Selamat Jalan

  Now I am sitting in Lombok's airport, watching daylight seep out of the fields and forest beyond the glass walls. The landscape is like a towel wrung out, still moist, dropped on the porch railing where it might eventually dry in the humidity. The sun has set and the colors fade, as we enter the realm of fading reality. Outside is the languid spiral of propellers and a pilot craning out the window to wipe his windshield. Beyond, green fields eventually tangle with trees where the coconut palm and bamboo and banana leaves unfurl. Dark shapes emerge above the clouds. "There's mountains out there," I say to Stanley.

  This is not where I expected to be at this time today, but I cannot say I don't like it. A surprise, like every other piece of this last month. Earlier, Barb and I leaned on the ticket counter and I basked in this surprise and the sunlight streaming in the windows. A clear glow filled the atrium with patience, even as the lines grew around us. Waiting and lines are always a part of change, punctuated with brief moments that really matter. They are the weird part, the suspension, the awkward moment we hoped would end quickly. But, I love these moments. The ticket agent prints our baggage stickers. Then reprints them- wrong date. Then reprints them again. This may be taking longer than the group of twenty Germans ahead of us. I might as well be outside watching the white sun set over the jungle. Perhaps it is this suspension that draws the authenticity out of an airport; how can a place be real if things are so sedate?

  The authenticity of the landscapes we are leaving was the subject of an art exhibit we saw in Ubud, titled "Irony in Paradise." Bali, it said, "has been read, narrated, and written very much from the foreigners point of view," bringing into question what the real culture is, how much is for sale, what can be trusted and where it can be found. These were exactly my questions when we first set out. Even more, the exhibit suggested that paradise may have a darker side, aiming an artistic wrist and a dramatic gasp in the direction of corrupt governments and their procrastinated infrastructure.

   In contrast to Bali, we have spent the last few days in Lombok. Here there are fewer tourists and Hindus, and many more mosques and pony-drawn buggys. The airport, where I now sit, has been farsightedly constructed in the middle of nowhere, on land too dry to farm. Shoulders are being considered for the highways (a nearly inconceivable concept for Bali's entertaining thoroughfares) and the new highways are wide and quiet, giving Lombok the feel of an old Western town just before the railroad comes in.

  One morning at our place in Mangsit I stood, hands on hips, looking from the grass roof cabins to the dark blue waves to the palm fronds and tropical almonds dappling the lawn with shade, with the words "So, this is paradise" trooping through my brain. This is another question that gnawed at me, as I left Montana to fulfill my role in an old man's hope. Why do we always have to place our happiness outside of ourselves? Why can it usually be found, swimsuit-clad and beachside in some distant country, distant enough to forget our troubles, a distance that doesn't exist because we carry them wherever we go. This too is the dark side of paradise- an imperialism fueled by want. The wealthy go where they were not born, and they leave pieces of their trouble behind.

  It is the ironies of this trip to paradise that have made it meaningful. Exultant, I was released from the halls of academia, crying "paradise is within!" only to hop on a jumbo jet and straight into the waiting arms of a world tourist destination. The contradiction is hopeless. I have made little of it, except to contemplate the empty pages of my passport. As usual, no questions have been answered, and only new ones crafted.

  The main question of authenticity I guess might be answered, or de-answered. The fingerprints of foreigners are all over Bali, but they are lost in the shadow of tall temple gates, in the abrasive seaside hawkers standing at your hip repeating "sarong?" like seagulls, in the tumult of a thousand smiles and mopeds and rice dishes all pouring off the sun-drenched leaves, steeped in the mud of the rice terraces, sitting on the steps where they meet the cracked sidewalk. Of course, it is real. It is not what it was, as Stanley laments, but maybe it too is a question, a place of change in the suspension between cultures.

  On the morning that I did not then know would be our last in Lombok, I found the moon making her escape from the day. She was ringed with mother of pearl and it glinted like the train of a dress on the waves, where turquoise hands kneaded the sand. Sunlight had begun to settle on the clouds bunched up over Bali.  I sat on the beach and watched the shy sand crabs work on their real estate, eyeing me the whole time, rarely bold enough to carry a bundle of grains out the door.  As the moon sank into the gray horizon I thought about the many other questions, contradictions, and ironies of this trip. How it is to be a reluctant resident of paradise, to travel all these miles just to look closer at where I already am, to learn to love unpredictability on a trip governed by a clockwork man, to be inspired by a woman who has many more years than I but many of the same questions.

