Incense & Insanity
Entry 002 | 7.7.24
It was sometime before dusk when I felt the empty-stomached weightlessness of certain and immediate danger. Then suddenly, two high-octane motorcycles came peeling down the road and past me. And then the clatter of steel tracks on broken concrete, the gnarl of heavy diesel, and the sight of the yellow beast responsible! Coming from the other way at no great speed, a digger of no less than ten tonnes and branded in Japanese calligraphy - ‘Sokai Gyokumu’: ‘Zen Fish’. I cannot escape those koi! But those motorcycles. One black, one white and no less than 1,000CC a piece! And the riders, man and woman, untanned and heavily tattooed, unmistakably Russian. I turned to see if Jarrod had witnessed this, hoping it was not all a dream, but he was already engaged in a scene far stranger! A French seaman and bald Australian of equally uncertain sexuality playing with their balls and shafts. A woman, also French and of undefined intimacy to her compatriot, grabs one’s shaft and strikes the other’s balls! Jarrod, not French and therefore of unquestionable loyalty, can’t help but watch on. I am barely two hours back on Indonesian soil and am already feeling the hot flush, like bumping into an old flame on a crowded street. A high voltage coil around my throat. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any weirder…
Two stray dogs shoot out of an alleyway into the evening light. A chicken is at their heels, and the two-stroke crackle of a dirt bike hunts all three. And the rider, a man, over-tanned and mildly tattooed — unmistakably a surfer. He takes a wide berth around the chicken, then splits the dogs and pulls left of the digger, mounting the curb, much to the horror of no less than six masseuses! Across the road, a pair of European women in neon orange spray tans and electric green spandex clutch their Americanos; I hear the ice cubes shake with fear. I sit in awe and shock, staring at the scene. The day’s last few rays capture the settling dust, forever preserving the moment in gold.
‘Monsieur’, a delicate hand on my shoulder, the seductive tone of a Parisian beaux. ‘You turn,’ says the naval officer, handing me a pool cue, ‘you stripes’.
The chase.
Bali, Indonesia.
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A few years ago, a Moroccan man with two wives, one in each of two neighbouring villages, told me the city of Marrakech was too crazy for him. In fact, ‘Even Moroccans call it Crazy Town’, he smiled. I’m now discovering that every country worth visiting seems to have its own crazy town. That tourist-trap city, operating in a realm not entirely subject to common decency nor the rule of law. America has Vegas, Morocco — Marrakech, New Zealand — Pukekohe. In the case of Bali, it’s Canggu that drunkenly staggers along the tightrope. The Wild East. A collision between modern times and borderline outlaw behaviour, flirting with the precipice of anarchy so sensually it’s hard not to feel aroused.
Beers for three dollars, hour massages for ten. Rice fields and wellness retreats, beach clubs, beach breaks, and razor-sharp reefs. Debauchery tumbles through big city congestion, a ceaseless assault on the senses. The wrestle is evident wherever you ride. It lines either side of narrow streets cornered by Hindu temples; knock-off Birkenstocks and Crocs hang behind incense offerings, notes of sweet canang sari and burning plastic. It spews into overloaded waste waterways, crosses black sands and sours the ocean. But this is not particularly insightful. Neither is admitting that it’s not. I am not absolved of my complicity through self-deprecation and some kind of repentant blog. I could be a British tourist, Aussie expat or Russian overstayer. Worse, I could be a remote-working New Zealander. We are all here for different reasons of little variation, and the common denominator is decimals — the strength of foreign dollars against the Indonesian Rupiah.
1 NZD = 10,000 IDR. Labour is cheap, so acai bowls are cheaper. You can quickly ‘manifest’ a concrete coffee shop meets concept fashion store, so long you have plenty of bamboo scaffolding and no Health and Safety Act. You can find yourself in the shade of a temple awning, the canopy of a monkey forest or a deep, blue tube. You can find yourself through spiritual awakening classes, psychedelic mushrooms, or numbed by the coercive power of pale lager.
Alternatively, you can channel Aurelius and reflect on the debts and lessons you owe to your elders and the East. But first, some helpful tips.
