by Rob Binkley
That night we all went to dinner and had a great meal with many, many drinks.
After dinner, full of exotic bubbly, Brian, Felix, and I were staring the girls down like three ravenous wolves. I was playing footsie with Kelli under the table. I judged it was definitely on between us. I thanked Allah (after all, it was still Ramadan!).
We hit the dance floor with Felix leading the way, yelling, “Let’s go mad!” It was our mantra now; we were bound to do it everywhere we went. Whenever we got crazy we chanted it no matter our location (but usually it was on or near a dance floor). By this time, we were loud and loaded; the restaurant owner asked us to quiet down, but we threw him in the middle of our dance circle. Two minutes later he was jumping up and down with us screaming “Ole, ole, ole!”
Felix magically produced a bottle of mezcal that he cracked open at eight o’clock to keep the party going. By nine-thirty the bottle was gone. “Who brings the party? We bring the party!” Felix chanted as Brian drained the last of the bottle, eating the worm. Seconds later, Brian realized what he did and puked all over our busboy. “I swallowed the worm!” Since we weren’t in Mexico in the 1800s, I think he must have swallowed a caterpillar that crawled into the bottle.
It was clear by the vomit-covered busboy that we were having too much fun. So we left to go “clubbing,” which consisted of dancing on the beach in a thatched hut with an old boom box that was blasting music from crappy speakers. We were all going loco, our brains as distorted as the speakers on the boom box.
The whole gang left the club at four in the morning and walked the beach until the sun came up, careful not to walk through anyone’s thatched hut homes. We kissed our Brazilian beauties goodnight (even though Brian had puke-breath), and collapsed in the hammocks in front of our cabana. I think Felix passed out on the beach with some Rasta dudes while smoking weed.
Brian was snoring in his hammock when my prayers were answers. Kelli came outside to surprise me. She was wearing her blue bikini and had a chocolate and cinnamon cupcake she’d gotten at the restaurant for her birthday. She was drunk and sad to be twenty-five. She thought her life was over; I told her it was just beginning.
I invited her into my hammock and comforted her quarter-life crisis by busting out what was left of Inga’s candle to make the cupcake more festive.
“Nice candle,” she said with a laugh.
“It’s a novelty,” I said. “It’s become a bit of a talisman on the trip; rub it and it will bring you good luck.”
“Like this?” Kelli asked and gently stroked the candle—then she laughed that amazing Brazilian laugh of hers. The candle dwarfed the little cake but she blew it out while I sang “Happy Birthday.” Then we fooled around in the hammock while Brian coughed and yammered in his sleep a few trees away. It was absolute heaven.
The next day we were in recovery mode. “Today’s world revolves around yesterday’s bodily damage,” I announced to Kelli, who was almost as hungover as Brian. Felix was nowhere to be found.
Kelli had to meet back up with her friends. She told me they were leaving for another island, so we said our goodbyes and promised to write even though we knew we wouldn’t.
Brian and I spent the day reading and hydrating. We tried to run around the island to detox but that didn’t work out so well. We were still fairly fit, but jogging in equatorial, salty air while hungover was ridiculously difficult; our lungs were burning. We ran into Nick and Mag from Kuta Beach, who laughed at us. “Look at the two drunk American crazies running barefoot around the island!”
We spent the day exploring the little villages, climbing palm trees, and visiting thatched houses where the natives lived. Later in the afternoon, we decided to eat some of the local magic mushrooms since we were taking a vacation from booze.
We dropped ‘shrooms with our old friends from Bali: Felix, Kim, and Josephine from Denmark, Omar from England, and Sarah from Sydney. It was a drugged-out United Nations consortium; we never got around to talking about world peace.
We walked around after the drugs kicked in. It was a mild psilocybin high—not so intense that you stopped to stare at bark on a tree for five hours straight, and not so mild that the stars in the sky didn’t start attacking you (they did). It was just right; so was the setting. The island had no roads. There was only one village that (sometimes) had electricity, so we tripped in the dark in environs unknown.