  The same moon sat yellow to watch our departure to Singapore, a final surprise we had almost not realized was ours. Delighted and laughing over the runway lights, we reviewed the moment when Barb had thought to check our itinerary one more time. Now, I am sitting in dawn, which has become a place instead of a time, a region over the Atlantic which we will be passing through for hours. The moon has again left, after hovering over the wing this morning. It was full as well on our way to Bali- I remember pushing up the curtain in the dark of the cabin to watch the strange white face in the night.

  In Indonesian there is a phrase, selamat jalan. I have heard selamat used to mean thank you, good bye, or enjoy. Jalan means street, like Jalan Hanoman, named after the white monkey that helped Rama find Sita. It also means a road, a path, maybe an adventure. Together, I take the phrase to mean "enjoy the road."

  Our departure was sudden, surprising, leaving all my questions in mid-sentence, where they would have been anyway. I think that is why waiting in line can be tolerated, why sometimes it is "better to travel than to arrive." Change is a question suspended- travel is the gesture of a hand up, index finger lifted, the "hold on a second" in the face of many pressing ironies, the hound back on the trail when no answer has been caught. Now, we are most of the way home, but our farewell remains, and the memory of many unpredictables. Goodbye, hope you remember what you don't quite know about paradise, see you next time, and Selamat Jalan. That last, at least, I know I can do.

Buoyancy

   What a word, "snorkel." Should be said with a nerdy sniff and a finger to push one's spectacles back onto the bridge of one's nose. Wholly unrepresentative of the elegant activity it is. The first time I snorkeled I felt like a mermaid (snorkelmaid, excuse me). A graceful, heaven-hued world had opened beyond the curtain of waves, populated by creatures from the brightest part of the crayon box, attending spongey abodes and crunching on the marrow of the ocean. To this revelation our language has awarded a comical term reminiscent of "snout" and "snore." Fortunately it is unmistakable in conversation with a native Balinese speaker.
   Our first endeavor into Bali snorkel-maiding took us from Lovina to Manjangan Island, on the north coast. An hour long drive in the front of a van, complete with customary near misses from mopeds and small trucks going both directions, flanked by rising jungle hills, bright green rice fields, and the usual temples, stores, houses and warungs.
   On trips like these, Barbara and I joyfully realize that we have no idea what's next. We find ourselves standing with a group of Europeans, looking at a questionable wooden boat, thinking, is this what we're getting into? The demeanor and roof of a tour boat, the skin of a dinghy, and a taciturn captain guiding us across the water with one outboard motor. In other words, my kind of transportation. By afternoon the sunlight speared into the water, lacing the coral, disappearing into the depths, drawing a deep blue from our homeward wake.
   Returning with the buoyancy that only saltwater can bring, Barbara and I have been faithful to this gawkily-titled activity ever since. Here in Amed, as with Pemuteran, coral and fish are ready for exploration just at the other end of the beach. Today we trolled around a rocky point as clouds bunched up over Gili Island and wind chipped at big comfy rollers. We watched the sand stir beneath and the fish flick around in the high tide current.
   From below, the waves have an entirely different texture, a film of white sky constantly buckling. As I watched leaves float by in this bending firmament, I realized one was not a leaf but more like a walnut, and that attached to it was a crab. A small red crab, clinging with two legs, pincers tucked under its chin, upside down, reminding me of a hot air balloon as he bobbed in the waves. Not a bad way to travel.

