Mangoes & Milk

Entry 003 | 21.7.24

It is hard to say with any personal conviction whether Germany exists. I have never been and haven’t any tangible evidence to prove so. But after considering a handful of factors and weighing the validity of various secondhand accounts and anecdotes, it seems rather more likely that the nation-state is a fabrication, a product of our collective imagination, and that the German people are a metaphysical spore propagated around the world on currents of belief.

Every hostel, every backpacker bar, monument and temple, every alpine ridge or secluded beach, there is a German traveller. In cotton-polyester, sweat-wicking sports shirts, they number in the hundreds of thousands. In zipper pant-shorts and weather-proof cross trainers, they march to all four corners of the globe. They do not exist outside of these parameters. They are neither young nor old but caught in an eternal, visa-exempt purgatory. Infinite iterations of the same twenty to thirty-something man and woman. Their existence is fleeting; you know them for mere days before the electrical current that wires them to this dimension short circuits. They are a transitory recollection. As if a long sleep might wipe them from your memory, as if a firm gust might blow them out of the dormitory window.

So when a shadow came in the darkness of night and offered me a ‘jinja peal’, I wondered if it was my turn to join the Bavarian hordes in the netherworld. The figure promised I would soon feel better. He fed me the pill, which I could not see, then held my head in his arms and gave me water. He took the same care and tenderness as one would when hydrating an infant koala rescued from a forest fire. And from this point, I remember very little. I think I dreamt, but of what, I do not know. At first light, I woke up to bird song and a prayer, only I thought it to be evening, so I drifted back to sea. When I wake again at eight, I have a clearer head. I feel up to getting something in me. I reach for my water bottle, but it’s empty. When I head outside, the bed in the neighbouring room is perfectly made. Two clean, folded towels await the next arrival.

To the vocalised delight of our rooster, I make my way down our hut's near vertical wooden steps. Memphis and Jarrod greet me in the shared common area - a concrete outdoor kitchen opening onto a patio and hardwood table they’re chatting on. It’s a simple operation at Jungle House. To the right of the kitchen is the shared bathroom, again of thick and grey concrete. Inside is a hollowed-out rock for a basin, and river stones make up the shower floor. On the kitchen’s left or west wall is a board rack. Unlike yesterday, a milky silver longboard leans against one of the wooden pegs. Its berry-red fin is nearly translucent from my angle and almost touches the wooden ceiling below our beds. It must be at least nine foot, possibly ten. A real noserider. Next to it is a juicy-looking mango mid-length. I wonder who these might be.

Breakfast at Rasta Cafe. Not unlike the scene greeting me that morning at Jungle House.

Medwi, Bali.

By nine, I have a Pocari Sweat in hand and a new day on the horizon—time for Memphis, Jarrod and I to get breakfast. On three scooters in single file, we head left out of our accommodation and down a tarsealed road towards a gully. A tee junction then offers a left or right. The former is our only way west but narrows into a track of gravel, stone, and dust no more than a single scooter wide. On one side of this predicament, there is a stone wall, which breaks halfway down for a wooden gate and bamboo hedge line. Behind the gate and bamboo is a meadow, the grass at first about chest high and surging uphill before crashing at the foot of a small hut. This green sea shimmers in the wind, seemingly ready to wash away the house from its foundations. On the other side of the path, a few metres drop onto grey river stones that bake under an unusually high morning sun. Water quietly glides around and between the stones like a shy man on a busy street. Golden Balinese cattle seek shade under banana palms and frangipani bushes that line the clay banks across the gulley. Above them, rice terraces climb into the horizon; below, women in lavender and mauve hijabs wash clothes in petrol-blue waters, leaving them to dry on boulders perfectly smoothed by the many introverted commuters. At the start of the track, a white canvas sheet, much like a torn sail and around the size of a double bed, is lined with fermented cocoa beans left out to dry. The air is thick and sweet, and the breeze cool.

I have no idea what these are.

Medewi, Bali.

