3. Borneo

 

Chapter 4

Crisis 2001 Tour

The thinking man's alternative to a small red sportscar

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Jungle, leeches, orang-utans, separatist guerrillas etc.

19 March - 26 April

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The trip: Kalimantan leg

Dancing with Dayaks: dispatch 9

 

 

Dispatch from Borneo:

Chapter 4. After Kalimantan - Eastern Misery in the Island of the Gods

 
After a minor laundry crisis, we finally set off for Balikpapan airport to catch our flights to Bali, which Joanne has magnificently arranged for us at short notice. Seven days of "moderate" activities await me in "basic but comfortable" accomodation in the tourist-ridden and therefore heavenly island of the gods.

Arrive late evening at Artini Three in Ubud, which looks beautifully landscaped under the full moon - an idyll I'm not fully able to appreciate as I'm feeling rather under-the-weather.
Today is the first of my days of Eastern misery. I struggle to our introductory group meeting at 09:00, feeling weak in the legs and with a nasty headache. Halfway through the briefing I feel an intense dizziness and have to lie down on the floor in dramatic fashion. Following further unmentionable symptoms, I go to the Ubud Medical Centre for a temperature reading (38.7) and blood test (suspected typhoid). I'm prescribed pills and told not to eat vegetables. David assigns me a "man", Nyoman, to ferry me about as required. I retire to my room to not emerge until morning, and lie awake in misery.
The following two days are particularly unpleasant, alleviated at least by being in a tranquil and well-equipped hotel in the countryside with sympathetic and helpful staff (Alum Sari). No sleep at all, vivid visions leaping into my mind whenever I try to sleep. The fever subsides after 1½ days, which is a relief, but the the other symptoms (nausea, intense weakness, headache, lack of appetite) remain oppressive. I manage half a fruit-juice a day, and moan the hours away.
At last, my day of transition back to something approaching life. A good night's sleep and - o wonder! - an appetite at breakfast. I feel like gamboling in the fields, or at least walking in something other than a 90-year-old's shamble. I transfer to a cheaper hotel and sort out my travel plans to recuperate in the civilisation of San Fransisco, well-known for its Post-Typhoid Recovery Facilities.

As I changed some money today, the nice lady told me that I looked like "Mr Bin". "Mr Ben?" I thought, surely can't have been big in Bali, until I realise that she must have meant "Mr Bean". I look at myself in realisation - lost weight, undefined hairstyle, shambling along in my ill-fitting shirt, combat trousers and sandals, a look of surprise and confusion no doubt on my face. Then I remember, with a mixture of pleasure and anguish, that Klaus from the golfing weeks had once told me the same. A German businessman and a Balinese moneychanger can surely be no coincidence.

And so, a new self-image presents itself to me.

I go some way to confirming it all by entering a mean-looking bar in my shambling way, attracted by the languid drone of Jim Morrison incanting the silvery stream of his American Prayer. I shuffle innocently up to the bar, extras from Easy Rider to either side, and ask if they might be able to do me a nice hot chocolate. The barman smiled kindly as he refused, and my appearance didn't seem to put off the drunken vamp who lunged at me as I left. "Can't take the alcohol" was my deft explanation, and no doubt she yearns for me still.