BALI

Julie wakes up at 5 am, hops on her motorcycle, and drives to the stable where her horse, Lenny, waits to gallop with her on the beach. She returns home at 8:15, loaded with energy, and waters her garden. Her cats, Lulu & Nia, wait impatiently for their breakfast of fresh sardines. By 8:30 her workers show up ready to make the beautiful handbags Julie sells to boutiques on the island & beyond. The ladies sit on the large shaded veranda weaving macramé bases and sewing on shiny coconut shell bangles, while Julie, clad in nothing but a narrow sarong around her hips, supervises production, does her office work, and work-out stretches in between. At noon they put down their needles & take a nap.

I sleep late. It’s so HOT & HUMID outside the a/c bedroom I have little desire to step into the busy, crowded streets. Bali has changed since the last time I was here 15 years ago. There’s a crazy building boom raging outside; cranes & cement mixers working everywhere; the streets lined with wall-to-wall boutiques, cafés, restaurants; loads of tourists walking about, & thick undisciplined traffic—cars, motorcycles, buses—fills the roads so it’s hard to cross. Not quite like India – nothing could be that bad—but Bali is not the island paradise it used to be.

Fortunately, Julie’s house is an oasis of peace & quiet, set behind high walls, on a tree-lined, private cul-de-sac with flowers & birds. I hope to get out into the country side, to the rice paddies & fields, and see what changes are there, but meanwhile, I’m happy staying home in the clean, cool a/c bedroom where my laptop is set up, using the wi-fi network from the hotel next door. (I just walked over & asked for the password, and they gave it to me.)

Balinese are kind. I went to the beach yesterday & waded in warm water with plastic bags, bottles & other visible garbage swirling around my legs. Julie says this only happens in the beginning of the rainy season. Well…. I’m here now & have no desire to get back into that again. Plus the surf is so strong there is only about an hour each day when the tide is low enough for the likes of me to get in. Walking home the quarter of a mile or so, the heat felt so daunting I asked what appeared like a young woman to give me a lift from the beach to the top of the road on the back of her motorcycle. It turned out to be a young man, who was happy to oblige. Balinese men are beautiful & the women are gorgeous.

Julie, who is the greenest, most earth-loving, conscientious ecologist on the planet, cooks up delicious vegetarian meals; we eat tofu, tempeh, sunflower seeds, chives, parsley, feta cheese, avocado, spinach, tacos and pasta—her favorite things. I’m easy, as long as I can add a few fresh prawns to my plate. By 8 in the evening we turn on the a/c, lower the mosquito net (just to be sure), and turn on the TV. She loves Seinfeld, Friends, Frazier, Mad about You, and pirated DVD’s of current movies. She wakes me up as soon as I begin to snore…. and so the day ends.

Sorry I didn’t write about Hyderabad and Singapore—wonderful adventures indeed, with good friends, music, mutton biryani, curried lady fingers, yellow daal, chicken rice, roast pork, chili crab and other goodies. Maybe later….

From Nico to his Grandma

COIMBATORE - Patricia & Didier’s House

Five of us are living in the house: besides me, a young French couple: Dooms (his ((Belgian)) family name) and Stephanie, P & D’s friends from France who’ve come for a month to help with the care of Didier, who is in a wheelchair, and to be in India, for the experience. They’re in the first throws of love. My hosts, Patricia & Didier, super-friends from Perpignan whom I met here in the Ayurvedic Clinic a few years ago who’ve dwelled in my heart ever since, have a large comfortable house on a residential street in the city. Didier gets regular Ayurvedic treatments from the clinic, which is just up the road.

Coimbatore is the real India. It’s an industrial city producing textiles, silks & saris. There are no beggars around here because there are no tourists. Unlike Goa, which is relatively clean, un-crowded, relatively sanitary and quiet, the air in Coimbatore is milky-white from the smoke produced by burning trillions of plastic bottles & bags, and everything else that’s combustible, except for the rest of the garbage that lies strewn all over the streets & vacant lots. The air is polluted with noxious fumes and filled with a fine suspension of dust; dust covers everything and everyone. Like everywhere in this great (nuclear power) country, the water and air are poison. The noise is incessant, car horns, motorcycles, motors, machines, goats, dogs… everything howling & growling at once, and powerful stink from animals, garbage, humans... Right now, as I write, a large truck with a motorized pump that sounds like a jet plane about to take off is pumping shit out of a hole in the road in front of the house, sucking it into its large yellow tank decorated with flowers. Welcome to “the turd world.”

Things move slow; it’s hard to get anything done; people don’t keep appointments, time means nothing, and honesty is not to be expected.

