On Bali and Rising from the Ashes

I haven’t written about Bali yet, not because it was an uneventful trip, but because we had a series of misfortunes right around that trip that overshadowed it a little. More about those later. 

I had read all over the Internet that Bali was THE place to go in Indonesia; I’d also read everywhere that it has been ruined by tourists. I’m so glad we went and found out for ourselves. There are some places I’ve traveled to that I’m happy to never go back (I’m looking at you Hawaii, as hostile as you are beautiful), but I’d make the effort to go to Bali again. Well, part of it. 

OMIGAWD SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE! JAVA TRENCH! LIFELONG MAP NERD FLAILING!

We spent the first two nights inland in a town called Ubud, famous for being artsy and starring in the “Love” segment of “Eat, Pray, Love.” We rented a tiny villa with our own private pool for like $60 a night. 

I expected Bali to look like Thailand. The climate was the same, but the trash that permeates all of Thailand’s nooks and crannies is nowhere to be found, at least in Ubud. Ubud is gorgeous. 

 

Everything is so lush and close. There is beautiful carved wood and stone everywhere. It is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, up there with the Alps and the central coast of California. The pictures do it so little justice. I took this video just for myself to remember the narrow road from town up to the villa, with all its tiny storefronts and stone-carved temples. Don't feel like you have to watch the whole thing.

Ubud was full of Trustafarians, and countless western women doing the Eat Pray Love thing. Here is why I pass that judgment: As I was out running one morning, I grinned my big stupid Labrador grin at everyone I passed, like “Wheee! Can you believe we’re here?” 90% of the white women I passed gave me a slightly offended look, which I sensed to mean, “Uhh, excuse me, but **I** AM HAVING A MOMENT HERE, and your big American teeth and purple Asics are knocking my chakras out of balance. This is MY expensive soul-searching quest; please move along.” Even the locals gave me an “I’m tolerating you” look. It reminded me that Thailand is the Land of Smiles… Indonesia is not. But snotty artsy rich women couldn’t touch my good mood. Not while running in that scenery.

My favorite moments from this segment of the trip: We rented motorbikes because cabs are impractical for those tiny streets. The first night we got in late enough that we just ordered pizza and hung out by the pool, but the next day we ventured into town for lunch. On our way home, we got caught in a heavy tropical downpour. We just had to get wet. And laugh. 

While running, I passed by four roosters in cages (these can be seen in the video-- four bell-shaped wicker cages on the left side of the road). As I ran past, a big dog lumbered over to them, lifted a leg, and lazily peed on the roosters. They squawked something fierce, and I laughed hard enough that I had to stop and walk. Out loud, alone, with my big American teeth.

That looks exactly like my handwriting on the blue... What a coincidence...

The second night we went out to this beautiful restaurant. The food was wonderful, delicious and well-priced. But the best thing about it was how accommodating they were to kids. It was a full-fledged Fancy Restaurant, with no crayons or dancing animal costumes or anything, but they had a respectable kids’ menu and they were really nice to the girls. I’ve never seen anything like it; they were treated like adults. After we got home, Sophie and I celebrated the best (only?) way one can if you have a private pool all to yourself: with a moonlit skinny-dip!

After Ubud, we went to Kuta, which is a touristy beach town (even though the beach was brownish and dotted with plastic). 

 

To be fair, 99% of the flotsam in this picture is coral, not trash.

I still had to get in. I had to be in the Indian Ocean.

Kuta has all the charm and beauty of Tijuana, although I remember Tijuana having far more redeeming qualities. Kuta is awful. People hawking stuff everywhere. I passed a guy on the street there who embodied the whole place for me: young white guy, tribal tattoos on his sunburned shoulders, walking down the street with an open beer at 10 am yelling “wooooooo!” Shudder. 

Also, sweet Jesus was it ever hot there.

We went there for our hotel, which had outstanding kid activities, and we rarely left the grounds. 

Nick and I snuck out for a nice lunch date one day while the kids were in a craft class. We went to the fancy hotel next door. At the table next to us, all in bathing suits, was a long lithe woman and three beefy guys with tattoos of guns on their arms. All spoke Russian. Yiiiiikes. 

Most of the other hotel guests were Australian. This is probably an unfair blanket statement to make, but it was something that Nick and I noticed right away about the vast majority of them, and there were several hundred in this hotel: Australians are large people. Not just overweight, but TALL! And BIG! That is some hearty stock there!

YES that is what you think it is.

