Evil and karma in Bali

SarahAlderson

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November 30, 2010

Today I introduced a Western evil to the civilised land of Bali. I feel like a Spaniard bringing smallpox to the New World.

Except I brought Road Rage and not a disease that will decimate the population. Unless of course everyone starts driving each other off the roads and into the drainage ditches – which because no one wears helmets would probably result in a higher mortality rate than even smallpox.

Now there are now two new evils in town. Starbucks and road rage. And I’m rightfully ashamed of myself for introducing the latter.

You see the Balinese don’t honk their horns in aggression. They don’t swear or gesticulate or yell at other cars or bikes. They honk only as a warning.

Arguably, by honking my horn repeatedly I was warning the moron in front that I was prepared to rear end him if he didn’t put his car in gear, stop curb crawling along the main road and step on it.

What would one more dent in our bodywork matter after all? Our car already looks like it was shaped by satan’s hammer in the forges of hell.

When the idiot driving the car in front figured that  I meant business he pulled over and I glared at him as I passed. ‘Yeah, dude, learn to drive,’ I yelled in his open window.

And only then did I remember I was no longer driving the streets of south London. I contemplated my karma as I looked in my rearview mirror. And then I noticed the sign on his car – Sang Spa.

Exactly the place I was headed to. How’s that for Karma working quickly? (by the way don’t tell John I went there.  I figure if I want to spend the entire amount of my latest advance on massages and chocolate then I should be allowed to but he might disagree and put Lula’s school fees and food on the table ahead of my addictions.)

It’s ok, I thought, I’ll just head there the back way and maybe the man in the car won’t be there.

But guess what? He’s there outside the spa. Parked up outside.  He sees me driving towards him and I know he’s clocked me. I’m wearing very distinctive sunglasses. Also there aren’t that many Western women driving jeeps in Ubud. He stands in the road and it’s like that scene in Dirty Harry. He just glowers at me.

I put my foot down and drive on past pretending not to notice.

I do a 2km loop and come back, figuring he’ll have moved on by then. You have to understand although there are approximately 342,873 spas in Ubud alone, each offering massage, this spa is the only spa I want to go to. I am not prepared to compromise. Luckily the man in the car has disappeared. I pull into a parking space.

A man appears in my rear mirror.

He’s wearing a sarong and a headscarf, but give a man a uniform, even if the uniform is a skirt, and something happens to him. He becomes a slave to his ego. In this case the man is a parking attendant.

‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ I murmur.

He blows his whistle. They always blow their whistles. Then he starts circling his arms turning an imaginary steering wheel.

‘Yeah, thanks, I know which way to bloody turn the wheel,’ I say, ‘unlike every Balinese driver, I actually learnt to drive and took a test.’

He circles back the other way to show me how to straighten up.

Is he joking?

‘Are you joking?’ I shout. (He can’t hear me over the 747 engine noises that our car emits). ‘I know how to park!’

I hear John laughing in my head. Then I hear my dad and my brother join in.

I get hold of myself. A few deep breaths. I open my door and he is there – the man in the sarong – holding out his hand for the parking fee and it takes every bit of  calm and control in my body to stop from pulling his head off his body and using it to play bowls with the scooters coming at me on the wrong side of the road going the wrong way down a one way street.

Not even a one hour massage could abate the rage.

Bad, bad, bad vibrations

SarahAlderson

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November 29, 2010

‘I want you to introduce yourselves and give me one word which describes how you’re feeling now.’

Bored. Can I say bored? No, that’s rude. What about highly sceptical? No, also rude. Resistant? Well if she can read my aura she knows this already. I’ll go with tired. Tired is inoffensive.

Oooh crap, my turn. ‘I’m Sarah and I’m from London and I’m…’ an alcoholic. Say that. It would be funny. No say fucked off. Say I think this is all bullshit…’tired.’

‘Now begin by swaying your arms in front of your base chakra point and imagining a rainbow of light. Red light is filling up the room.’

You what? Urgh my arms are getting tired.

‘Now move your arms up to your third eye and start swaying and visualize the colour purple.’

Oh my god seriously? My third eye? My arms are really fricking aching – how much longer do I have to sway for? Oooh, everyone has their eyes shut. Maybe I can just drop my arms…woops busted. Sway those arms. Sway those arms. Stop smiling. You look like you’re taking the piss. I am taking the piss.

‘We are balancing our chakras. Feel the energy swirling around you.’

Nope. Not feeling anything. Except intense frustration and I’m hot and starting to sweat. And this is a new dress. I don’t want to sweat. Urgh for god’s sake when can we stop swaying. Why does everyone else look like they’re in some kind of trance? Why is no one else laughing?

