Travel Dispatch - Week Seven - "Ignore the Ghosts, Appease the Giants"

DATELINE - BALI

So the cause of the delay was an invisible, dancing giant.

For my week in Bali, I was hosted by Kelly, the sister of a college friend, and her wonderful family. I will never be able to thank them enough for my time there. They were magnificent hosts, showing such generosity, hospitality, and insight into the marvelous spot that is Bali, that by week’s end (Hell, at week’s beginning) I wasn’t certain I ever wanted to leave the island. Typical of gracious hosts, Kelly kept apologizing for anything that wasn’t perfect in her eyes; in this case, the remodeling of the house that was still taking place during my visit. The family had just returned from vacation to find the work wasn’t yet finished, Kelly explained, and slow construction was just one of the facts of life one had to adapt to while living in Bali. Things happened at the pace they happened here, and everyone was better off not getting upset, just accepting it, and taking things as they came.

Over the course of the week, I noticed that concept in action. Each morning, construction workers would arrive at the house, mill around for awhile, and then begin doing some work. At a certain point, the architect would show up and stop them. A meandering, impromptu meeting would take place, and then the builders would start doing different work. Finally, each evening, Kelly or her partner Ro would return home and explain that everything that had been completed that day was not what they had asked for, and that it had to be done over. The cycle of events would repeat the next day. No one seemed particularly put out by this dance, however. The common attitude was a shrug and an unspoken “This is Bali.” You get the majesty of the place, you have to accept the pace of the place as well. The pace contributed to the majesty, was the implication. Having taken a few walks on a beach in Sanur, where Kelly and her family live, a beach that should really be on every single postcard that’s ever mailed from now on (it’d save everyone a lot of trouble), I was already growing comfortable with the philosophy.

So most of the times I waved Kelly’s disclaimers off, as the construction work was so non-intrusive I might otherwise not even had noticed it, her generosity was so great it wouldn’t have mattered even had I noticed, and even if workers had started cutting wood with a circular saw two feet from where I was sleeping, it would’ve still been better than trying to sleep in a Darwin, Australia hostel with an arguing French couple.

When she mentioned the problem they were having with the invisible, dancing giant, however, I found that I did have some follow-up questions.

A giant? You have a problem with a giant, you say? Yes. But not just a giant, an invisible one. An invisible one? Huh. Yes, but not just an invisible one, an invisible, dancing giant. There’s an invisible, dancing giant, you say? Yes.

(As I write this, I’m prompted to ask a writer’s question - should it be “an invisible, dancing giant,” or “a dancing, invisible giant”? Which adjective goes first here? It stands to reason that the further you get away from the noun the adjectives modify, the more distinct the modifier should be, right? Like, you wouldn’t say, “the blonde, famous actor,” you’d say “the famous, blonde actor,” corredt? The “famous” is the more distinctive, so it takes precedence, no? There are plenty of blonde actors, but fewer famous ones, yea? And I’m gonna make an executive decision that dictates that while there are probably plenty of dancing giants - I might argue that every giant has danced at some point, if only at like, the giant’s fraternity brother’s wedding or something, at least when the DJ played “Shout” or “Celebration” or some or such wedding anthem - there are fewer invisible ones. You simply don’t see a lot of invisible giants, right? Ha. Hm. I guess you don’t see a lot of visible ones either, do you? Hm. Crap. This is tougher than I thought…But as I said, it’s a writer’s question. It’s nothing for you to worry about, Dear Reader…what might E.B. White say? Where’s my ELEMENTS OF STYLE? Huh, I left it at home; it wouldn't fit in the backpack. Forget it; let’s carry on.)

What’s the invisible, dancing giant’s problem? would be the obvious, next follow-up question.

The invisible, dancing giant didn’t like the papaya tree that had grown in the yard.

At this point, I kind of lost the thread of the exact issue - I can’t recall if the invisible, dancing giant didn’t like the papaya tree because the papayas the tree produced were too big, or if the invisible, dancing giant didn’t like the papaya tree because the papaya the tree produced were too small - but this part seemed irrelevant. It seemed to me that, if Kelly didn’t have a problem with the papaya tree, then it wasn’t truly a problem.

But that’s not how Bali works. The man who worked for Kelly, a kind, gentle man named Gede whose daughter turned a year old the day I left, and who managed to pleasantly suppress his frustration with my inability to remember any Indonesian beyond “Terima kasih” "Thank you," which I'll probably still be saying four months from now in India), had explained to her that work wouldn’t truly be able to be finished, or even continue at any actual pace, until the issue with the giant was resolved. I’m not certain it’s as simple as everyone would refuse to do any work until the issue was solved so much as the work would seem to go in circles and not really progress anywhere until the giant was satisfied.

How one would infer that satisfaction? Beat me, but that’s not the point.

The locals in Bali believe that everyone exists on two planes - the visible half and the invisible half. They do not accept that there are two poles to things. They don’t view things as “good” or “bad” but everything is part of everything. Simply because we cannot see something does not mean it doesn’t exist, and if something exists, we must be aware of it, we must pay attention to it, and sometimes we must satisfy it. So of course there can be invisible giants. What’s more, the Balinese are very big believers in karma. What comes around, goes around. So if you ignored someone (even if you couldn’t see that someone or critique its dancing), what would go around is your house remodel, go around in circles indeifinitely. So if the invisible, dancing giant didn’t like the papaya tree then Kelly, her architect, and her family were going to have to figure out how to appease the invisible, dancing giant.

Kelly mentioned it could’ve been worse. They could’ve found skulls in the yard.

