And So It Begins… What? Bali Bali Bali

Taipei Airport

Jet-lag cure...Bit into a stewed tomato and it squirted bright red juice across the while plastic wall...Hey napkins! 

I promptly slept though the first meal service on my 12 hour flight from Seattle to Taipei. The woman next to me, who was going home to China, force fed me graham crackers and told me she didn’t know how to work the airplane TV and that she wanted to wake me up for meal service and she hadn’t been home in five years. The lady sitting on my other side, a Taiwanese high school teacher, shook my hand and saluted me when I told her I had studied psychology. She said we needed more women in the sciences and that I looked like her daughter.

Seeds of Life raw food cafe

I landed in Denpasar, Bali at 3:15 in the afternoon. After a long immigration line we were spit out into a dense heat and an even denser crowd of drivers holding name signs. I walked up and down the line, wondering if I would even recognize mine in this state of jet-lag. Finally, I saw it, a sight as welcomed as your bag rounding the corner on baggage claim carousel. When you’re in a new place, completely out of your element there is nothing quite as comforting as finding your connection. It was a two hour ride from Denpasar to Ubud. The smells of spices and trash, and the street dogs in temple doorways and webs of motorbikes were nostalgic of my previous time spent in Southeast Asia. 

Sleep city!

View off my balcony

My home for the next two weeks is Jati Homestay, an upstairs private room. The walls are thatched and the door catches against the red tiles when it opens. I have one lamp that I unplug and move from between my bedside and desk. The rotating fan attached to the wall billows the mosquito net draped over my bed, making inconstant shadows on the ceiling. There is a curtainless shower, a delightful well of cold water (its been in the mid 80s with 70% humidity). I have a small balcony that looks out onto the dense jungle. Every morning an old woman burns incense and sets out offerings, small woven baskets with flowers and rice. I sit and write and watch the birds turn the baskets into holy ‘all you can eat’ buffets.

An offering basket looking over the stream

Ubud is hectic. Its tight streets are packed: motorbikes and wandering tourists, shops and restaurants, massage parlors and currency exchanges. Its been a cultural hub and a tourist mecca since the 1970s. The community is strongly centered on art, raging veganism, and a bohemian vibe with a Southeast Asian twist. My first day I found myself in a beautiful raw food cafe, floor seating and round mandala pillows. Next to me, two British men wearing charka teeshirts consulted a deck of taro cards, while I thumbed through a book on compassion cultivation and slurped down liquified greens…oh, hello whopping hipster fucker clichés. But when in Rome…?

I signed up for a week of unlimited classes at Radiantly Alive yoga studio. They hold over ten classes everyday. I tried a sky yoga class, dangling and swaying from a nylon hammock. Our instructor was Pedro, an older Spanish fellow with buns like a fucking Zeus statue, anyway, its fine. He showed us some cool moves. The elderly Chinese man in the hammock next to me kept bumping me with his foot. I finally poked my head out of my net and saw him floundering, spread eagle making a slow rotation tucked in his purple cocoon. I didn’t remember Pedro teaching us that one! 

At the yoga studio I met lovely solo traveler from Spain. We grabbed lunch after class (tempeh noodles, papaya and shrimp salad), found the Pondok Pekak Library and Learning Center, which holds classes on cooking, art, music, and dance, I’m excited to go back and partake! 

At a small open-air cafe, we stopped to smoked rollies and drink coconut milk iced coffees. We talked about diving and flying, navigation and falling in love.

I’ve been waking up before dawn (working this time change thang to my advantage!) to read and practice mindfulness. I’ve been going for runs before the heat sets, out of town and through the rice paddies or past the Monkey Forrest (met my first monkey yesterday, YIKES, some more systematic desensitization therapy needs to go down for sure!).

Stag-horn
Photo: https://alamendah.org/2015/12/10/jenis-paku-tanduk-rusa-atau-simbar-menjangan-platycerium-asli-indonesia/tanduk-rusa-jenis-platycerium-ridleyi/

Plumeria flowers
Photo: https://nurserylive.com/en/buy-aromatic-plants-online-in-india/plumeria-champa-yellow-plant-plants-in-india

I've noticed there is a beautiful growth clinging to a flowering shrub in the front yard.

Tonight as I was walking down the path to my room I stopped to ask Wayan if he knew what large plant was growing off the tree… Ah, the language barrier, he held up a finger and said “One?” No, I asked again. He said “Sorry.” I told him it was ok, I’ll google it! And stated walking towards my room. He said “Excuse me…” and climbed the tree and tore off a leaf and handed it to me with a nod and a smile…

I spent some time researching parasitic plants in Bali and found that it was a Stag-horn fern growing off a Plumeria, who’s flower is combined with sandalwood to make the hippy wet dream Nag Campa incense. I went downstairs to fill up my water bottle. The statues where still laughing holding their stone pitchers of rice wine, Wayan was sitting on the stone ledge. “Wayan, its called a Stag-horn fern!” He looked at me, I told him again. “Sorry.” he said. We laughed and shrugged and said goodnight, who’s know what he thought I was up to. But now I’m the proud owner of a three and a half foot fern leaf! 

My big papa fern leaf! ...or frond? Fern frond?