‘Everyone take a crystal love necklace. When we surround ourselves with things which have a higher vibration like these crystals our cells start to vibrate at a higher frequency and we can heal ourselves.’

Are you fricking serious? If my eyes roll back any further in my head will I dislocate my optic nerve and end up staring at my frontal lobe for the rest of my life?

‘Now I want you to send out a colour to your partner.’

You what?

‘Start making the noise of that colour. Send out the intention of that colour.’

Does that mean I can yell? That is the noise my colour wants to make. My colour wants to scream. Can I scream?

‘Err, what do you mean exactly by noise?’

‘Like this – mmmmmmmmmhmmmmmmmmmhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm’

O-Kay. So like a mental patient. But I want to yell. Good job I didn’t. That could have been embarrassing. Everyone else is humming. I can’t just sit here silent. I need to make some kind of noise. Ok, here goes.

‘Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm’  Now I sound like an inpatient on Shutter Island. Why am I here? Why am I doing this? I want my money back. No stay. It’s a good blog post.

‘Now what colour were you sending out to your partner?’

‘Red.’

‘What colour did your partner see?’

‘Green.’ Funny that.

‘Well when we can’t see the colour this is because we’re too in our masculine side which is limited and can only do one thing at a time.’

Hey, we agree on something. But isn’t that like a bit rude to say it outloud? I know we’re all women here but err, I think you just called me a man – and in an insulting way.

‘You need to be in the feminine which is boundless and infinite.’

I do?

‘Try thinking of your mother.’

What the serious fuck? My mother is many things but infinite is not one of them.

‘I see auras.’

And I see dead people. If she’s a healer I’m the Buddha. Shit can she see my aura right now? Is that why she’s looking at me funny? Maybe she can sense that I’m thinking ‘CRAZY FRICKING CRYSTAL LADY’

‘And I hold regular healing sessions using the power of sound and crystals.’

Ok, someone’s not been taking their thorazine.

‘I also do eat pray love soulmate love readings where you can discover love in your aura and find your soulmate.’

Translation: I rip off middle aged women coming to Bali looking for their Javier Bardem.

‘Now, at the end of the session how do you feel?’

I feel murderous rage. And like I feel like I want my money back. And I feel that tomorrow I’m going to blog about this and be healed.

It’s my birthday

SarahAlderson

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November 26, 2010

So what better reason to break into a five star hotel?

Driving up to the valet point in our rusting hunk of metal should have outed us as not that rich but the dudes with the wavy bomb detector things let us on through. They even parked our pringle encrusted car for us (hey I got hungry on the way and it wasn’t like we could afford to actually eat there).

We strolled on through the grounds as if heading for the helipad down by our own private villa and then took a sharp left to the pool.

Check it out. Good job non?

 

After a swim we mooched on out of there. We spent the rest of the afternoon eating. John organized a raw food picnic. This is amusing because a year ago the only thing I’d eat raw was cow – and the occasional fish – vegetables most definitely cooked. I was the serve it up still mooing give me some bleeding flesh girl. I was so carnivorous that I’d walk past sacred cows in India and start smelling the mustard. Yet here I am not only not turning my nose up, but actually choosing to order the raw chocolate cake over the proper chocolate cake – probably because RAW also seems to denote NO CALORIES and INSTANT KARMA POINTS in my head making it thus ok to eat five slices because the more I eat the thinner I’ll get and the better my next life will be.

Anyway after the raw food picnic we got massaged. I feel disloyal to massage Wayan saying this – but hey she’s never going to read this – this massage truly was the best massage I’ve ever had. I thought they were going to need to hose me up at the end of it. I contemplated handing over my life savings and telling them to just keep going until they ran out, sometime in mid 2011 but I’m glad I didn’t because then I would have missed the wasabi eating competition that came later.

wasabi makes your eyes go blurry.

Just after this, amidst our raw fish feeding frenzy, (we were eating Japanese), a girl in a white turban, dressed all in white, with requisite dangly jewellery, wandered over to the table and started telling us about how her body keeps jolting every time she prays or meditates and that she thought she was going mad. (I was like well stop praying and meditating then – problem solved. If that doesn’t work there’s always lithium).

She then sat cross-legged on the floor and started jolting right there in front of us.

At the time I leant over to John and said ‘do you have a pen?’

Luckily for the jolting girl, one of my friends, who happened to be there with us taking part in the wasabi eating competition, is a master of Kundalini and fixed her up good so she stopped jolting at least for long enough for us to finish our sashimi before it went off.

You gotta love Ubud birthdays. A truly unique experience.

