted what was about to happen one minute later.

With my indicators on for the last 20 metres, my side street coming up on the right and already leaning into a gentle turn from the middle of the road, I see in my right mirror a looming apparition. The urban warrior behind me, ignoring my blinkers and already-turning bike decides to overtake on my right. Luckily a light tap on the brakes stands me up enough for him to miss me (just), but, tyres smoking,  he careers into the bikes parked at the side of the road. The impact is fortunately gentle and only two parked bikes fall over. My last glimpse of him reveals a face turned to me full of annoyance - at me!

Later, I read a forum post that explained the logic. I’m not a local. The other guy didn’t personally invite me to Bali. If I hadn’t been in Bali, this never would have happened. Therefore, the accident was my fault. I think it’s called transductive reasoning. Or maybe it’s something to do with the “if” fallacy which my father used to explain to me whenever I made some feeble excuse which included the ‘if’ word. He would say: ”If mushrooms grew under your nose, you wouldn’t have to go into the forest to pick them”. Never made sense at the time, but now that I’ve been exposed to Bali traffic, I think I’m beginning to see what he meant.

Despite my brush with death (oh all right, my brush with a possible scraped knee) I still believe that Bali traffic has a flow about it, a organic flux that makes driving in this frantic crucible work in most cases. There seems to be both a scary lack of personal responsibility coupled with a Zen acceptance that everything will work out fine in the end. Unlike in my home country, there is no road rage as such. That seems to be reserved for after a serious accident instead of before. My friends tell me that if I’m involved in a death or injury situation (assuming I can still move), I should get the hell out of there and report to the nearest police station. A sobering thought.

I’ve learned some simple rules to help me survive so far. Treat all turns as merges. Think zipper. Treat all intersections as the merging of two traffic streams at right angles. Give way only to those you are about to hit, or are about to hit you. Travel at the speed of the surrounding traffic. Drive in a bubble, concerning yourself only with the people in front and to the sides. The ones behind can take care of themselves. Assume that anyone joining traffic from left or right kerbs will not look before accelerating. Above all, follow the medicos’ creed: “First, do no harm”. It doesn’t reduce the chaos, but it does make it a little more bearable.

And it’s not just cars and bikes that make Bali traffic so chaotic. Don’t forget the most dangerous and annoying road users of all – pedestrians, especially tourists. These are people that think nothing of suddenly stepping out into the roadway in front of a motorbike - for no other reason that they can’t be bothered to use the footpaths. Or passengers that force their cabs to stop in the middle of a narrow street for five minutes, gridlocking everything for two kilometres while they get their wallets out, argue about the fare, demand their 2,000 Rp change and complain about Bali traffic … 

But you know what – I love it. It’s alive. I feel like a corpuscle in some huge circulatory system. OK, it’s slow and I won’t get to where I am going in time for my appointment. So what? It’s Bali – neither will the people I am meeting. Jam karet. And in all the grand confusion, it still all makes sense somehow. Dean Koontz, in his novel The Darkest Evening of the Year says: “At the core of every ordered system … is chaos. But in the whirl of every chaos lies a strange order, waiting to be found.” He could well have been talking about Bali traffic.

Sex, money, lies and desperation

So there I am again, sitting on the beach, an inert lump watching the sunset, quietly absorbed in my own thoughts, when a young local lass wanders up and asks whether she can sit next to me. Ha! I think - I’ve obviously still got it! It must be the youthful, devil-may-care demeanor, the rippling abs, the six-pack and the steely gaze … Then I remember my liver spots, double chin, sagging belly, myopia, man boobs and general air of dissipation and think, nah, it must be my vibrant personality which is so attractive.

OK, I lie like a cheap doormat – I know exactly why she’s there. After the standard Bali preliminaries (where are you from, how long have you been here, where is your wife – you know the drill) she cuts to the chase. Miss Bright, Bubbly Personality says, with great eye-contact, “You want to go to my room? Only 900,000″ Sigh. It wasn’t my rugged Bruce Willis looks and masculine persona at all – it was the bulge in my shorts. The one in the back pocket, where my wallet is. I am slightly shaken, but not stirred. I tell her that I’m sure she’s very good, but no, I’m not interested, thanks. Without prompting, the price drops in rapid increments to 200,000. Mind you, I’m not haggling, just repeating “no thanks” over and over like some sort of celibacy mantra. So she gives up on the romantic part of the evening and I wait patiently for her to leave, to seek out more fertile ground, perchance to find someone who might even be interested in her as a person rather than an orifice.

But she switches strategies with the seamless ease of a war-weary general who has fought, and won, many campaigns. “I only do this for my mother”, she says, suddenly wearing the pathos-laden face of the mother-and-baby beggars in the streets. “Your mother is a pimp?”, I enquire with feigned surprise. My insensitive irony goes over her head. “No, no”, she says, “My mother is sick in hospital and has no money to pay the doctor. I am trying to help her. I only need another 900,000″. Oh, that mother. Sigh. I was hoping for something more original, like her motorbike is pregnant, or the last earthquake damaged her kost and she needs to pay a surveyor, but no such luck. It would actually be so nice to get a bit of basic honesty for a change.

So yours truly, Mr. Sensitive, says, “Oh, that’s very sad”. She can’t quite conceal the momentary look of triumph, the one that you see on the face of an angler when he feels a fish take the bait. I then proceed to ruin this magic moment by saying, “It would be even sadder if it was true”. Her transformation from self-sacrificing pathos to angry, thwarted harridan was not instantaneous, but close to it. There was some high-speed Bahasa (which I fortunately failed to follow), some sand-kicking and a lot of flouncing about. I think there was some mention of my probably being impotent anyway, and a question or two along the lines of “Why are you wasting my time when I’m working?” It was all very theatrical, and like all good theatre, quite entertaining. I’m such a heartless bastard. Oh well, I do have faults too …

And where did my jaded outlook come from? Well, I’ll tell you, but it’s not pretty. It’s not that I’m asexual, or that I think that consensual relations with or without cash transactions are wrong.  I personally have no objection to prostitution per se on religious, moral, or any other grounds. I believe that people’s beliefs, lifestyles and peccadillos are their own – as long as they don’t expect me to adopt them. After all, I don’t expect them to adopt mine. My cynicism (the sad, despairing sort) comes from an episode a few years back in Tuban. While out for an evening stroll, I was approached by a girl on a motorbike. She looked about 18. Same spiel as above, but the difference was that she was offering two for the price of one. The ‘freebie’ was her pillion passenger, a scared-looking girl-child of about 11. I don’t normally moralise, but had to ask, “How can you do this?”. Her reply was simple: “She is my sister. I am teaching her”.