Roosterful

   In Amed, I go for a walk. Complete with tennis shoes and DEET, I am tourist epitomizing. Luckily, the road is fairly quiet and I am tolerated with smiles as usual. Also helpful is that I am peeling and eating a snake fruit, which makes me, at least, feel more familiar. The shape of a very large bulb of garlic, this fruit is wrapped in a texture similar to those square headed desert vipers. It comes from an equally intimidating palm whose leaves are lined with finger-length spikes. Upon first taste I was reminded of Sour Patch Kids, second, an apple, and by the third they were a regular part of my diet. Not that eating anything is recommendable for a walk down a rural Bali road, which smells often of dirt, garbage, or something dead.
   On this walk I encounter many faces. Mandri is cutting tall grass in a field between the road and the beach. We talk a little while his kids play in a nearby tree. Wayan tries to sell me a guided tour up the mountain. I try to walk the trail by myself, but find that the way promptly forks at an outcropping of worn lava boulders. I am soon looking down at a pen of three black piglets, and at what I assume to be someone's backyard.
   Saving the tour for later, I follow the road up, out of this village, and around the point to the next. "Amed" refers to a series of rocky points like these, and the bays between them, some lined with beach. The faces of the houses mingle with a few restaurants and bungalows. Most homes are casual, leaning, with tin roofs. From a porch a couple of children smile and wave. A moped passing reveals a foreigner's smile, framed with reddish beard and pink John Lennon sunglasses.
   On the edge of an old stone wall I watch the waves fall on the rocks. A few large crabs perform their baffling formalities. The vegetation hovering above is framed by an old archway, the steps beneath it long ago collapsed.
   This island has required every bit of my observation. Differences are everywhere, and they are either obvious, so harder to see but easier to understand, or subtle and so disarming to realize. The natural environment is a reliable pattern of rice terraces, jungles, jumbled hills, with the occasional sea or volcano. The structure of the cities, the houses and stores and temples, are becoming familiar too, and the variations on statues and woodwork or stone decorations. The faces of people are also rewarding to look at- more often than not they smile back happily, especially at my unexpected stare out the open car window.
   The result of all this observation is that, for this entire trip, I have felt like the lens of a National Geographic camera. What is missing is the narration. No charming British accent saying "Here, you are looking at a roadside cockfight. These events were traditionally an important part of Balinese culture, with men betting on the outcome. While technically outlawed, these fights are an important part of many ceremonies on the island and are thus allowed occasionally. The roosters involved are armed with a knife on one foot, thus they fight to the death. This informal (illegal) fight we are seeing here appears to be practice, and not so gruesome."
   Instead of this informative narration (which you too would glean if subjected to the rampant rooster calls found everywhere on this island) the thoughts in my head, on the return walk home, go more like: "Holy shit, is that a cockfight?"
   Several men have gathered in a place between buildings, a couple smoking and looking serious. I stop and stare as the roosters are pulled apart. Three tourists passing by stop as well, and other men arrive. There is much milling around and talking. About a dozen roosters sit by the road in woven cages. They cheer and lambast each other with that unchanging "Ro-roo, ro-ro-rooo" and when really ready they jump up and down. The men pull out a couple and pet them. More talk, more milling, more stroking of the roosters. The tourists depart.
   Finally, a decision is made and the two competitors are set about ten feet apart, owners holding proud chests and tail feathers. Then, release, and the clear victor (I think) springs toward his foe, colored and flaming like a Chinese dragon, mane of yellow feathers extended, and drops on him in one bound. They call and claw and then the men pull them apart. Thats all there is to it.
    Smiling, I wander on down the road, thinking about patterns and unpredictability, and Bali.

Temple Dog

   There is a dog, on the beach here, who at several different times I thought belonged to several different people. Once, I saw him with a tall woman. Another time he trotted alongside a family of four. Today, on a walk down the beach, I have acquired him. He is a black lab with another wrinkly breed mixed in. He likes to chase chickens and prances cordially through the sand.
   My first acquisition this afternoon was a suggestion. A hint that there was a temple, down the beach and up a hill. In pursuit of this place, the dog and I walk the sand at low tide. Long ranks of coral angle into the waves, brown under the sun. I walk in the cool wet sand and rest under the shade of a few trees, watching the few people who wander in the tide pools, searching. This beach looks directly at the sea, not a bay, and so there are fewer houses than goats and cows, and quiet open spaces.
   The dog and I continue between fields and tide pools. He pauses to chase cows, with much clanging and yelping. We cross a field and turn up a path dappled with shade, and he knows where I am going although he is ahead. Far ahead. And then, he disappears, diving into the bushes. More cowbells and yelping.
   The temple is locked. A tree grows in the middle of it has dropped many red and orange and yellow fruit on the rock the temple is made of. A puddle remains from the morning rain, still in the hilltop calm. The cows chime and ponder my presence. The dog has vanished for safer shores. I sit on the steps and look through the leaves to the water as it stretches silver to the horizon. A small airplane motors by. The green mountains wrap around behind the temple, arms trailing into the waves where I can hear propellers and voices in the next bay.
   I look again past the gate. All is serene, punctuated by the calm fall of another fruit hitting the stone. Old offerings pile on the steps and shrine inside, the palm leaves they're made of bleached with sunlight. Offerings are usually woven plates or bowls, filled with flowers and an offering of food, like rice. Incense is placed on them and the whole item is sprinkled with holy water and prayer.
   In the midst of brambles, humidity, and bovines, the temple sits like a breath of breeze, pleasant and indifferent. Inside the air is patient. I wonder if a place is independent of what we do in it, I wonder if the prayers that have been said here linger with the colors on the floor, and if I can sense them.
   As I sit on the shady steps, a man and then a woman come by to check on the cows. They smile and say hello. On the walk back the sun is muffled with clouds. I follow a set of dog tracks, dug heavy into the dark sand, as they trot back down the beach.

