I am no different to the hordes of tourists who flock to Bali’s
beaches for great surf and massages. They
don’t get far, sticking to the main strip of Kuta Beach, never really
experiencing why this island is so famous for beaches and magical people. I leave
the bodies frying on the beach for Medewi, home to the longest left hand break
in the world and to the magic hands of Ugis.
Ugis isn’t healer or a magic man who levitates when he
walks. He doesn’t wear a turban, have a wise-man beard or have any air of pretentious
piety about him. He wears a surfer’s t-shirt, jean shorts and smokes a cigarette.
Yet Ugis is known around the world for healing with his magic hands. He would never tell you this, another guest
at his homestay explains how she met him on the beach 12 years ago and he fixed
a chronic ligament problem in her foot. But
you know when you meet him there is something a bit special about him, he has
that look in his eye.
On a massage table outside overlooking paddy fields, he asks
where I am broken. I tell him I have no major problems – which is true, but to also
test his magic hands. He finds my shoulders, knotted from years of work hunched over a computer. Ohhhh what is this, this is a problem, here is
a problem, he says and talks to my back with his hands.
After nearly two hours of fixing my back Ugis finishes,
looking tired and laboured. He leaves me
to have a cigarette. I’m exhausted too and sit catching my breath, dripping
coconut oil listening to the call to prayer reach me from over the paddy
fields. My back feels great, but I feel greater.
It was a magical experience, it sounds cheesy and cynics need to stop
reading now, but I did feel a sense of magic.
Ugis’s son Rama isn’t magic with his hands, but as his name
suggests he is a bit of a god, a surf god. The fourteen year old who has been surfing
since he was a child has just on won the local surf competition and reckons he
can get me carving it up. (Surfer speak for surfing.)
Rama gives me Surfing 101. We lie on the beach pretending to
paddle and get up on the board. I
actually practiced this at home before I left, even figuring out whether I had
a natural or goofy stance. Doing it in
my pyjamas on my stable lounge floor unfortunately doesn’t help me much when I
am doing it at sea on a moving wave.
Rama hung onto the back of my board, pushed me into the
waves and screamed at me to get up, get up. I got up half way, fell off. Got
up a bit further and fell off. Fell off, got back on the board. On my last and
best wave I hear Rama cheering me on and see him doing the surfers wave with
his hand.
If you had told me that I would be surfing and getting
massages in Bali I wouldn’t have been interested. It’s not that surfing and massages aren’t my
thing, but the impression I had about Bali was that it is all tourists do on
beaches is get tans by day and get drunk by night. I had no idea that there was more to Bali
than this and feel a bit embarrassed that I hadn’t taken the time to look a
little further dig a little deeper to find out more. I’m happy to admit that destinations like Bali
are not my thing, I’m a traveller, not a tourist, but the more I think about
this, the more I think it has to do with your attitude and not your
destination.