I was talking about this to a couple later that night, and the husband confessed that he was approached by the same pair the night before. His response was different – he gave them 300,000 and told them to go home, thinking it would help, perhaps keep them off the streets for a night. It didn’t. He saw them pick up a client 200 metres further along. Sometimes things are so broken that you can’t put them together again.

And there it is. My liberal-minded attitudes to the sex industry, whether in Bali or anywhere else, are in conflict with the realities of how it is conducted. Lies, scams, sob-stories on the one side, straight-out paedophilia on the other. Pimps, touts and other bottom-feeders preying on everyone in the middle. When I was younger, I thought it was all harmless fun. Now I’m not so sure.

Mind-reading, teleporting pembantus

Having a pembantu to help with the household chores is wonderful. Not only does the villa stay spotless, but clothes are miraculously washed and folded, dirty dishes never accumulate and the plants are watered without my lifting a finger. This greatly appeals to my inner sloth, which is gradually losing all capacity (and desire) to manage the day-to-day responsibilities of running a household. I am drifting inexorably into a state of unreconstructed male laziness whose responsibilities lie solely in ensuring that the household never runs short of the four major food groups -  alcohol, chocolate, nicotine and carbonated mixers.

But I am starting to get uneasy. I have noticed that good villa staff have a number of attributes that go way beyond standard housekeeping skills. Some of these border on the paranormal – a twilight zone which my skeptical mind has always dismissed as New Age gobbledegook. They know things, and they can do things, and I don’t know how they know and do things – and that is scary.

Some time back, there I was, staying at a friend’s villa in Canggu. Lovely place – airy, spacious, beautiful garden, beachfront pool – and staff straight from heaven. It’s mid-morning and unlike the previous two mornings when I had indulged in a coffee at that time, I felt a sudden urge for a bowl of cut fruit. Now, those who know me know that I never eat fruit at that time of morning. Nevertheless, despite not even turning my head, much less uttering a request, within five seconds of my thought a previously invisible staff member materialised at my side  - with a bowl of fruit. Wow!

Later in the afternoon – normally my Bintang time – I felt an uncharacteristic desire for an icy-cold mixed fruit juice. No sooner had I visualised the creamy pink goodness in its tall glass, with drops of condensation beading the surface, (yum!) than it instantly appeared in front of me. Wow again! How do they do that?

Even if they read minds – an impressive enough feat in itself – they still wouldn’t have enough time to receive my mental signals and act on them. I think they actually see into the future. I’m going to start asking them for help with my choice of investment stocks. I’m convinced that they will do better than me …

But these paranormal feats pale into insignificance with what my pembantu here at the villa can do. She doesn’t read minds, but I think she can dematerialise. She can pass through walls with ease, and at times she can make herself vanish completely, usually when I’m looking for her. I have sat at my computer and watched her enter the kitchen door to my right. The kitchen only has one door. My peripheral vision is reasonably good. She does not come out of the kitchen. I am alert and sober. So I go into the kitchen to ask about the state of the gas bottles – and she is not there! It’s a hot day, so I even look in the fridge … but no, nobody there. I wander outside and there she is, watering the garden, with a Gioconda smile that says: “You have no idea how I did that, do you?” No, I don’t.

Or I come home on the motorbike to see her up on the upper floor terrace, hanging up clothes. I wave, she waves back, I walk across to the downstairs open lounge, keeping her in plain sight upstairs, and sit down. This takes all of three seconds. Defying all established rules of physics, she comes out of the kitchen next to the lounge!  The kitchen has no access to the upper floor where she is (was?) and is so far away from the only stairs that she would have had to have reached Mach 2 to get there. There was no supersonic boom, not even a glimpse of her passage from one place to another. I’m telling you, the woman teleports. I’m going to find out how she does that and get NASA, or at least the Letterman show, to hire us both. I mean, she’ll need a good agent…

I really need to find out how this stuff works. It’s all around us in Bali – you walk into the first market stall in a street somewhere, looking for purple monogrammed beer coasters with the initials VK, and by the time you get 50 metres down the street they’re all leaping out at you waving exactly that item. Telepathy, I reckon. Or maybe its tri hita karana – that Balinese belief in the connectedness of God, nature and humans that gives people here abilities that we can only dream of with our Western sensibilities.

Add that to the ever-growing list of things I don’t know. But I’d still like to find out how they do it.

Bribery, opportunism, corruption – or just economics, Bali style?

I don’t get it.  Just about everyone you meet here with something to sell possesses a brain with an in-built calculator optimised for money. Every item and every service is flawlessly quoted in any major currency. Three-way forex calculations are as natural as breathing - most of these people seem to have memorised all the day’s exchange rates before breakfast. Their ability to instantaneously calculate the potential profit margin for any given item based on its wholesale price,  the proposed selling price and the inexperience of the buyer is awe-inspiring.

Why then is there such a gulf between the economics practised locally and that used in the rest of the world? Obviously I don’t  understand the correlation between supply, demand and price as well as I should. Some esoteric component, which I call the “because I need the money” factor, seems to dominate pricing decisions here.

So there I was in a market stall earlier this year. OK, I wasn’t your typical dream customer – all I wanted was one T-shirt. I was quite happy to pay the 30,000-35,000 going rate for the thin, somewhat poorly-stitched, plain black garment being dangled tantalisingly before my eyes. I only wanted to sleep in the thing after all …
“This one is 390,000″ says the happy-looking lady. I thought to myself that if I was managing to sell T-shirts for that price, I would be very happy too. A quick check in the mirror confirmed that I did not look even slightly Japanese, so I knew that I must have misheard. But no, even after intensive haggling, the best price I could get was 90,000. Why? Because  “… not many tourists. We not sell many. Must get more money, so price is more.” Ahh, Bali economics. But all my efforts to explain that if the price was less, she would sell more and still make her profit were met with a look that said clearly that I must be truly stupid if I believed that … What does one do? I went away without a T-shirt, leaving her with no money. 

