I wrote a reply to your email. It was full of witticisms, philosophical revelations, heartbreak, and important information that You Need to Know! The email told a story that stretched across many generations, within that story were many other little stories, each one different and fascinating in itself. In the end, all of the threads tied themselves together in a dramatic yet uplifting conclusion.
I was about to hit send, but I thought "I'll just rewrite one sentence" At that point, my laptop screen went blank. No more batteries. I looked frantically for somewhere to plug my laptop in, and saw that my plug wouldn't fit in a Bali power socket. "Never mind," thought I, "I have an Australian plug adapter in the bottom of my bag!" After digging around for sometime, I discovered the thing; it was a cheap, plastic, white lump, covered in slits for all kinds of plugs. I pondered for a moment about all these little slits, if there might be some more streamline design for an adapter, and then I noticed the electrician fiddling with the wires outside my guest-room.
What a sight, this tanned, wiry little man, perched upon this well-used ladder, behind him a landscape of rice-paddies carved into the side of a mountain, a jigsaw puzzle of leaf-shaped fields falling down towards jungle. The electrician did his job in a ritualistic way, a way that seemed perfectly harmonious with the ancient surroundings. No bumcracks or tribal tattoos to be seen anywhere near this quiet man. Any other sparky I know would have seemed utterly out of place, as the farmers and their children were busy preparing offerings for this special day. Today, so I'm told, is some kind of festival where, like our Halloween, the skin between the spirit world and our world is a bit thinner.
I did not want to risk plugging my laptop into the wall whilst this little man was busily plying the electricity gods, not on a day like today. So I reluctantly gave up, hoping that the email might still be up on the screen when I eventually found myself in more conventional surroundings. The guest room itself was in a farm in the hills near Ubud, a welcome cure to the streets of Sanur and other places I'd been to in Bali so far. No street hawkers here, only real people who smiled at me because they were happy, who had better things to do than offer me a massage. As I left that place, I felt such a weight lift from me. A smile found its way onto my face as Gde (pronounced "G'day") and his scooter took me a-winding along big roads and smaller and smaller roads. Here, a van with exhaust and muffler dangling on a piece of old string, sending clouds of unhealthy smoke into our faces. There, a couple of street dogs playing, seeming to mock the trivial affairs of humans. Here an immaculate cow, perhaps the most beautiful I have ever seen, standing so motionless on the side of the road. There, a lady so old, so small, walking up the mountain path with an impossibly large container of water balanced on her head. I came to that place to visit my friend G, the mother of my friend E, of socktopus fame. G lives up there, in a house built recently in the traditional way. We laughed about the fact that they have wireless internet but not hot water. Staying in that place made me feel more strongly than ever what a strange period in history it is.
Now I am in an opulent hotel by the airport. They brought us here because my flight back to Brisbane has been delayed by about 6 hours. After a swim in the enormous pool, complete with bar, water-polo nets and who knows what else, I took this opportunity to use the desktop computers in the 'business centre'. After using my tiny laptop all the time it's nice to use these old-fashioned keyboards, with keys that you can really sink your fingers into, that make a thunderous clashing rumble when you type a long passage quickly. While I'm here, I thought, I should reply to your email. So here it is, "the other reply". It has none of the wisdom, wit, sadness, joy or Important Information of the previous email, but I did, at least, just remember to give you my postal address:
50 Daventry st,
Highgate Hill 4101 QLD
Could you send me yours? I will be flying to Kathmandu on the 22nd of June, but you can still send stuff there. I plan to hold on to that house, the lovely housemates, the chickens. It will be nice to get back to Brisbane, and have conversations that don't revolve around how much I don't want to buy anything, or how much the locals must despise us. As much as I like to complain about my week in the touristy parts of Bali, it's been great to see my parents and the rest of the family. As strange as they all are, it's the one club of which I'm proud to call myself a member.
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