Balinese Play

This post was first published on Spice Roads blog  - 14 July, 2015

 

It first happens the night we arrive in Bali. In an open-air restaurant, punctuated by tiki-torches and paper lanterns, my friend asks the waitress, “What does the chicken curry come with?”

She looks at us straight-faced and replies, “Chicken.”

We smother confused smiles, then giggle until our drinks arrive. The next night we realize the joke is on us. Once again we order a chicken dish, and once again the waiter serves up a wry comment.

“Ah, yes,” he replies, glancing out to the stone courtyard. “The chicken is still…. running.”

This time we catch the teasing eye.

Among all the wonders of Bali, the island that most likely (and deservedly) gave birth to some of the world’s most over-used  travel clichés: tropical paradise, breath-taking views, and mouth-watering flavors, it’s the playfulness of the Balinese people that tickles me most.

In Ubud, an energetic town famous for its role in Eat, Pray, Love, offers of taxi tours, foot massages and fire dancing shows greet us as we climb the ancient streets. Touts lounge in front of coconut carts, ornate stone walls and shops that sell everything from handmade batik and wooden masks to silver jewelry and Western fashions.  

“Taxi?”

“No, thank you.”

“Taxi?”

“No, thank you.”

“You sure? To the moon is free!”

One sly driver holds up a laminated sign as we pass. Taxi?  We shake our heads. He smiles with gapped teeth and flips over the sign. Maybe tomorrow? We laugh, accepting his offer and ingenuity.

We set out the next day, driving past Hindu temples and wooded thickets of tropical fruit trees. A stray animal runs out from the curb.

“Chicken!” I yell.

“Sa-TAAAAY!!” Says the driver, licking his lips and pretending to rev the engine.

We reach the rice terraces and trek alongside neon-green paddies in harvest. Sweaty farmers stoop over the crops cutting rhythmically with curved scythes. The mid-sky sun flames their backs as they slosh in knee-deep mud. It is nauseating and low-paid work.

Around a bend, four workers rest beneath a banana tree. They see us and perk up.

“Hello! English! English! Hello!”

We stop to greet them.

“Yes! English! Yes!” They call.

“I speak! I speak!” Says one.

There’s a long pause before she continues, “Hello! How are you! I love you! Goodnight!”

Laughter follows. The group begins singing it as a chant.  

“Hello! How are you! I love you! Goodnight!... Hello! How are you! I love you! Goodnight!.... Hello! How are you!  I love you! Goodnight!”

Later, as I’m leaving, I realize the full truth of those words… Hello People of Bali, I think I love you. Goodnight!

A Lung of Fresh Air – Bangkok’s Jungle

This post was first published on Spice Roads blog  - 14 July, 2015

I’m straddling a ten speed bike on a narrow, concrete path hoisted two meters above marshy wetlands surrounded by forest. Across from us a teak house sits on stilts with potted plants and drying clothes. Wind chimes tinkle. 

“Don’t look down,” jokes Don, my guide. Of course I do, and he's right, it's not a good place for vertigo, not a good place to fall. 

 

This is Bang Krachao, Bangkok’s urban jungle. No, that's not a metaphor, it’s a real jungle.  

“In English, they call it The Lung," says Don, a Thai native. “There are 1,500 homes, no tall buildings, no factories. No development allowed.” The residents here share 18sq km of lung-shaped, oxygen-rich space. And it’s located exactly where a lung should be, slightly off center from Bangkok’s heart - encircled by the looping Chao Phraya River, a pulsing artery of transit.

The day’s cycling tour starts in the city.  We pedal down leafy backstreets where delivery boys unload carts of sacked rice and faded-haired women sweep with thatched brooms. Colored bunting, alternating between the flags of King and Country, stretches overhead.  We cross a small canal and discover a giant, golden Buddha hidden under a dingy overpass.

“And now for the boat,” says Don, leading me down a crowded alley. He loads my bike on a ferry and we escape the port’s warehouses, cranes and fumes.  

