Terima KAMA Kasih, July 31
Michael Altschul
too, but I wanted to capture the Amen Amed while it was super fresh.
Set back your clocks a couple days for this.)
A couple nights ago I was explaining to my pals in Ubud how
challenging it can be for the lone traveler to do the cool day trips
that "tourist offices" sell. For example, I got it into my head that
I wanted to see this gorgeous waterfall (Gitgit) before I left Bali
and I'd seen a number of tour packages that left Ubud in the morning
and returned before sundown for $15; but any time that I inquired
further, I was informed that there was a 2-person minimum. So one
morning I was motivated and posted a note in a heavy tourist traffic
board outside a cafe, asking (begging?) for someone to include me on a
daytrip. Not a single bite. My buddy Hari suggested I rent a
scooter. I balked. a) people here drive on the wrong (errrr, left)
side of the road and b) there's some sort of a bizarre right of way
which seems to be loosely based on whoever makes the first move, but
more closely resembles a game of chicken. I asked how long such a
scooter ride would take. "1 how-rrrrrrrrrrrrrr." (Indonesians roll
their r's in the most endearing way!) That translates to about 2 hours
in my world, 4 hours round trip. I considered my options. I had fuck
all to do the next day if I didn't go to Gitgit and had already
committed to buying these cats drinks the next night as my way of
thanking them for their hospitality (and moonshine they hooked up the
night prior); so there was no getting out of Ubud the next day and I
didn't really feel like sitting still.
"Fuck it, why not?"
"You rrrrrrrrrrr-ent moto?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"Ah. Issss goooo'!" (I shit you not, the kid's voice was a dead
ringer for Borat's)
The next day I sought out Putu, a kind gentleman of the Waisya caste
who had sold me a Balinese farmer hat the day before. He actually
gave me a pretty reasonable rate, which meant he'd probably try to
recoup some rupiah if I rented a scooter. But, more important than
the hat (well, not really, a hat is critical in Indo), he educated me
on the Balinese caste system. I didn't even realize they had such an
antiquated class differentiation in place here. At the top of the
pecking order is the name Brahmana, followed by Ksatrya, then Waisya,
and the last is Sudra; what's more, you can tell to which caste a
person belongs by his/her first name. I realized that the vast
majority of the folks I'd met so far were Sudras, all of whom had one
of the four possible names: Wayan/Gede, Made, Nyoman, Ketut (the name
is given based on the child number -- firstborn: Wayan or Gede,
fourthborn: Ketut...). But Putu was proud to be a notch up from the
Sudras, evidenced by his name: Dewi. If he encountered a Wayan on the
street, the Wayan would have to speak in a more formal dialect of
Balinese when he learned Dewi's name (unless they were friends). And
if Dewi were to meet someone with a Ksatrya or Brahmana name, he'd
have to talk up to them. It got me thinking about the good ol' US of
A. I really appreciate not coming from a society where you're born
into a certain class. This is not to suggest that we don't have a de
facto pecking order, but at least it's not clearly defined and at
least there exists the hope of social mobility.
I digress. Putu and I agreed upon a rate $4 daily, with insurance and
helmet, and he pointed me (literally) in a direction and told me to
just ask people on the road if I needed help. "Okay, Putu...terima
kasih!" (Pronounced, "tear-ee-muh kah-zee", it means "thank you".)
I was off to Gitgit. I had my moto, my helmet, just a quick stop by
the bungalow to lighten the load and pickup a long sleeve and I'm set.
"Ho hum, this is cool. I guess." I realized I passed my bungalow.
"Oh well, at least I have my camera." A brief oh shit moment passed
when I wondered if I had my handy phrase book -- "How would I ask for
directions without it." But a mental inventory of my day bag
confirmed that I had it. "Cool, here I come, you damned waterfalls!"
About 10 minutes passed until a prolonged oh shit moment occurred.
I'd been spending so much time maintaining my position in the left
lane, reminding myself not to venture right, that I'd completely
neglected to have any idea whatsoever where I was going. "Dammit,
Julie was right to tell me to bring that compass!"