Shortly afterwards, I was looking for a villa to rent for a year. After the usual inspections, I decided on one that was good, at a fair price, and called the agent back within 2 hours of seeing it.
Me: “I’ll take it”
Him: “Oh good” (Long pause) “There is just one small problem. The price is now 300 million”
Me: (After a temporary seizure which had affected my ability to speak) “But your ad said 150 million! We agreed on 150 million! The owner agreed on 150 million! What’s changed in the last two hours?”
Him: “Ahhh … the economic crisis …”
Me: “An economic crisis has hit Bali in the last two hours?”
Him: “Um, well it started a bit earlier, but the owner remembered that he had too much money in Euros, which have dropped you see, and er, he needs more money now …”
Me: “Well, that’s a real shame, because he won’t be getting it from me”

So, miffed but philosophical (a sporadic condition in Bali for me), I started searching all over again - but within an hour, I was interrupted by a call from the same agent.
Him: “Great news! I’ve managed to get the owner to reduce the price just for you! It’s now only 250 million!”
Me: (Quivering with indifference) “No thanks …”
Him: (Aghast) “What? After I worked so hard to get you a 50 million discount?!”

I believe that villa is still sitting vacant. Unbelievable as it may seem, I’m no longer interested. When one rents a villa, like it or not, one inherits a relationship with the owner as part of the deal. At least I now know of  one owner with whom I have no interest in forming any kind of relationship.

Realistically, living here, one expects a range of practices ranging from the opportunistic to the outright corrupt in many places. Most are easily handled by judicious application of caveat bule - but occasionally it still costs you – if not money, then at least some of your equanimity. We’re all familiar with the usual scams, right?
Immigration official: “Sir, to stamp your passport,  there will be … ahhh … a 50,000 “tip”.
Friend: “I don’t think there is a charge, but feel free to call my friend at the KPK – here’s his number, I’m sure he can sort this ou …
Immigration official: (Throwing passport down) ” Arghh, mutter, mumble … go!”

Patroli: “Ahh sir, you were going the wrong way up this one way street. Big problem. You must go to court in Denpasar at 8am tomorrow”
Me: “No, no problem. Motorbikes are permitted to do that”
Patroli: (Patiently, because of long experience with argumentative bules) “Maybe, maybe. But now I have to inspect your registration documents, ownership documents, Indonesian motorbike licence, helmet, KITAS, birth certif …”
Me: (Enlightenment dawning in my forebrain) “Oh, you mean that big problem!” (Slipping him the 50,000 note I keep with my licence) “Sorry – would you mind awfully paying my fine for me” I’m a bit busy tomorrow …”
Patroli: (Beaming) “No problem – have a nice evening!”
Then he asks me to hold out my hand, palm up. I have a sudden vision of being manacled and dragged screaming to Kerobokan prison, but instead, he stamps my wrist with a little purple symbol. A rite of passage? The mark of Cain? No. “If my friend round the next corner stops you, show him the stamp. You will be OK!” See, it was just a receipt for the administrative inducement …

Even in a major department store, one is not immune to the odd bit of opportunism. There I was, buying a guitar, partly because it was a reputable store and partly because it had been marked down from 875,000 to 785,000. The clincher was a free guitar bag and strap with every purchase. Lo and behold, despite a clearly printed discounted price tag, the young entrepreneur serving me strenuously asserted that the original price was valid for today (“Oh no, the discount was for yesterday“). Then he took me into the back room where the accessories were kept and furtively explained that the bags and straps (about 50 of them) actually belonged to him, but he would be pleased to sell me what I wanted. I left, sans guitar.

So the store missed out on a sale and the sales assistant missed out on his commission. But I didn’t get ripped off and the store avoided having its merchandise stolen and fenced to me. As I left, the young man was busy re-attaching the discount tag to the same guitar, ready for the next customer. And I got the impression that no-one really cares, because that’s just the way it is here. But I still have no guitar.

Anyway, who am I to judge Bali practices, Bali mores? I live in this country as a guest. Maybe I should have just gone more with the flow, and paid the (trivial) extra $10, and bought the damn guitar. Maybe I should stop tilting at windmills. I don’t know. I do know that I am learning as I go, and despite my dyspeptic mutterings, actually hugely enjoying the ride.

Saya lupa? I forget …

There’s something in the Bali water that makes you forget things. Or perhaps it’s in the air. Or it might be the tropical climate, or maybe the soporific sounds of the ever-present water fountains. Some have unkindly suggested that it is caused by too many Bintangs, or scotch and Cokes. For someone like me, who believes that denial is a river in Egypt, that last one doesn’t even bear consideration.

Here’s a typical event in my new life in Bali. Before arriving here, I had used Superglue  many hundreds of  times without a single accident. I was here for only three months before completely forgetting about the powerful skin-bonding properties of the stuff. If anyone has an urgent need to bond their fingers permanently to a pair of pliers, I can show them how to do it …

I forget that I already have things – usually cunningly secreted in various cupboards around the villa - and go out shopping in the heat for those same items. It’s not really a problem – every villa needs at least forty bottles of that liquid goop you put in those mosquito-killing vaporisers, right? Now I just have to remember not to forget to buy some actual vaporiser thingies to put them in.

It’s not just small items either. For two weeks I had been looking for a new couch, coffee table and footstool for my open lounge area. I knew exactly what I wanted (and could even see in my mind’s eye) the sizes, colours and styles of each item. Naturally, it being a holiday period, many furniture shops were closed. My obsessive searching came to naught. And then, when my frustration levels had reached their zenith, I had a revelation. Maybe it was something else; I can’t remember. The reason I could so clearly visualise the desired items was because they were already in my villa, unused, cluttering up various rooms. One would think that one would remember what furniture one actually has in the villa. One would be wrong.

I am beginning to believe that an island-wide amnesia affects the sense of time  here as well. I miss appointments because I forget what day it is. I suspect it’s exactly the same for the locals. The advantages of not having to suffer the “Thank God It’s Friday” syndrome in Bali is negated by the fact that every day here feels as if it’s Saturday. Couple this with the well-known jam karet – rubber time - philosophy here, and nothing gets done at the time you think it’s going to be done. When the pool man says that he’ll be here tomorrow at 2 o’clock, you can be sure he will arrive, smiling, sometime within the next fortnight. And at any time within 23 hours of the one agreed. Luckily, by the time he actually does appear, I am inordinately happy to see him because I have forgotten when he was supposed to come.

