Denpasar to Darwin with Merpati Nusantara Airlines

 

Image by Ardhana S

Merpati Nusantara Airlines were a regional Indonesian airline that used to fly between Bali, Timor and Darwin. And they were cheap. They ceased trading in 2014.

Back in the 70s it was still perfectly normal to smoke on a plane – albeit it had to be down the back! However, it wasn’t so normal was to smoke a join on a plane. 2001: A Space Odyssey had been released in the late 60;’s and was still on my must see list. I was rapt to discover that I could watch it on my flight from Denpasar to Kupang.

So there I was happily winging my way home watching one of the classic movies of the time  when I feel a tap on my shoulder. The very nice man in the seat behind me wanted to know if I’d like to share a joint. I was quite shocked but not too shocked to say no!  So after that I was even more happily winging my way home while watching A Space Odyssey. The joint was the perfect accompaniment to the soundtrack.

We landed in Kupang without further incident. This was to be a quick stop to pick up any extra passengers for the next leg to Darwin. However, a couple of things happened to delay that next leg. Firstly, the skies opened to release a typical tropical downpour complete with thunder storm. Secondly, some guy had bought a lamp that had a solid silver ball attached and was being grilled about its contents. They suspected drugs of course, but no matter how often he insisted that it was empty the Kupang customs folks were not going to let him take it on the plane until they could break open that silver ball. That proved impossible, but the argy-bargy back and forth went on for ages. We should have been back on the plane by now and being served lunch. Perhaps because we were stoned this fellow traveller and I decided that our lunches were probably on the plane and we calmly walked out of the terminal across the tarmac and on to our plane. And sure enough there was a trolley full of sandwiches and other treats for Kupang to Darwin passengers. We had just retrieved a tray each and were about to tuck into lunch when one of the airline staff caught us in the act and ordered us back to the terminal!

Customs staff were still wrangling with the passenger with the silver ball and the weather had become so bad it was declared unsafe to fly. So we were all to be put up in Kupang for the night. I don’t know where it was we stayed. It didn’t really feel like a hotel but we were pleased to see a dining room that was set for a large group pf people – at least we would befed. As it turned out dinner was nothing more than bread and butter – that’s all a very unprepared Kupang could muster. 

CC image courtesy of Jacques Beaulieu

Before I went to sleep I went for a walk and remember feeling like I had entered another world. It was as quiet as anywhere I'd ever been. I stood on a bushy headland looking at the sea and listened to the sounds of unseen distant voices, birds, sea and wind and felt a great peace.

As we boarded the plane for Darwin next morning I bumped into Lizzie – my brother’s kind of girlfriend at the time. She had just got off the plane from Darwin and was heading to Bali to meet up with him. We flew on that same plane back to Darwin. This time it was my turn to be thoroughly grilled about what I been doing in Bali - drugs, marihuana etc. It was all quite pleasant and I was quite open and honest with the customs guy asking all the questions. I quite enjoyed the interaction in fact. Later that night I was fossicking around in my shoulder bag – which the customs guy had thoroughly searched - and out fell a nice juicy head of cannabis. My heart skipped a beat before I smiled and I realised that I had been very lucky, and that this story could have had a very different ending!

Bali Tales 1973

I had been in Bali, or more precisely, Kuta, for just a few hours. I was approached by a French guy wanting to know if I wanted to buy some dope. My instinctive reaction was to say no. He said he was leaving Bali that night and had more dope than he could use and would give me a very fair price. I still said no!

But there was plenty of dope to be found and I think we spent a lot of time stoned there. I honestly don’t remember. But there is photographic evidence of something lifting the mood and providing bloodshot eyes in photos like this:

And this:

The blond woman in this photo was from Melbourne. Her name was Alison and we decided to enjoy a magic mushroom omelette together for breakfast. I have very few memories of what happened after that. I seem to remember lying on the beach with her and on a whim I decided to go off for a wander elsewhere – somewhere off the beach and into the jungle. I have no other memory of that day until she came to my losmen later that night. She was as red as a beetroot and really angry with me. She had fallen asleep on the beach and got very badly burnt. She said I had just left there on the beach. That was true but in that addled state I doubt whether I was able to join the dots and think that maybe I should stay with her or wake her up, or make sure she didn’t get burnt or something. Anyway – not very chivalrous on my part. I blame the mushrooms.

The Western looking guy on the bed behind me in the first photo above was an Australian guy called Michael. He was ostensibly in jail for possession of marijuana, but as you can see he was out and about and enjoying himself. He said he could basically do whatever he wanted as long as he let the police at the local station know where he was, and returned there each night to sleep. A nice cosy arrangement!

Years later back in Australia I was browsing through old photo albums with my friend, Narelle, and she was really surprised to see a photo of her friend Michael in my photo album. Turns out she’d known him in Sydney years earlier!

It was de rigeur at the time to hire a motorbike and go riding around the island. For me, and for many young travellers I suspect, it was the first time I had ridden a motorbike. You did have to show an international driving license and pay the hire fee but after that you were free to hoon off around the island. So we did.

My brother Damien and I. It was a mixed experience. Obviously ripping down the road in a foreign land with the wind flowing back your hair and all that was exhilarating. But not even that thrill of youthful freedom could hide the embarrassment as you passed through villages and ruined their rural silence. No matter how slow you went you were this noisy interruption to their peaceful existence.

The high/lowlight of this day out on the motorbikes was on the way home. No doubt feeling a lot more confident by now I was doing a fair speed on a long flat piece of road between villages then boom – a large unseen by me pothole jolted me back to earth. Almost literally. I wiggled and waggled across the road for some way trying to keep the bike upright and just managed to stay on the bike and on the road. Damien had been riding some way ahead of me and was waiting in the next village and getting worried. He had seen the pothole and I should have been there by now….  He was as relieved as I was to see I was still in one piece and we continued back to Kuta without further incident.

