Bali

©2011 Rudolf Helder

The first surprise I had in Bali was one that sent me straight back to the airport building I had just walked out of. Apparently the money I had kept from my previous visit was no longer current and one of the money changers whose soliciting I had earlier waved off by saying, "Sudah ada uang," or, "I already have Indonesian money" quickly painted on a smile when I stuck out a hundred dollar bill. Rp 8,700.000. Already I was getting 200,000 less than in the street, but the street was just what I had been negotiating a few minutes earlier with the cab driver, or rather, the distance from the airport to Ubud.
Of course, I could've gone to Kuta for a few days, which would've been cheaper, but its hustle and bustle plus looking for accommodation at a time when thousands of Chinese had descended on the town to celebrate Chinese new year, not to mention hordes of beer-guzzling Australians, wasn't my idea of reacquainting myself with Bali.

Big flying black ants were.

These appeared to have overtaken the room I'd rented across the river just outside of Ubud when I turned the light on for a midnight trip to the bathroom. The bathroom itself had attracted me when I inspected the small bungalow I had rented many years ago at Taman Indrakila, a place with a stunning view of Ubud's surrounding landscape. The bathroom had a completely open window with access to a small pool in which tiny fish lived whose job it is to eat the eggs mosquitoes lay in the water. Earlier I had enjoyed a cup of coffee on my veranda as a worker swept the grounds and I let the sounds and sights seep back into a region of myself the Indonesians have a single word for, "senang," meaning something like "a feeling of universal happiness, of being at ease with one's surroundings."
I was, until the flying ants turned up.
Not that I was too dismayed. They're Balinese and I am the invader of their territory by definition, but that rationale didn't make mankind advance to the top of the food chain, but starting the eradication of a swarm of unknown proportions seemed futile in advance. After I determined they weren't the biting kind I went back to bed.

I got up at 6, just when the sun began airbrushing heavy low hanging gray blue clouds with bursts of orange against which palm trees formed black quick-scissored paper cutout shapes. As I watched this "pemandangan," or landscape, a young Balinese woman appeared and placed a can with tea on the table in front of my bungalow.
"Selamat pagi."
Good morning Bali.