Sometimes a strange confluence of events, once described by @Ozdj as ”Murphy’s Law meets Bali time”, occurs. At best, it’s irritating; at it’s worst, it makes you believe that a sort of bizarre karmic punishment is being exacted for some unknown transgression. For two weeks I have been waiting to get connected to the TV cable network here. All the promises of  ‘man will be there tomorrow’ never eventuated – I was left semi-patiently dangling with vague assurances of satisfaction, but zero action.

Then, on a recent Saturday in September (the one  that afficionados of Australian Rules football hold sacred) the much-awaited call came. “Your cable service will be installed today”. Great! Finally! I happily negotiated a suitable time for the job, making sure it would be after the AFL Grand Final that I was eagerly anticipating watching at a friend’s place. Of course, as soon as I was actually on my way, an excited call from my pembantu informed me that ‘the man’ was here already. What! Three hours early! I had to return home - bumbling and fizzing at the sheer unfairness of life, to supervise the installation. The man, of course, didn’t need supervision – he just wanted to make sure that I would actually be around to pay him. So I missed seeing the final, my team lost … and naturally it cost more than I was quoted. At least, I think it did. I forget what the original quote was after all this time.

So what causes all this? Is it the water, the air, the booze, or the climate in Bali that destroys memory? What is it that makes one forget appointments, bill payments, friends’ names and the the date and time of day? I was speaking to someone the other day (I forget who) and they said that in my case, it could be something else. I have a vague recollection that they said something about Al’s and Hymie’s something or other (whoever the hell Al and Hymie are) … but I really can’t remember.

Serendipity – meeting the Muse in Bali

So there I am, sitting on the Double Six beach, watching another Bali sunset, and my peripheral vision informs me of a presence two benches along. He is a wizened, weather-beaten man, looking as if he is made of leather and held together with nails. He is holding an equally battered guitar, which he cradles as if it is the only thing of importance in this life.

We make eye contact – me with curiosity, him with diffidence. He sits beside me, instinctively choosing my right side – the one with the ear that works. We talk. His name is Budi, from Kalimantan, and he settled here a long time ago. From the looks of him, it was probably around Independence Day. I look at his guitar; he tells me that it was made in Jarkarta and cost 800,000 Rp. I think to myself , hmm – perhaps they saw him coming? 

But then I look at his guitar again, more appraisingly this time, and note that it is old and worn – but well looked after, and clean. The fretboard varnish is worn unevenly all the way down to the 14th fret. The tell-tale marks of a player who is unafraid to let his instrument sing tell their own story. He notices my gaze.

“Do you play?” he asks. Well, I did once. Badly, and a long, long time ago. He gives me the instrument and sits back expectantly. I can hardly remember chords that were once so familiar and my fingers feel like the breakfast sausages served at a two-star hotel. For a moment, I am the sober patron who has just been bullied into singing karaoke by his drunken ‘friends’ and is about to die on-stage … but I begin to tentatively explore the strings.

It is like an epiphany. This instrument is … well, let me tell you. It is perfectly in tune. Oh yes, the strings are screaming for replacement, but despite that, the sound is still harmonically rich, with overtones that can only have come from a luthier who knows his woods and his craft – and is so unconsciously skilled that he makes the superhuman task of creating a near-perfect instrument seem easy. The action is light and precise, with the individual notes of every chord being within a cent or two all the way up the fingerboard. The thing is harmonically balanced, with the 12th fret providing perfect octaves and all of the harmonics ringing true.

I play like I’ve always played. Truly, badly, briefly. But what a pleasure it is to hold this instrument and try to coax some simple blues riffs from it.  Like someone else’s docile but faithful dog, it is reluctant to yield its affections to a stranger. But to my surprise, it does yield, and soon begins, like all good instruments, to almost play for me. On hearing the ancient and familiar 12-bar pattern, Budi’s eyes come alive. I hand him the guitar, recognising that age-old muso ignition point where he must either play now or quietly die inside.

So then Budi plays. I am transfixed. It is traditional blues, but with influences from everywhere he has been and everything he has seen. It’s rough and ready, and like a diamond, technically flawed in places. He plays and sings from his heart and soul, not from his head, and my forearms are dimpled with goosebumps from hell in the warmth of the Bali evening. His voice is etched with acid and honey, and there are overtones of broken glass and bourbon, poverty and loss. He frequently stops, usually about half-way through each song, trailing off with an unseeing stare at the horizon, muttering softly “Saya lupa, saya lupa …”  I often forget words to songs too and I understand. He asks me to identify the exotic and mournful chords that he plays, but can’t name. It doesn’t matter. His music is the core of his being, and I am awed.

He will probably never give a concert, or be a performer in the cafes and bars. He probably would not manage to survive the crucible of the recording studio with his soul intact. The wolves of the recording industry would rend the flesh from his bones and dilute his soul enough to break his spirit anyway. I suspect he doesn’t really want public adulation - the act of creation is enough for him. He has no need to be stroked by a large audience – simple recognition by peers is enough for him. His music is his essence.

Budi reminds me of another artist – let’s call her Hellena - that I met in Seminyak. To financially survive, she works behind a bar. To emotionally survive, she writes songs and paints. To me, her paintings are very appealing. Being a Westerner, way too accustomed to being able to purchase whatever I want, I offered to buy a beautifully evocative guitar-themed piece  that resonated with my own psyche. She refused. “My art is part of me”, she said. “I can not sell it, because I would lose it …”  Just as for Budi, her own Muse has a personal relationship with her, and has not yet given permission to share the channelled talent with the world at large.

And that is the rub. Perhaps the best art is to be seen, and experienced, but not owned by any individual. Perhaps the best music is supposed to be heard, but not commercialised, lest it be diminished in some way. I don’t know. I do know that my life has been enriched by serendipitously meeting these two people. Thank you Budi; thank you Hellena.

Why you shouldn’t buy a villa in Bali

So there I am, sitting at a bar, talking to a frequent Australian visitor to Bali – a stranger – and he is upset. Really upset. In fact, he can hardly keep track of his own stream of unhappy observations about the awful situation back in his home state, interrupting himself frequently in mid-vent to launch the next load of rhetoric before even finishing the previous one.

Being in somewhat of a lethargic frame of mind (well, it was late, and it had been a long day), I finally understood that he was referring to ”those bloody ***s” (nationality deleted because it doesn’t really matter – but let’s call them bool-AY?, with an upward inflection, because he was from Queensland).