We all take a moment to muster any belated courage. ‘This is a tricky ride before breakfast,’ says a triangle of looks. But before we can retreat, a small, leathered man in grey trousers and no shirt steps out from behind the gate up the way. He shields his eyes from the sun as he has no hat, smiles behind a few missing teeth and holds a wrinkled thumb high. ‘Don’t be a chicken.’ is an internationally recognised gesture.

We straddle the path, then take an easy chicane between bamboo shoots, two men tall and too thick to see between. We find light at the edge of the main coastal road. Here, we wait for trucks of freight, cattle and rubbish. Even trucks of students, their smiling faces under black songkoks, peering over the driver’s cab. We all take the next chance at the first gap, skidding on loose gravel, then easing across a two-lane bridge over the river. A short, gentle climb brings us past stalls of mangoes, papaya, and lychee and small rubbish fires sending smoke across the road. A white mosque with frond green domes and minarets laced in banana yellow comes into view. Its golden crescent moons glisten. Just as we draw level with the mosque’s entrance, we make a sharp left down the road of Dobbo’s store. We are now facing west, about to coast down that steep, palm-lined hill, with endless black sands and blue swell lines in full view.

View of Precarious Pass, looking back toward Jungle House. Perhaps I exaggerated. Medewi, Bali.

Our new local, a beachside cafe called ‘Holy Tree’, is a very similar feat of Picasso engineering to the rubbish bike of the other day. Cement white walls, oval windows, and entranceways without doors first present the case for a casa de campo. But then you notice a rebuttal of dried palm fronds lining the awnings and a counterpoint of live trees lashed to bamboo struts that make up the ceiling. At the front is a coffee shop, pool table, and board rack. The rear opens straight out onto the sand, and a single pipe is tied to a wooden post for an outdoor shower. Upstairs, there is an observation and lounging deck with a hammock on one side. An adjacent massage parlour is accessed from a separate set of stairs on the other side of the ground level. Three-dollar burritos and burgers. Swan-adorned coffee art quickly fired out by a gun barista. Massages on a bookings basis, boards for hire next door and as many three-foot-skatey lefts and rights as you please. Short paddle, sandy bottom. Dreamland.

After some food, I’ve successfully recalibrated. I’ve tethered myself to the present for the first time in twenty-four hours and can now assess the many options available to a mortgage-free, student-debt-crippled, prematurely semi-retired freelance writer. Today, I will attempt some work between gazing out at the swell. My skin needs a break anyway. Memphis has her Kindle out; she’s now twenty-four books through for the year and counting. Jarrod’s also busy. His Google calendar is greyed out for an hour, nine-thirty in the morning onward. ‘Client Meeting’, it reads. Apparently, there is some shareholder value to be found in the python grip of a muscular Indonesian man. He’s scheduled to meet him back at Jungle House, where he’ll plough his back with a dessert spoon. This is on the advice of another Jungle patron and proprietor of those two fine milk and mango sleds, a Filipino nose rider named Kerby.

Pool, boards, bikes & babes.

Medewi, Bali.

Attempting to work in the presence of waves, however modest

Atop Dobbo’s cafe-shop, Medewi, Bali.

Dinner at Holy Tree.

Medewi, Bali.

What’s left of Jarrod is standing in the entranceway of Jungle House. He turns to show us how well he maximised shareholder value. The last White Sumatran Tiger, his back is striped with deep purple bruising against his Nordic skin. ‘It was actually pretty good’, Jarrod insists, ‘I screamed, and he laughed at me.’

The Last White Sumatran, plus Kerby’s milky sled.

Medewi, Bali.

We spent much of the remaining week working, eating, and surfing. Memphis engaged primarily in the latter two, trading the former for more virtual books. In our spare time, we hogged the pool table, which cost nothing but seemed to have pots too small for the balls, explored more of Medewi and ran into Dobbo not nearly enough. After a handful of sessions at the beach break, we had a crack at the coast. My first encounter was under the guidance of Kerby. He ordered a six in the morning rise, which suited me. I would finally wake on my own accord.

