We lay under the huge electric fan, blinds closed to keep out the tropical sun and the elderly Germans in their tiny shorts. Not thirty feet from the door of our bungalow were the warm, inviting waters of the Pacific and the "inviting, beautiful black sand beaches of Lovina, supremely walkable and ideal for exploring on foot at a leisurely pace."
Walkable, we were promised walkable beaches. Fuckers.
We'd already gone through two rolls of toilet paper in just under 24 hours, expelling from our germ-riddled heads enough mucous to choke a dolphin. Ours was a gonzo adventure of a lesser auspice: our backpacks and bodies were pumped with alphabets of white circles and ovals, the alluringly potent elixirs outlawed in Japan, pseudophedrine, acetominophen.
"Jenn?"
"Yeah? *sniff*"
"Are you feeling kinda ripped off right now?"
"...Yeah."
"Yeah...me too."
The time: 1:45 p.m. We'd left the bungalow twice, once to eat breakfast on the porch, once on an abortive attempt to find a ride into town (assuming there was one) that wasn't 1. more expensive than our hotel room, 2. on a motorcycle, or 3. driven by a crazy person. The day before, on the recommendation of one of the homestay's employees, we'd tried walking down the only road -- we were told it was "not far, maybe 10 minutes" -- only to give up in frustration after the better part of an hour, liters of sweat dappling the road behind us. As far as we could tell, there was no actual Lovina, no shops, no bars, no much-touted dolphin statue. All there was were hawkers, touristy restaurants, hotels, garbage, and hundreds of roving motorcycles. I had no idea where the motorcycles might have been
going (there was nothing in either direction, remember), so they just
roved, noisily, Mad Max style, endlessly.
We had come for the beaches. The previous few days in our precious vacation time were spent in the town of Ubud, a cultural center that had been fabulous: open-air markets, a palatial homestay at $20 a night, traditional dance, and monkeys. We wanted for nothing. Now the plan was to spend three blissful days lounging about on eminently walkable, black sand beaches. The beach that our homestay was built on was something less than awe-inspiring: narrow as a crosswalk, littered with garbage, hemmed in by fishing boats, populated by uncountable hawkers chanting, imploring, "Free to look, very nice, you want a sarong?, souvenir from Lovina, you want transport?" (It may come as no surprise that I'm not great with hawkers; usually I'm so afraid of being impolite or offending someone's culture that I'll buy anything, even at the chump prices, apologizing all the while). The sand was, in fact, black, though. Woo. Hoo.
I held out one hope, though: whispered rumors, cryptic references on illegible maps, all pointed to the existence of something nearby called Happy Beach. Happy Beach! Xanadu. Shambala. Candyland. And as soon as I finished hacking up another pint of Kindergarten Crud, I was going to find it.
"Jenn? If I'm not back in an hour, assume I've been eaten by crabs."
"Get more snot rags before you go."
--------------
The road to Happy Beach was scattered with portents: dark, angry clouds forming on the mountain, a mustached man holding a rooster with blood dripping down its talons, a roadside stand empty of all but a garish yellow sign, weather-beaten, "DURIAN: THE KING OF FRUITS." The heat baked most of the walk out of my brain...by the time I made it back to the bungalow, all I could remember of Happy Beach was sand, shade, no people, and somewhat less garbage than our local beach (Unhappy Beach? Total Shit Beach?). I marshaled Jenn, gathered another pocketful of snot rags, and packed a backpack for an afternoon at the damn beach where we would have a magical damn time, dammit. Sunscreen, hotel towels, unpronounceable fruits, bottle of water, and a "hand-woven" blanket for which I had been guilted into paying more than a night in our hotel room. Sickness be damned, we were going to the beach.
Happy Beach!
We passed a strange procession on our way. A long line of trucks filled to bursting with red-headbanded men, some of whom might have been playing musical instruments (all we could see over the high wooden sides was row upon row of heads, like a carton of eggs wearing fezzes). Men in T-shirts were directing traffic around the trucks, all of which were headed to Happy Beach. Truly, the draw of Happy Beach was irresistible, like iron to a magnet, like Nazul to the Ring of Power.
The entrance to Happy Beach was packed with Balinese people in ceremonial garb. There was music food, ritual, people, and for the first time in our experience, none of it was directed at tourists. The beach itself was disheartening -- ringed with layers of leaves and plastic trash washed up by the tides, though wider than our homestay's. Jenn and I exchanged a look (hers said, "You got me out of bed for
this?", mine "I got us out of bed for
this?"). Still, the heat was oppressive enough to make us sit down for a rest, at least, so we decided to try and make the best of it until we recovered our strength. We set up in between strata of Fantas wrappers and potato chip bags, closed our eyes, and pretended we were on one of the beaches in the Wikitravel articles.
100% pure lies.
Then, against all odds, the sun began to set. Things changed. The horizon was lit up in colors we had only seen in office supplies, fluorescent highlighters, ringed with dark mountains that melted into clouds and sea the shade of molten peach. I waded into the ocean, gamelan music bubbling, unearthly, over my shoulder. Amid the orbits of trash and vegetable matter, at the instant where water met sand, there was a perfect ring of mirrorlike black volcanic side with a bewitching luster. Finding a coconut half on the floor, I set it afloat with a scavenged pink flower for a captain. A gang of children ran over to us and, delighted, we made conversation for awhile, mostly just "Hello!" back and forth, though one managed "I love you!" and another taught us to count to ten in Balinese. One child only grunted, though he was amazingly good at pantomime, confirming our guesses when he told us where he lived and asked us to return the next day. We realized after 20 minutes or so that he was deaf. Jenn signed her name to everyone's satisfaction amid the dying aura of the golden sun.
Ah, close enough.
We didn't return to Happy Beach. I hope the deaf boy didn't wait for us.. Lovina was disappointing and frustrating, especially for those of us sensitive to issues of exploitation and colonialism; we realized that, through the intervention of the wealthy West, Lovina's residents depended on the patronage of foreign tourists to support their families, though I still didn't want to buy a damn sarong. In three days there, the last long vacation we could get for some time, we spent most of our time dodging hawkers and playing chess on the porch of our bungalow. Still, for a few hours, we had been on Happy Beach. Our cab driver, a self-described holy man, told us that the holy water used in Balinese ceremony was from the sea, that the sacred waters of the Ganges flowed to Bali's shores to bless their homes and workplaces. We hadn't found the beach of our dreams, but still: Happy Beach. We had dipped ourselves in the blessed waters, volcanic sand clinging to our feet on the way back to our overpriced, machine-woven blanket. And no one offered us a taxi.
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.