Him: What really bugs me is that we don’t own anything there anymore … they’ve bought it all!
Me: Like what?
Him: Our land! Houses! Hotels! Factories! It’s all theirs! We’re losing everything!
Me: But we sold it to …
Him: … and that is so wrong! It’s our birthright they’re buying! There should be a Law (mutter, mutter, mumble)

So this goes on for a while, as pub conversations tend to do, and some of the heat dissipates according to the inevitable laws of entropy and we move on to other topics. I am pleased, because I tend to get distressed when exposed to too much alcohol-assisted jingoistic fervour.

Me: So, you here on holiday?
Him: No, no – I’m here to buy a villa. Moving here in two months.
Me: You getting  a 20-year lease?
Him: Oh no, I’m going to buy one freehold …
Me: Mmmm. Well, as a foreigner, you can’t actually own land in Bali …
Him: Yeah, yeah, I know all that – but that’s easy to get around. (He nudges me; thankfully, he doesn’t actually wink.) I just use the name of a local and stitch him up with a watertight contract which gives me use of the property. For ever. (Smugly) It’s called a name-giver deal – the agent explained it all to me.

Despite myself, I feel obliged to clarify that, while ‘circumventing’ Indonesian property ownership laws appears possible using a name-giver contract scheme, it’s actually a lot more complex. For a start, the ‘contract’ itself is considered to be void ab initio (i.e. unlawful from the start and therefore unenforceable) by some legal practitioners in Indonesia, partly because it refers to a non-existent transfer of money between the parties during the  so-called ‘purchase’ transaction. Then, of course, there is the ever-present possibility that the local name-giver decides that since the freehold title (the Hak Milik) belongs to him, there is nothing to stop him from just taking over the property at some stage in the future. I point out that this has happened a number of times in the past.

I foolishly go on to explain that you may manage to perform tricky manoeuvres to sidestep the actual wording of the law – which says that a foreigner can’t own land. But what you can’t do is avoid the provisions of the Indonesian Constitution, which says that a foreigner can’t control land. I tell him that the whole freehold-buying scheme could potentially fall in a heap, because that gives the foreigner control over the property. And that leasing is much, much safer. And that it would be prudent to abide by Indonesian law while a guest in this country. This somewhat agitates my new best friend.

Him: (suspiciously) You some kind of socialist intellectual or something?

I hastily deny this, because such deviants are not generally permitted in Bali pubs, and if they did inadvertently sneak in, they would be mercilessly mocked, especially by my countrymen. It takes a considerable amount of time talking about beer and football before he is convinced that I have the necessary cultural pre-requisites to continue the conversation.

Him: I don’t like this leasing stuff. Doesn’t happen back home. I pay the money, I get the freehold.
Me: Unless you live in Canberra … most properties are on a 99-year renewable lease there …
Him: Huh? … Whatever. Anyway, that’s not the point. I don’t want to lease, I want to buy a villa here – and I can’t see why the locals should have these restrictive laws that are stopping me.

We briefly discuss the significance of land ownership for the Balinese, their culture and family structure, but I can tell he’s not really interested, even though we use approved pub language, much bagging of all and sundry and various male bonding rituals. He knows what he wants and anything that obstructs that desire needs to be made to vanish.

Right about then, I assist this process (of making me vanish) by committing a tactical blunder. I remind him that he started out being furious at those reprehensible Bool-AYs who are buying up property in his home state, thus dispossessing him of his birthright. And yet, when I point out that that is exactly what he, as a bule here, now wants to do in Bali, he is genuinely mystified. “How can you say that?” he says, “… it’s completely different!” For once, I am speechless. How is it different?

It could have come to raised voices, if not actual blows, but we ended up parting on reasonably amicable terms, although his demeanour and body language clearly showed that he thought that I had the reasoning capacity of a dog biscuit. Maybe I have. Maybe my belief that the right to legislate property ownership laws in this place belongs to those who historically and culturally have a claim to it has clouded my logic. Maybe logic has nothing to do with it.

But I can only hope that, on reflection, my temporary friend will come to believe, as I do, that there is no difference between his ire at foreigners owning land in perpetuity in Australia and that of Indonesians when faced with the loss of their birthright here. Under current laws and constitutional guidelines, ‘freehold’ ownership of propery by non-nationals remains problematic.

But gee … wouldn’t it be nice to actually own a villa in Bali?

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Respect (just a little bit)

I haven’t had a good rant for a while, and it’s time. Maybe I’ve gone native, but some of my fellow bules, here in Bali for their 10 day jaunts, are starting to bug me. What is it about visiting Bali that makes some people believe that ‘respect’ is a concept that is voluntarily surrendered somewhere just past the Denpasar Visa-on-Arrival counter and reclaimed once they have passed through Immigration back in their home country?

It’s certainly not the Balinese people, who are amongst the most respectful, beautiful, tolerant and patient people on this earth. It’s not the hotels and villas that provide a warm and welcoming environment for their visitors. No, it’s not Bali itself that is to blame – it’s the visitors themselves.

 It’s an age-old problem -  for some visitors, geographical and cultural displacement seems to trigger behaviour patterns  which are inappropriate, unseemly and downright insensitive. Much of this behaviour seems to flow from a belief that local cultural and social norms (and even laws) are irrelevant.  At the same time, there seems to be a parallel conviction that the mores and laws of the visitors’ home country should apply to the locals while the visitors are here. The paradox is that the worst offenders also believe that they are exempt from the social conventions of their home country during their stay.

When we have visitors who reject both the local customs and their own, yet demand total conformance to their own (albeit temporarily shelved) cultural values, we have a recipe for misunderstandings at best and social disasters at worst.

Seen recently:
A young lady, amply proportioned, wearing a tiny bikini top (which was a structural engineering marvel in itself), G-string and a transparent and very short sarong loudly berating a local who was reluctant to admit her to a temple in which people were praying. Now that may be decorative on the beach – if exaggerated gender markers are your thing – but totally inappropriate for a temple. Required reading: Temple Customs 101; Choosing the Right Clothes for You 101; Respect 101.

Then there was the overbearing ‘helpful’ visitor who barged in on two strangers who had just concluded a T-shirt purchase and dragged them away shouting “What? You just paid 90,000 for that?! Come with me and I’ll show you where you can get it for 30,000!”. The understandably upset vendor was summarily dismissed with a few choice Anglo-Saxon expletives, but still had the grace to keep his “Bloody bugil” response to a mutter. Required reading: Caveat Emptor 101; Bali Verbal Contracts 101; Keeping Your Nose Out of Other Peoples’ Business 101; Respect 101.

