The Journey to Heaven is Not a Stairway
The wind was blowing bits of my hair from underneath the black helmet that wasn’t mine. The sky seemed darker than usual, until I pulled off my sunnies only to have my innocent eyes bombarded by rays of sunlight. I squinted, bending down to touch the tops of my feet. They stung and were as red as a bad rash. But they were just “friendly” markings from the hot sun that’s been blazing on the exposed parts of my body.
It was our 2nd day in Bali and we were determined to waste our time on its beaches. When we accidentally bumped into one of our friends from Jakarta, he told us of a nice unpolluted beach away from Kuta in Parang Rai. It was the main destination of the day…. Until we found out that we were also headed in the same direction as the infamous Dreamland Beach.
The lack of work it must’ve taken to come up with it’s name aside, none of us had ever gone before. Nagged by curiosity, we decided to take a detour there.
The journey to Dreamland was not at all dreamy. It was a simple road, very small and narrow. With turns that were only fit for the slithering of a snake, drops as deep as a rollercoaster ride, the fact that some of these motorbikes we’d rented weren’t equipped with proper brakes was a tad horrific. The view was as superb as it gets, with nothing but green vegetation and random cows wandering about like they owned the place.
After the 15 minute joyride, we finally made it to a clearing.
At first we thought we were on a cliff, with no way to get down. But it turned out there was more land after the hanger that stretched downwards towards the beach. And right at the end of the slope was a little flowing river of water leading straight into the ocean.
Heaven.
I’ve never been to heaven but I’m certain it would look like that. Dreamland was like the prettiest seaside painting ever come to life. The ocean water glistened like the sapphires I never had. Untainted white puffs of clouds were high in the sky. Placed across from the light blue ocean was the luckiest hotel in the world. There were dots of people walking along the beachside. Some tried to catch its beauty in pictures, others just relaxed and took in the miracle before them. There was even a man selling ice cream in an old pushing cart nestled on the slope, accompanied by a black-and-white dog sniffing around looking for leftovers. The whole thing reminded me of those perfect retro beach portraits you only see in diners, with beach umbrellas popped open neatly aligned along the hotel grounds. I sighed longingly and strode into my first step towards nirvana. “Island of Gods”, certainly it was.
A piece of Heaven on earth.
