The Optimistic Traveller

We arrived on the eastern coast of Bali with swollen ankles and very wide eyes.  It had been an (extremely) long journey of 22 hours not including car rides and layovers, and a near miss catching the flight from Germany, since our bags had not been checked all the way.  Budget travel is not for the faint of heart, but given that we had paid roughly $300 per person one-way via studentuniverse.com, the elation that bargains bring carried me across the globe almost as much as the planes did.  

The friendly but barely-speaking-English driver deposited us to what Mike had anticipated a modest hotel on Candidasa Beach, since it was only $80 a night. The Sea Breeze is in a tiny village with a few shops and restaurants, and its little cabins were tucked into a garden almost right on the water, separated only by a short rocky hill. Books in several languages were shared in a beautiful communal veranda, and orchids covered the local trees. It was mesmerizing. By an intimate, rectangular, blue-green infinity pool facing the ocean, about five steps from our private cabana, I watched my ankles diminish and sipped a complimentary welcome cocktail that tasted like someone had just picked the fruit and given it to me as an offering, rather than placing it on an alter to Vishnu as so many Hindus there do every morning.

The first three nights at this resort were the only plans (other than a return flight from another country) for our month-long adventure — and we intentionally had almost no idea of what we’d do or see while there. To start, we wanted to take it easy, recover from jet lag, and get in the water. On our third day, after we’d seen local markets, Tirta Gangga — a koi garden with elaborate fountains and steppingstones — and a traditional ancient Hindu village called Tenganan, where a community member himself led us quietly around and bonded with me over respect for all living things. (One pays a courtesy fee to walk around with a villager, and it is respectful to buy something from artisans who live there.)  In my case, the guide’s wife was a weaving aficionado, so I purchased a beautiful sarong – possibly the most expensive thing (after airfare) of the entire trip at around $90. We saw monkeys on the road and stopped to pay the banana vendor nearby a few coins to feed them. (I didn’t know how to tell them that they could have eliminated the middleman.) Finally, we asked our driver to take us to a beach. “Asking a driver” sounds fancy, but in Bali you can hire a taxi for several hours for under $50. He stumbled to find the words to question our interest in snorkeling. We said yes, we liked to snorkel, but, really, we just wanted to relax by the water. This apparently did not translate.

He dropped us in an odd parking lot with chickens scratching here and there and no clear line of sight to the water, pointing us to a “beach” that turned out to look and smell like a dirty little fishermen’s cove.  We stepped gingerly over rowboats, anchors, inordinately jutting rocks, and whatnots and reached a tiny waterfront café, thinking we’d make the best of it with a snack and a cocktail. Our selected fare wasn’t bad, and we were making the best of it, but we had told the driver we’d be occupied for at least three hours. Then I saw a snorkeler or two a few feet from shore and spied someone renting out a few masks by the side of the café.  There was nothing else around, no place to sit other than at the café, and, well, we could only drink and eat so much, so we paid an egregiously small sum for a couple of masks and stepped into the water.

We almost always snorkel separately, Mike and me, so I went off ahead, immediately surprised by the extremely clear and comfortable water and variety of species, many of which I’d never seen before.  A bright blue starfish caught my eye like a gem, and I hovered above it for a while, floating calmly. I was wearing a two-piece bathing suit and a lot of jewelry, so I wasn’t alarmed in the slightest when some bright yellow fish nipped at a beauty mark near my belly button, pulling it out like a new strange appendage I didn’t know I had. I looked up to find a few of his friends near my right hand, attracted, I assumed, to my bracelets.

This story, as I tell it, reminds me of those dreams you can have where you find yourself with some strange superpower.  In mine, I almost always have the special ability to jump very high and land perfectly in a position enabling me to slide and jump again continuously, an air skater.  I wish travel were that easy.  But I digress. 

Before long a crowd had gathered along my arm, and as I slowly brought it in toward me, the fish, looking like autumn leaves or large thinking marigold petals, followed.  I looked to the left, and a small gathering was visiting that arm as well, from the hand to the shoulder. While I didn’t understand their attraction, I nonetheless felt beautiful. No more nips at the waist; they’d decided to be my arm(s) candy instead.  I moved my hands around gently, and they swam along, hovering as though attached by invisible strings. I realized, all of a sudden, that I essentially had fish wings and was flying with them in the ocean. I poked my head up out of the water and didn’t see a soul. Surely someone else was witnessing this miracle?  I was wondrously alone and precious, briefly wishing for a spontaneous and quick death to preserve this moment that seemed something like heaven.

I came out of the water a bit later with a swollen mole (it took days to deflate) and a big smile. “Mike, any chance you saw me with angel wings made of fish?” I asked. “Yep,” he nodded. “It was amazing.”

I don’t have the beauty mark anymore.  I had it removed just in case it might be like dangling a carrot to future fish. I don’t wish to tease!  But I do have an incredible memory of snorkeling in Bali in the most serene and comforting attire — wings made of swimming sunlit creatures that could’ve flown with me straight to Paradise.

Thank God for the intuitive Balinese taxi driver who knew exactly what we needed from the Indian Ocean.