And of course, night-time brings out the the absolute gems. At a nice restaurant, the large, drunk, barefooted, sweaty, dirty-haired, singlet-over-huge-beer gut-clad lothario attempts to summon a waitress. As she tentatively steps forward, he raises his hairy leg to point past her with the sole of his foot, bellowing “Tee-Dack – not you fatso, the cute chick behind you …!” When the aforementioned cute one reluctantly comes over, he pats her on the head with one hand, on the bum with the other and loudly propositions her, taking offence when his romatic advances are rejected. Being of a somewhat decorous nature, your observer manages to prevent himself from vomiting in his scotch. Required reading: Hygiene 101; Balinese Taboos 101; Sensitivity 101; Travel Brochures to Anywhere but Bali; Respect 101.

I could go on; many of you will be pleased that I choose not to. Why do these eruptions of bad taste and cultural insensitivity happen? Is it that some people don’t see it as important to find out more about their destination before they leave home? Is it that they don’t care? Is it that the Westernised enclave of Greater Kuta promotes a form of tacky blindness that transforms normal people into cultural buffoons?

I don’t profess to know. But what I do know is that even if the perpertators of these disasters ignore all the required readings above, they should at least try to develop the most important quality one needs to survive and flourish in any culture - respect.

Then, and only then, in accordance with the best karmic traditions of this beautiful island’s culture, will I afford them respect in return.

Visitors at my Bali villa

It’s busy in Bali at the moment. The streets and restaurants are full, there is a buzz in the air and local traders actually seem happy. And, being holiday season, my villa has been overflowing with guests for the last few weeks. This has necessitated a change of lifestyle for me. Let’s face it – I am a confirmed hermit, normally curmudgeonly in nature and solitary by inclination.

But suddenly, my home has life! There is music, company, conversation, shared drinking … in a word, normality. And you know, it’s not too bad. My guests bring news from what was once home, new perspectives on political discourse, and tales of bureaucratic stuff-ups and travel woes that are strangely similar to those I have experienced here in Indonesia. Last week’s classic:

Jetstar: Sorry Mr. M, there are no direct flights to Bali from Melbourne on the day that you require. You need to go via Darwin.
Mr. M : OK, that’s fine.
Jetstar: So you will be on a domestic flight to Darwin, then an international hop to Denpasar …
Mr. M: Will my surfboard be checked through?
Jetstar: Certainly.

So, a few days later, my esteemed guest checks in at Melbourne with a 1.95 metre surfboard and some hand luggage.

Jetstar: Sorry, you can’t take your surfboard on this flight.
Mr. M: Huh? You said that bringing my surfboard to Bali would be no problem!
Jetstar: Correct. You can take it on the international flight from Darwin to Denpasar, but not from Melbourne to Darwin.
Mr. M: (Knowing he will regret asking, but does so anyway) Why not?
Jetstar: Because it’s 1.95 metres long and won’t fit on the plane – the  planes on the domestic leg are smaller, and will only take 1.9 metres. But you can take it with you from Darwin to Denpasar, because the cargo hold is bigger.
Mr. M: So how do I get the board to Darwin?
Jetstar: (Drops into ‘that question is too hard’ mode – i.e. good eye contact, body language and facial expression denoting well-trained sympathy – but zero verbal response)
Mr. M: (Stress factors now affecting speech ability) Well, why didn’t you tell me this before?
Jetstar: (With impeccable logic) You didn’t ask …
Mr. M: (after a pause to allow the steadily rising angst levels to dissipate) OK, can I leave the board here for two weeks until I come back?
Jetstar: Of course.

At this point there is a carefully timed pause (developed, I suspect, through years of practice) where a sense of relief is allowed to thoroughly permeate the customer before the check-in clerk says:
Jetstar: (Casually mentioning a figure which is three times the value of the said surfboard) Of course, sir, there will be a daily storage charge …

I know it’s childish and petty, but I take perverse pleasure in discovering that our local bureaucracy and customer service ethos is not limited to the archipelago. My guest managed to impose on a friend to pick up the board from the airport the next day, but it didn’t do much for his equanimity on arriving here for a surfing holiday sans board.

Nevertheless, Bali quickly worked its magic – and within hours he had settled down and proceeded to settle in for a most enjoyable stay.

Almost all of my guests are just as easy to get along with as my surfing friend. But not all. I am still recovering from the one who arrived hungry and penniless from a nearby city-state and expected me to house her, feed her, clothe her and generally act as combined ojek, pembantu, restaurant and ATM. It seems that my offer of a spare room in the villa for a few days was interpreted as including of all the benefits listed above. Fortunately, a hapless bule of my acquaintance became besotted with her on Day Two of what felt like a 30-day sentence in Kerobokan prison, but was actually only five l o n g days. To my vast relief he entertained (and paid for!) my scary guest for the rest of her stay. Life provides lessons which one must learn, or be doomed to repeat them. I learned this one quickly.

So, what will I do after this influx of guests is over? I can go back to my quiet life of introspeksi diri, Bintangs, massages and the internet. I can continue working assiduously on the seven deadly sins, of which I already have Sloth and Gluttony absolutely nailed. I can go back to Googling obscure snippets of useless information. Did you know that the Latin word for gluttony is gula? So appropriate for Bali …

Soon I will have my villa and my hermit-like existence back. But people, when you are all back in your far-flung lands, I think I will miss you.

Strange language experiences

Every so often, one needs to go off-island – to explore, reconnect with the rest of the world, reflect and rejuvenate. I’m back in Bali after a two-week sojourn to Lithuania – the land of my parents. It was more of a pilgrimage really. I wasn’t born there - I was sort of  dropped in transit through Germany on the way to Australia more years ago than I care to admit.

Lithuania is about 11 times the size of Bali, but with the same population. As in Bali, the people are fun-loving and friendly, the beer is excellent and the women are beautiful. Did I mention the beer is excellent? There are over 40 varieties of local beer and all of them sell extremely well. Also as in Bali, there is a rich cultural heritage that spiritually sustains the inhabitants. Particularly in rural villages, there is a banjar-like culture that provides support and security.