One last thing I want to remember about Kuta: there were tiny frogs everywhere. We had to be careful not to step on them. I forgot to get pictures, so I borrowed someone else’s from the web. They were the cutest wee things. 

Now, the dark clouds: we were (and are) still dealing with this horrible landlord situation, which is currently at a standstill. We would wake up every morning in Bali and start talking about it, all the possible awful scenarios and what our options are. It gave a small undercurrent of distracted stress to the trip. 

We came back to a drought, a heat wave (it reached 108F) and horrible smoke. I got some kind of 24-hour stomach bug that had me so violently ill that my core muscles (and all the muscles behind those) were sore for days. When we returned to work, the bank called our school to let us know that someone had tried to use our ATM card in another country. We said yeah, yeah, that was us, but they wanted us to come in anyway to clear it up. When we did, we found out that someone in lovely Kuta had indeed emptied our account two days after we left. The bank is still “investigating.” I will be surprised if we get our money back. 

These things have been bad enough to give us pause about staying here another year. Without getting into too much detail, we’ve had some long, tense, come-to-Jesus conversations about how many beatings we are willing to take. Now that a little time has passed, we’ve had some rain, and the air is clearing and cooling off slightly, I think things are looking up. (We’ve gone 15 whole days without getting robbed! And I cringe writing that because I don’t want to tempt fate.) 

My girl riding Bangkok public transit like a boss.

I rode my bike around town for a few hours yesterday, for the first time in months. I went for a massage, and was greeted by my usual lady with several bear hugs and a reminder that she hadn’t seen me since Christmas. I went to the Saturday night market with a visiting friend, another thing I haven’t done in months, and remembered that this is a pretty cool town. Over the last two months, we have spent so much energy stressing out over the landlord that we have completely forgotten to enjoy… well, anything. I'm reacquainting myself with Thailand, and I want to think we’re crawling out of the hole. Certainly we can’t just cower in there waiting for the next screw. At least now the end of the school year is in sight.

Adventures in Extortion

Recently I was on a bus to Chiang Mai, my head swimming with thoughts of what a beautiful place and I love it here and there are so many opportunities to really enjoy life here. Here's 13 seconds of my happy place:

I realized that I’d been swooning for weeks, constantly vomiting mental rainbows of pure joy.

OMG THAT RICE PADDY IS THE GREENEST GREEN I'VE EVER SEEN!

The heaving has subsided. 

Right now it’s the worst time of the year in northern Thailand. People are burning crops to make room for the next growing season (I think?). It’s supposed to be illegal to burn open fires here, but it’s Thailand, so illegal-shmegal. They’re everywhere, and so is the smoke. It’s also coming in from Myanmar and Laos. Couple that with a long lack of rain, and today’s air quality index was 258. In the US, people are advised to stay indoors when it’s over 50. It’s not fun. Apparently, last year was worse.

We got an e-mail from our former landlord a few days ago detailing damage we supposedly left in the Miami Vice pimp house. No proof as of yet, so I don’t feel defeated, but we’re kind of legally adrift here as foreigners. The upside is that we’ve had people coming out of the woodwork to help with promising local legal advice, so we might be okay. [Passage removed pending legal action... ours, not his.] Nothing angers me more than injustice, so needless to say, I am livid. 

And remember the crappy car, sold to us by the woman who hired us (and no longer lives here)? The currency won’t mean anything to you, but the numbers will. She said they paid 110,000 baht for it. We paid her 90,000 baht. When I questioned her about the price, she gave me a slightly scoldy e-mail about how used car prices in Thailand are higher than they are elsewhere. I’d read this in a few other places too, so we paid. 

I just found out this afternoon that she did not buy the car for 110,000 baht. She paid FIFTY thousand. And now we can’t sell the albatross for more than 30. I was so angry I couldn’t breathe for a few hours. It blows my mind that there are people out there who are that deceitful. I know that makes me naïve; I accept that. There is not a single thing we can do but share our revenge fantasies and wait for karma to burn their house down. (Again.)

There is a small part of me that is actually grateful for these blights on our experience. I’ve spent months feeling a little twinge of dread about having to leave next year, a panicky fear that I will go home and be a miserable gray blob again, wrapped up in monotony and stress and cake. That twinge is fading. Nick and I talk about the genuine, honest, scandal-free straight-talkers we know and love back in New England. We laugh about their inappropriate senses of humor, a kind that we have yet to encounter here. We are left to mumble offensive Bill Burr quotes only to each other. 