During my time in Bali I became friendly with a German guy called Peter. He taught something or rather at a university in Berlin and was a very jolly guy and I guess we smoked several joints together. One time we were sitting in a restaurant when a few other German travellers came in. He briefly chatted with them and I was amazed just how much his character and tone appeared to change when he spoke German. All of a sudden here was this very serious guy who was speaking quite assertively. When his focus returned to our table and he resumed speaking English the jolly happy-go-lucky Peter instantly returned. It was one of many instances over the years when I saw how the language people spoke influenced who they were.

I always felt sure that Peter and I would meet again one day but alas it wasn’t to be. It was many years later that I found myself in Berlin looking for him with nothing with his name to go by. My friends in Berlin said his surname was a strange one – Wucherpfennig. In English it loosely translates as ‘miser’. Nor was it a common surname but hours of searching phonebooks and lists of names of academics in Berlin universities yielded nothing.  

My chosen route home from Bali was via Timor and Darwin, and that turned into quite a tale of its own.... (to be continued)

 

Amadeus Review

Star Theatres, Sat 26 Nov, 2022

Presented by Independent Theatre

Amadeus is a remarkable play. Written by Peter Shaffer and first performed in 1979, it is based on a fictional feud between Mozart and the court composer in Vienna at the time, Antonio Salieri. It’s quite Shakespearean in its level of gravitas and epic drama.

As an old man in his final hours Salieri feels the need to come clean and tell the audience (his ghosts of the future) what he’s done so we might set the record straight when we are born in our own future time. It’s a fascinating theatrical device and it works brilliantly.

Shaffer’s Mozart is a rude shock. He’s a bumbling, crass buffoon in the style of Monty Python’s depiction of upper class twits. No manners, no sense of decency, but a prodigious musical talent nevertheless. It drives Salieri crazy and he can do no better than refer to him as ‘that creature’.

The challenging task of portraying this brat of a Mozart falls to Ben Francis and he does a wonderful job. Manic, excitable, passionate, even vaguely endearing – he’s like an uncontrolled schoolboy buzzing about in his own world. Until he plays music – when he transforms into an angel.

Even Salieri has to admit Mozart’s music is magnificent. There are some wonderful moments when Salieri (played by David Roach) waxes lyrical in trance-like admiration of Mozart’s genius as we hear his music playing in the background.

The vast majority of the play has Salieri on stage and usually talking – it’s an incredibly demanding role that would challenge the best of actors. Roach has not quite got all of Salieri under his skin yet but it is an inspirational performance all the same. But ‘that creature’ certainly gets under his skin as he struggles with an intense jealousy towards his musical peer.

I loved the two Venticelli who function as Salieri’s spies around town and their scenes of eagerly reporting gossip back to Salieri in tandem comedy are really enjoyable.

There is so much to like about this production. The cast made ample use of the whole performance space of the Star Theatre to take us to the salons and concert halls of Vienna.

The set and costumes were a visual treat and though Shaffer’s Amadeus might be a little liberal with the facts, in this instance it’s a case of never let the truth get in the way of a good story!

(This review also published on The Clothesline.)

Hand to God Review

Little Theatre, Fri 18 Nov, 2022.

Presented by the Adelaide University Theatre Guild

Since its first production in 2011 Hand to God has been variously described as edgy, risky, filthy, provocative, and obscene – all of these descriptions are apt. It has nevertheless won multiple awards and based on this offering by the Adelaide University Theatre Guild  – deservedly so.

The action takes place in small town Texas in the space where fundamentalist Christian beliefs clash with the darker smouldering desires that many a good Christian blames on the devil. Margery has recently lost her husband and has taken to running puppetry classes for the local church youth group as she tries to build a new life for herself. Her son Jason joins in these classes, as does a very horny and outspoken youth called Timothy.  Out of the blue Timothy inappropriately declares his love for the much older Margery.  With this shocking revelation the genie of desire is released from the bottle and the struggle between good and evil begins.

Leading the way for the forces of evil is Tyrone, Jason’s puppet, as it becomes a mouthpiece for every carnal and impure thought Jason has ever had. Leading the forces for good is the local pastor – terrifically played with equal parts bluster and dignity by Brendan Cooney.

The star of the show is undoubtedly Tyrone, as played by his puppeteer, Jason. Matt Houston’s double act as himself and his wicked puppet is simply masterful.  Jason and Tyrone often communicate with each other in quick back and forth repartee. A little like ventriloquism – where two different voices argue with each other. Houston’s mastery steps up a notch when his puppet begins to torment others – tempting them to come clean and say what they really believe. He taunts and growls, hisses and heckles in an extraordinary performance.

Emily Branford shines as Margery. Her rock-solid belief in all things Jesus sure takes a battering, but she is in turn compassionate, understanding, despairing, deceitful and desperate and despite everything ultimately retains some sense of dignity.

Well-known rock and country music tunes make scene changes really entertaining and subtly remind the audience of location and underlying themes.

There are a couple of unforgettable scenes in this play – I kid you not! And as the posters around town suggest, some things cannot be unseen!

Those with strongly held religious beliefs will no doubt find this play offensive. But if, like the playwright, Robert Askins (who grew up in the Texan Bible-bashing belt), you believe that the hypocritical nature of fundamentalist Christianity needs to be called out, then you’ll love this.

This production of Hand To God is funny, insightful, and entertaining.  Strong, near faultless performances from the whole cast. And hats off to Director Nick Fagan for pulling this one out of the hat.

Go and see it!

(This review also published on The Clothesline.)