Ying & Yang.
Nusa Lembogan, Indonesia.
I have found that Canggu makes a good first stop after landing in Denpasar, but three days there is enough. My primary objective is always the same — acclimate to a less ordinary way of living and stock up before heading elsewhere. Busy bars, party hostels, crowded beach breaks and surf lessons are all within walking distance. Knock off merch and spectacularly cheap coconut oil massages wherever you go, a few high-end, mid-priced stores to meet your designer needs and a lot of good eating. Most hostels are sociable, clean, comfortable and cheap. If you’re well past your bunk bed days or are venturing there with a group, five-star-styled private villas with pools are affordable. Chef and cleaner are included for some, but book well in advance for the best options. You can find private one-bedroom accommodation — small villas or ‘homestays’ on multi-dwelling lots, for as cheap as a hostel bed if you’re splitting it with a partner. Don’t worry about the much-reported sex before-marriage law unless you’re flirting with a local.
Homestay/villa accommodation.
The Bukit/Uluwatu. Bali.
Next door to Canggu is Seminyak. Almost the same, but perhaps better for boutique shopping and eating. If you continue south, there’s Kuta. Close to the airport, resort-heavy and an older, sometimes family crowd. Kuta is catered toward your quintessential Southeast Asian tourist experience. Only Australian sports bars and tattoo parlours interrupt lines of sweat-shopped merchandisers and massage parlours. But I can not cast judgment from my replica birks and freshly kneaded back. I only wish to illustrate how each area offers different experiences.
Head further south, and you’ll reach the Bukit Peninsula and the famous Uluwatu. For me, here is where some real magic can be found. Reeling lefts under the gaze of a cliff-hanging temple, shallow sucking barrels far above my skill set. Good eating spots and boutique shops. Expats and remote workers aplenty, and cafes and hostels catered to such crowds, plus a decent night scene. All this, and it’s generally less crowded. That is, besides the take-off zone. Some of the best waves in the world are centralised within a few kilometres' radii, and consistent off-shores coupled with relentless swell in dry season make it one of the premier surf destinations on the planet. One of the driving forces behind tourism here for a number of decades. I haven’t visited the Bukit in three years, and hear it’s somewhat busier than I remember. Still, there’s everything I’ve listed, plus beaches to relax, cliffside resorts and restaurants. It’s a nice balance of what Bali has to offer while retaining a wild feel.
Cliffside temples. Just down the coast, cliffside beach clubs.
Uluwatu, Bali.
The temple’s view.
Uluwatu, Bali.
The temple guard.
Uluwatu, Bali.
Back up north and inland is Ubud, a rice field-laden retreat for the more spiritually inclined. Laughing yoga and crying breathing therapy. Eastern mysticism exported to the Western upper class then imported back. Beautiful to ride to and through, a bit removed from the chaos. Still fairly busy with many Western eating spots and fantastic, affordable accommodation. You can choose to pay two years’ Balinese minimum wage for a seven-day ‘Soulmate Retreat’ or a small admittance fee to the Kajeng Rice Fields, which, under wet-season rain, is as spiritual as anything you might be swindled for (your spiritual connection may be briefly interrupted by locals asking for ‘donations’. They are gatekeepers for the various rice shelves). When I say swindled, I refer to the price rather than the nature of that retreat. I’m not in a position to judge others who may also be struggling to navigate an increasingly complex, globalised society. We have never before been subject to such unrelenting, omniscient information that is almost exclusively focused on pain, violence and fear. I just wish people would not capitalise on that fear by charging 6,000 NZD for a week of utter horseshit.
Like the rolling hills of Patumahoe.
Kajeng Fields, Ubud, Bali.
Memphis amongst the rain and rice.
Kajeng Fields, Ubud, Bali.
I asked for and paid for this photo.
Kajeng Fields, Ubud, Bali.
And this one.
Kajeng Fields, Ubud, Bali.