I’ve started to keep a list of things I miss. Most is food: IPAs, artichoke hearts, dolmades, cannolis, good Caesar salads (the ones here are always green leaf lettuce, mayonnaise, hard-boiled egg & bacon… nope), good seafood (it’s mostly funky-smelling river fish here), good cheap wine, frozen waffles, and string cheese. Man, our kids lived on frozen waffles and string cheese. I’ve gotten used to living without them, and we are eating plenty of good stuff we won’t be able to get in the US. Besides, I can’t complain about the weight loss that has resulted from not being around my favorite foods. I can make a great Caesar salad, but anchovies are hard to come by. I found a jar in one store for about $18… I think I can wait. I also miss my Water Pik. Jeopardy. NPR. I used to listen to NPR every morning in my kitchen. I could probably stream it, but it’s not the same. 

I miss clean public bathrooms. Toilet paper is not really a thing here. Nor is soap at the sinks, or paper towels for drying. 

Over it. Especially when taking a handsy five-year-old to use it. She has touched far worse than what's in this picture.

I can’t say I don’t still love Thailand, because I love it. In so many ways, this place is a dream come true for me. There are cheap massages, constant travel opportunities, and a chance to avoid most holiday hype and responsibilities for two whole years. St. Patrick’s Day came and went without a single peep. No leprechaun traps at school or gaudy green glitter or any of that malarkey. No commercials on TV screaming about holiday-related sales of crap. Easter is this Sunday, and I feel no awkward pressure to do anything for it in spite of my complete lack of religion (although we are planning to surprise the girls with little baskets on Sunday, because, candy). Decorating for anything? That concept has vanished. Some people thrive on all of that, but to me it’s always been Just More Stuff to Do. I could not be happier. Call me Captain Buzzkill. No gifts to buy, no parties to attend, so much less celebrating. It is a Pinterest-free world, and my underachieving behind is breathing a big lazy sigh of relief. I am excused. Squatting over a hole is worth it.

And? Since we’ve moved into the cheaper house, we changed our vacation plans for April. We only have 15 months left here and I want to make the most of every trip, so… we are going to Bali. You guys. BALI. We’ll spend two nights in an Ubud villa with our own private pool that costs about the same as a nicotine-stained Days Inn on the New Jersey turnpike.

I'm going to get vitamin D in places where the sun don't shine.

Then for three nights we’ll go to a big resort with an over-the-top kids’ club to thoroughly wear out the girls. I had to buy the tickets in person at an airline office (credit card issues with their site), and when I walked out of the building I was surprised to feel an involuntary tightening in my throat. Tears of joy and disbelief threatened for a few seconds. I have over two decades’ worth of pent-up travel jones. Back home we couldn’t even afford to go to a Florida strip mall on vacation, and now we’re going to Bali for the same price it used to cost us to go to Omaha. 

The amount of money we’ve lost from the bad car rip-off and the landlord extortion might have covered a trip to Bali from Boston. Well… at least a week in Florida, eating at the Tampa Chili’s instead of the Lowell Chili’s. But we wouldn’t have had zero credit card debt. And we wouldn’t have had all this time with each other. Besides, the wisdom we’re gaining is priceless, and that’s the whole reason I wanted to do this in the first place. 

We’re taking the girls to Chiang Mai this weekend to have some fun. We’ll ice skate, maybe see a movie, go to the aquarium, eat at a robot restaurant. We just didn’t do this stuff back home. On the weekends we were too exhausted, had to work on the house, had too many plans. Driving three hours in any direction would require an expensive hotel stay, something that was hard to enjoy when ¼ of our income was going to daycare. So yeah, the bugs, fuzzy air, car rip-off, and landlord situation? They suck. A lot. And they’re making my mental tantrum of I never ever wanna go home everrrr turn ever-so-slightly in my head. Hopefully those feelings will manage to balance out in the next 15 months. 

Post-script:

On the way back from Chiang Mai now. It’s very hard for me to blog, because I really only have the chance to do it when the kids are leaving me alone. If they are leaving me alone, it’s because they’re using my laptop. I can type in the car, but there’s no internet. 

Anyway, the robot restaurant super-sucked, and Sophie puked all over the hotel room last night (I’m surprised this doesn’t happen more often considering how many things she puts her mouth on… she would turn a germophobe to stone), but overall it was still a great time. We swam in the hotel pool, gorged ourselves on Indian food, and had a mini-adventure on our way to breakfast walking down a side street peppered with drunks and bleating prostitutes left over from the night before. I introduced the girls to gardenias, which were growing fresh all over our hotel grounds. Sascha got to ice skate. I got to run. And the girls were totally cool with their new little Easter purses full of chocolate!

