The Fear In Bali 2

After five days in Bali, Ella had to get back to Singers for college, so I was left on my own to explore.

Actually, this was my first ever experience of “travelling” on my own (the more I creep into my thirties, the more I feel I should be calling it “holidaying”). I like the melancholy atmosphere that solitude creates and the way that one can just meander purposelessly from one thing to another, without speaking to another soul for hours.

I also like the way that solitude makes you a different person to the one you are when you’re with company. As well as spending a lot of time on my own doing things like reading, I was also doing things I wouldn’t usually do, like singing “Hello” by Lionel Richie with Balinese waiters in a restaurant in which I was the only customer. They got the phrasing of the song wrong, actually. You see, they didn’t leave the long, plaintive pause after the first “Hello!” in the chorus. Rather, they pressed straight on to “Is it me you’re looking for?” only pausing for one beat instead of the correct three and a half beats. Although this incorrectness made me feel a bit uncomfortable, I let it pass and joined in.

I was clearly letting go.

Solitude can also make your mind play tricks with you. What you gain in the various pleasures of solitude, you lose in not having the reassurance of other people.

I took a few long walks in Bali, mainly to marvel at the beautiful undulating paddy fields which cascade downhill. One such walk led me up a steep hill that sliced through two rivers. All the way down to the banks of the rivers, coconut trees, elephant grass and rice fields abounded.

As I turned a corner at the crest of the hill, a man wearing only a loincloth leapt out from amongst the elephant grass. Even more unnerving than the loincloth was the machete he was brandishing. “Come with me,” he commanded. He seemed rather excited, jumping from foot to foot. “You come with me,” he repeated.

My first thought was that he was going to take me into the bushes and slit my throat or chop my limbs off or something. Worse still, he had one of those eyes that is all white. Rather than feeling sympathy for him because of this, my mind obviously reminded me of films like The Others and The Dark in which characters with eyes like this are scary. I go a bit simplistic when I have a fright.

I felt I was looking at two choices: go into the bushes with him and be chopped to pieces by the machete, or carry on walking/running and be caught up with and chopped to pieces by the machete.

Nervously, I followed him into the bushes. I was relieved to see three coconuts on the flattened grass.
“I saw you!” he shouted at me manically. “I saw you taking photos! I was over there!” he pointed to the other side of the river. “I was over there, up a tree and I came to you! You must want drink!”
“How much?” I asked, having recovered somewhat.
“What your name?” he asked. I told him my name and he told me his and we shook hands.
“You must want drink! Thirsty walking!” he repeated.
“How much?” I asked again. At this, he expertly sliced a gash in the coconut by bringing the machete down from a great height twice. The flesh penetrated, the liquid within spilling onto the ground, he discarded the sliver of shell. He held the coconut out towards me, the fluid rocking from side to side.
“You need drink!” he informed me.
“How much?” I asked again.
“What your name?” he asked again. We went through the exchanging names and shaking hands ritual again. I realised at this point that he had selective understanding of English and that now he had opened the coconut I was going to have to drink it. And pay for it.

It was very refreshing.

While I was half drinking the coconut and half spilling it down my t-shirt, he said something about needing money for coffee. He got the discarded piece of coconut shell and wrote 20,000 on the ground with it by pressing it hard against the dust. That’s about one pound and 30 pence. “Very expensive,” I said. “10,000.”

Once again his selective understanding of English came in. He just ignored me. I carried on drinking. He carried on standing there with his machete, muttering about needing coffee, while I took the occasional sip of coconut juice, which I hadn’t needed.

After this stand-off had carried on for a while, he pointed at the 20,000 he’d written in the dust again and I had one last stab at bartering with him. No response again. A glazed expression came over his eye. I realised I was going to have to pay the full amount. After all, I considered, there’s no way I’m arguing with a man brandishing a machete. I started counting the money and giving it to him.

“Only 19,000. 1000 short,” he informed me. I gave him the last thousand, muttering something about it being very expensive. “Now you walk with coconut,” he told me.

Dismissed, I continued with my walk, with the coconut, wondering how I’d managed to get sprung like this. In company, it’s much easier to walk away from a purchase you don’t want. Strength in numbers and all that. However, I was also feeling slightly pleased with myself for managing to escape from the situation with all limbs still intact.