You may have heard of Elisabeth Gilbert's international best seller that has hit Bali like a tsunami. If you haven't read the book or seen the film, it's about a woman who leaves her husband to find her true self and she does this by eating in Italy, praying in India and finding love in Bali. My version is a little different as I found myself praying for my safety and getting very wet last weekend. I did, however, eat well.
Have you ever done something that goes against your conventional self, but you know that if you don't give it a go, you'll never know? When my family and I moved to Bali, we had a dream. We said "Let's move to Bali and buy an old jeep so that we can go exploring." It took us 18 months to work out whether this would be a wise move, to build the right connections and to save enough money. Last week we were bold enough to make the move and purchased a 1966 soft-top Toyota Land Cruiser 'jeep' from a trustworthy and highly reliable source (most important to do this Bali). Our reliable source's name is Jon and he is fanatical about this vehicle, having purchased it himself a few years ago and 'done it up' until it was time for him to pass onto somebody else who could have just as much fun in it.
We decided to take the jeep into the mountains at the weekend. As we were preparing to leave it was raining. This, in my experience, didn't bode well for the mountains. "Rain in mountains?" I slowly and loudly asked our Balinese staff member so he would understand. He looked at me blankly for a few moments and responded "no rain," as if he knew what he was talking about. I was dubious. Regardless, we set off on our adventure.The engine of the jeep roared like an army truck. We bounced along the pot-holed roads like a mechanised kangaroo as my husband fumbled to drop down a gear. We blasted past the endless stream of motorbikes and threatened to steam roller any slow vehicle that came into our vision. I ducked and dived, pressing my foot hard on the brake as I pretended to drive on the passenger side. The windscreen wipers furiously clicked as they tried to keep up with the vast downpour of rain, until one of them had enough and flew into the air. I couldn't see out of the passenger side anymore and maybe it was just as well. While attempting to look through the fogged up and rain patterned windscreen, I resorted instead to praying that we would 'make it' alive.
As we approached the base of the volcanic mountains, our five year old daughter shouted "look Mummy, there's smoke coming out of the mountain." I hoped that it wasn't volcanic smoke and could see that we were about to climb into a big, white cloud that was so full of rain, it would be like going through a high pressure car wash. One hour later we arrived at our destination feeling a little worse for wear and very wet. The good news was that we had stayed at this destination before -Puri Lumbung Cottages - even though the accommodation was basic, the food and service was excellent. We enjoyed some late lunch and with true optimism set off for an afternoon tour of the area in the jeep in the still pouring rain. My husband suggested that we visit the Giant Tree, which was only 3km down the road. Quite a few more kilometers, landslides and floods later we gave up on finding the tree and more importantly tried to find our way back. As the torrential mountain rain thumped against the canvas roof, leaked though the passenger door and I still prayed for our lives, I quite frankly didn't care whether I saw a giant tree or not. To distract ourselves from getting lost in the jungle, we decided to play a 'name the jeep' game. Our 12 year old daughter unanimously won and our jeep was now called 'Jenny Jeep or 'JJ' for short. She had been well and truly bathed in the tropical rain as part of her initiation ceremony.
That night the unabating rain continued to beat down. While shivering in bed fully clothed and feeling very damp, I wondered why we didn't take 'JJ' for a trip along the sun drenched coast lines of Bali. Where would the sense of adventure and fun be in that though?
The next morning, the rain had temporaily stopped. As we looked out over the panoramic views of the green tree mountain valley, we noticed an extra large tree. The Balinese waiter confirmed that it was the Giant Tree. It was gigantic and towered above all the other trees, like a skyscraper. How we missed it, I do not know.
The rain obviously distracted us. Similiar to life, we can get so consumed with what else is going on, we fail to see what is staring us in the face!
While checking out I mentioned to the receptionist that it looked as though it was going to rain. She agreed with me and said "it's been raining for the last year."! There was no chance that we were going to hit a heat wave, so we drove further down the mountain to where all the fresh strawberries were grown. We feasted on lots of strawberries, bought a kilo of fresh strawberries from a trustworthy source and then were tempted to buy some beautiful, plump red strawberries from a couple of female street vendors for a great price.
We were proud of our tough negotiating skills, but as we drove off discovered that we had been conned. What looked like two layers of strawberries was only one. The bottom layer was stuffed with cardboard!
Ah well, we still had fun inspite of the rain and being conned. Who needs love when you can pray, eat, get very wet and still laugh.
'Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.'
Anthony J. D'Angelo
Janet
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