10.19.2008
6:01 am
The Jazz Beetles Quartet - Week 3 Summary
Above and beyond what would actually be a pretty dope jazz band name, there’s a reason behind the title: I’ve been introduced to the beetles here in Bali this week. And I’m not talking about the little guys that constantly buzz my face and land on my keyboard while I’m working away here at night. I’m talking about the Bali beetle. This thing is like, 2.5 inches long, about three-quarters of inch wide, and about an inch high. The thing hums when it flies. I was kinda working away at my computer and kept hearing this weird humming noise. Hmmm… that’s much too deep to be any kind of mosquito or other insect, and it’s too loud to be my computer. Not my phone. What is that?!?. Turn around, and there’s this giant thing on my wall. Being the only-slightly-nature loving person that I am, I definitely killed the damn thing. I’m sorry but I’m not going to spend 20 minutes trying to shoo the damn thing out my door and let another 2000 mosquitos in. I’d rather just feed the ants.
Enter tangent. I never really thought about ants too much before I got here, but when they’re constantly crawling in and out of your keyboard, across your screen, or under your arms, it’s kinda hard to miss them. And they are quite plentiful around these parts. Microscopic ants, small ants, medium ants, big ants. You got everything in the form of ant here. Anyway, after killing a couple of large spiders (think I mentioned that in my last post?) and not having the energy or will to touch something 5 inches in diameter that is that ugly and… spidery, I left the hairybastards on the floor. The ants cleaned up the entire mess in less than 3 full days. I was rather impressed.
Speaking of which, I should check to see if that beetle is gone yet. Dramatic pause for effect. About 35% or so consumed, I’d say. The beetle had a significant mass advantage over the spiders though, so I guess that’s to be expected. Plus, this isn’t like, the big ants that are on cleanup duty. It’s the little ones almost too small to see. So yeah, I’ve taken up the hobby of feeding the ants in my yurt because I’m too much of a wuss to pick up the carcasses and throw them outside. But hell, the damn ants are already there, they might as well do me a favour.
Anyway, I’ve typed 500 words already on feeding giant beetles to ants. My point before I diverged on my tangent was this: I dunno about you, but when coming face-to-face with a humming beetle, I instantly thought about collecting a large number of these things in a small room, tossing in some microphones and trying to train them to create some sort of freestyle jazz humming thang. But maybe that’s just me. Who knows. On to the rest of the week!
Most of the week, barring my introduction to the local insect species (also found a rather large grasshopper later in the week who I also fed to the ants), has been fairly mild during the weekdays. I’ve had a lot of work from civilization that I’ve been trying to catch up on and deal with so that I can pay down credit cards and debt while I’m living for so cheap (pretty good idea considering the state of the global economy I think). $160 Canadian nets you about 1.25 million Indonesian Rupiahs so I can live pretty well on much less than I was paying simply for rent in Vancouver, let alone everything else. So my evenings have been spent taking it easy for the most part, cooking some food in the kitchen in the camp and then working on client stuff. Quite enjoying it, very nice pace here.
So I knew I had a big day Saturday and basically just took it easy Friday. Now comes the fun part.
I got up at a normal time (re: 7:30 am… it’s hard to ignore the sounds of the jungle by this time) and proceeded to spend about 45 minutes chatting to my mom on Skype. Got dressed, brushed my teeth and headed out to meet up with Dagmara and Abee (both have lived/studied in Vancouver before so we have a common bond there). Daga needed me to pick up her passport from our work because she was flying out first thing Sunday to Jakarta for a business trip, so I decided to stop for some gas on my way. Turns out that even the big gas stations here in Bali, with the big fancy signage and all, don’t have ATM machines for you to take out cash at. Silly me. Of course I had neither any of my Canadian money on me nor the 21000 rupiah it cost me to fill the tank on my scooter and there wasn’t a damn atm anywhere nearby. I ended up having to call Sara from the camp to come and lend me some money because I couldn’t leave without paying and there was no ATMs anywhere nearby.
