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Frost Warning 01
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FROST WARNING #01 A STORMWATCH INFORMATION FRONT PUBLICATION
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"WHAT TO DO ON A SLOW NIGHT IN BALI"
or
"EH YOU AUSTRALIAN, BOY?"
[Mad Matt]
Adelaide, So. Australia - Australia
[ July 24, 1997 ]
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[S.I.F. -- Frost Warning Contact Information:]
WWW: http://www.cryogen.com/acidrain
E-mail: <acidrain@cryogen.com>
[PGP Key Available on Request]
REDISTRIBUTE/REPUBLISH FREELY IN UNMODIFIED FORM
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Stormwatch Frost Warnings:
G-Files for the dawn of the 21st Century
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[Note from Jake Century: Hunter S. Thompson would be proud of
our hero, Mad Matt, a Math & Computer Science student at
University of Adelaide in South Australia. There are amateurs
and professionals, and tripping in Indonesia makes you an
instant professional. Hell, tripping ANYWHERE in the Third
World makes you a professional, even if it's your first goddamn
experience. I challenge anyone to beat this -- Try sucking
down fat hits of DMT smoke from a crack pipe in East Timor in
the middle of a firefight. Nothing short of this will impress
me now that Matt has set the benchmark.]
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Prologue:
Before I start this story, I think I should set the
scene some. And I should also point out I'm Australian. The
events recounted below occurred a fair few years back, when I
was at the tender age of sixteen. At the time my father was
working for a small British oil company called LASMO in Jakarta,
Indonesia. Himself, myself, and mother were living in Jakarta,
and I was attending high school at Jakarta International School
(JIS). JIS started as the American Embassy School back in the
70's, but went international in the 80's. They had 2000 odd
students from Year 1 to Year 12 coming from 100 odd countries.
Most of the students were, like myself, the children of
expatriate workers, or the children of foreign diplomats.
Because of its origin, the JIS academic year follows the
American academic year. Thus each year in April we have a
"spring break" for one week. This despite the fact that Jakarta
is in the southern hemisphere so it's autumn in April, and
Jakarta is in the tropics so there's no real spring, summer,
autumn, and winter, only "dry" and "wet" (i.e. monsoonal)
seasons.
But anyway, my story concerns what happened one spring
break. Now, there is a bit of a spring break tradition at JIS.
Many students, mainly Year 11 and 12's, take the opportunity to
head down to Bali for a week's holiday, free from their parents.
Each year well over 200 students do the migration. So here's
what happened when I did it.
For those who are unfamiliar with Bali, I should lay
some foundations. Bali is one of the hundreds of islands that
make up Indonesia. It is situated between the island of Java
(which contains the capital Jakarta and much of the country's
population) and the island of Lombok. The main city in Bali is
called Kuta - this is where almost all the tourists end up. The
main tourist drag lies near the beach (named Kuta Beach,
funnily enough). And before I forget - a word about currency.
Throughout the story I will refer to the Indonesian rupiah (Rp),
and the Australian dollar ($). At the time my story transpires
(and it hasn't changed much since), the exchange rate was
around 1500Rp = Aus$1 and 2000Rp = US$1. So without further ado:
the story!
Getting There:
Most JISers fly down to Bali - it takes about an hour
from Jakarta. Since I had a choice between flying down and not
having much money to spend, or taking a bus and have a decent
amount of money to spend, I chose the bus. Taking a bus through
Indonesia can be a lot of fun, but that's another story. The
bus takes pretty much spot on 24 hours - you leave on one day
and get there about the same time the next day. It crosses from
Java to Bali on a vehicular ferry, which is heaps cool. I have
to admit I found the whole journey a little stressful. You see,
my friends (who were flying down) had realised that they could
give all their marijuana to me to carry down on the bus (much
safer, nod nod nod). So I was carrying a fair bit, thus nervous
much of the time. Luckily, I had the good sense to smoke a
little of the weed on the way down, which smoothed things out.
In Bali I was staying at a losman, which is the
Indonesian equivalent of a cheap hotel. For 10,000Rp one could
get a room that contained 2 beds, a small table, a small
electric fan on said table, a single naked light-globe, a small
cupboard, and off to the side was a shower/toilet room (no hot
water). I was sharing it with a girl from JIS, so at 5,000Rp or
$3.30 a night each - bloody bargain! Outside each room there
were deck chairs and tables, and each morning the guy who ran
the losman left you a thermos of jasmine tea. In the room next
door were two other JIS girls, and in the room beyond that were
two British guys who didn't go to JIS but knew one of the girls
in the other room. No names will be given to protect the guilty.