Of course, I submitted once more to the will of a glorified chicken, waking up well in advance of six to join him in prayer. But a pair of lightly pan-toasted peanut butter sandwiches lifted my spirits. They were courtesy of my guide and new friend, smelled of sugar and tasted of smoke. A rooster may know dawn, I thought to myself whilst licking at peanut butter stuck to the roof of my mouth, but he will never feel the bond of men preparing for the unknown.

A gentle hue of pink and grey sat above the palm fronds and rice terraces as we made our way down that same precarious route. With fewer trucks to negotiate and fewer stalls open at this hour, we made quick time, stopping briefly to hire a board from the shop next to Holy Tree. In that first beach session that led to sun sickness, I tried a 6'0“ twin-fin. It had mint green paint splatters across a black base coat — Morpheus’ board of choice. It proved a bit too short, or rather, I proved a bit too unfit. A couple days later I took a 6’8” and enjoyed a far superior session. Right on dusk and with little crowd, Jarrod and I scored a few fast and straight two-footers between larger close-out set waves. This morning, the swell was forecasted to be similar, so I opted for the same board. Something between a short board and an old-school mid-length, three fins and thick rails. Easy to paddle and forgiving to ride. Kerby had his mid-length mango. More of an egg shape where the pointy top is at the tail. Very thin at the base for quick turning and at the nose for hanging ten. Another prominent single fin, only black.

With my board now strapped to my scooter and Kerby patiently waiting, we were ready to get down to the point. But before we could ride away, two morsels of advice were offered by the board merchant: First, to get to the point, carry on down this dirt road until the river outlet and walk across there. This shortcut would save time heading back up the way we came and along the main road. Two, leave your belongings at the board shop rather than in the compartment under the seat of our scooters.

We did as we were told and eventually came to the end of the dirt road. A handful of fishermen were either coming in from the morning's work or preparing to head back out. I tried to ask them if they had any luck but didn’t get very far with English. Even the classic wide-armed gestures didn’t translate. We strapped our keys to the inside of our shorts and skipped applying sunblock because we had left it in our bags at the shop. I had a pot of zinc meant for cooler climates, but we made do with that, smearing the greasy brown paste across each other’s backs. From here, we climbed over a small fence and tip-toed across hot sand, making sure to miss fishing lines, rusted hooks, rubbish and fish carcases. The river was much murkier here than where the women washed their clothes. A muddy brown, not blue. Still, a walk across would’ve been fine, only we quickly discovered it was chest-deep. Should we cross? We both looked at each other and thought. We could see the sets rolling in off the point, so there was no real sense in delaying the inevitable.

Finally, point side and ready to paddle, we stretched out our arms and strapped on our leashes. ‘How long do you usually like to stay out?’ politely inquired Kerby with a grin. ‘As long as you want, man, I'm easy,’ the white man with no sunblock politely insisted.

#

Four hours later, I washed ashore. From start to finish, the waves were consistent, the crowd heavy, and the sun harsh. I had caught nothing but scraps, and Dobbo’s suggestion to wait until dusk rang loudly in my head. If the breakfast departure crowd had opened any window, it was only brief.

My new new friend, Kerby.

Medewi, Bali.

Medewi Pont.

Medewi, Bali.

Links & Extras

Our new local: @the_holytree

The board store next door: Mr. Good Vibes Board Rental and although I haven’t used this number, here it is anyway - +62 877 0105 3171.

Memphis Book Club: Sally Hepworth - ‘Darling Girls’. “A really good twisted thriller.”

Essential Travel Purchase(s): It’s only taken me twenty-seven years, but I finally found what works for my frizzy curls in humid weather — pure coconut oil. Holy Tree sells little 100ml bottles for 50K IDR / $5 NZD, and this is the market rate. Lots of people around Indonesia sell them, sometimes in emptied Tour.C1000 bottles. Smells delicious. I put it through my hair once, and it lasts for a few days, even when showering twice a day. I have run through about half the bottle in three months, and that includes spilling some on the floor.  

Glossary

Tbc.