Why the fuck our solicitor hadn’t seen the same thing when we bought it eighteen months ago, only she knows… Its back on the market and there is a buyer interested, but what needs to happen first is the problem, whatever that is, needs fixing so the last ten wasted years of my life doesn’t turn into ten and a half.
It was so close to completion, but then the money that I had almost been relying on was no more.
With the house market so buggered, I reckon it will now sell for 20-30K less than this offer. There goes my two-bed, gardened house with swimming pool on a white sanded lagoon beach in East Java for five hundred million rupiah, or twenty seven thousand pounds. Fuck. My life fell apart in front of me for the fiftieth time. Thoughts of cutting my world tour short invaded my mind. I’d have to go back to London and get a job… I cried for the first time in a very long time., and not even kind words of encouragement from home on Koh Samui could help… I was shaking... Best get drunk.
The next day we woke at eight, a veritable lie in and visited BoroBuddar, the largest Buddhist monument in the world. Discovered and excavated in 1912 by a Dutch man, from under the hill jungle that Mount Merapi had buried it under, it was the second most beautiful sight I was to see that day.
Unesco provided $25m for its renovation and strengthening its foundations as it was built in the 8th century when Java was Buddhist with no cement or glue, just male and female interlocking bricks and slabs. The idiot guy from Holland had it painted gold after excavation which eroded much of its intricacies.
Escorted by Midi, my Arsenal supporting tour guide and with the hangover from Nilfhelm, I ascended the levels up towards the ninth and last… the Buddhist state of Nirvana. After reaching inside one of the bell shaped towers to touch the Buddah’s fingers to make a wish, a wish you can only make if you are dexterous and long-armed enough (no, I’ll never tell what I wished for, but read on…) I told Midi that I was not worthy of climbing to the ninth level where one is closest to Buddah. While locals and Japanese tourists stubbed their fags out on the temple, I told him that I would come back one day when I had stopped drinking, smoking, cursing and shagging around; when I deserved to be close to the only deity that I might be able to believe in, on account of him being a dude who went round telling people to be cool to each other. A bit like Rufus from Bill and Ted’s. I don’t really think of Buddhism as a religion, more a journey of self -understanding and inner peace. The three possessions of a monk; the begging bowl, walking stick and orange robe, which make up the three parts of the giant bell structures, inside which sit a statue of the Dude himself represent living without possessions, which I guess any backpacker can relate to. On the way down I asked myself if monks wore orange condoms.
Though a Muslim, Midi seemed to respect this plus my mei-ing as thanks for my wish and was surprised that I already knew the story of Sidhartha, who became Buddah, how his mother dreamt of a white elephant descending from heaven and entering her womb. Guess I did pay attention during R.E. probably only cos I had a schoolboy crush on Miss Thomas. He also said my Indonesian was very good, and that the way I interacted and pronounced words was much better than the average Farang which made me like him but he did also say that I looked like Paul Gascgoine, which didn’t.
Indonesian is so much easier to understand and speak than Thai, I guess primarily because I’m a wordy person. If I don’t know how to say a word like Sirkip’s name, I get Doni to write it down and then it permeates my thick skull. The letters in the Indo alphabet are the same Roman letters that we have in English, whereas the Thai language is made up from what I call noodle writing. Its as if someone had taken a Pad Thai and shaped the noodles into a sentence. We do a lot of driving and going through towns and villages its easy to pick up the odd word and use it as soon as you can, for ease I’ll start with a simple example seen on every petrol station - 24 Jam. You instantly know the meaning, if you catch my drift. After eight days on Java I can speak ten times the amount of Thai I learnt in two months.
That afternoon we visited Merapi and Kaliurang volcanoes.
Merapi was clouded in mist (hence the library pics) so I couldn’t really see the summit but we did get to watch a cool film about it in a groovy little cinema.Kaliurang was surrounded by mist too, but we walked on some of it and saw the remnants of the pyroclastic flow that destroyed houses and killed eleven people including two geologist mates of Doni’s.
He apparently filmed the pyroclast or Wedus Gembel in Indoesian from a hill while he screamed to one of the two that died to run for his life. Measuring below the surface a week later, the rocks still gave off a staggering 400 degrees celsius.
After another long drive back I went to see a two-hour Hindi dance. I joked that I would probably come out a Hindu after my morning’s enlightenment, still at least I’m self aware enough to know how fickle I can be. When it started it felt like I was on a school trip. Bo-o-oring! With a backdrop of a ma-hussive Temple, the company entered stage right and to the slow, rhythmic yet somehow out of time (I’ll never understand eastern music, pentamic scales and the like) they took ten minutes to cross the and exit stage right. A couple arrived and I wanted to whisper to the English girl next to me that she should fill them in on the plot they’d missed so far. About half way through I realised that we weren’t watching a play in four parts as the programme suggested but we were in fact watching episode two of four. At this point the prancing about stopped and a narrative began. Now I got it. Cutting to the chase the Monkey God was shot with the magic arrow after a tremendous fight and was sentenced to death at the stake by the evil king. However, being immortal, he leapt free and burned the moutherfucking house down. Quite literally. Look! It was fantastic!
It turns out that Holly, the girl I was sitting next to was from Acton, half a mile away from me in London. Not having a pen I gave her an old business card so she could find my name on Facebook and vowed to meet up in Thailand to discuss tales of West London life and what sob stories brought us to this side of the world.
Doni picked me up, called me a crocodile for chatting up girls and we went for dinner. As we alighted the car out of a cab jumped a vision the like of which I had never seen before. “Oh. My. God” I mouthed to my guide. Walking behind the most amazing pair of legs, which seated themselves at a table for six, the waiter ushered us upstairs… I was having none of that and indicated to Doni exactly where we were sitting. The waiter insisted there was more room upstairs but I wasn’t budging, I wanted to sit next to the legs and hotpants so, ignoring the waiter, I did. Doni obediently followed.
Striking up a conversation with the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in real life took me all of fifteen seconds. Crocodile; no... a cad and a bounder; yes but you aint seen nothing yet my friend. It turns out the most angelic face and perfect body in the world belong to a raven-haired Polish girl called Carolina. We took turns in talking; her and Doni about exporting Indonesian wooden furniture which is her business she conducts from her home in Bali, Will in perfect stand-up comedy mode, you’ve all seen it happen, however occasionally. The words were flowing out of my mouth like an aria, striking the perfect balance between cheeky and frisky and she was lapping it up. The bar closed and I invited her to another bar. Doni didn’t exactly get my hint to piss off home but it didn’t matter, I was on fire. Flirting turned to outrageous flirting and double entendre to single, unadulterated filth. Those foot massages she mentioned were for later and that’s not the first time tonight she’d me making those noises as she impersonated a panting animal, I informed her… Discussing Buddhism she stated that she too would be Buddhist as it’s the only religion where you can have sex after you die. This was my kind of girl, I told her… she stroked my arm and agreed we were soul mates. Now. Go. Home. Doni.
After discussing children (amazingly she has a two year old boy, but trust me; adopting him would be well worth it) and her love of a little TV programme called Lost, and with me as good as saying come back to my room for aforementioned foot massage, she announced her intention to get into her waiting cab and get some sleep before her 6am flight to Jakarta. Bollocks. We said goodbye, I thrust my second of the night and last business card into her arms and mouthed the words “call me” then she disappeared into the night like a Transylvanian vampire queen in human form.
Buddah had come through with his promise early.
Jesus Christ. I was in love.
Again.
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