The Night Begins:
It was our second night in Bali - we had all settled
down in our hotels, were starting to find our way around Kuta,
and were realising that the exorbitant price of alcohol in bars
around Kuta meant getting pissed in a bar every night for the
rest of the week was not financially viable for most of us.
Here I should point out something about Indonesian liquor laws.
Indonesia is governed from Java. Around 95% of Javanese are
Muslim, and since it is against their religion to drink alcohol
no one gives a tinker's cuss about under-age drinking laws (if
they exist - I'm not sure). I should also point out one aspect
of the socio-political environment in Indonesia. The entire
country's economy is based around bribery and corruption to
such an extent that the terms "bribery" and "corruption" are
transcended in many ways. Now Indonesian police don't get paid
much by the government (hint hint). One incident typifies my
point. A friend was riding through Kuta on a moped (which can
be rented quite cheaply - around $10 a day) without a helmet
on. A cop pulled him over. This cop happened to speak good
English, and he gave my friend (the son of a Canadian diplomat)
a 10 minute lecture about law, order, social responsibility,
and justice. When the cop had finished my friend asked "So,
what's the price of justice these days?". "Fifteen thousand
rupiah ($10)," was the reply. Back to the story.
There we were, in a bar, drinking Bintang (cheap
Indonesian beer) and various arak mixtures, wondering what to
do with the night. Arak is Indonesia rice wine - kind of like
Japanese sake. It's cheap (street vendors sell 300 ml bottles
for $5), quite nice, and makes some wonderful mixtures. Arak
madu (literally "honey arak") is arak with some honey and
water. "Jungle juice" is arak mixed with grape juice. Great
stuff. Someone said they had heard about a cafe in the
backstreets where one could obtain magic mushrooms. You just
ordered a "special omelette" or the "special drink" and you
were served a magic mushroom omelette or a glass of mushies
blended with ice and lemon juice respectively. Both cost
30000Rp ($20). They had some quite nice seafood there as well.
So a group (eight of us) decided to troop on down there and get
some magic mushrooms in us. I had an omelette and half a glass
of the drink. It was, by the way, my first experience with
hallucinogenic drugs, although I had been drinking alcohol and
smoking marijuana for a while by this stage in my life. No one
had any idea how strong they would be, so most people had from
one to one and a half servings. Once we had finished the
special food and some non-hallucinogenic snacks, we all trooped
back to the main street where most of the bars were, so as to
meet up with other groups of JISers. Now the walk back to the
bars took about 10 minutes, during which time a few joints were
passed around, and we had spent a good 20 minutes at the cafe
eating, so the mushies were starting to kick in by the time we
got to the particular bar we were going to meet some people in.
The Trip:
Now, from the time we entered that bar everything gets
a bit hazy for me. So I will recount the events as best I
remember.
I was stumbling about the bar talking to people,
noticing how colourful everything was, listening to the pumping
music with my body, and watching the walls begin to breathe.
One of the girls who had partaken of the mushies was starting
to loose the plot. She was sitting at a table, head in hands,
sobbing gently and occasionally moaning "Where are my friends,"
and, "Where have my friends gone?". Many of them were, as it
happened, sitting around her, trying to comfort her. "Where are
all my friends?" "We're right here!" "But where the fuck have
all my friends gone" "Right here." And so on. I pointed out to
her that in the morning she would be straight, but she was
oblivious to the external universe and it probably wouldn't
have helped anyway.
What happened after that is fuzzy. I do remember some
discombobulated dancing was done, but the next thing I clearly
(relatively speaking) remember was the peak of the trip. Now,
the bar we were in was like a giant pergola - big tree trunks
holding up a large thatched roof. Around each supporting trunk
a bench was attached with stools associated. I was sitting on a
stool, my head resting sideways on a bench, observing the
(rather distorted) world go by. I had no idea were my friends
had got to, and didn't care.
From this point on I had no real control over my body.
