The Heat Is On, And The Animals Are Attacking

The season has turned in Bali. The long, relatively cool dry spell has snapped virtually overnight into the hot and humid interregnum that precedes the rainy season. It’s 33 degrees and the humidity is hovering around 80%. Life, never running at a cracking pace here, has slowed down to a crawl.

People snooze during the day to conserve energy in the sapping heat. Walk into a market stall and you will find the owner asleep on the floor. Go into any office to pay a bill or attend to some incomprehensible Bali-style documentation, and you will find at least five people slumped at their desks, too tired even to log into Facebook, which in cooler times appears to be an activity mandated in their job description. Three more, totally catatonic, will be staring sightlessly at a television, while four others will be in a back room on a ‘break’. A break from what? And one, exuding an air of patient resentment, will be on the front counter, attending to a huge queue of sleepy, resigned customers. Only bules complain, and they are politely ignored while they sweat and fidget in the oppressive conditions.

The heat, during the few weeks before the rains come, is a time of watching tourists’ children wail with frustration as their melting Magnums fall off their sticks and dribble ice-cream and chocolate on those just-purchased tee-shirts that will forever retain the stains. It is a time of beer becoming too warm to drink before a small bottle is empty – even for Australians, normally astonishingly rapid imbibers who can make a bottle vanish in less than three minutes. It is a time when motorbike seats feel like barbeque griddles, capable of frying a couple of eggs and a sausage in five seconds for the unwary. Fortunately, it is also a time when one’s pool has finally heated up enough to allow a refreshing dip without shrinkage, full body goose-bumps and a reflexive gasping for air.

But while the seasonal warmth causes people to slow to the speed of three-toed sloths, it seems to be causing a surge in animal activity. My villa has become a veritable nature reserve, with strange beasts manifesting themselves unexpectedly from the strangest places. My Domestic Infrastructure and Support Manager (formerly known as my pembantu before she discovered Bali’s version of Political Correctness) is ready to find a less stressful job. In the last week alone, she has been startled by bats, mice, monitor lizards and giant red dragonflies. Each time, she emits a shriek followed by a voluble stream of something that sounds suspiciously like cursing in Bahasa Batak.

It’s late at night, one week  ago, and I’m sitting at my computer engaged in some serious political research. Well, OK, I’m on Facebook, but I’m planning to do some research later. The garden and pool are in darkness and I’m engrossed in my labours. Suddenly, I hear the slithering of  something in the bushes near the pool. I hear rustling leaves, crackling twigs and the eerie sound of scales rasping on the stone coping of the pool. Spooked, I turn on the lights. Nothing. I have a good look around. Still nothing.

So the lights go off again, and it’s back to work, albeit with some disquiet. Then, without warning, there is the unmistakable sound of a large tongue lapping the pool water, accompanied by lots of slurping and soft grunting. Eyes fixed on the source of the noise, I reach across and snap on the outside lights, ready to catch the damn Komodo dragon, or whatever it is, in the act. Nothing. I cautiously circle around the pool with more bravado than sense, brushing past some shrubbery. Instantly, a swarm of what appear to be Special Forces paratrooper ants descend on me and start stinging mercilessly. Brushing them off doesn’t work, so I jump in the pool.

Then I think – sweet Jesus! That Komodo thing might actually be in the pool! With me! Thoroughly rattled by now, I  exit the water like a breaching whale, regroup and try to continue working. I have a broom handle close at hand, ready to defend my territory. Ten minutes later, there’s that slurping sound again. This time, my weapon clutched in a nervous fist, I flick on the lights and catch the culprit red-handed. We look at each other and both pause for a long moment. With a flick of its bushy tail, the squirrel darts into the shrubbery, looking back only once, presumably to see if I am embarrassed. I am. Well, it sounded big and scaly …

The next morning, barely awake, I open my bedroom door and pad into the open-air lounge. A dead twig lies on the floor in my path and I am about to brush it aside with my foot. Except that it suddenly writhes and coils, rearing the upper part of its body high in the air and spreading its little hood. It’s only about forty centimetres long, but it’s angry, and strikes at me twice before I do an uncharacteristically fast tap-dance and retreat to safety. The potential squirrel-killer broom handle from last night is out of reach, so I pick up the only thing at hand – a feather duster. Yes, I know – don’t say it. I really don’t like killing things – not even snakes – but this little reptile is so aggressive that it’s too risky to do the nature show thing and pick it up for disposal outside. So I brain the poor thing with the handle of the duster. Sorry snake, but in this villa, nothing that gets between me and my morning coffee gets to live.

Probably because I have sadistic tendencies, I leave the body arranged neatly in a life-like pose on the front steps of the villa. Later that morning, when the Domestic Infrastructure and Support Manager arrives in her usually sleepy state and is fumbling for her key before looking down, I am rewarded with an immense shriek. That alone sort of made the whole episode worthwhile.

