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CHAPTER ONE

Shiny, bright as love itself, on a rosy filled-with-glory afternoon.
Like she’d just been laid by Don Juan on a bed of petals and filled
to the brim with French champagne; as smooth as silk moonlight,
strolling through a humid and tender garden, magnolias wafting in the
air. I had to know what she knew.

I was soaring high above the Indian Ocean. An individual, map-less,
no guide, following an initial clue imprinted within my being. ‘Got to find
my destiny before its too late,’ crooned the singer from the band Joy Division
in my headphones. I didn’t really know what I was looking for, all I knew
was that I had to search.

The clouds resembled a mass of strange white shrubs with sunlight
beaming an intense golden glow from within. If science didn’t exist,
surely their was an ethereal existence of angels, Goddesses and Gods
playing there. For a moment, I thought about asking the pilot of the
seven 7-4-7 to fly that way. There had to be something special, honey love
or magical dreams. Immediately, the pilot dipped the wing and began
to increase the speed in that direction. Today, I was going there… to
freedom, to knowing her. And this time, it felt like it was really going to
happen.

On the first step off the plane, the humid air of Bali engulfed me.
I located my bags, left the casual slaphappy airport and went outside in
search of accommodation. Sweat droplets dripped down my body.
Hailing down a taxi, a big Balinese man smiled, ‘ jump in, where to?’
He seemed over friendly, but being in a new culture, who was I to
judge. We entered Kuta, the main tourist area.

‘This will do,’ I said.

He dropped me smack in the centre of Kuta town. Being late on
a Friday, the atmosphere was rich with potent activity. The streets
lined with shops, hotels and food stands, were crawling with nightlife.

The town had an electric humid feeling. Loud music blared out of
various nightclubs and pubs. Party people and locals drifted by with
high spirits and glazed eyes, whilst different accents hollered down the
dimly lit streets. Prostitutes pranced with careful eager eyes, as stray
dogs searched for food. I watched my steps whilst, motorbikes zoomed
left, right and centre down the skinny, dirty lanes and even up over the
footpaths.

The poor were too poor. A kid, young as a sapling pulled at my shorts
and asked in Pidgin English, ‘rupee?’

My adventure had begun, as I realised I was overseas again in a
place where I hadn’t been before. It was a shock to the system to say
the least. One minute my life was sweet sailing in an Australian life of
contemporary promise, the next I was in a completely different country,
amongst wild Bali nightlife. The people, the bars; the action looked fun,
but I had come to Indonesia for its magical surf. So I proceeded to look
at the nearby hotels. At the first one, it took five Balinese to serve me; I
knew I was being dealt a wild card. But I really didn’t need the hassle of
walking around the wild streets with my entire luggage; looking like a
freshie with a sign over my head saying, ‘rip me off please.’

The room was simple and clean. White painted walls; two bamboo
chairs, a bamboo bed, an Indonesian patterned bedspread, with one
large standing fan blowing pungent air around the room. Lying down
on the clean white sheets I felt comfortable and relaxed, then realised
something unusual. My libido was raging out of control. Phenomenon
strange, I thought to myself. Only hours before I was saying precious
goodbyes to my girlfriend. We had decided a year or longer apart was too
long to wait for each other, so we had made the most of our last moments
together. She was delectably sweet.

Normally, I wouldn’t have been turned on like this. These feelings
would have left me and given me a few days grace. Yet I was affected.
What had happened? Malicious hotel owner had put me in a room
where the energy and strange vibes make a man want sex. Or maybe the
nightlife and the prostitutes offering themselves had made an internal
impact. No, it was something else.

See I had been overseas before, but this time was different. This time
I had completely broken the shackles of mundane life for something
completely new. I was free with a whole world to explore by myself. A
brand new journey flashed before my eyes, one where I would find out
what she knew. Not my girlfriend, another amazing girl. The one who
had inspired me to travel, but I’ll tell you about her later. Somehow the
combination of this freedom, intermingled with a knowing that I was
going to find the answers to questions that had been plaguing my mind
for far too long now, left my soul soaring. Facing my fears to follow my
dreams, to do what ‘I’ wanted for a change had me excited, deep into
my groin.

The morning broke with a loud rooster cock-doodle-do and the
sounds of a bustling little city. Still early, I broke fast for breakfast, with
the anticipation of riding Bali’s waves. Four delightful Balinese waiters
served a delicious tropical fruit breakfast in the guest hotel dining room.
‘No ice in my juice,’ I said and carefully watched them blend fresh
apples, oranges and watermelon together, before hastening down my
rift to make way for the ocean.

Arriving to Kuta Beach, the surf was dead flat and beach filled with
just about every tourist known to man. English and American accents
ranted and raved. Large clusters of Japanese tourists snapped photos as
slender European bodies gallivanted along the shoreline. All by myself
in an unknown world, I had stepped out of my comfort zone and began
to feel a little overwhelmed and anxious about the huge adventure that
lay ahead. Looking for quiet spot to reflect, I stumbled onto a grassy
embankment adjoining the beach, away from the crowd under the shade
of a single coconut tree.

For a few moments images of friends and family passed through my
mind. I had left everything behind, including a good career that was
supposed to set me up for life. Coming from a family with abundance,
I had just about everything one could want from day dot. Fortunately,
I realised that money can buy a certain amount of happiness but like
The Beatles worked out decades ago, it definitely ‘can’t buy love’. After
five years of university, I certainly could have done with a little more of
that. My head was filled with facts. My heart felt empty and all the study
had left me with a decent backache.

On the outside I was pretty normal; a university student, going in the
right direction. But underneath, I really didn’t know whether I believed
in that life of success. I knew there had to be something more fulfilling
than just getting ahead.

The girl I mentioned before, she had shown me this inkling, inkling
for enchantment and the happiness found in doing exactly what one
wanted to do with their life. She had found it, and so could I. I had
to choose; keep my mouth shut, achieve, succeed and fall in line and
become one of societies puppets, or risk it all for something I knew had
to be out there.

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