Just returned from a week in Bali. It was a very experiential trip I felt.

The highlight of my trip was a massage Sophie and I got atop a mango tree on a hilltop. Surrounding us were dark green forests and stunning lime green paddy fields. Down below was a gushing river. The cool breeze, the sweet scents of massage oils, the sound of the tumbling water. I started to drift off to sleep for a while. And then the masseuse massaged my nipples, and the sirens went off. Unlike most other men who would have found that arousing, any caress in that area sends me into a ticklish fit. I think the next time I go for a massage I should use a black marker and draw a periphery around my nips, sort of a no fly zone marking.

The other cool thing we tried in Bali was Kopi Luwak, the world’s most expensive coffee. Kopi Luwak retails on the world market at US$500 a pound, and is priced as such because of the process it has to undergo to make it what it is – coffee beans are ingested by these furry mongoose-like animals called Luwaks, and eventually passed out. The coffee beans are dug out of their droppings, and made into Kopi Luwak. The enzymes from the digestive tract of the animal act on the coffee beans, lending it its special flavour. Gross I know, but isn’t that the coolest thing you’ve heard of.

Our itinerary was as follows. Arrived and stayed a night in Seminyak, close to the capital. We stayed the next 2 days in the cultural village of Ubud, and then it was back to the capital till we left. We visited quite a number of temples. All picturesque, but it’s something you’ve got to see with your own eyes so I won’t bore anyone with the details.

This trip was a delightful gastronomic experience for me. Unfortunately my stomach did not hold up too well on this trip. I always ended up eating something wrong the night before, and suffered all of the next day. At day’s end, when the storm in my belly subsided, I started getting adventurous again and I could not help but put my stomach to the test again, sampling all kinds of weird chillis and whatchamacallits. And I went through the same ordeal for the six days we were there.

I grew quite close to a couple of the tour guides on our trip, Pak Ketut and Darta. Pak Ketut was the owner of the house we stayed at in Ubud. He spoke only Indonesian and drove us North to where they produced Kopi Luwak. He also accompanied us furniture shopping, and recommended us all the best places for food.
Darta was the tour guide assigned to us by the tour agency who made the arrangements for us. Darta had a huge interest in the English language and took up this profession so that he could meet Westerners to improve his English.

In the few days we had with Darta, I asked him so many questions, he thought I was a writer. By the trip’s end, I learned about all the different types of temples in Bali, the story of the Ramayana, the different status that got bestowed on a place based o the materials used for a building roof. I learned that the people of Bali had their birthday every 210 days, meaning that their birthday was on a different day each year if they used our calendar. I even learned of the layout of Darta’s house, where his brother slept, where the kitchen was placed, where they raised their pigs.

This trip was very different from my first to Bali. But the essence of it was quite the same. Both served as an eye opener to the graceful and peaceful culture of Bali, a way of life that has captured my intrigue till today.

We walked up to the door and they buzzed us in. The men in white coats lured us into a room where we were asked to strip. We were each given a pair of shorts to wear and then ordered to lie face down on individual tables. In five minutes, pain was going to be administered to each of us.

I was there to see about my toe. Gary was there because of his slipped disc. Uncle KB was there because he was old.

The doctor tending to my toe was Dr Jun, a.k.a. Minister of Pain. After getting a brief history about the problems I’ve been having with my feet and my big problem toe, Dr Jun started doing his magic. The first thing he did was massage the bottom of my foot with his thumb. I think he was trying to work out some of the knots in my foot. It was really painful, what he was doing, but I figured it was for my greater good. Dr Jun massaged my foot for about two minutes and then he told me he had to leave for a short while to go get his hammer.

“Jeez, I must have some pretty big knots in my foot,” I thought to myself.

Dr Jun comes back with a hammer in his hand and uses it to massage my foot. The pain was unbearable but I bore it anyway. A very painful 5 minutes passed. (Very painful does not really describe the extent of the torment I went through in that first 5 minutes but I needed to save heavyweight words like excruciating and agonizing for the 10 minutes of torture that was to ensue.)

Dr Jun was done with my foot and was now moving on to my toe. He stretched my middle toe straight so that my toe tendons were fully strained. And then with all his strength, he used the hammer to scrape along those tendons. All the nerves between my middle toe and my clenched teeth felt like they were just lit on fire.

Dr Jun fed the fire for 5 minutes and then stopped. I then felt his fingers grip my toe really hard. And with one swift motion, he yanked it with all his strength. Actually, I don’t think he yanked it with ALL his strength because he yanked it another ten times. After he was done pulling, I looked up and saw my detached toe in his hand. Just kidding.

Back to serious stuff. My massage finally came to an end and Dr Jun now wanted to stick some needles into my foot to increase blood flow. “Blood flow from my foot to the floor,” I thought to myself. Accupuncture is not “not painful”. I think it is important that I inform you, the public, of this matter because we so often bump into macho wannabes who brag that accupuncture is painless, that it just feels like a pin prick. Now, my question to these morons is, if pin pricks are so painless, why do people go ouch when pricked?

Pulling the needles out of my foot were as painful as putting them in. Where I’m concerned, putting a needle in normally seems more painful because in my mind I know I’d eventually have to pull it out. And pulling it out seems less painful, because in my mind I know that once its out, its out.

Back to the story. The needles come out, my toe is throbbing, swollen and longer, and I can barely stand on my two feet. And then comes the big question from Gary and Uncle KB, “Does it feel better?” Hell yeah! Better than 10 minutes ago.