Neighbors keep showing up to see the American. They come by invited or not. Bagya, who keeps cows across the street, and is raising her children by selling milk, made a colorful mandala in front of the house in honor of my arrival. First, she spread a watery mixture of cow dung on the ground so the colors will stick. The stench fills the garden.

A family of 4 shows up just as we were about to eat dinner. They stare at me like I was Obama himself. Their curiosity outweighed any sensitivity to the fact that we were just about to eat dinner. Patricia & Didier are too polite to do anything but wait until they’re ready to leave. We’re invited to a neighbor’s daughter’s first menstruation celebration.

One night another neighbor came & played his tabla; his daughter danced & his wife sang. We 5 with white skin returned the favor with a boisterous aria from Bizet’s Carmen. Another visitor, a Pentecostal pastor, was so moved by our familial bonhomie, he stood up & said, “Shall we pray?” None of the westerners agreed, so he and his wife had to do it alone.

We sit in the garden and drink coffee in the morning. Stephanie rides the bike up the road to pick up dosas with three different sauces for breakfast. Take-out shops line the street near the house and it’s easier to bring prepared food home than to cook; we get grilled sardines, tandoori roasted chicken, stewed goat, fried fish, cooked vegetables, everything swimming in sauce so hot my mouth is on fire, but there is rice to calm it down a notch. My French companions smoke beedees all day, one after another. They think it’s healthy in spite of what I tell them.

Patricia & Didier have bought a new gleaming white Ambassador sedan, the Rolls Royce of India. We go for outings in the country, to the mountains, & to visit friends & look around. Behind the wheel, Dooms has taken on the insane Indian traffic. Like Arjuna on the battlefield, he is a hero.

Patricia tends her garden (and everything else); she’s put in flowers & some vegetables, but aphids have attacked all growing things in the region and she must apply special potions so her plants can live. “Everybody needs to eat,” says Didier. The weather is mild; we sit in the shade in the garden most of the day and talk and sing, discuss & relate (no TV). Didier sings Bob Dylan songs for me. He & Dooms chant in Tamil, the language of Tamil Nadu where we live.

Tomorrow I fly to Hyderabad to spend a little time with one of my oldest friends, M.R. Gautam, who was, when I met him in 1973, the greatest singer in all India – on the magnitude of a rock star—the Elvis of the raga, adored by kings & women of all ages. Because he’s ill now he’s moved back into the spacious home of his estranged wife, a princess, the daughter of a Raja, with whom he doesn’t get along, and 2 of their 4 children, a daughter-in-law, 2 grandchildren, and dozens of servants.

But this missive has been going on too long already, sorry, and that’s a story for another time.

Last of Goa

Thought I’d drop a couple of pounds with daily ocean swims & long walks on the beach, but the food here has trumped all that. Since Sunday, with less than a week remaining, Carlos the chef has been preparing special surprise dinners for me—Goan fish curries made with coconut, spicy Chinese style calamari, charred juicy chicken kabobs… Last night he got carried away; I got deviled eggs stuffed with chopped prawns, grated Swiss cheese, ginger & garlic & a bit of onion, in a light flavored tomato-ey sauce, decorated with little tomato flowers. I thought I was at a ladies luncheon in London, or Bombay. When I thanked him & complimented his creation Carlos told me he’d found the recipe in a woman’s magazine.

Now, how can I convince Carlos to return to his exquisite Indian & Asian cuisine without hurting his feelings? Help!

So, I haven’t lost weight, but I’ve gained a new crown, the best that money can buy, made of porcelain & zirconia, and guaranteed by Lava, “An American company,” according to my fabulous dentist, Dr. Piedade Fernandes, who beamed with pride over this important detail. The rear-molar crown & his work cost me $272, top price especially for foreigners. It would have cost over $2000 at home. He’s also made a night guard for me, an incorrigible gnasher, for $25, which would be more than $500 in L.A. People are lining up at his office for implants.

I also purchased a year’s worth of meds, for example, Boniva, which costs more than $150 for a month’s supply at home and cost $4 a month here. Even with insurance, the cost is more than twenty times in the states.

There’s my plane ticket, the 5 star Leela Hotel, the hotel L’Amour & all the food I could eat in Benaulim Beach, and some… Of course one must have time, the greatest luxury, for which I’m eternally grateful. So, check out India for medical & dental tourism, if you have any major work to do, which I pray to god you do not. Just bring sun-tan lotion & anti-mosquito cream. No! Buy it here.

I leave paradise on Saturday and fly to Coimbatore to visit old friends, which will be the theme of the remainder of my journey.

A friend complained about the lack of pictures with my missives this year. I’ve been lazy, but I had to shoot this one because it made me remember the dog walkers in West Hollywood.