My visit to Bali was going to end on Indonesia’s Independence Day, so Kelly gave me some background on the nation’s history. Back in the sixties, after Indonesians had been granted self-rule, the government and other forces had done a pretty rigorous purge of the Communists who had fought for control of the country, and a lot of the purged had wound up buried in Sanur. Since then and now the neighborhood was populated by a lot of ex-pats, who weren’t as concerned about the nation’s history as the locals, it hadn’t been as much of an obstacle as one might think, but it also wasn’t as infrequent as one might think that during a construction or renovation of a villa in the neighborhood to have a skeleton or two be uncovered in someone’s backyard. If one found, say, a human skull, Kelly explained, the choice was simple: either report it and have construction delayed while the authorities investigated in vain (always, always in vain - nothing was ever going to be solved), or toss the skull aside and try to finish the construction.

Kelly did not say they had found any skulls on her property, but for the rest of the week, I made certain to watch my step when walking from the house to the garage.

So renovating in Bali had at least two tenets - appease the giants, ignore the ghosts. Probably still not as difficult as dealing with the city of Los Angeles for a building permit, but tricky nonetheless.

Listening, I was sympathetic, but strictly speaking those were not my problems. I had to be off to search for dolphins while avoiding monkeys.

The dolphins could be found off the coast of Lovina Beach, on Bali’s northern coast. After being introduced to the Balinese boat skipper by Kamong, my gregarious and helpful tour guide for the two days of this mini-trip, I climbed into a slim pontoon boat with an outboard motor and sat with a German couple. It was sunrise, a sunrise so beautiful that it would’ve been worth the price of admission had I seen nothing beyond that, it battled Sanur for postcard duty, and as we puttered out into the ocean, our eyes peeled. We joined dozens of other boats, all scanning the top of the water for the same thing.

I don’t know why, but I had expected that we’d be seeing thousands of dolphins, everywhere we looked, that the sea would be lousy with dolphins, all traveling in organized regiments like a graduating class of a military academy as they paraded past. I might not have paid attention during that part of biology class back in junior high school. No, we had to show patience and lower expectations. There was really no way to predict when or where we’d see the dolphins. Dolphins are known as intelligent creatures, so they’re probably smart enough to discuss it at the annual migration orientation meeting.

“Okay guys, listen up. When we swim past Lovina, we’re gonna have to deal with a bunch of boats full of maroons taking pictures. You guys ever heard of a GoPro camera? Well, some of these clowns dip their GoPro underwater and…”

When somebody on one boat caught sight of a bunch (okay, fine - a "pod." Nerd.) of dolphins, the skipper of that boat would try to get near them as fast as he could, and the rest of the boats would all chase after the first boat. Then, when the dolphins would disappear, everyone would drift eagerly waiting until another boat in a completely different direction would spy some dolphins, motor over, everyone would follow…rinse, repeat. It was like six year-olds playing soccer, everyone chasing after the ball in random directions. But when you were lucky enough (and it was luck - none of these skippers had any more idea of where the dolphins would show up than any of us) to be near the spot where three or four dolphins would pop up, disappear, pop up again, disappear, pop up…disappear…it made the ride even more relaxing, in a way…There’s nothing like watching a dolphin bounce out of, then back into the water to make you want to give into whatever life is giving you and make an effort to forget about the things in your past that are holding you back. You’re looking at a dolphin swim. What are you worried about, again? That release is an unfamiliar yet peaceful feeling for me.

“Peaceful” is not what I’d call the monkeys. I saw them at the end of a pretty long day, after touring several Balinese stores that manufactured various things - batik fabric, gold and silver, wood carvings, artwork - but that seemed somewhat touristy and had made me question somewhat the inspiration of art (how inspiring is a work of art when you’re just pumping them one at a time in front of the store while tourists take pictures? Thomas Kincaid had nothing on these Ubud craftsmen.). I guess I was a little quiet and perhaps looking a little down in the dumps because after several attempts at small talk Kamong finally said, “Be happy, Mr. Bill. We are next going to…MON-KAY FOR-EST.”

Kamong didn't say it, he intoned it. And. Dude was not lying.

It’s all in the title. Entering the forest, after being warned to leave my sunglasses in the car as “No, no, they will snatch them right off your face, Mr. Bill,” it’s fair to say that I was beset by monkeys. I was beset by monkeys. They were everywhere, on trees, walking on the paths, climbing up children who held bananas, this was a lush, green forest of palm trees that was full of monkeys. Lousy with monkeys. Monkey Forest. Put it this way, if the dolphins off Lovina were Matt Damon or Robert DeNiro leaving a restaurant in SoHo, reclusive movie stars trying their best to avoid the paparazzi, these Ubud monkeys were flash-in-the-pan reality TV stars who couldn’t stand a lack of attention for more than thirty seconds. In other words, these monkeys were at ease in front of the cameras. They seemed to pick fights with each other because they knew a Chinese family was itching for some action, seemed to go out of their way to preen when an Australian woman complained “Oi, I can’t grab a good shot,” seemed to know to deliberately obstruct an American single dude when he was trying to avoid them so he could find a toilet ‘cause he’d been going through a LOT of bottled water that day. That afternoon at the MON-KAY FOR-EST, I discovered that it is easier to live in the moment when you're compelled to avoid monkeys trying to grab at the bottoms of your cargo shorts.

Two contrasting parts of Bali that made an extremely enjoyable, and valuable, experience. If the dolphins existed mainly in the invisible part, the monkeys were plainly visible. A nice balance, and I have to remember sometimes to pay attention to both, and sometimes I have to remember to ignore some of one. Ignore the ghosts and appease the giants.

When I returned to Sanur at week’s end, everyone asked me if I had fun. “Yes,” I said, and then I took a quick glance at the ground to make certain where I was stepping.