In Search Of Dreamland

Because The Man wants to pursue surfing, he's been visiting surf shops and asking everyone where good surfing is. I don't understand. Regardless of where you go in, isn't it still the Indian ocean from here?

He keeps hearing about a place called Dreamland. There are cliffs there you look down from and see the surfers come in. The place is away from the main tourist drag so you get your own strip of ocean to surf in.

So one day, we rented a motorcycle and went in search of Dreamland. We had no map, just vague directions like, Go that way until you see the statue, go left till you get to the Mickey D restaurant, the ask for more directions. Or we get simply a chop of the arm to indicate go straight, with a sweep of the said arm to indicate turn left or right at some point. So we rode and rode for what seemed like hours. We stopped for petrol twice.

Finally, I saw a shop that said Dreamland Laundry or some such. We must be in the area, I thought. But we rode and rode some more and received similar directions as before and never did we see anything that resembled a beach or cliffs, though the villages we passed were beautiful and impoverished at the same time. The Balinese seem to live in peace and contentment no matter what they do or how old they are, and always the big, bright, charming, sometimes shy smiles.

At last we saw a sign that said Uluwata Beach with an arrow. We followed it. After a while, there before us was a group of women hawking sarongs and t-shirts. "Hello, what's your name?" they wanted to know. When I asked for their names, one said, "My name is Jenny Smith." The other said, "My name is Sue, how do you do?" Right. And they knew it, because neither looked me in the eye. It's one of those things you let go because it's the respectful and good natured thing to do.

The Man adroitly ran ahead of me. Jenny Smith stalled me and persuaded. Persuade? Harass. Jenny Smith harassed me into buying a t-shirt. Then Sue tried to talk me into a second. I ran away as fast as I could, shouting, No, no, no more.

Walking down the steps towards the cliffs, I thought the shanties around us were pretty rough looking. A monkey met me on the way, then threw himself on a terrace and sprawled out to scratch himself, showing me everything he's got. Later, The Man told me that monkey hissed at him and made ready to attack because he had shouted at it or something. Near that monkey, a woman was taking photographs of a pair of mother monkeys with their babies. So I did too.

Finally, I got to the edge of the cliff. It was a view looking down to the waves for sure. There were boulders, mud slides, cliffs. Hardly worth the ride getting there. Why do they call this Dreamland?

After a few minutes, we walked back to the bike, planning our defence against the hawkers. It was hard. The Man ended up buying himself a t-shirt.

Then we motored it out of there, following what we thought was the same route we came. After many arms pointing and hands gesturing directions for us, we came back into Seminyak a different route. We came through a huge shopping complex of designer shops - Kuta proper. I am so glad we didn't stay in this place. The Man was bowled over to see the shops. He thought we had been in Kuta all this time, when we had been in Seminyak.

That's the difference in how we approach life. I need my guidebooks. He just goes on assumption, hope, and luck. Maybe that's how we complement and balance each other. And all the bumping and jiggling and bouncing on the road, that just cleansing, because we each had to do a big dump after the ride. It's all good.

When we got back and told someone where we had been, we were told we weren't at Dreamland at all. Uluwata Beach is not Dreamland. Huhn and huhn.

So there you go. It doesn't matter whether we get to our destination or not, it was still quite a ride, and I loved every discovery minute of it.