We kept bumping into shadowy strangers I couldn’t see until I was practically kissing people who didn’t speak English. It was like a surreal psychedelic trust exercise. At the peak of my trip, I felt a rush of hot air approaching; it was Brian, who ran into me higher than Hunter S. Thompson.
“Rob! Oh my God. Life is so carefree. The world is so beautiful. Life is amazing! My mind is so dirty from all this glorious freedom!” He whispered in my ear, which was really my eye, “I want to do dirty things to all these women I can’t see.”
“I know you do, amigo!” I calmed him down and we wandered toward holiday lights in the distance, thinking Santa may be blowing off some post-Christmas steam in the South Pacific. He wasn’t.
It was a bar on the beach called DeDe’s, where we climbed coconut trees and did handstands out front. We met a guy inside who told us about his friend who nearly died from getting “the bends” (a decompression sickness) while scuba diving that day.
We were so high; our collective empathy meter went to eleven.
Everyone on mushrooms got into his story, all of us circled around, staring with dilated eyes at the concerned fella. Kim kept repeating, “Sa, sa, sa, sa,” for what felt like hours. My ears started ringing so loud, all I could hear was Brian and Felix laughing like maniacs in the background about God knows what. Their laughter made me laugh.
Everyone listening to the guy’s story thought I was an insensitive dick. I couldn’t help it; it was impossible not to laugh. My trip was surging; I had to get out. I grabbed Brian and Felix and we went outside to watch the imaginary shooting stars.
We came back to earth around four in the morning. Felix was starved so we tried to raid some of the thatched huts we could find in the dark. We got busted a few times by angry natives. We should have been arrested, but there were no cops on the island.
We tried the polite route by knocking on some doors and kindly asking people if they could spare some rice, but seeing three foreigners at your door at five o’clock in the morning with a bottle of sambal hot sauce in their hands was too scary for the locals. No food for us, so we went home.
When we got back to our room, we were so wasted we couldn’t find our key, so we ran down the row of rooms knocking on doors asking if we could borrow their key. Eventually, Felix broke into a vacant room and passed out on the floor.
In the morning, I realized my key was in my pocket all along.
Our trip kept going south, geographically and metaphorically.
We booked a small boat to southern Indonesia to explore more remote islands. We were to travel with a group of other backpackers. I suckered Felix into coming. I told him he’d enjoy this frugal adventure. “You Aussies are a rugged bunch!”
I had no idea how rugged the trip would be.
Our goal was to end up on Komodo Island, where we could frolic among the Komodo dragons, an ancient species of giant lizards that have evolved over forty million years. They only inhabit this island, so we were excited to see them in the wild. “They say Komodo dragons are cannibals and can grow over ten feet long if they are not eaten by one of their friends,” I recited from the Book.
I looked up at Brian. “I’d eat you if we were starving.” Brian grabbed the Book and threw it into a nearby palm planter.
The next morning, we started our six-day voyage. The trip was remarkably cheap, which was a warning sign I should have heeded but I was too busy high-fiving myself for cutting a sweet deal. The boat people told us we had to sleep on deck and “to bring our own sleeping bags,” which sounded nice—sleeping under the stars—but it turned out to be a nightm
are of monolithic proportions.
When we boarded the small wooden motorboat, we saw they weren’t kidding; the only thing below deck was the engine room. “So much for our berths,” Brian said. “This could be the beginning of a brain-scattering experience.”
On board we encountered ten backpackers from around the world, five chickens, five ducks, enough unripened bananas for a forest full of monkeys, and rice for all of Southeast Asia. The first day we motored six hours to a small island called Salt Lake, which (surprise) had a salt lake. It was a chance to stretch our legs and snorkel. All seemed well.
Then the rains started our first night on the boat. It rained on us all night, the boat leaked everywhere, and we had no shelter. Being young and dumb, we were still happy for the adventure. The mood would not last.
The next day, we sailed for thirteen hours through torrential rains. Everyone got seasick. We asked the Captain to skip all the other stops and get us to Komodo Island because we were all starving.
