On the Edge of a Dream. Michael Wiese
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Kuta!” shout the urchins. We hear these destinations for the first time. We follow a pencil-thin kid who offers, “You go beach? Kuta? Okay. Okay. Come, come!”
Why not? We toss ourselves and our camera gear into a badly dented bemo, a truck with two long benches in the back for passengers. There are so many people crammed into this small, covered-seating area that I don’t believe it will really hold us. The kid stands on a small platform holding onto a handle, and off we go. A breeze blows through the open sides of the bemo. Twenty minutes later the road dead ends at Kuta. There’s not a soul on the beach.
Eddie and I walk past the mud-walled, thatched-roofed houses of Kuta village. It’s hot. Really hot. We stop under the shade of a banyan tree. There’s a dried-up offering on the ground.
A stucco guesthouse or losmen, rests under some coconut trees. The beach begins at the front door. A hand-painted sign says “homestay.” It has eight rooms. Only half are filled. It costs about 50 cents a day and includes banana pancakes and tea for breakfast. At this rate, my $300 will last for over a year.
A mildewed, dirt-floored room is our new home. There are two stained and sunken mattresses on handmade wooden frames; between them is a single oil lamp on a bamboo table. Behind the table is a chicken wire window with holes you can push three fingers through. That’s not going to stop any mosquitoes. Outside is a view of coconut trees and the ocean beyond, with row upon row of white caps. Inside, the walls are filthy green paint. A small room doubles as shower and toilet. There is one hole in the floor. No door. I surprise a fat lizard who slithers through a crack.
Eddie puts a small statue of Jesus on the table.
Ragged French travelers and Australian surfers occupy the other rooms. They shout and yell as if they own the place.
The smell of dope permeates the air. A dollar buys a weeks supply of potent Thai sticks. I get Eddie to try some. Big mistake. He laughs hysterically for hours and then gets paranoid and sees “the evil eye” everywhere. He must feel guilty for ‘straying from the path.’ We can’t get off the beds for the rest of the day. In the morning when we wake, we swear off dope off for the rest of the trip. We’d rather see Bali.
Rock and roll from the next room drowns out the gentle whispers of wind blowing through the coconut trees outside our window. A sun-fried, topless French girl stands outside our door and reports that Mick Jagger is at the Bali Hai Hotel.
“Mick Jagger, he’s so cool,” she says to her bearded surfer friend on the other side of the wall.
“Let’s go see him!” She sings off-key, “I can’t get no… SATISFACTION!”
Eddie says, “I’ll give you some SATISFACTION.”
“She’s got a boyfriend, Eddie,” I tell him.
“So?”
The Bali Hai Hotel is half an hour away in Sanur, a beach on the opposite side of Bali’s southern peninsula. Mick Jagger?
It reminds me of the Rolling Stones’ concert in Altamont. Someone was beaten to death by the Hell’s Angels. Whatever happened to love and peace? Suddenly, people around me were getting killed, at home as well as in Vietnam. It made no sense to stay. I’m glad to be here.
We stuff our things under the bed and padlock the door with the world’s smallest lock. Within seconds Eddie and I are on the beach.
It’s so bright I can hardly see. The sky is magnificent. The air is warm and clean. I walk between the brightly painted fishing praus and under the hanging fishing nets, which cast beautiful soft shadows on the sand. The water is pristine. I float. The warm water heals me
Eddie runs into the surf laughing, and then tackles me in the water and dunks my head under three times. “With this water, I anoint you in the name of the parrot, the lizard, and the banana pancake.”
Later, half-exhausted, we collapse on the beach.
“It’s going to be great here,” I say, as I rest my head on the warm white sand.
We see a group of people gathered ahead and go to investigate. Reverently we approach, as Balinese women bring offerings to two priests. (I get a great shot of the backlit halos that encircle their heads as they carry the offerings.)
“Oh, man,” is all Eddie can say, over and over, as the women pass. We’re mesmerized.
There is incense stuck in the sand, surrounded by half-coconut shell caps filled with holy water and flower petals. Behind us, a small walking gamelan group with a few gongs and drums knock out syncopated patterns.
Some boys ready a small prau, a Malay sailing boat with only enough room for about four or five people. A priest, carrying a large woven basket, wades through the water and then climbs into the boat. The boys paddle like crazy through the breakers. They stop about 50 yards offshore.
The priest sprinkles some holy water from a pitcher over various objects, then throws them into the ocean. I can’t make sense out of any of it. Then the priest pulls a duck from the basket and throws it into the air. The duck flies for a moment, but then with a stone weighted to its foot, it crashes into the water and is pulled beneath the waves. Just then a boy dives in and retrieves the duck. Some of the floating offerings are gathered up, and the boat returns to the shore. I walk closer to see.
Some of the offerings are cigarettes, flowers, and carved palm leaves that have been cut and folded together in quite beautiful patterns. I pick one up and put it my pocket.
It’s not long before Eddie wants to trade some cigarettes for the duck and the coconut bowls that were retrieved by one of the boys. What are we going to do with a duck?
Back at the homestay, Madé Gitah, a souvenir salesman, hawks some Balinese paintings. He sees us and rushes up.
“Darimana, tuan?”
“What’s this darimana stuff. Everybody’s always saying darimana. What’s it mean?” I ask.
“Where are you from?
“Where are you from? I reply.
He smiles.
“We’re from America.”
“Ohh, America. You go to moon?”
He shows us a few of his paintings. Eddie picks one up. Sensuous women sell fruit in the marketplace and steal looks at the men out of the corners of their eyes.
Eddie is fascinated. “Are Balinese women really like that?”
Others are underwater ocean scenes of horrible, large-fanged sea monsters. No wonder the few Balinese that are fishermen spend a lifetime throwing offerings into the sea.
Madé explains that offerings are made to both the gods in the mountain and the demons in the sea. The Balinese orient their beliefs around Kelod (the direction toward the sea) and Kaja (the direction toward the volcano). It’s a cosmology structured on high and low. Humankind is balanced in between. Made says he doesn’t like to come to the beach because there is lots of black magic. Oh, terrific. And the beaches are where the travelers hang out.
Eddie asks, “If you don’t believe in black magic or demons, can they still get you?”
“I don’t know.”
I pick up one of the offerings I brought from the beach, and reverently place it at the entrance to our room.
“Feel better?” I ask.
He crosses himself theatrically.
“Now I do.”
We all laugh.
Madé leaves as it starts to pour. The rain beats down for about an hour and then all is still.