A friend reminded me of how last year I was sat amidst the growing boxes in our house in SE London on my birthday – in tears. This year was infinitely better.

 

Thanksgiving

SarahAlderson

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November 23, 2010

Let’s get one thing clear. I’m not American.

But I kind of prefer the whole giving thanks idea to the whole big fat man dressed in red, family horror, queen’s speech, overcooked turkey and ooh look more socks day of hell idea.

Let’s get another thing clear. I hate Christmas. Always have. I like living in a Hindu country (well Bali is mainly Hindu so work with me) because I get to put flowers on my elephant statue every morning and stroke the Buddha’s head on my way out the door. I don’t have to deal with Christmas crackers in the shops in July, lugging the Christmas tree down from the loft and unfurling its thousand and three branches and I don’t have to deal with family (sorry family – you know how I feel on this one).

Anyway, this year I’m celebrating Thanksgiving instead. Ok, ok, it’s really because Thanksgiving is also my birthday. But also because – as I fall into the flow of Ubud and get suckered into becoming an enlightened being filled with love and joy (this is when all the people who knew me from before start sending me concerned emails) – I realize how much giving of thanks there is to be done at the end of this my 33rd year, which has undoubtedly been the best year of my life so far.

So here I begin:

THANK YOU JOHN My beautiful, wonderful husband. The man whose belief in the power of outrageous potential led us here. Without you we wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t be three and life wouldn’t be as safe, wonderful and filled with music and dancing as it is.

THANK YOU ALULA For telling me every day that you love me more than I love you – even though it isn’t true and could never be true. Today you told me you loved me as tickly as a feather. And I couldn’t come up with anything better at the time. But I love you as tickly as ten feathers. So NAH.

(I just read this to her and she  said, ‘well I love you as tickly as a hundred and a billion feathers and that’s even better than you.’)

THANK YOU MY FAMILY My brother Tom for being the best brother in the world (despite telling me I couldn’t date your girlfriends’ brothers back in the day) and for supporting me as a writer. My parents for ensuring I never doubted I could do anything (except maths and physics dad, and maybe driving – but you were right on all three counts). My sister in law Sarah for her no nonsense Irish sense and my brother in law Richard who is also one of my best friends and a total inspiration. Thank you for helping us get started on the journey.

THANK YOU MY FRIENDS This year has been about saying goodbye to friends and making new ones. I love you Nic, Vic and Sara and miss you billions and hundreds as Lula would say. Thank you beautiful new friends in Ubud who have welcomed us and made me feel at home here in a matter of months.

THANK YOU SIMON & SCHUSTER For buying my books and giving me a lovely advance with which I have been able to buy lots of nice new clothes and a breakfast bowl. I hope I make you tons of money. And that you keep buying my books forever and ever until we’re all so rich we can retire and I get to have three houses – one in California, one here and one in London and can fly first class between them (hey, I’m just putting it out there so the Universe knows what I’m after).

And finally,  THANK YOU UNIVERSE For being on my side. And in advance for getting me the three homes and the first class travel and the wallet the size of Oprah’s.

 

What if…

SarahAlderson

3 comments

November 20, 2010

As you know John, Alula and I left the UK in January 2010. We were looking for a new home – somewhere hot, less stressful,  somewhere with a creative, entrepreneurial vibe, somewhere with good schools and good people. And we found Bali and it’s our version of perfect living (back then I hadn’t even anticipated the full time cleaner / cook thing). For the moment anyway.

Anyway in the summer of 2009 just after we’d decided to head off on our round the globe mission and were trying to figure out how to pay for it all, I was in melt down. What would I do? How would I make money? I mean, I had no discernable skills in life whatsoever other than being a pro at buying shoes on ebay and having a withering look that could shrivel people in a matter of seconds.

Swimming one day I had a conversation with myself that went like this:

Who’s rich? Let’s see. The queen. Hate her. Err, Stephanie Meyer she’s rich. She’s like a millionaire and all for writing about vampires. Ok, I can so do that. Now think about it think about it. What could I write about? Nothing about vampires. Cliché.  Yeah, so what if there was  a girl and her name was – um – Lila and then there was a boy. Let’s call him Alex, after Alex Skarsgard – yes Alex is a good name and he’ll be the opposite of Edward Cullen – so not a vampire, not moody or angsty and he won’t have quiffy hair and / or be a mindreader. And then I started saying what if… and then about 5 lengths later I had the outline for my story.

I got home, started plotting, started writing. Four months later I had my first book written.

Then we headed off to India and the day before we went I sent the manuscript to agents.

By the time we left India I had an agent.