So I went straight to Daga & Abee’s place for breakfast now since they were ready to eat and it would’ve taken me a while to get to the school and get the passport and everything. Once I got to their place we made some really wicked french toast with honey on it, some eggs, and some store-bought mango juice. Delicious.
After breakfast we packed our bags and scooters up and headed out to the beach. We were, however, going to Pedang Pedang Beach, which is, respectively, far away. Not to mention we hit the bypasses and go straight the middle of Denpasar/Kuta (major population/tourist spots), so I was introduced completely to the beauty (re: nightmare) that is the traffic in this area. Something you should understand about traffic in Bali is there’s a lot of bikes, some normal personal vehicles, taxis, and a buncha trucks and buses. There is very few lights and I mean VERY few lights. Only at the major intersections of the largest bypasses are there lights. Lane markings are like… advice. We know you’re not really going to listen, but this is the sorta area you should be travelling in. It’s not uncommon to see bikes on the far side of their respective lanes with passenger vehicles driving right through the middle of a two lane (one in each direction) highway. People tend to be very courteous drivers, making way for each other, slow down, etc. to let people on their way, but it still gives a very new definition to defensive driving here. You basically keep your eyes on what’s in front and if presented the opportunity you shoulder check when you’re moving in one direction or another.
Anyway, we stopped on our way to Pedang Pedang at the Dunkin’ Donuts in Sanur for a drink, put on some sunscreen as I was already getting burned just driving around on my bike and continued on. We stopped at a McDonald’s in Nusa Dua (I think that’s what it was called anyway) to grab an ice cream and meet up with Kendra before we continued on to our last leg of the journey. Turns out that we actually spent more time driving to the beach than we actually spent there. We arrived around 4pm just as the tide was starting to go out, got a little bit of swimming and sunning in (being so equatorial it’s pretty much 6am-6pm for the sun) and then headed out again to get some food.
Me, Abee, Dagmara and Kendra went to a really great cafe in Sanur for supper. I really wish I could remember the name of the place because the food was awesome and they had a live band singing that was awesome. They were playing a nice mix of blues, tribal and salsa stuff, it was a nice complement to the food and wine.
After dinner we parted ways with Kendra and I followed Abee and Dagmara back towards Ubud. Part of the way we parted ways again as the camp is about 20 minutes away from Ubud and it would be a waste of gas to follow them all the way there. Now this is when the story gets… fun.
Turns out that sometime between the time we left the dinner place in Sanur and the time that I arrived home my ignition key broke off. Said ignition key also contained the ring on which my key to the padlock on my yurt that’s meant to keep people out. That includes said resident of yurt when said resident does not have the key. It was now around 10pm at night, dark as it can be and I’m locked out of my home away from home. After one of the other camp residents helped me try and pry one of the rings off the door to no avail, I had to trudge all the way across the campus to talk to Pak Yoman who apparently has the grinder. Pak Yoman and his family decided to go away for the weekend though. I promptly ran into the campus security just outside of Pak Yoman’s place and started chatting to them to find a way to get the lock off. About 20 minutes later I was back at my yurt with a couple of security guards and what seemed like a pair of workers or something, watching them take a grinder to one of the iron rings on my yurt to release my bed from the permanent jail of the keyless padlock. Everything worked out fine in the end, but I definitely wasn’t in the mood for that to happen after spending a solid 6 or 7 hours driving around on a scooter and feeling my arms and legs throbbing slightly from the sunburn that was starting to soak through my skin.
That being said, it’s pretty hard for it to really bother you after spending your day here:
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2 Comments
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I had one of those black armoured and very horned and large black beetles…on my neck once…while motorbikin’ home.
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So not only did you have to pay attention to the traffic but you had a giant, angry beetle on your neck. That just sounds like a recipe for disaster hah.