The tour people failed to mention our all-inclusive meals would be tiny bowls of runny rice; the bananas were for the monkeys. Being the petulant brat that I was, I went on a hunger strike.
By day three, I was slurping down runny rice to stay conscious. The travelers from Europe were about to mutiny. Seasick passengers were limp from puking over the side of the boat.
The European men were in a predicament. They foolishly brought their girlfriends, who by this time were all freaking out. Brian and I could only look at each other and laugh at the unfolding horror. Felix had grown sullen and wasn’t talking; I think he was pissed I talked him into this trip.
It got so bad we tried to squeeze into the engine room; we were all freezing to death in the rain. Problem was, there was only room for six to eight people below.
Brian went below to check it out and came back laughing. “It’s a horror show with many pitfalls.” The room was full of toxic diesel fumes mixed with burning incense wafting from the captain’s shrine to Allah. “The boat floor is covered with two inches of water that reeks of alcohol, plus many other wonders.”
Brian said the rain was the better option, so he plopped down for the night. Felix and I tried to sleep below. After a few hours, the petrol fumes and leaky roof finally lulled us to sleep. Once we fell off around four in the morning, the loud engine started up again and blew toxic fumes all over us.
By day four, we thought we might actually die on this godforsaken boat. The women were crying rivers; the trip was turning into a nautical version of the Bataan Death March. We sailed another thirteen hours with no land in sight.
Brian confronted the captain, who didn’t speak English. He demanded that he “let us off this stinking deathtrap!” The captain shouted “You go!” in broken English. Brian looked around; there was no land to be had, just endless blue ocean. He sat back down.
That night, I dreamed I was in a prison camp.
By day five, everyone was waiting for the fumes to put us out of our misery. Just as we drifted off to something resembling sleep, the captain started the engine and the fumes blasted us again. We were in Dante’s Inferno, waiting to die in some concentric circle of tropical hell.
Then at five o’clock in the morning, all the circles of hell broke loose. A rogue wave rushed through the portholes, dousing us with hundreds of gallons of salt water. Felix’s backpack and electronics were destroyed. He sat up from a deep, petrol-induced sleep and started swearing. Soaking wet, he stomped up to the captain (who never slept) and demanded he let us off.
When I got aboveboard, Felix was shaking the poor man by his collar; I stood by ready to save the captain in case he actually dropped him overboard. The captain went to his old standby; he called his bluff, “You go—go!” He pointed at the ocean.
We seriously considered jumping overboard since we were now passing islands and some of them looked inhabited. The water was dark blue and looked beautiful enough to swim in, but our backpacks would have been dead weight.
Felix let the captain live. We all sat back down.
Brian, the confused Taoist, began praying to Allah below board, burning incense at the captain’s shrine. He spent the rest of the night chanting, all the while hacking out the diesel fumes.
We were losing our minds.
Then, by the grace of God, our prayers were answered. The sun came up and Brian shouted, “Land ahoy! Komodo Island, dead ahead!”
We all rejoiced like stowaway rats on the Mayflower. We asked the captain to drop us in the harbor where we all dove into the lagoon. No one waited for the boat to hit shore.
We crawled onto the beach and kissed the ground. Then we toured Komodo Island to get our land legs. We found the visitor center. I was so happy to be alive I wrestled with a three-foot lizard who approached us. I couldn’t catch him. He was strong, but not a full-sized dragon.
We gobbled down nasi goreng at a local restaurant like apartheid victims who’d stormed the Big House. Brian inhaled food so quickly he went to the bathroom to throw up—then kept on eating.
Refueled with food and a few beers in us, I talked Felix and Brian into hiring a walking tour guide to show us the natural wonders of the island. “We’ve come this far and nearly died; I’m getting my money’s worth out of this bloody place.”
Our group’s guide spoke limited English; he inexplicably thought the English word for Komodo dragon was “chicken.” During the first half of the island walk, he said in hushed, excited tones, “Look, chicken, chicken. Careful, careful.” Since our only language was English, Brian, Felix, and I were the first people on our tour to pick this up. We went to our guide and pointed in the bush. “I think I saw a chicken that way. Should we run?” It was good fun.
