Madness

A tilted moon sits askew in the sky above, smiling down on me like the wicked grin of the Cheshire cat.

I am driving on a semi-legal moped down a curving semi-paved path surrounded with water filled rice fields. I say semi-legal because I don’t have a license so in essence it is me who is being illegal, the moped (even though I’ve seen it outrun most European speed limits) is innocent. And the reason I say semi-paved is because even though someone has gone through the trouble of asphalting to this tiny stretch of random countryside trail it is filled with cracks and potholes and ‘repaired’ with broken stones. But that seems to be the way of things here. Nothing ever really works as intended, yet nothing ever seems to stops working either.

Even the weather appears to be out of order. We are in the beginnings of the rain season, they tell me, but it has been a strange one so far. Mostly because it is not raining.

Which means hot, sunny days and warm, cloud free nights. So, hey, I’m not complaining.

Right now we are heading down this broken track to reach a bar named Pretty Poison. A swell place for all I hear, sporting cheap beer, good music and most interesting of all, a skate pool where the dance floor should be.

We get to the place a quarter past midnight, it is a concrete facade in the middle of nowhere. Had it not been for the bright lights, the booming music and the army of parked motos outside I would never have guessed what it was.

We enter into an open floor, there is a bar, a DJ booth and in the far corner, in a couch, a tattoo artist is hard at work on someones shoulder (Because why the hell not?). The people though, are gathered around the main attraction. We try to catch a glimpse of the action through the sea of haircuts when a half naked guy covered in tattoos comes sailing through the air and the crowd goes bananas.

Erik, my trusted companion and brother in beers takes a swig of his Bintang and says to me in Swedish.

“That’s the crazy Russian. He doesn't speak a word of English but damn, he can skate.”

I am enthralled, this place, the people, the vibe. Not just of this bar but of all of Bali. An Island only half the size of Gotland with the half again the population of Sweden (not counting the tourists). Things are being made on such a massive scale that it seems to disobey the laws of physics, economics and even common sense.

It is insane, pazzo, absolutely bat shit crazy.

And I fucking love it.

Or as the Checshire cat said to Alice

“We’re all mad down here.”

To be continued...