But to call it an oh shit moment would be to grossly understate the
magnitude of the situation. A couple years ago, I had the fortune of
seeing Rudi Guilliani give a keynote speech (read: promote his new
book) at a conference (I'll miss those work perks!). He praised his,
and his team's, response to 9/11 and said something that really
resonated: know your weaknesses and surround yourself by people who
can fill those gaps. At 29, I continue to discover weaknesses; but at
14 I could have told you my greatest weakness: my sense of direction.
There are times that I've walked around a dizzying maze of
pre-Haussmanian chaos in Paris when I felt like I'd have better luck
flipping coins at intersections than going with my instinct. In fact
the majority of the time I was better off electing to go with the
exact opposite of what my gut told me. But to use the Paris example
gives me an excuse. I've walked in the exact wrong direction for 15
minutes in New York before. On Manhattan. Where streets and avenues
are numbered. My sense of direction is so crap that I get lost in my
own San Francisco neighborhood. Shit, it's a miracle that I don't run
backwards on a treadmill. Well aware of this glaring weakness, I
always defer directions to anyone else in the room, frequently call my
girlfriend to bail me out with a mapquest search, and even try to
travel in geographies with geological landmarks (mountains, oceans,
etc).
Indonesia has a plethora of geological landmarks. Problem was: I had
no idea what to look for and where. I took a couple deep breaths.
"Okay, calm, calm...just keep driving, something will give." The
optimist in me fought the realist. "Yeah right, something will give.
The question is whether that something will be the brakes or the gas.
What the hell were you thinking? You're not even on any kind of
thoroughfare -- you haven't even gotten out of Ubud. Surely you're
driving in circles. What the fuck??? You moron!" I had to regain
control of the situation. I told myself that I hadn't rented the
scooter to go to Gitgit, I'd rented it to just drive around, see the
local villages. That bought me some time. Then magically a landmark:
a big gas station. Now I had no idea if this happened to be the only
bit of direction Putu had offered, but it gave me just enough
emotional gas to keep driving. I hung a right at the station per
Putu's lone instruction. <Beep, beep> "Whooops, sorry!" (mental note:
left turns are the easy ones here, right turns not). For a few
minutes, the scooter took a mind of its own. I felt like I was riding
Herbie the Scooter (and I suspect I rather resembled Don Knotts to the
locals). It took me through rice fields, small villages, and an
intersection or two. I was about 30 minutes outside of Ubud and had
absolutely no idea in which direction Herbie had taken me.
Then, for reasons unknown to me, I started shouting. In Japanese.
Maybe it has something to do with the many Japanese tourists scurrying
about the high traffic attractions, maybe it's because of my state of
mind, but I kept shouting, "KAMAKAZE!!!" It wasn't that Herbie was
going to drive me into a building, it just seemed like the right thing
to yell. This was some kind of suicide mission. There was a
reasonable chance that I'd end up having to sleep in some random town
or hire a driver to lead me back to Ubud (which at the time was just a
little too pathetic to accept as a genuine possibility...but the
thought had crossed my mind several times). My mind drifted along as
Herbie swayed through verdant forests. "Kamakaze...terima kasih...I'm
on a Terima Kama Kasih mission. Indonesia will either spit me out or
thank me for my visit today." This was my right of passage to
Indonesia.
Moments after I dwelled upon this rather sorry pun, I came to a
crossroads. I gazed at the signs for awhile. Denpasar, that was
familiar, I knew that should be South. I didn't want that. My other
two options were both baffling, so I picked one and (aware of my
greatest weakness) went the other way. The next crossroads gave me
similar options: Denpasar one direction, and two others, neither of
which was Gitgit (or Lovina, which I knew to be the route I desired).