By the time we left Bali I had a two book deal with a publisher – the brilliant and globally massive Simon & Schuster.

I went from being a Head of Projects in a not for profit in London where the only thing I ever wrote was creative fiction of the fundraising kind to being a like PAID author.

Heehehehehehehe (sorry still have to giggle at all this occasionally).

When we got to the States (by which point I’d written the sequel to Hunting Lila – as it’s now been titled) I decided to start a new book – a whole new series with new characters altogether. I finished it about three weeks ago.

And then yesterday I got an offer for that book too (hence the shopping for a breakfast bowl). This means – and I’m still having to process – that I’ll have three books out within about 9 months of each other next year. Two young adult book series, both with an amazing publishing house, alongside some of the best young adult writers out there – other writers I love like Scott Westerfield and Neal Shusterman.

Heheheeheheheehee.

I read the offer email to John. And John looks at me shaking his head and he says, ‘the universe really does give you whatever you want.’ Or something along those lines. And I am thinking to myself well it’s not giving me Gisele’s body, Scarjo’s face and Oprah’s wallet, but hey I’m not complaining.

But he has a point. I do think I’m the luckiest person alive right now. And I had said to John on Monday ‘I’m going to get an offer for my book on Thursday or Friday’ and whaddya know? I did. Ok, ok, Susan Miller kind of indicated it too and she is the oracle.

And I’ve been reflecting on this. Because what I think it is that I’ve always made it clear what I want. I say it out loud at every opportunity – to John, to my friends, to complete strangers. I don’t just say ‘what if’ anymore. I say, WHEN.

That’s all very well you might say, I’m going to start telling every and any person I come across that I’m going to be the next Nobel Prize winning physicist but that sure as hell isn’t going to happen. (It sure as hell isn’t going to happen to me because it took me five goes just to spell it).

No but if you believe it, if you genuinely believe that it will happen, not just think ‘that would be nice’, then I think it does.

You just need to stop saying what if and start saying When.

Or maybe it’s just me and I really am the luckiest person in the world.

Something to celebrate

SarahAlderson

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November 19, 2010

Today is an exceptionally wonderful day. And most days out here are. But today is especially so. I got some really amazing news at 6.04am as I stood blurry eyed over the porridge pot making Lula’s breakfast. I can’t tell you what just yet but will do in due course. Anyway feeling happy equates to feeling the need to shop and buy pretty things. I’ve been keeping myself on a leash but now I felt I deserved a treat.

And this folks is what I bought:

A new breakfast bowl. though this implies we have old ones. When in fact all we have and all I've been eating my cornflakes out of for the last 6 weeks is this:

My cornflake receptacle.

But now I have a bowl. I didn’t go all out. I only bought one. Which means John is still eating his rice krispies out of a cup or a tupperware container.

I also bought this:

because what wrong can Donald Draper not right?

and then I bought these. Just because

pruttteee shiny things

Ahhh don’t you just love shopping? Doesn’t it just put a smile on your lips?

And look. Something money can’t buy.

Learning to say no

SarahAlderson

1 comment

November 14, 2010

This week I said yes to a lot of things.

On Thursday I took part in a Goddess ceremony.

It told me I needed to do a past life regression. (I haven’t said yes to that yet).

On Saturday I wore a black tutu and went ecastatic dancing in a rice paddy.  There were a few people who looked like Jesus. Some guy climbing a pole summoning the gyrating, screaming yoga girls before him with the circular thrust of his hips. Someone wearing a ripped jumpsuit with buffalo fur kneecaps and someone in a tutu looking like a young Madonna. That last one was me. I needed a disguise after the last blog post I did about ecstatic dancing got made public on the ecstatic dance page for Bali.

Unfortunately this time there was no Rambert Ballet style posturing. No orgasmic screaming. No waistcoats over bare chests. No pillow talk with god. It was disappointing. We skipped out before the end – before the sitting in a circle holding hands and sending love to the universe part.

This week I also said yes to letting an ankle biting Bali dog stay for a few hours. The hours turned into three days. This has taught me that Bali dogs are vile (please if you want to argue with me on this – just don’t. JUST DON’T. Go back to writing cheques for BAWA). And b) that I’m obviously losing my touch for letting people know what I think.

What am I talking about?  I always let people know what I think. Well, I let you lot know. I don’t actually let the people I’m talking about know, I’m too busy blogging about them.

Maybe that’s the problem.

So this week I feel I’ve said yes too much. It’s affecting my sanity. So tomorrow my resolution for the week ahead is to say no. Unless it’s to raw passion fruit pie, watching mad men season 4, Alex Skarsgard or having a massage.