Despite being at a lattitude where the sun rises at 4:30am and sets at 10:30pm, even  near the end of  summer, it was still surprisingly warm in August. Mind you, everything is relative – the locals were gasping in the 27 degree ‘heatwave’ and looking at me as if I had lost my mind when I put on my jacket for the ‘cool’ 17 degree evenings. When you are used to Winters of minus 30 degrees, I guess anything above freezing seems warm …

Luckily, my Lithuanian is fluent, unlike the crimes I commit against Bahasa in Bali. (My latest linguistic transgression at a restaurant here - “Saya mau banjar” instead of  “Saya mau bayar” ).  Asking for a village instead of the bill is guaranteed to get you strange looks. And that was only a day after asking for an “es kepala”. I still reckon ‘iced cranium’ sounds like ‘iced coconut’ in Indonesian …

Anyway, language fluency, like temperature, is a relative term as well – I learned my Lithuanian from my parents, who left the old country a long time ago. People thought I was a local until I dropped words into the conversation that have not been in use for 60 years. “Have you come here in a time machine?” was one response to my witty repartee …

At a restaurant I tried all five words I know for ‘toilet’ without the waiter showing a glimmer of comprehension. After an embarrassing pantomime act (please don’t ask me to demonstrate), he asked, in perfect English, “oh, do you need to use the toilet?”  A perfect example of how even one of the oldest languages in the world – not dissimilar to Sanskrit – grows, borrows and evolves in response to globalisation.

More language difficulties also cropped up in Germany on the way back. The immigration officer scrutinising my passport and noticing that I was born in Germany, commenced a rapid-fire interrogation in German (which I do not speak).
Me: Sorry??
Officer: Sprechen sie Deutch?
Me: Nein
Officer: (accusingly) You chust did!
To my consternation, the grilling continued in German until he finally muttered something about my disrespectful refusal to speak the language. I knew I shouldn’t have fuelled his suspicions by departing with a polite “danke schon”, but I just couldn’t help myself.

So after nearly three weeks of speaking practically nothing but Lithuanian, I’m back in Bali – and guess what? I’ve forgotten most of the pitiful amount of Bahasa accumulated in the previous two months! Never mind, I’ll just have to go out and order a refreshing iced cranium and ask for the village at the end.

At least I can still say Bintang …

Buying a motorbike in Bali

I bought a motorbike today. Well, I’ve taken possession of  it, but I can’t actually ride it yet, because … no wait, let me describe how the sociology of motorbike ownership works here first.

In Bali, the actual purchase itself  is as easy as buying a T-shirt. But the lead up to the transaction is tricky. There is a whole gender/status thing swirling around that colours one’s choice of steed. For the last month I have been riding a rented Mio – one of the smaller automatic scooters in Bali. It’s small, somewhat underpowered and makes me feel like an elephant on a unicycle – but it’s practical, cheap to run and comparatively nimble. No one seems to care what you ride as a rental, but as soon as you mention that you are going to actually buy one, attitudes change.

Me: I’m going to buy a Mio.
Friend: For your pembantu?
Me: No, no – for me.
Friend: (pauses for a beat) Why do you want a girl’s bike?
Me: Er, umm, well it’s, you know, it’s cheap and easy to ride and er, umm …
Friend: Yeah right, it’s a girl’s bike …

So I think for a while, and decide I will not be intimidated by gender-profiling types who are obviously trying to rev me up. My money, right? My choice of bike, right? Off I go to the Yamaha dealer, where I see an array of bikes of varying degrees of coolness. Some of these look hot. A salesman coalesces out of thin air.

Salesman: Yes?
Me: I want to buy a bike.
Salesman: (gravitating towards a manually geared behemoth that surely would need a crane to pick it up if it fell over) This one is very …
Me: No, no, I want an automatic.
Salesman: For your pembantu?
Me: (cringing) Ah, well she might ride it occasionally …
Salesman: You mean it’s for you? Why do you want a girl’s bike … ?

I leave. Time for some introspeksi diri. So what’s another 2 million? I’ll get a real bike – a man’s bike. I need the extra size and power anyway, don’t I? I ride off to a different dealer, but more self-consciously now, because I’m on a rented Mio, which of course, is a girl’s bike …

Me (at the Honda dealer): I want to buy a bike …
Saleswoman: Certainly – now, this Tiger here is on specia …
Me: No, no, I want an automatic …
Saleswoman: Ahh, you want a girl’s bike?
Me: (with some asperity) No, it’s for me. I was going to get a Mio, but …
Saleswoman: For your pembantu?
Me: (mentally reciting a calming mantra) No. I want a bike for me. I want one that’s bigger than a Mio. And I want one that is automatic. Because. I. Can’t. Ride. A. Manual. Bike.

The mantra doesn’t seem to work, because I find myself gritting my teeth.
Saleswoman: (considers me for a moment, and obviously decides I’m gay) Ahh. This Vario would be perfect for you.
Me: ?? Perfect? It’s pink!
Saleswoman: Oh. I thought …
Me: I want that red one.
Saleswoman: But the red ones go faster …
Me: Very funny Kadek, but that’s actually the reason why I want a red one …

With the sociological preliminaries over and my position on the pecking order of bike riders now firmly established (apparently on the second-last rung …) we finally get to the transaction, which takes five minutes:

Me: I’ll take that one.
Saleswoman: You have KITAS?
Me: Yes.
Saleswoman: You pay now?
Me: Yes.

And it’s over. I have a brand-new bike! They delivered it within the hour. But of course I can’t ride it, because the registration plates will take two weeks to be processed, and I can’t go waving red rags at the Patroli by riding around on something with no plates and no registration papers. And the Blue Book or Black Book or whatever it is that proves my ownership takes three to six months to arrive … 

So I go and brag to my friend anyway:
Me: Hey, I just bought a bike.
Friend: What did you get?
Me: A Vario.
Friend: (suspiciously) You didn’t get a pink one, did you?
Me: No, a red one.
Friend: Oh. Pity. You know the red ones always get stolen first? Didn’t the dealer warn you?
Me: (mentally replaying saleswoman’s comment “But the red ones always go faster …”) Ahh, well, sort of … I thought she meant … never mind.
Friend: But you still bought an automatic. Why did you buy a girl’s bike?

So that’s it. Despite the subtle bagging, I’m the proud owner of a new bike, and I don’t care what people say. I make my own choices and will remain completely unmoved by the implication that in two weeks (grrr) I will be riding a twist-and-go girl’s bike that just happens to be of a colour preferred by motorcycle thieves. I am untouched by such petty profiling; I do exactly what I want. Pah! to the naysayers!