House Hunters International, Turbo Edition

Since we moved into our house, through several conversations with local expats, we’ve realized that we’ve been grossly overcharged on rent. Sure, it’s a “pimp house,” as one of our friends calls it. But as things started to break down and our landlord didn’t fix them, and after many disputes over shoddy grounds keeping, this house was not living up to his insistence of its top-of-the-line label.

 

That fountain stopped working four months ago. Then the water turned foul, a crack appeared in the basin of the pool letting most of the water seep out, and we had six inches of dirty water sitting there until Nick bailed it out with a bucket.

One could say, “Well, that’s Thailand for you,” but we were not being charged Thai rent. Seeing the shock on people’s faces when we told them what we were paying was humiliating. We felt like fools. 

We gently approached our landlord, a British stockbroker, about ending our lease early, citing the lack of kids in the neighborhood as our excuse (actually true). He said that would be fine if the real estate agent could find another renter. The real estate agent said it was very hard to find another renter because it’s so expensive. You think?

About three months went by with no word. I was bitter, but resigned. And then:

Saturday: Realtor brings prospective client to see our house. She says this is only one of five houses he’s seeing. Even though the guy is from Amherst and I pretend to be a Boston sports fan, I get the hunch that he’s not into the house. Mentally, I move on.

Sunday: Skype Mom. Barely mention that someone looked at the house.

Monday: Realtor calls. The guy wants the house. How soon can he move in? I say SOON. Yes. Tomorrow. Okay, this weekend. Can you find us another house?

Tuesday-Thursday: We look at several houses and pick one.

Saturday night: We’re sleeping in a new house. 

Old house: $1340/month. New house: $564/month. 

And oh. What a house. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Tuscany in Thailand:

 

I love it. It’s small but it feels big. The style is more my speed, free of flash and ego. All of the floors are rough wood-look tile instead of the shiny white Miami Vice marble we had in the other house that was very slippery and impossible to keep clean. It is so quiet, except for the bird riots in the mornings. It’s the dry/crop-burning season here now, so the air is hazy and the hills are yellow as you can see in the video, but it is going to be even more stunning once the rains return. Up the hill is our cool French landlord who has two daughters (half Thai), ages 10 and 7, who are not too shy to let themselves into our house. Neither are their cats, which of course I love. 

Now, if you know me at all you know there are some reality disclaimers coming. It’s not convenient to any shopping if we need groceries, as you can see by the long dirt road in the video. Food takes planning ahead. All of the lighting in the house is awful overhead lighting (yes, fixable with lamps, but nice/plain ones are hard to find). The water is well water, and even though it’s safe to drink, the soil around the house is that red tropical stuff so the water smells like rust. The well pump also makes a pretty obnoxious sound every time we turn the water on, so there's no flushing in the middle of the night. We bought a not-cheap water cooler for drinking that I really like. 

The house is FULL of bugs. Fortunately, none of them have been bigger than a dime… yet. The few spiders I've seen are small enough to be almost cute. There are ants everywhere (tiny non-biting kinds) as well as small crickets and roaches. Yeah. I comfort myself with the idea that they are clean country roaches instead of disgusting rotting-trash city roaches. And they’re not as fast as the ones I knew in Texas (my only other roach experience). That makes a difference.

The upside to the wilderness is that we’ve encountered some creatures we’ve never seen before. I’ve noticed at least five different types of ants. The other day, a little bug that looked like a piece of turquoise flew past me in the driveway. It was matte, like the gem. Even its legs were turquoise. Crazy. Today we came home to some cows grazing on the hill above the house. Of course we’ve seen cows before, just not in our yard. I love it. 

We have doubled our commute time. It's now12 minutes instead of 6. Heh. 

Our school is getting ready for its first accreditation evaluation next week, so between that and moving, we've been very stressed out. I realized a few days ago while drinking a little too much wine with dinner (my former go-to stress method, "too much" being the former part) that I was this stressed out all the time back home. However, back home there was more to do, I was handcuffed to the inside of that car for a good part of the day, and my phone would ring and buzz with endless crises, almost always during my kids' witching hour while they were melting down and I was trying to make dinner. No wonder I felt like it was doing physical damage to my body, like my cardiac muscle fibers were unraveling. This time, I know that it's a temporary stress, I get to end my days in a silent house, and when all of the dust settles I can afford to go spend a couple hours in a spa. (Who am I kidding, we still have another week of this and I'm going to a spa tomorrow.)