I blame Bali’s current spell of hot weather. People are more somnolent, animals are more active. Things jump and crawl out of bushes and out from under couches a lot faster. We tend not to react, or think as quickly. I guess the price of living in a warming paradise is eternal vigilance. I’m certainly a lot more cautious now. And I know that my pembantu is watching me now with even more suspicion than she shows for the other creepy-crawlies around here.

Rain, Rain – Go Away!

By some incredible quirk of marketing by vacation industry mandarins, the ‘high season’ for visitors to Bali has been mandated to co-incide with the rainy season. Everyone knows that, but they still pay inflated prices for everything during a time when they are sure to be regularly saturated. High season in Bali is hot, humid – and can be very, very wet.

When it does rain, it is usually a deluge. The gutters, which double as defacto rubbish bins – invariably flood. This might be because of the cunning placement of outlet drains uphill from the rest of the watercourse, or maybe because those ubiquitous plastic bags are blocking the pipes. The result is a temporary tropical Venice – without gondoliers. However, the deep gutters, while marginal at best for draining water, serve another function – they eat cars. The channels are very close to the edge of the road, so to turn into a narrow gang with equally deep ravines requires an excellent understanding of the different turning radii of one’s front and back wheels. If you lack this understanding, the ever-present locals will gladly right your capsized vehicle and jack your inside back wheel out of the ditch – but of course, you’ll need to have your wallet handy.

Bali currently has a serious water shortage. Many lakes are dry and underground water is disappearing as people suck increasing amounts from rapidly depleting aquifers. So the rains are welcome from a purely hydrological point of view – even though it would be nice to have more catchment wells to make use of the downpours and help raise the water table. I know we need more water, but my rampant self-interest dictates that I personally want this rainy season to be over, and as quickly as possible. Yes, I’m socially irresponsible.

You see, I have begun to suspect that I’m a Rainmaker. I don’t actually make the stuff, but I can make it rain on command simply by forming an intention to do something that involves going outside. I think it’s a quantum mechanics effect, where the mere presence of a participant can affect the outcome of an otherwise purely physical process. Let me give you a few examples from last week.

It’s morning, and after the usual nightly downpour, the skies lighten and the drizzle fizzles out just in time for breakfast. So at about 9am, I putter off on my motorbike to the local purveyor of fine eggs and bacon. Within seconds of leaving home, it starts raining, and it does so relentlessly until, dripping wet, I sit down for breakfast. The rain instantly stops, then starts again when I get on the bike. This happens no matter what time I decide to head off in the morning. Quantum rain.

Then there’s afternoon Coffee Time – a ritual discovered by those who had become used to multiple daily coffees in our pre-Bali days. Before, I used to get so distracted here I tended to neglect my caffeine fix - only to be rewarded by a niggling headache by mid-afternoon. No, it’s not the lunch-time Bintangs, it’s actually caffeine withdrawal. The pre-emptive anti-headache coffee became part of my daily life here, but I still have to get to the coffee shop. And of course, it rains the instant I leave home, stops during my coffee and obligingly resumes as soon as I leave. Quantum rain.

Dinner time is usually better. The clouds often clear by evening, meaning that if I change into something that creates a modest display of sartorial elegance – or at least something better than the traditional Bintang singlet – I can stay relatively immaculate during the trip to the restaurant. But of course, it inevitably pours as soon as I leave, meaning that I arrive home a sodden, bedraggled mess. You guessed it – quantum rain.

In fact, anytime I go out on the motorbike, it rains. The water comes down vertically from above, and horizontally from taxis whose drivers take delight in timing their puddle entries to achieve the maximum splash trajectory. It also comes up vertically. I tried to ride through a large puddle, only to find that its deceptively flat surface concealed a pit of such monumental proportions that I ended up sitting in water up to my crotch. At least it greatly amused the watching locals, who apparently sit around watching each new arrival plunge into the abyss. I suspect they actually dug the hole. I’m reliably informed that it’s better than cock-fighting, and it’s not illegal either.

Lest it be inferred that I am a sullen troglodyte who doesn’t care about Bali’s water shortage, I’m willing to compromise with the forces of nature and the imperatives of tropical climatology. I am happy to let it rain heavily during the hours that I am asleep. I am even prepared to let it rain during the day, as long as I am under cover, napping or indisposed.  But I do insist that it stop before I have to ride anywhere. Surely climate scientists could work on creating this new Bali weather pattern for me?  It’s obviously a viable, equitable solution for my moisture problem - and surely easier than that Climate Change stuff they’re all playing with.  And I’m giving them this revolutionary idea for free – now that should make those who thought I was a spoilt, self-absorbed pillock change their mind.