But next week, I think I might learn to ride a manual bike. Hmm … maybe I’ll even upgrade to a tough, macho Tiger …

20 signs that you’ve become used to living in Bali

Twenty sure-fire signs that you’ve become used to living in Bali:

1. You see an Australian-sized banana and say: “Wow! That’s big!”
2. You think a Suzuki Swift is a big car
3. You don’t even blink when a motorcyclist rides out of a shop door
4. Hawkers and touts become miraculously invisible and incapable of bothering you
5. You stop having a Bintang with breakfast
6. You put on a jacket on those freezing 26 degree days
7. You cross busy streets by just stepping out and expecting the traffic to flow around you
8. The gang leading to Poppies I seems perfectly adequate for two motorbikes and two pedestrians to pass each other at the same time
9. You never even think about having a potato with your meal
10. You think that power outages are completely normal
11. You completely ignore tourists who are about to pay ten times the going rate at a market stall
12. You pretend you can’t understand the locals when they talk about you, even when ‘bule gila’ features prominently in their conversation
13. You see nothing unusual about a motorcyclist with a filing cabinet strapped to the pillion
14. You would be lost without your pembantu
15. You stop getting bent out of shape about the driver who always parks his huge BMW half a metre from the kerb in Jl. Legian near Jl. Nakula
16. You think that any trip to the Immigration office lasting less than an hour seems swift and painless
17. You refuse to buy overpriced sachets of what appears to be sugar, but claims to be a mosquito-killing confection from official-looking people waving official-looking documents
18. You no longer think that reaching a speed of 70kph on your motorbike feels like Mach 1
19. You refuse to get in your pool if the temperature outside is less than 31 degrees
20. Local warung food seems a tad expensive

More sure-fire signs from readers below - see comments and leave your own!

Medical insurance in Bali

One of the conditions required by the authorities for expats to live here is to have medical insurance. This is not only a quasi-legal requirement to obtain a KITAS, it is prudent. I would go so far as to say it is essential.

I’m not talking about your standard expat ailments here like Bali belly, or a hangover where you are afraid that you are not going to die, or your garden-variety sniffles, insect bites or post-village-arak queasiness. I’m talking about appendicitis, dengue fever, avian influenza, motorbike road trauma – stuff that is potentially life-threatening. For such occasions, you need high-level medical help. While this can sometimes be accessed in Bali, it may well be that life-saving treatment may be required in Singapore or Australia. But of course you need to actually get there somehow. Commercial airlines won’t take you, so medical evacuation, provided by private companies at vast expense, may well become a necessity, not an option. Of course, you have put aside a lazy $30,000 – $50,000 USD just for this contingency, right?

Most people I know don’t have a mate with a spare Lear jet, or enough reserve Bintang money lying around in their sock drawer to bail them out of trouble. They get medical insurance.

I looked at perhaps five or six medical insurance plans which covered Bali and included medical evacuation. None were cheap, with annual premiums ranging from about $2,500 – $10,000 USD. The cost didn’t make sense. A cynical person might suggest that the insurance companies looked at their actuarial tables to assess the risk – then increased the required premiums by a whole order of magnitude. Great for companyshareholders; tidak bagus for those who actually need the cover.

Then I saw that there is actually an alternative. Travel insurance covers you not only for inconveniences such as cancellations and lost luggage, but also for medical cover and evacuations. I compared the medical cover component of my chosen travel insurance with straight medical insurance cover and found that there was no effective difference. Bingo!

My plan covers me for travel and medical expenses and medical evacuation anywhere in the world  that I want to travel for 13 months. It is renewable online. It cost me $700 AUD. It is exactly what I need. Security, and peace of mind for emergencies.

As an added bonus, I found out that my Australian Medibank Private cover could be placed in suspension for up to three years while I am travelling overseas, simply by paying one month’s premium and requesting a suspension. No loss of benefits, no waiting periods when you get back. If I’m back in Australia for a visit, I simply reactivate it, then suspend it again when I leave.

It’s good to feel protected while in a different country. If you can do that without paying through the nose, so much the better. Mind you, I’m sure I will manage to whinge about paying $700 AUD if I don’t fall off the motorbike in the next 12 months … !

The fauna that lives around my villa …

Life is prolific in Bali. Especially in and around my villa.

There is a dog two doors up – half doberman, half Bali dog, who seems to think that it his divine mission to protect a two square metre patch adjoining the road from all passers-by. He barks fiercely, postures and bristles, but I know he is just kidding. If I have to move towards him to avoid a motorbike, he retreats. I speak fluent dog, so we sort of get along. It’s just that he doesn’t understand English, so it’s basically a conversation based on body language. Not dissimilar to typical tout-bule interactions in Kuta Square, really …

Then there is the pair of dogs across the road. One is a basso profundo, the other a sort of mezzo-soprano, but with the melodic range of an ‘Australia’s Got Talent’ competitor. They bark in counterpoint, with alternating triple and quadruple beats with two beat pauses. It’s both piercing and soporific at the same time. Canine gamelan?

Today I thought I would step out of my comfort zone and wear a brightly coloured shirt. Very daring. Within seconds, as if to prove that it is not advisable to mess with the universe, a huge Bali wasp the size of an attack helicopter fell in love with my choice of apparel. I switched back to dark colours. Do these things sting? I don’t know, but they sure look intimidating. Time to retreat to the pool, but look! – two gigantic bees (either fighting or being deeply erotic) were so engrossed in their activities that they were literally drowning. I fished them out to go about their business, hoping they would not sting me out of some misplaced sense of violation.

The villa has geckoes, ants and squirrels. There is even a large mouse, or perhaps a small rat, black as a charcoal tablet, that scurries in most evenings desperately trying to gain traction on the polished marble floors. Claws don’t help, and the little pads it has have grip worse than the tyres on the motorbike I hired last month. That little rodent does some of the best wheelies I have seen outside of NASCAR racing. It doesn’t do any harm. It even refrains from pooping on the floor, which is really considerate.

The thing is, here, all of this somehow feels right. These denizens are guests in my home. It’s OK. Sing ken ken. Back home, one thinks of sprays, exterminators, poison and all sorts of manifestations of territorial behaviour. Kill, establish dominance, prove that the top of the food chain is not to be trifled with. Here, I wouldn’t dream of squashing an insect, getting aggro about dogs being dogs, or chasing off domestic wildlife. I am beginning to suspect that it is the presence of the temple in my rented house, because I sure wasn’t like that back home.

I am told things will change as the magic of the place wears off and the scales fall from my eyes. I hope not, I really hope not.