Medewi was a new try, which turned out to be a haven. There are many other parts of Bali I have yet to visit. Neighbouring islands, such as Nusa Penida and the Gilis, are party centrals with good diving and are only a boat ride away. Nusa Lembongan is small but more relaxed. Good diving and the opportunity to cruelly harass giant, snack-lured Manta Rays. A few nice reef breaks and a beautiful point break under a cliff-top bar and cafe. Lembongan deserves a dedicated future entry. But before I return to story mode, I will continue to unload a bandolier of quickdraw tips for the mainland.
Lembongang’s Cafe Point Break Volcano viewpoint. Mahana Point, Nusa Lembongan.
I find buying a SIM card at the airport easiest; it’s around 300K IDR / 30 NZD for a month of data and the rest. The Grab and Gojek apps are essential. These are the Indonesian and Southeast Asian Uber & Uber Eats. I then walk straight out of international arrivals, don’t make eye contact with the taxi harassers and enter the air-conditioned Grab lounge past the taxi ranks. Grab is usually the cheapest, but you can pre-book a private ride to relieve stress or make matters easier for a large group; this might cost you another 300K IDR to get to Canggu. I will link a private ride contact at the bottom, along with all my accommodation recommendations, Memphis Book Club and a glossary, as usual. A full-blown travel blog, you could say.
Haggle at stalls and markets, but not at shops with stickered prices or anything that serves prepared food (I think). Hello is halo. If you were here last week, you know thanks is suksma. Balinese speak Balinese. Bahasa Indonesian is used elsewhere but is also known by locals. You can rent surfboards for 50 - 70K IDR / 5 - 7 NZD a session, on that lighter side if it’s for a few days. Same price and same deal for scooters. Surf instructors are available on the beach; I will include pricing once I have confirmation. Sampoerna cigarettes are around 30 - 35K IDR / 3 - 3.50 NZD and are deliciously cinnamon. They are sold nowhere else in Asia and are an important social vehicle, surf boat captain primer and tension cutter. My uncle perhaps explains this more eloquently:
‘I also observed in Egypt (no doubt in other countries too) how others, with a bit of charm and a pack of cigarettes, could open doors and get the best seats. With no charm and being priggishly anti-smoking, I sat on wooden benches in 2nd class and walked despondently from the closed doors.’
Clive Davidson
The endemic nature of Samporenas is shared by Pocari Sweat - a surefire hangover and dehydration remedy in a pure blue can. Coke from an alternate dimension, you’ll know it when you see it. They are packed with sugar and taste like uranium. I could drink six a day if Memphis didn’t worry about my health.
Riding a scooter is very near a must. Traffic in areas like Canggu can force a Grab taxi to take an hour to travel a couple of kilometres. Riding on the back of a Grab or Gojek scooter is a more efficient option than a car, particularly if you fancy having your life flash before your eyes. I’ve also learnt that gas can be found at stalls on the roadside. From my experience, the tasty-looking apple juice in clear wine bottles costs around 12K IDR / 1.20 NZD per 1.5L bottle, which is fine fuel for my scooter or bike but unsafe to drink. Usually, three of these will fill a tank. It’s priced slightly steeper than at stations but is far quicker, as the latter has designated scooter lines and necessitates pump attendants.
I have cautiously learnt footpaths can be used to beat traffic, but within reason. I try not to keep up with the locals, as they’ve ridden their whole lives. I wear my helmet for two reasons. First, to protect my brain. Many are willing to sacrifice safety in the quest for aesthetics, particularly with such an image-orientated culture amongst foreigners here. But I try not to follow fashion in this instance.
Second, to avoid cops who love coffee money. Organising an international licence before heading over is also wise. This will come in handy if a cop does wave you aside. But if they can’t sting you for a helmet or licence, they will for something else. They will list offences typed in Microsoft Word and shove them into a plastic school folio if necessary, and, in a not-so-roundabout way, offer a deal on the fines. A bribe. From my solitary experience, around 500K IDR / 50 NZD is the whiteman tax. They are typically stationed at roundabouts — cops, not white men — thus, they are only an issue in the main centres. I am informed it’s possible to politely assert you don’t have that crazy amount of cash on you and compromise to 200K. This is why it’s good to carry some cash in your wallet and some on your person elsewhere, like a wallet belt under your clothes or a sling bag on your chest. Cash is king, and cards have 2 - 3% charges on most purchases. But pickpocketing and theft aren't particularly an issue here.