Eventually someone corrected him but we thought the idea of deadly chickens was hysterical. We hiked further into the brush and crept up on one of the big, ancient dinosaur lizards that moved so slowly we felt comfortable getting close. We tried to leap over a few while they weren’t looking until we saw how fast they ran, then we kept our distance.
After the day tour, we dared to get back on the hellboat, only because we could see the next island in the distance, which had a proper village.
We docked in Labuan Bajo on Flores Island. It was paradise found. Everyone was so relieved to get off the sinking hellboat for good, all the other backpackers fled in different directions without saying goodbye. The three of us holed up in a shack for five dollars a night and went straight to the village watering hole, where we drank beers until we were happy again.
We met two Aussie girls from Adelaide who went on a rant about how their city was the best in the world. I think everybody should have a favorite city, but they had never been to another country besides Indonesia and Australia. I said, “Maybe you should see a few more countries before you pass judgment,” but it was no use. It was their opinion, so I guess they were right.
After surviving the hellboat, we were determined to catch the next plane out of Flores back to Bali, the island that almost killed us, which was now our savior and land of civilization.
The people at the little airline shack told us there might be a plane tomorrow or the next day. “Your lack of exactness terrifies me,” I said.
The airline lady explained because airplanes were hard to come by we “should probably go to the airstrip and wait.” The prospect of going to a landing strip and waiting for days was a new form of hell. We were desperate to get back to Bali then onward to our next destination, Australia.
I tried to work my magic on the airline lady. “Look ma’am, we don’t mind if we can’t get a seat. We’ll sit on the floor. Or with the pilot, even.” She said it “wasn’t a good idea to fly with the captain” because “planes have a hard time clearing the jungle floor on takeoff as it is.”
I stepped up my game, “But ma’am, we have to be on the next plane. Can’t you see my colleague is deathly ill??” I pointed to Brian, who looked like absolute hell. She was unmoved. “Also,” I mustered up some tears, “our f
amilies just perished last night … in a horrible group bungee-jumping accident while vacationing in Australia. We have to identify their bodies or they’ll be buried at sea, which as a fellow Muslim, you know is against our religion.”
She said nothing; she just stared at me with narrowing eyes.
“Come on!”
I eventually talked our way onto the next flight. Two days later.
After we landed at the Denpasar airport, we headed back to Kuta Beach. Although we were “wanted” men, it felt like home. The day was pleasant. We got a room at Kedin’s Inn and slept until midnight. Then we dragged our asses back to the main drag for what seemed like the 200th time in the past month.
Yawn. I needed to drink more to enjoy this, so we drank Arak Attacks till we keeled over. Once we were all trashed, we made a point to say farewell to every person we met who hadn’t punched us in the face or assaulted us. By the end of the night, two bars’ worth of friends knew we were headed to Australia. I ended the night chasing frogs down the streets for old times’ sake, catching two and bringing them home to Brian and Felix. Brian licked them both. Nothing happened. He probably gave some girls warts on our journey.
The next morning just wasn’t Brian’s day.
Ominous signs were everywhere. A stray dog attacked him the second he stepped outside. I wasn’t privy to the attack since I was in such bad shape I didn’t drag myself out of bed until six o’clock in the evening. I woke to Brian packing. “That’s it! This place is cursed!” Brian said he’d had his fill of paradise. I convinced Brian he was imagining things and to venture out for dinner.
When we did, we immediately saw Inga on the beach harassing the Wells ice cream man. Brian freaked out and made a beeline for the street, where he almost ran in front of six native girls cruising by on mopeds. Fearing Rico the killer pimp was just around the corner, Brian ducked under a watch vendor’s table to hide.
This particular vendor was an aggressive solicitor who didn’t like us because we never bought his stuff. Brian watched the vendor yell at some tourist from under the table. When the tourist wouldn’t buy a watch, the vendor threw his own products to the ground, cursing like a sailor.