I’ve never had less of a plan in my life than I do upon arrival in Bali. In all my history of careless travels, this is the most carelessly I’ve ever landed anyplace. I don’t know where I’m going to live, I don’t know what I’m going to do, I don’t know what the exchange rate is, I don’t know how to get a taxi at the airport—or even where to ask that taxi to take me. Nobody is expecting my arrival. I have no friends in Indonesia, or even friends-of-friends. And here’s the problem about traveling with an out-of-date guidebook, and then not reading it anyway: I didn’t realize that I’m actually not allowed to stay in Indonesia for four months, even if I want to. I find this out only upon entry into the country. Turns out I’m allowed only a one-month tourist visa. It hadn’t occurred to me that the Indonesian government would be anything less than delighted to host me in their country for just as long as I pleased to stay.
As the nice immigration official is stamping my passport with permission to stay in Bali for only and exactly thirty days, I ask him in my most friendly manner if I can please remain longer.
“No,” he says, in his most friendly manner. The Balinese are famously friendly.
“See, I’m supposed to stay here for three or four months,” I tell him.
I don’t mention that it’s a prophecy—that my staying here for three or four months was predicted two years ago by an elderly and quite possibly demented Balinese medicine man, during a ten-minute palm- reading. I’m not sure how to explain this.
But what did that medicine man tell me, now that I think of it? Did he actually say that I would come back to Bali and spend three or four months living with him? Did he really say “living with” him? Or did he just want me to drop by again sometime if I was in the neighborhood and give him another ten bucks for another palm-reading? Did he say I would come back, or that I should come back? Did he really say, “See you later, alligator”? Or was it, “In a while, crocodile”?
I haven’t had any communication with the medicine man since that one evening. I wouldn’t know how to contact him, anyway. What might his address be? “Medicine Man, On His Porch, Bali, Indonesia”? I don’t know whether he’s dead or alive. I remember that he seemed exceedingly old two years ago when we met; anything could have happened to him since then. All I have for sure is his name—Ketut Liyer—and the memory that he lives in a village just outside the town of Ubud. But I don’t remember the name of the village.
Maybe I should have thought all this through better.