A classic Indonesian scene. Surfboard, scooter & apple juice.
The Bukit, Indonesia.
The vast majority of Balinese are friendly, polite and welcoming, despite what tourists bring to the island and partly because of what we bring. Regardless, Balinese hospitality is something to behold. The locals even share waves, sometimes.
The cop stop should be the worst interaction you encounter. It’s a deadset shakedown, but nothing more, nothing less. I wasn’t ready when it happened to me and was sure I was going to a hot, small Indonesian cell for the rest of my days. My hands shook. My voice quivered. I was destined to become a foreign rent boy, hustling for Sampoernas and having Pocaris smuggled inside Jarrod’s person on visits. My nightmare didn’t transpire. Anyway, don’t sweat it if you get stung. Indonesian shafting is usually obvious, negotiable and never costs too much. Perhaps it costs my pride, and I feel hot for a moment. But I try to remind myself to have perspective.
What I consider a small amount of money can mean far more to others. I have spoken to locals about the average Indonesian wage. Indomarts - Indonesia’s largest convenience store chain, closely followed by Alfmarts and Easymarts (a trifecta of much the same shit never more than three hundred metres apart and no more than a couple kilometres between the sets of three. The economic viability of which I will never understand, but an arrangement I must admit lives up to the premise of ‘convenience’.), employee staff at around 2 - 2.5 million IDR a month. 250 NZD a month. Less than $10 a day. Others are worse off, such as workers at a certain expat owned hostel I heard were on 1 million IDR / 100 NZD a month before bonuses. However, the employee I spoke to earned 6 million after bonuses during his best month before becoming a manager. This is anecdotal information, and it’s perhaps a step too far for me to seriously comment. In over four hundred years, have such western owners merely abandoned the cannons, ships and infamous company name names? I will ponder this from my $16.50 per night hostel bed, the lean pricing of which I am so quick to boast. Linked sources below list the 2024 Balinese minimum wage at circa 2.8 million IDR a month.
In other words, that extra 20K or $2 could mean not a lot to me and a lot more to someone else. This is my own perspective and is not a commentary on how anyone else does or should use their money. Worth is one thing; value is another. I do not wish to preach. I am trying to make my NZD stretch for a year. To do so, I am exploiting an imbalance in currency, cost of living and wages. In the finish, God willing, I will be returning to a support system of family and friends, a strong currency, government transparency, and tap water with which I can safely brush my teeth. As my uncle’s brother, who also happens to be my father, puts it:
‘If you are travelling, you are rich. And this is how people will see you.’
Ian Davidson
So, I try to remember there’s no need to feel cheated by a bribe, however unjust. That 10K IDR entry fee to the rice paddies or beach is no drama. I do not need to over-haggle or sweat a few dollars or cents when I am benefiting from the transaction. To explain this better, I will again quote my father’s brother, who also happens to be my uncle:
‘It was a very hot, thirst-making day in the Luxor Valley. An isolated, no doubt poor, Coca-Cola seller sat under an umbrella offering the drink for an exorbitant, about five times the usual shop price (still only a few bucks). Some mates and I were arguing over the price when a middle-aged American looked at the price and, in a slow drawl to his friends… ‘You know, this guy’s got the right product in the right place at the right time’… They all chuckled and paid full price for the drink.’
Clive Davidson
A refreshing sentiment on a hot day, and I bet the Coke tasted sweeter with a cool head. So, if I’m out in thirty-degree heat and a side-of-the-road entrepreneur offers a Pocari for triple the Indomart price, is it a shaft? Or has the proactive vendor struck the capitalist sweet spot? I probably wouldn’t buy it, but I have witnessed Western travellers get wound up by other tolls en route to paradise. I find it good practice to consider, will my experience remain, undoubtedly, net-positive?
