Sountrack to my vacation.

I'm sure that you have all been drooling all over your keyboards in anticipation of what illustrious thoughts/transcendent moments/interesting feelings I would share with you, my literary public, regarding my equal parts lengthy/awesome vacation. Well wait no more! I hereby present:

The Spectacular, Spectular Sonic Accompaniment to My Vacation
[Please note, not all of these songs were listened to by said author during her travels. They have been chosen merely to invoke the mood of various locations, events--albeit an incomplete and possibly unrepresentative cluster--of her trip. Enjoy.]

Stuck in the Middle With You...Bob Dylan

I was, literally, packing my bags to leave Chuuk when a hotel employee knocked urgently on our door.
"Phone call for Peace Corps."
Certain that one of our fellow PCVs was eager to get into contact with either A or C about "social events" for the evening, I sent A down to the lobby to take the call. I was strapping on my snatch hatch (as I so lovingly refer to that dorky piece of travel paraphanelia which attaches around the waist and contains, obviously, the passport) when A burst back through the door.
"J's on the phone!! Get your stuff. Your flight's not coming."
Hooo, what?? I felt as though, after a mere five days, I knew the dusty street (yes, street, that is not a typo) of Weno like the back of my hand. Was I now trapped in some sick, real-life version of Groundhog Day? Had I done something to enrage some higher power or another? Would I really be grounded on Chuuk interminably?
As it turned out, no. Our flight was in fact coming, just in a rather leisurely kind of manner, to the tune of three hours' delay. This did, however, mean that, barring some kind of miracle/the arrival of the Concorde jet on Chuuk, FSM, we would be missing our Guam-->Bali connection. This, in turn, mandated one night's stay in the Hilton on Guam (a big loss. I still cry over it.) and an utterly insane flight itinerary. (a.k.a. Instead of flying straight from Guam-->Bali, we would be flying to Bali VIA TOKYO.) If you look at a map, you will see that this move was, indeed, insane.
Oh well. We might be stuck in the middle, but we'd be living...

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous...Good Charlotte

Let's see: 1) air-conditioned single hotel with a giant white bed AND A COFFEE MAKER (and complete with a balcony with an ocean view of course, dahling)
2) all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast
3) TWO STORY AIRCRAFT (though, alas, we sat on the first floor, mere mortals that we were)
4) the best airline meal I've eaten in life, complete with ice cream, wine, coffee

And all on Continental Airlines' tab. Yeah, not a bad way to start a trip.

Who Let the Dogs Out?...Baha Men

Many people extoll the benefits of travelling with no prior plans--no hostel reservations, no train tickets, etc., etc., etc. This method of travel allows them a wonderful measure of flexibility; they aren't locked into anything, they can follow the recommendations garnered from fellow travellers, etc., etc. Let me tell you something: THESE PEOPLE ARE INSANE.
I felt neither a light sense of carefree, childlike wonderment nor an atmosphere of giddy spontaneity as I dragged my stupidly giant wheeled suitcase around and across and through the twisting alleyways of Legian, Bali at midnight (alleyways which had seemingly been constructed entirely of broken, ill-shaped bricks), ignoring Indonesian men on motorcycles calling "Transport! Transport!" while simultaneously fleeing from/attempting to verbally intimidate small packs of vicious, large-toothed dogs. (Wait, hold on one second--weren't vicious, large-toothed dogs something that I went on vacation in order to get away FROM? What's wrong with this picture?)
We woke up hotel clerk after hotel clerk, all of whom offerred us the same answer. Why of course they had a triple room...with air conditioning. Whether they told us this out of truth or out of spite for being woken up at (now nearly) 1 a.m., I guess we'll never know. The pertinent point is, after waving a stolen broom menacingly at crazed canines, flipping off numerous taxi drivers, and working up a sweat carting our luggage from hotel to hotel, we ended up staying at the second hotel we had talked to. Awesome. [Not.]
At this point (well, at all points), I did NOT heart Bali, in particular Kuta/Legian. This felt less like a vacation and more like the 9th circle of the Inferno.

I Wanna Hold Your Hand...The Beatles

Fortunately, Bali did look up from there. In fact, it looked way up: our first scheduled activity was to climb an active volcano, Gunung Batur. (An activity that some of our friends thought to be folly! Imagine that.)
And that is when our friend J experienced a little phenomenon that the locals like to call "Kintamani magic" (Kintamani is the name of the nearest town to the volcano) firsthand. You see, the plan was to sunrise the volcano. This meant that we began our ascent at some ungodly hour, like perhaps 4:30 a.m. (This departure time would, theoretically, put us at the summit at sunrise. Pretty cool, huh?) Anyway, it also entailed climbing a very steep, volcanic-ash-strewn peak, in the pitch black. Well, J is a bit afraid of heights. Our sherpa friend--unfortunately, his name has slipped my mind, as he did not want to hold my hand--is paid to (and, clearly, enjoys) helping climbers. And thus it came to pass that, while G huddled as close to the ground as possible on the--at times terrifying--descent, and I elicited help from a friendly Frenchman in our group, J and Sherpa tangoed all the way down the mountain.
In fact, I thought for most of the climb that he was just a really helpful dude. It was only when we had reached the straight, flat road at the bottom (and their upper appendages were still entwined) that I began to suspect something. Kintamani magic was for real.

Bed of Roses...Bon Jovi

When I hear the word "spa," if I am not guarding myself ever so closely, I am apt to let out a very audible, disgusted sigh. A place where the obscenely rich sit around with cucumbers on their eyeballs and talk about golf and investment? Puh-leeze. Not for me.
However, when I hear the words "five dollar massage," my ears perk up and a smile lights my face. Really? Where??
As a matter of fact, Ubud. Eventually, the cheapness of the deal overcame my snobbery about not being a snob, and I landed in the entrance of (I still hate to say it) a spa. My friend G and I were paging through "treatments," looking for an appealing package. They asked us if we wanted separate rooms, or if we'd rather share the same room. (Oh! Important note: G is a girl.) Thinking of the delightful conversation we would share through a lace curtain (or something equally snazzy, like silk) as we were being massaged, we elected to share a room. We chose our treatments; however, there was a problem.
"Treatment A has a different kind of bath than Treatment B," we were informed.
Since, for some reason, we could only do the same kind of bath, G changed to another treatment which ended in a "fragrant flower bath of rose petals."
They then led us to our room. We walked by single rooms, each composed of: 1) massage table, and 2) bath tub. We reached our room and entered. Two massage tables...one bath tub? Whoa-ho! What?
And so it came to pass that, after our relaxing massages, G's salt rub, and my papaya treatment, G and I got to take a romantic bath together. In a rather small bath tub, with a low water level. Did I mention that this bath tub was FULL OF ROSE PETALS?
People may tell you that lots of various things are the test of a true friend, but I maintain that that test is: can you, non-awkwardly, enjoy a bath in a tub of rose petals together (while enjoying tea and fruit on cute little plates)?

If you can, congratulations. You are, indeed, true friends.


TO BE CONTINUED. Side B (Thailand) coming soon.