Stomach has begun to purify itself with assistance from ovaltine like tablets – antibiotics my Sydney doctor sneaked into my medicine kit. Having swallowed countless panadols, drunk blackberry gastrolite, until I fizzed myself into a stupor, and tried immersing myself in rosewater baths, the only alternative left was a dependable course of savage, efficient medicinal drugs. So, the day of departure is the day of trying black sago pudding and tasting it with some pleasure.
Moans and moping did not prevent me from venturing beyond the hotel compound, to Ubud, with 4 other friends. My romantic notions of stone monkeys and our crew being the only avatars in the town was killed upon seeing more gormless women shopping in boutiques and furniture shops than on Sydney’s Oxford street . In particular my mind has kept the image of an Indonesian palace on one corner with a sweaty tourist bargaining over the price of a pineapple sarong, on the other.
Purchasing anything at this stage of the trip is a queer experience because of my assuming so many avatars this trip. One day, my brain and actions think and try to act upon issues of peace, heroes, poverty and torture. Then, a day later- fruit cocktail on a beach in a gluttonous peace available to few.
Tree trunks smoke with incense and all doorways have an offering of flowers in bamboo, before the first human footstep makes its way into morning. All these religious acts bring India close to me and a few nights back, as an Indonesia version of a Ramayana story was being played for the tourist pack, I felt that first, dreadful sense of missing the me that was, only a few meals ago, in India.