"What the hell, you're an hour deep, you have absolutely no idea where
you are...just pick one again!" But the statistician in me objected:
"Dude, are shitting me? You had a 50/50 chance last time, now you have
another 50/50. You take this one on retarded blind luck and you're
down to a 25% chance." Whatever, I'll just..."Halo. Where u go
meeestearrrrrrr?" This moto driver couldn't have had better timing. I
told him, he whistled, and pointed in one of the directions. "1
hour." Damn, still 2 hours left. I continued, confident for the
first time since I'd set out on this silly mission. I drove along,
passed many waving kids, a Mini Migros market, a Coke manufacturing
facility, some more rice fields, a mother riding on the back seat of a
scooter with sleeping bay on shoulder (really wished I could have a
photo of that one). The next crossroads I just waited until a good
time to flag down a driver. When I did, he pointed me in the right
direction and made the universal sign for "Go a really long way, dumb
shit."
And did I ever. I went up a mountain, stopped at a lake to take some
photos of a temple (Batu?), shivered my ass off, halted for monkeys
crossing and snapped some photos with the goons, descended a mountain,
exhaled a puff of black diesel fumes, got the hang of the passing game
(I think the trick here is to just pass every car that's in front of
you and you win!...still waiting on the prize?), zoned out on
occasion, drove on the right side of the road for 10 seconds before I
slapped myself and corrected my position, and then out of nowhere
there was this sign for Gitgit. "Are you kidding me? Did I actually
make it here? And I didn't even get lost...crazy!"
I allowed the guide to escort me even though he claimed not to want
any money (which means cha-ching...whatever, I could scoot away in a
pinch). He explained that I was the first tourist he'd taken on in 10
days and only the second person who had come to the falls that day.
Last year, he'd see about 10 people per day. Times are tough here I
tell ya. Gede pointed out the many local herbs and spices (vanilla,
clove, chocolate!, coffee...) en route to the waterfall. Then we
arrived. So this is why I came here. It's pretty damned spectacular.
I took one photo for every minute I'd spent on the road getting
there, trekked around some to other spectacular falls, and headed
back. 2.5 hours later, I returned to Putu with the scooter, told him
that I'll never know how I got there, and I walked back to my
bungalow. Whoever said half the fun is getting there never rented a
scooter for a daytrip in Indonesia -- it's all the fun!
When I arrived at my temporary home, I looked in the mirror with a
sense of accomplishment. "Hey, why's your face black?" No kidding, I
resembled a sunburned chimney cleaner -- an Oompah Loompah that got
into his moompah moompah's mascara. The cars and buses here emit
Pigpen-caliber exhaust. "Hmmmm, and I thought only my lungs had
suffered when I was riding behind those buses!"
I was filthy and my cold shower wasn't gonna cut it. Then a brilliant
idea dawned: for the money I saved by going with cold water, I can get
a massage and a rose petal bath. And so I did. I went to a place
called Nur Salon and asked about massage/scrub/bath/shower combos. We
settled on a simple hourlong massage and bath..."with a man."
Noooooooo! "Um, I won't try any funny stuff. Please, the last man
massage I had left me bruised the next day. Woman please." As I
wanted the full body treatment, my only option was to let Wula handle
duties. Exhausted and dirty, I acquiesced. Wula was magnificent! I
gotta say, it was a little awkward getting a massage totally in the
buck (especially when I was on my back), but Wula was a pro and he
worked out knots that other masseurs and masseuses hadn't even
touched. I walked out of Nur Salon 5 pounds lighter (he removed a
fair amount of soot from ye ol chimney sweeper) and 8 years younger
(no joke, I look in the mirror and really feel like I've lost a few
years).
I hustled back to my bungalow, threw on some clean clothes, met up
with my local buddies to enjoy the night festival (that night was the
girls battling the moms at gamelan music...girls without kids on the
left, mamas on the right; the mamas were more skilled, but the girls
broke into song and it was the most ethereal joy to ever grace my
ears...the closest I will ever come in my life to hearing angels sing)
and grab some drinks while watching a decent acoustic cover guy
perform. I fell asleep that night with Bintang in my bloodstream,
waterfalls flowing through my mind, and the sirens of gamelan
entrancing me off to a divine sleep.
IndoMike