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)