Rustling leaves and bleating frogs greet us at the Lung. The pier gapes with empty chairs and vacant stools while a ticket seller waits for fares. We mount our bikes and pedal off at half-speed.

Around the bend, chants tumble from a Buddhist wat.

“It’s Monk’s Day,” Don informs me. The temple is sharp and colorful, perfumed by incense. A pile of shoes sits outside the shrine where practitioners pray.

“Two things are for Monks Day,” Don begins. “In Buddhism, now is when we ordain monks, but now is also when the spirits of our ancestors and unhappy people are most active.” He shows me the burial chedis and the offerings left to ensure good favor: flowers, sodas and rice.

“And, kids must not go out at night because ghosts will take them.” I pause when he says this, then ask if he believes it.

“There are ghosts,” he says and tells me that Thai people are highly superstitious. “Maybe they won’t take the them, but this is what we tell kids.” He shrugs.

We continue along the elevated paths through papaya groves and palm forests with the smell of woodsy decay. We follow a canal past villages and a floating market before braking at a second, livelier pier.

Don purchases fresh mangosteens and rambutans, and I ask where he learned English.

“I lived in Belgium.”  The connection isn’t clear, but he tells me about his time there anyway. 

“There’s no food in Antwerp,” he says, peeling the fruit. “In Thailand, we have food on every street. You can eat all day, every day. In Belgium, you have to go in a restaurant. It’s expensive and after 8pm, no food.”

I look at the options around us: fish balls with chili sauce, papaya salad, BBQ squid, sausages, curries, even coconut ice cream. Vendors sell them from pushcarts for less than 60 baht (US$2). Food, good food, is everywhere.

We clean up and move on, cycling along a sparsely used main road that delivers us to a manicured park. Don tells me to wait while he goes for some food. The mangosteen juice is still sticky on my fingers. 

I wait in the shade admiring the lake and pavilions. Locals stroll on meandering paths through European-style gardens. Don returns and hands me a bag of snacks I’m not hungry for.

“For the fish,” he says and I laugh. I dump half in the water and frenzy ensues - the fish here are as food crazy as the people. 

With everyone fed and the day at an end, I lay back on the grass relaxed. Our bikes stand glinting in the sun as birds twitter and a pair of butterflies dance. Soon, I’ll be back in the heart of the city, but for now I take a deep breath and give thanks to Bangkok’s Lung.

Write now....

Time for a little update.... I've stumbled into a hobby-career as a paid, freelance travel writer.

Write now (yes, that's intentional), I'm working on pieces for Verge Magazine and Matador Network, both should be published in the coming months. Plus, Expat Parents of Bangkok just accepted an older piece of mine about a weekend I spent babysitting my nieces and nephew... I was flown from the East Coast, to the Mid-West while their parents ventured to the Deep South, for THREE DAYS!! I can't even water a house plant - never mind 3 kids.

I'm now blogging for Spice Roads too and my first two posts were just published.  Spice Roads is a pretty cool adventure cycling company that runs tours in 30 countries from Albania to Madagascar, Greece to Vietnam, with Thailand as their hub. For me, the beauty is in going on all their day trips and then getting to write about them. Basically, I'm being paid to do what other people are paying to do... how lucky am I?? :)

I also enrolled in MatadorU, an online travel media school, which I'm really loving.  The faculty includes some of the most fascinating, awe-inspiring people I've met. There are UN reporters, NPR commentators and winners of the Lowell Thomas prize for travel journalism. I'm taking two courses - advanced travel writing and fundamentals of travel photography. (They also have classes on film making, but whoa, slow down there, Bessie.  All this is already making my head spin. I am not doing video, too!) But, anyway, if you, or someone you know, thinks you might want some schooling in travel writing, photography or film making, check them out and sign up here.  MatadorU (I get credit if you use my link!)

Anyway, over the next few days I will post all of the pieces I mentioned above here, in this blog, along with my homework assignments for school. So if anyone still reads this thing, stay tuned.... it's about to get some reading/writing love!