In Gerupuk Bay, Lombok (Lombok is an island one stop east of Bali), 200K IDR / 20 NZD will get you in a fishing boat to one of the six breaks, then back, with two hours of surfing to keep you busy in between. Typically, four people or more passengers means 50K / 5 NZD per person, but certain laws of Indonesian economics dictate you can fill the boat with as many as you like; the price remains 50K each. Other axioms of the archipelago state that you might have to wait until a captain’s brother, cousin, or uncle fills the boat with as many foreigners as the captain likes before you leave (although this is less of an issue when you become familiar with a specific captain or Gerupuk local).
One evening, I opted for a ride with a few strangers, and we briefly suffered under these conditions. Many of these strangers became upset, and maybe we were overpaying by 2 NZD for me and 1 USD for others. As previously mentioned, I should not make light of the value of money to people I do not know, but I’ll get to the point. The sun was setting, the waves were good, the winds were light, and in minutes we would, undoubtedly, be dropped directly onto the shoulder of a peeling reef break under pink skies.
Lining up one of those peelers.
Gerupuk Bay, Lombok.
Oh, how I have it all figured out! Look what an off-brand Hunter S. Thompson intro and some knock-off common sense can combine for. I do not. But this is where my thoughts are now as I try to find myself through travel blog musing.
Those lessons from my father and uncle are important to remember. I owe debts to them, to many others and to this country of kind people and cheap food. But as I venture from Indonesia to Malaysia, Thailand and beyond, as I meditate, I wrestle with morality. The brute force of currency capitalisation and gentrification against a counterargument for economic acceleration and social mobility. It is not my place to assume another’s happiness, anguish or motivations. I do not speak for the Balinese or, frankly, anyone besides myself. But at any time, I can go home and switch off the noise.
I am helping pay wages! Part of me yells. But isn’t this all outpricing locals from their homes? I have anecdotally heard that many Lombok locals were thrilled to have tourists back after Covid. I have also read that many working families earn the means to send children to higher education and break a generational cycle of physical labour through tourism or selling their rice paddies to sauna-icebath-gym-yoga-concept-fashion-store-cafes.
So ‘these people’, ‘they’ depend on tourists, don’t they? But not the mess and all the rest. So, how can I undertake this adventure ethically if my very being here may be complicit in the mess? I am spending money, although frugally. I need to save money, so why not buy that cheap knockoff hat or plastic-wrapped lunch? I don’t have the money for anything more, do I? I don’t. But with each underpriced meal or massage, single-use plastic purchase, and haggled pair of sunglasses, I fear my white koi sheds a scale. Is my conscience fading into the Indian Ocean?
Aptly named Dreamlands.
The Bukit, Bali.
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I’m hungry, I want to buy two mangoes, and I’ve just visited an ATM. I approach a small fruit stall that fronts a woman’s warung.
‘Ini berapa?’, I ask.
‘40K’, the smiling lady responds.
Hmmm, seems like a whiteman price. But I suppose these are big and still cost less than back home. And I’m hungry, and it’s hot out; I want to get home. I guess this lady has the right product and is in the right place at the right time.
I reach into the pocket of my $70 board shorts and fumble through what is a month's wages for many here.
Should I be paying 30K?, I think to myself. ‘Diskon?’ I ask.
‘No, no, sorry’, she says, with just as much of a smile.
So I hand over a 50. She reaches into an accounting system that would make an IRS agent spontaneously combust, a plastic laundry bucket of loose notes.
‘No, no’, I say, ‘keep the change’.
She smiles, puts her hands together in prayer and brings them toward her face. She kisses the note and smiles once more.
A TV blaring behind her catches my attention. I peer past the smiling face into a bamboo-walled, corrugated iron-roofed home. The entranceway, living room and kitchen flow into one. The sleeping quarters are separate and out of view. In its entirety, the dwelling is no greater in size than my childhood bedroom. A dusty mat is where her husband lies. He looks toward me, smiling like his wife. Except, he has no teeth.
Why spend all those words, when I could’ve just shown this.
Somewhere around Canggu, Seminyak or Kuta, Bali.
Links & EXTRAS
TBC.
Glossary
TBC.