Pemuteran

   Traditional Balinese fishing boats bore the faces of animals. The bow was split like a mouth, with wide eyes above to help the fisherman spot and catch his prey. I am currently in the midst of many Balinese boats, but the only faces I see are human. The sand is black, like the skin of the mountains above us. Pillars of eruptions past, they are robed in jungle and crowned with clouds. I take deliberate steps, over stones and coral pieces, over bow lines and stern lines, sometimes entering the surf and other times the dry sand at the top of the beach, as I work my way into the nest of boats drawn up on the shore.
   I am beginning to wonder if I should even be here. Most of the boats are unattended, at rest for the night. A field to my right reveals soft-skinned cows nuzzling the grass and mingling under the palms. Fishnets hang from the limbs of nearby trees, and men talk or linger by their boats. The houses that the vessels and men belong to are emerging from the trees, along with women's and children's voices and thick blue smoke from one fire. Still I pick my way along.
   In the distance I see a pair of pale skinned people in swimsuits, pulling the same high-kneed maneuvers as I. If these gawky people can cross the line between resort-beachfront-unreality and subsistence village life, I can too. Besides, in situations like this I think of myself as Dad, who often will walk anywhere he's not clearly prohibited, in search of a specific view, his chin upturned as if to say "Are you really going to stop my curiosity?"
   The tide of boats abates as I cross the front of a resort. I jump over a few streams as they enter the sea. They are reminders of what lies inland, carrying water from the tops of those mountains. Also brought with the water are the wrappers and lids and potato chip bags that, in the sunset, scatter the beach with colors.
   Again I submerge myself in a maze of prows. I am at the place between sea and land, the fish and the cows, what the men do on the waves and the women do in their home. These things are knit together by the worn lines, taut and then lax in the rolling waves, by the beached and faceless keels, by the children crouched at the water's edge. It is these kids, whose curiosity is carried through in their wide brown eyes, at whom I grin unabashedly, and the mothers who smile after them.
   One man is standing knee deep in the water, coiling a fresh blue line by his boat. He asks me where I am going. I gesture to a point of land on my right and say, "Over there." He asks where I am staying and I gesture back across the bay, saying "Over there." We stand near two large boats which look like pirate ships to me, complete with masts and ladders and proud attitudes. Initially they were my destination, where I intended to practice my observational skills with an upturned chin. But, the point beckons.
   Last night around the same time I had an entirely different conversation. I had walked the other direction, toward the setting sun, and sat near a tree on the sand while sparrows danced sporadically around me. While I waited to get hit in the face by a bird, two figures walking down the beach came up to me- Balinese girls, teenagers, the bolder of whom asked if they could sit. Of course. I wondered what they liked about this spot- maybe I had occupied their hangout.
   We asked the usual questions- names, age, how long have you been here, where are you from, if I am traveling with a "boyfriend?" Complete with giggles. What a novel concept- an unattended white woman. Hence the curiosity and sit-down. A good thing, since I was as curious about them as they were about me. We stalled and started again several times. I told them how beautiful and messy it is here and that I enjoy it.
   "I think," she said, "that America is beautiful," both a question and an opinion, an opinion of something distant and unattainable, an opinion on the Elysian Fields. I ask if she's seen it in pictures and movies. She likes the Twilight movies, and Harry Potter. She asks what movies I like, and I again stall, unable to think of anything but Pulp Fiction. We talk some more about the States and religion and appearances. The sunset is burning at our shoulders.
   "Now, I have to go," she said. Time for the six o'clock ceremony.
   As I stood I looked after them. The sky bled gold from a point not far away, where the line of the sea and the brunt of the sky ran into the shore. Leaning trees and the slope of the sand were silhouetted, and two girls running side by side, slowing down to look back, and then skipping again toward the sun.
   Now, I am at the point to the east of our rendezvous tree and the pirate ships, looking at the next sunset. The sand is soft, and the clouds too, shrouding the roof of the sky and a far mountain where it emerges from the sea. The pink light and the dark bulky land diffuse across the humid air. A desert wail rises from the village-a mosque calling to prayer the many Muslims who have moved here from Java. I begin my trek back across the boats, past the children and wives and sun-darkened men. The water is becoming pink and purple. Village sounds fade to the clink of silverware and the quiet beach, punctuated with lamps and lounge chairs.
   I learned several words from the two Balinese girls, but now I only remember one. Chanti. It means beautiful.