Just returned from my roving office in the delightful Gianyar Regency digs of Ubud. Fair to say the scratches, stings, frights, heat, dehydration, rashes, burns and techno frustration might take a Bintang or two to address.

Even returning to Tullamarine through some rocky Thor-inspired mischief, I swear there was a gremlin on the wingtip. Maybe to be expected, after a 10-day litany of mischief that started day one when I dived into the pool in 32-degree 120% humidity to find it a near-steaming hot bath.

Scalded, I slunk back to my room’s ice-box aircon and sat there shivering for an hour before realising my foolishness. Throat, nose, chest, decrepit carcass in general, realised the foolishness next day too – and every day the next two weeks. No respite. Barking, sneezing, dribbling, snorting mess.

No sympathy from the monkeys tackling the balcony door in search of food. Or the aggro bugger who emerged from a river gorge looking to jump in the pool with me, until I howled him away.

I’d already had the little devils trying to thieve my phone and sunnies at a temple. Hissing at me on the street, too. Nothing a good shanghai slingshot can’t fix, mind you, although hotels, lacking faith in tourist sniper skills, take a dim view of this.

Had a snake eyeballing me over the pool-edge, too, which sent me Michael Phelpsing out of the water. Prefer my snakes snoozing in the paddies. I once found an evil little green thing in my bed. Thought it was a worm until advised otherwise. Very dangerous, Indi. Been checking under the cot ever since.

No earthquakes this time round, but a nearby Sumatran volcano eruption reminded me the Ring of Fire’s always a player.

What were playing included cliff-path landslips, footpath sinkholes, near-skittlings, pythons in roadside ditches, violent electrical storms, daredevil bike-rides, errant fireworks, suspect cocktails and Lomotil-wrangling over a dodgy nasi campur.

Animals, like haggling and taxi cons, are expected. And flea-bitten squirrels, birds, rice-field ducks, zoo orang-utans and beachside puppies are cute enough.

It’s the hornets, horse-flies, bees and mozzies that are tricky. And walking inadvertently into a hotel fumigation in progress. Does nothing for a tropical cold.

But hey, you wouldn’t be dead for quids. And two words: jungle bars. I’m back up there next bus out of here. Sniff, sniff …

This article appeared in the Geelong Advertiser 12 December 2023