Unto Ubud…

Before leaving Kuta, I tried to find the best route to Ubud, and settled on the main road that runs along to coast to Samur, passing through Pesangarran and Senawang. I wanted to avoid Denpasar as much as possible, after experiencing first hand, the hectic traffic there the day before…

Somewhere north of Tolpati, I stupidly ignored Gi-Gi’s pleas to continue straight on, and instead followed the first road sign indicating Ubud…

This involved a detour that I would rather not have made, taking me through the town of Sukawati, where one of the many ceremonies that Balinese celebrate on an almost daily basis, was in full swing…

Traffic was being controlled by a few marshals who were dressed in bright orange t-shirts and sarongs…

It took almost half an hour to get through the congestion in the area, which added considerably to my state of “hot and bothered-ness”…

On the outskirts of Ubud, we stopped to wait for directions from our soon to be host...

It was one of those “muggy” days, when the heat and humidity combined to make riding in full gear a very sweaty exercise indeed…!!

Traffic from Kuta up to that point could not be termed ‘light” by any means, and I had battled through hordes of scooters and light delivery trucks, all jockeying for every little gap that became available… I had quickly got into the swing of things, pushing and shoving my way forward at every opportunity, and soon the far smaller bikes began giving the Big Fella the proper degree of respect, and allowing us to cut in front of them, rather than fight for position and lose…!!

I had no idea what to expect from Ubud… Trevor and Chenty had spent time here a few years previously, and explained that it had a “village atmosphere”… They forgot to mention that it also had enough traffic to make Denpasar proud…!!

I practically walked the bike down the main road, turning off at the Ubud Palace and then took a long winding road that led out of the town centre and into the countryside beyond… I pulled over at the first little lay-by I came across, hopped off an overheating Big Fella, removed my jacket and hung it over the bike to air and then made contact with Patricia to advise her that “The Parrot had Perched”…

Rice paddies stretched away to the treeline in the distance...

While I waited for a response to my text message, I stood thinking about how it was that I had come to be standing beside a series of rice paddies on the outskirts of Ubud in south central Bali…

Trevor and Chenty had met Patti in Capadocchia in Turkey and had spent a few hours chatting over breakfast… This was just prior to her leaving Turkey to take up a position with a resort in Bali… They had kept in touch with Patti via email, and when they heard I was heading for Indonesia and might well travel through Bali, they suggested I make contact with her to see if she would be willing to put me up for a few days… I discovered that she was due to make a business trip to the Caribbean, and would be leaving on or about the same day I would be arriving in Bali…

She was also looking for somebody to “dog-sit” for her while she was away, and after checking my website to ensure that I was not a “mass-murderer or something” (her words not mine…!!) happily agreed to let me stay at her place while she was away… I needed a base from where I could write the series of posts that I published under “What Went Before…”, so it would all work out perfectly for both of us it seemed…

Besides the fact that Patti was a Yoga and Pilates instructor, lived in Ubud and had a dog, I realized that I knew absolutely nothing else about her… I had never thought to ask Chenty what she looked like or any other information about her. I had got so used to being invited into the homes of complete strangers, that I had begun to take for granted that I would get on well with anybody friendly and kind enough to let me stay with them for any period of time…

The businessmen from Jakarta whom I befreinded at The Bridge restaurant...

The narrow country lane I was parked on seemed to be a popular route for cyclists, and literally hundreds of them passed me by while I waited. Many of them stopped to greet me and admire the Big Fella, asking the usual questions and raising their eyebrows at the replies I gave…

I received a text reply from Patti advising that she would not be home for at least another hour, so after getting directions from an elderly guy working on one of the nearby paddy fields, I made my way back to town and stopped at a restaurant fairly close to where I believed Patti lived…

Just as I was parking the bike, a pair of black Mercedes Benz’s pulled in behind me. A small group of influential businessmen from Jakarta were being escorted through Ubud and had stopped at The Bridge restaurant for an early dinner. They crowded around the bike and I, and took a few photographs of us together, and then one of them gave his guide a fistful of money and with a stern look, said,

“Take care of this man, make sure he gets something to eat and drink…!!”

With a farewell handshake and a pat on my shoulder, he then joined his companions inside the restaurant…

I sat down with the drivers and guides, enjoying an endless flow of coffee and munching on platefuls of snacks while watching the sun go down over Ubud…

This guy stopped to look at the Big Fella, while I gawked at his bike...