In which case yes, yes, YES, yes.

What is happening to me?

SarahAlderson

6 comments

November 10, 2010

Something has happened to me.

Something truly quite shocking.

It’s like good kids who get sent to Feltham and come out knife wielding crack addicted nutjobs.

I am that kid. And Ubud is my Feltham. And after four weeks I’ve changed.

I think I’m a nutjob. Just not a knife-wielding crack addicted one.

I have not drunk a sip of alcohol in about 16 days.

I actually bought a raw passion fruit pie. Then went back and bought two more and ate them both in the car. Did you see that little word RAW. That means uncooked, pure, organic, NO SUGAR.

I have given up caffeine.

I have given up sugar. Which means Oreo cookies, cake, jam and ice-cream are all off the menu.

I have given up cleaning.

Oh you knew that already.

I have bought a juicer and actually use it. Twice a day.  (when you no longer need to wash it up it makes life easier).

I eat salad once a day.

I eat on average one papaya and one watermelon every day (because it’s cut up for me).

I am very regular.

I swim almost daily.

I drink 3 litres of water a day.

Did I mention the no alcohol?

And finally. The other day I went chanting.

C – H- A – N- T- I- N- G

As in singing nonsense words in a room of a hundred people. Just for larks.

I keep saying yes to everything.

Tomorrow a friend is coming around to hold a ‘séance where we call on the goddesses and invite abundance into our lives.’

I was like yeah that sounds like fun.

WTF is happening to me?

Can I be rehabilitated before it’s too late? Before I book myself in for a colonic. Before I start wearing skirts with bells on and staring vacantly through people (because I’m all about the aura now) whilst smiling beatifically and talking earnestly about the benefits of a raw food diet and how after I surrendered to the goddess sarawasti she manifested herself to me in a dream and from that I drew my latest creative endeavour.

Because people really are like that here.

If I ever stop using this space to write generalising,  sharp tongued, piss taking anecdotes about living here – if I ever start preaching at you about chanting or colonics or organic living, if I ever remove the tongue from my cheek and become like, nice, please please feel free to block me, spam me, unlink from me and send abusive comments.

Please feel free to come to Ubud and pour half a litre of Absolut down my throat.

 

I need to have a son (apparently)

SarahAlderson

7 comments

November 8, 2010

I’m a failure.

This according to Nyoman and Made the two women who own the shop over the road.

I am a failure because I only have a daughter.

‘You have more children soon yes?’ they ask.

‘Err no. Not planning on it,’ I say.

They stare at me with a mixture of pity and horror. ‘But you must have son,’ they say.

‘Why? I have a daughter,’ I tell them. ‘And she’s just as good as any son.’ But they can’t get their heads around this at all.

It’s so frustrating that this concept persists around the world. And it’s not just here. I get it at home too – from my father-in-law – who would dearly love a grandson to carry on the Alderson name. Fair-dos. But he best start looking to the other daughters-in-law. Cos this mare is done breeding.

When will it ever stop? When will the women of the world wake up and smell the roses? If even women think men are better, think they are not equal to men, then we are truly fucked.

But the really amusing thing to me is that the men in Bali are (generally speaking – but when do I do otherwise?) for the most part pale shadows of their women folk. It’s the women who do the back breaking field work whilst the men sit around stroking their cocks and yelling out transport transport to any Bule who walks past. I’ve met several powerhouse women running successful businesses (whilst also having to fulfill the needs of family and community) but am wracking my brains for an example of a man running a successful business. I can think of one – but he only got the money by gambling. And I’ve met a handful of Balinese men who’ve lost everything on cock fights.

It’s the women who seem to hold the whole of society here together – they cook, clean, work in the fields and on the roads, they look after the children and their in-laws, they spend days and days and even whole nights of each month preparing intricate offerings for the frequent ceremonies.

Yet their economic value is tiny compared to a man’s. A two minute taxi ride (only the men drive taxis here) costs the same as a day’s wage for a woman home help.

The women here rock. I haven’t yet met a Balinese woman who isn’t working flat out seven days a week providing for her family and community. And the men? Yeah, good question. Judging from the sheer number I see sitting around on doorsteps all day they’re not quite so busy.

But maybe the failure is on women after all. For failing to raise sons who respect women and treat them as their equals. For failing to raise daughters who believe in their self-worth. For being horrible to their daughters-in-law (they have to LIVE with their mothers-in-law here, and look after them until they die.  I haven’t yet met a Balinese woman who actually likes her mother in law. I guess the cycle perpetuates.)

I’m not sure what the answer is. But I think I’ve found my cause.

 

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