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Fear
and Loathing in Lovina PAGE
TWO But I'm a big boy now -- kind of -- and even though the thought of traveling alone in Bali scares me, spending eight more days in Australian purgatory, and wasting a trip half way around the globe scares me infinitely more. I tell Selina I need to go off on my own. She's bummed, but she understands. The next day, the girls and I check out of the hotel. They head north, I head west. I'm free. Later that afternoon, I walk along a road in Ubud. I'm totally lost. "Great idea -- Traveling alone in a strange place. Real smart. Have fun getting stuff shoved in your ass!" I walk past a disheveled man sitting on the curb and I'm startled when he stops me and asks where I'm going. I tell him the name of the hotel I'm looking for. He says, "Yes, okay. But road very busy. Not so pretty. Come with me, I take you on trek by the river." Okay, in L.A. if a strange dude on the street asked me to go on a hike down by the river, I'd have two thoughts: "Holy shit I'm gonna die," and "Holy shit, we have a river?" But this isn't some strange dude. This is Nyoman, and despite all the fear my mother tried to instill in me, I decide to trust him instantly. Forty-five minutes later, I'm in a deep gorge, surrounded by lush, unending, green-ness. The Ayung River gushes over my neck and shoulders as I lounge on a rock throne that I'm convinced nature has carved solely in anticipation of my visit. I don't
stop smiling for the rest of the day. I like the person I become in Bali. I smile constantly. I'm carefree. I wave out car windows to pedestrians, and they always smile and wave back. I tried waving to people when I got back to L.A. A Hasidic kid on Fairfax gave me the finger. But that's at home, and I'm not there yet. I'm on that beach in Lovina, with Giday -- remember him? Air guitar? Chili Feppers? Anyway, we're chilling, when suddenly he jumps up. "Hey Eric. Do you want to go pishing?" Do I wanna go pishing? Puck yeah! An hour later we're in a dugout canoe in the middle of the Indian Ocean catching Snapper with rods made of bamboo. Two hours after that, I'm at a table on the beach, two freshly caught snapper sizzling on my plate. Around me sit Giday and four Balinese dudes. They're my new crew. I don't know exactly how my fishing trip turned into a party. All I know is I'm in no rush to get back to L.A. After a few beers, Giday pulls out a guitar and starts to sing "Under the Bridge." "Sometimes I feel like I don't have a fartner…" (QUICKLY
TO MYSELF) Don't laugh. Don't laugh. Don't laugh. Don't laugh. The rest of the guys join in loudly, and without a flicker of self-consciousness. They know every single word, although I doubt they know what most of them mean. We sing, and we laugh, and it's the happiest I've been in a long time. I can't believe that a week ago I was afraid of traveling alone. And now, here I am, surrounded by fartners. Then, for the first time in a while, I think about the Australian girls, and what they're doing at that very moment. I picture them at some giant Foam party at an outdoor club, dick-teasing a bunch of guys and arguing over who got browner that day. And then I look at the incredible people around me, and I smile, knowing that besides the five of them, not a single soul in the world knows where I am right now. I think
about calling my mom to let her know I'm at Giday's. But she'd probably
just want to know if his parents were home. PAGE
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I
don't know what was more disturbing, the fact that my mom didn't
recognize the name of a national restaurant chain with over 25,000
locations coast to coast, or that despite meeting everybody I ever
hung out with, she still didn't know that I had no friends named
Denny.