It was a very strange state, and one I still have difficulty
describing. It was kind of like an out-of-body experience, but
I was still in my body, as it were. It was as if my conscious
mind had taken a back seat and was enjoying the view while
everything went on automatic. Although cogent of what I was
doing, it didn't seem like I was making the decisions. It's
hard to explain. Anyway, I remember jumping up and following
myself out the door onto the main street of Kuta - a thronging
place of tourists (many drunken Australians), street sellers,
prostitutes and pimps, bars, restaurants, mini-cabs, dust, and
so on. It was down this street that I stumbled, my wide eyes
staring at the demon faces of the people around me. I was
rushing head-long down the sidewalk with no destination in
mind, bumping into people, tripping over things. A real mess. I
don't remember much of it - the stumbling, the neon lights, the
whole world swirling with colours and geometric patterns. Were
it not for the fact that what I call "me" was a detached
observer at the time, I would have been quite paranoid methinks.
The next thing I remember (quite clearly, actually) is
lying in a gutter somewhere, throwing up, and rolling in the
puddle of my own vomitus. It seemed like a good idea at the
time, I guess. I wasn't perturbed at all by my vomiting - I
don't even remember feeling sick. So when a bunch of tourists
(British by the sound of they accents) stood over me and asked
"Are you allright?" I reply, "Oh yeah. I'm fine." Retch roll
roll. "I'm fine. Really!". I think they left after that.
The Aftermath:
The next thing I remember, I was straight. Frazzled,
but straight. I was curled, almost in foetal position, around a
pot plant that stood outside the door of some shop. Half my
torso and one arm was smeared in vomit, and all of me was
smeared in dirt. If I had had more hair at the time (shaved
with single small braid coming out the back) then that would
have been an absolute mess, no doubt. I had absolutely no idea
what time it was, or where I was. The streets were deserted, so
I was obviously well away from the main tourist area which
parties all night. I walked dazed and confused down the street
until I came across an Indonesian guy walking the other way.
Luckily, I speak enough Indonesian to have a simple, halting
conversation. I asked him what time it was. Three in the
morning, he replied. It has been about nine o'clock when I'd
taken the mushies. I asked him where I was. I gave the name of
the place, which meant nothing to me. It turned out I was about
1.5 kilometres (1 mile)from were I had started out that night.
The kindly and bemused Indonesian chap directed me to the
beach, which I had to walk along for half an hour to get back
to my losman.
Epilogue:
Some people would have been put off magic mushrooms for
life by such an experience - but not your intrepid and fearless
narrator, oh no! A few days later myself and two friends went
back to that cafe (called "The Midnight Oil", for the record)
and had some more. We each had only a single serving this time,
and spent most of the night wondering around, looking at faces
in the gravel, and dribbling shit about Life, The Universe, and
Everything; and pulling at our faces (strange...rubbery...). I
had a most interesting hallucination that night - saw my hand
grow hairy, old, and wrinkled. The rest of my holiday in Bali
was a bit of an anti-climax compared to those events, although
myself and the two girls in the losman room next door hired out
some mopeds for a couple of days and went hooting around to
some of the wick surf beaches a few hours drive out of Kuta,
and that was cool. Since the time of this story, my dad got
retrenched from LASMO and we moved to Adelaide, South
Australia, where he'd gotten a new job. Now, Adelaide, which is
the capital of the state of South Australia, has hot dry
summers and cool wet winters. Every winter, the hills around
Adelaide (known as "the Adelaide Hills") teems with magic
mushrooms growing wild. If you know what to look for (and I do!
I do!) then magic mushrooms are free and plentiful each winter.
Indeed, 2 weeks after moving to Adelaide (it was the middle of
winter) some friends I'd made at my new high school invited me
to go mushie hunting with them. But that's another story.
Standard Disclaimer:
I hereby disclaim any responsibility for other human beings.
People - take your own drugs at your own risk (mileage may
vary). I deny all knowledge; I was at a friends house and the
cheque's in the mail. I was not the third gunman on the grassy
knoll. I have never been abducted by aliens. I am not and never
was a member of the Australian Communist Party. Batteries not
included.
PS! The alternative title to this piece is an inside joke. And
not very funny either.
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FROST WARNINGS : (!) 1997 AD Jake Century / S.I.F.
All copyrights on texts are held by the original author.
Authors are responsible for their own content.
Greetings to our readers in the future : 2007, 2017, 2027, etc.!
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