His petrol tank being of particular interest to me...!!

It was fully dark before I received a call from Patti, advising me that she was home, and directing me to the Campuhan Steps, which turned out to be only a few hundred metres from where I was parked…!!

The “Campuhan Steps” turned out to be a series of wide concrete steps that stretched away into the gloom above me, and led to the upper reaches of the village of Penestanan… Helmet and Tank Bag in hand, I staggered up the four or five flights of steps, wondering how the heck I was going to get the rest of my gear up there without rupturing a vital organ…!!

Sweating like pig, I arrived at the top of the steps and looked around for the woman I was here to meet, hoping that her house was within touching distance of where I stood… They say hope floats, but this particular hope sank very quickly when I called to ask where she was, and was told to keep walking…!!

A few hundred metres away, along the narrow concrete path I was staggering down, I saw a torch waving in the darkness and continued towards it… I was out of breath when I finally reached the person holding it, and saw the pretty, smiling face of who I hoped was Patti…

Thankfully, it was, and after shaking hands with her and introducing myself, she informed me that her house was only another few hundred metres further along the path…!!

“Great…!! By time I reached it, I would probably have started melting…” I thought to myself…

Early the next morning, I was able to get a look at Patti's home in Ubud, which would become Bali HQ for the next few weeks...

Patti led me along a series of rice paddies, through a small restaurant, and then down another short narrow path that mercifully came to stop outside her home…

There she introduced me to her sister Mimi, who was visiting Bali and had been staying with Patti… I stood blinking in the light of the living room, looking and feeling like a drowned rat in all my gear, after my exertions of the last few minutes…

With Mimi in tow, we made another trip back to the Big Fella to get the rest of the gear I needed immediately, and then climbed those infernal steps again. I was too knackered to put the cover on the bike and hoped that being parked on the edge of the busy road and close to the small taxi rank at the base of the steps, would ensure that it would be safe until the following morning…

After a cold shower, we joined a few friends of Patti’s at a local restaurant and then went into a night club nearby where for the first time in a very long while, I found myself dancing to the rock and pop music a live band was playing there…

During dinner I surreptitiously studied my host, concluding that not only was she beautiful, but was also a forthright, fun-loving and vivacious woman… We laughed and joked like old friends, and together with Amanda, Shep, Belinda and Mimi, enjoyed each others company until well after midnight…

On the way home, while crossing the main road in the dark, and trying to avoid being knocked down by scooters that still zipped about, I put my hand out to take Patti’s, ostensibly to guide her safely across the road, and for some reason that neither of us could later fathom, held onto it all the way home…

While we walked, I felt the beginning of that strange feeling you get when your world starts to tilt in a direction you did not plan for… I briefly wondered what older sister Mimi must be thinking as we walked the narrow paths between the rice paddies… Barely a few hours after meeting this stranger, her sister was walking along, hand in hand with him as if it was the most natural thing in the world…!!

Large doses of this can be a good thing when you're dealing with feelings that have long been dormant...!!

All I remember was that I had her warm hand in mine, and an even warmer and fuzzy feeling was sending crackles of electricity up and down my spine…!!

I lay awake for a long time in the early hours of the morning, trying to make sense of my feelings and making believe that holding hands with Patti had been nothing more than a gesture of friendliness between us…

Another fine example of just how wrong one can sometimes be…!!

With the sun streaming through the windows of the upstairs bedroom where I had spent the night, I lay listening for signs of life from downstairs where Patti and Mimi were sleeping… All was quiet as I got dressed and waited for them to wake up…

I stood looking down into the garden, seeing the lush greens and bright reds of the plants and shrubs that grew there… Cocks crowed and doves coo-ed from the trees that stood close to the house… A pair of squirrels chased each other across a telephone line that ran through the property… All was good, the morning pregnant with promise as I waited to see what the ramifications of the previous evenings handholding might be…

Later, with no apparent awkwardness between us, Patti, Mimi and I enjoyed a short breakfast, and while they went shopping in Ubud, I set about unpacking my gear and then went to put the cover on the Big Fella…

Around midday, a taxi arrived to take Mimi down to Denpasar, where she would be flying back to Darwin later that same day… After bidding Mimi farewell, Patti and I walked back to her house, her hand once again tucked into mine…

I do not recall what we spoke about, just remembered feeling that this could be the start of something very special…

It felt that right, so soon…!!

 ©GBWT 2011