Comfy (with Caveats)

Friends, family and other honorable readers:

Meet my new home in Ubud, Bali.

Room #3 at Arjana Bungalows.

It might not look like much on the outside but wow, what a view! This is the view from my bedroom:

And this is the view from the bathroom:

I love that I can’t see anything but nature from all of my windows.

It’s blissful. And only $15/night which includes tax and breakfast. Nice people who clean my room daily. A pool to swim in.

It feels so good being in Bali that I’ve decided to return to the States a month later than I’d originally decided to come back.

Yay!

I’ll be back in mid-May instead of mid-April.

Wow, what a treat to get to stay longer in this luscious place.

So I’ve begun setting up the makings of home since I’ll be here awhile.

I got a Balinese cell phone number so the many travelers (and locals) that I’ve already met in Bali can call me.

I rented a bicycle for $1 a day:

I even have a local Balinese cat who has taken to sitting on my porch and greeting me when I arrive back home after a night (or day) out on the town:

I’ve unloaded my backpack which felt so delicious after not putting anything in drawers for the past two months since I didn’t stay in any place longer than one week.

But this time I decided to plant myself. I put my stuff in the armoire which is near where I’m taking this photo of my room (so you can’t see the armoire in this photo):

I’m all moved in. Happy as can be.

I decide to have a candle-lit bath in my sunken tub with its great view to celebrate my good fortune in finding this inexpensive, special spot.

I go to sleep with a smile on my face.

I’m looking forward to sleeping in

but…

I wake up at 6am because of this:

When I moved in to the bungalow I asked the staff if there were roosters around. In fact, I even made the rooster crowing sound (R-R-R-R!) to make sure all the barriers to language misunderstandings were gone.

“No, no rooster.”

“You sure? No R-R-R-R?”

“Yes, sure. No rooster here.”

“Cool.” And so I unpacked. And have been waking up at 6am ever since.

I don’t think the hotel staff intentionally lied. My experience of Balinese people is that they are very honest. I think Balinese people just don’t hear the roosters anymore because they are everywhere.

Last night we had a wild thunder and lightning storm. It lasted for 2 hours and was intense. Loud, loud booming sounds from the thunder! Every few minutes there would be flashes of lightning that held solid for 15 seconds, lighting up my darkened room.

I loved it.

I didn’t love what came after it though.

About 15 minutes after the storm subsided the sound of frogs was everywhere. Rivet. Rivet. Rivet.

Before storm: no frogs.

After storm: millions of frog families making loud rivet sounds all around the outside of my bungalow.

Which was fine and sort of charming.

Except. There was one frog that sounded nothing like a frog. He sounded like a machine gun.

I swear.

Ratta-TAT-Ratta-TAT-Ratta-TAT-Ratta-TAT!!!!!!!!

went this particular vocally-challenged frog.

All night long.

At one point (I think it was 2am) I threw a sarong around me and picked up my flashlight to see if I could find him. I grabbed a useless candle that I’d bought the night before whose wick couldn’t be lit for some reason.  I thought I could throw this candle near him and maybe he would hop away toward someone else’s bungalow.

So there I am, in the dark, trying to figure out where Machine Gun George is.

But he’s quiet. It’s almost like he knows I’m looking for him.

All the other normal frogs are making their normal rivets and the Sleep Disturber is totally and utterly quiet.

I wait.

And wait.

No sound.

I sigh and go back into the bungalow and back into bed.

Ratta-TAT-Ratta-TAT-Ratta-TAT-Ratta-TAT!!!!!!!!

“AGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!” I yell.

‘Frog I’m going to get you!’

Put sarong on. Flashlight in right hand, candle in left. I open the door to my bungalow.

Quiet.

Quiet.

Quiet.

Quiet.

Wait 3 minutes.

Quiet.

Close door. Put down flashlight and candle. Get back in bed.

Ratta-TAT-Ratta-TAT-Ratta-TAT-Ratta-TAT!!!!!!!!

“SH*T!!!!! Frog! I’m going to get you!” I yell. (My poor neighbor in #4 bungalow. It’s now 2:20am.)

Ratta-TAT-Ratta-TAT-Ratta-TAT-Ratta-TAT!!!!!!!!

“FROG! You are going to get a candle on your machine gun head!”

I swing a sarong around me. Again. Grab the flashlight. Again. Pick up the candle. Again.

I open the door. Again.

Ratta-TAT-Ratta-TAT-Ratta-TAT-Ratta-TAT!!!!!!!!

Cool, he’s still going. I can hear that he’s in the back of the bungalow, not the front.

At least I know which direction he’s in.

I walk through wet weeds along the left side of my bungalow to get to the back where HE is. Brambles grab at my ankles. I’m cursing the frog under my breath.

He’s still happily doing his machine gun mating call (or whatever the heck that sound is).

I pick up the candle and hurl it in his direction. It comes bouncing down at my feet.

What the heck?

I shine the flashlight up and see that it must have hit the barbed wire fence separating my bungalow from the rice field behind where The Frog is happily rata-tatting away.

Damn frog.

I want to kill him.

It’s a good thing there is a barbed wire fence separating us or I would find my way into the rice fields and who knows what would happen to The Frog.

I realize that I only have one candle–there really is nothing else to throw at him. No stones around, nothing in my room. So I have one shot to get a good night’s sleep.

I move the flashlight to my left and the candle to my right throwing hand.

Pressure.

I hurl the candle over.

Plop.

It lands in the wet rice field.

The frog sounds including The Sound From Hell instantly stop.

Quiet.

Quiet.

Quiet.

Quiet.

I walk into my bungalow, set the flashlight down and go to bed.

Ratta-TAT-Ratta-TAT-Ratta-TAT-Ratta-TAT!!!!!!!!

“AGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!”

(Again, my poor neighbor in #4. I am making more noise with my groaning than The Fricken Frog but really I can’t help myself.)

Somehow I get to sleep. Don’t ask me how. It was like experiencing chinese water torture in my ears every three minutes.

Then at 6am I dream that roosters are taking over the world. They are everywhere.

But then I wake up and it is reality (at least in Bali):

‘R-R-R-R-R!’ goes the rooster.

I walk out to see where this rooster is. Perhaps if I can see the rooster for myself I can figure something out. Maybe I can ask his owner to move him away from bungalow #3?

Something.

I peer over the wall where the sound is obviously coming from.

I see a Balinese man, in his twenties, feeding the rooster by hand. The rooster eats out of his hand and then cocks his head and looks at his owner and then crows again. Right after the rooster crows the Balinese man feeds him. This Balinese man is obviously teaching his beloved rooster to crow. At 6 in the morning.

Though I don’t like how this ‘Balinese rooster training’ wakes me up in the morning, I have to admit: watching the way this man and his bird are interacting is pretty darn cute.

So I walk back to my beautiful bungalow, have some tea and go to the 7:30am yoga class down the street.

Which I never would have done had the rooster not begun his crowing at 6am.

I may begin to get used the ever-present Balinese roosters.

But I hope to God I never hear Machine Gun George again.

He’ll be sorry if I do.

Tagged as: Bali, frogs in Bali, rooster-free sleep, Ubud, Ubud Bali