Posted under Bali
We arrived in the late evening and stepped out into the breezy night air to find a friendly face with a sign bearing our name – always a welcome sight in a new country. The drive to our hotel in Legian, just north of Kuta, provided flashing glimpses of upscale resort hotels with patios bathed in incandescent glow; a startlingly ubiquitous presence of “culture Americana” with all of the usual suspects – McDonald’s, Starbucks, KFC, Dunkin’ Donuts – and random others. It was the face of a tourists’ haven, the likes of which we had not seen since Thailand. In the dark of night, I might easily have mistaken it for an American beach town but eventually the bright lights gave way to narrower streets and alleyways crowded with vendor stalls and smaller, locally-owned businesses. Our hotel – Sayang Maha Mertha – was tucked inconspicuously into the corner of two quiet alleys. Between the hotel and the beach – a ten-minute walk – lay every type of shop and service that we might need: laundry, tailor, transport, tours, garment and trinket shops, and enough restaurants and bars as to avoid repetition in a much longer stay than our intended four nights.
The beach was solely for surfers, not for swimmers; in fact, “No Swimming” signs were posted in many areas with dangerous rip tides. The big, rolling waves were beautiful to watch while walking along the shore in the finely pounded sand. Lining the top of the beach, a long thicket of shady tropical trees provided shelter from the blistering sun for the local beach touts offering cold drinks, massages, hats, sunglasses, watches, jewelry and the occasional muted offer of hashish and magic mushrooms. Bali is one of the handful of Asian countries wherein drug trafficking is punishable by death; a very large warning sign greets visitors as they wait in the long lines at Immigration. I don’t know what the penalty is for recreational use and I don’t want to find out. Aaron made me watch Return to Paradise, a movie about a young American tourist who gets hanged for hashish possession in Malaysia, and I still can’t get the images out of my head.
Our time in Legian and Kuta was mostly aimless and relaxing. On our second day, we hired a car and driver from the hotel to take a day trip to John Hardy’s workshop, north of Denpasar. In a rare (okay, not really) moment of compromised judgment and pessimistic frustration regarding the sale of our Texas home (I’m not patient by nature), I indulged in some retail therapy at Needless Markup (Neiman Marcus). My introduction to John Hardy (the jewelry, not the man) was an accident, really. I was looking for Yurman and stumbled upon Hardy with the help of a perky sales associate with excellent taste. Despite Aaron’s better judgment, he conceded to ease my frustrations with two fabulous pieces, which sliced about a month of travel funds out of the pie. Strangely, I still have no regrets.
Eager to learn about the brains behind the beauty, I found John Hardy’s website and read that his workshop was in Bali; not only that, but visitors were welcome to tour the compound and join the employees for their daily family-style lunch at one o’clock sharp. Having made an appointment in advance, we rode through the narrow busy streets of Denpasar and north toward Kapal. Driving west from there, the tightly packed homes and temples slowly dissipated, revealing breathtaking views of terraced rice fields – Bali’s rural treasures.
John Hardy’s workshop is a sprawling, secluded organic farm. The buildings are energy-efficient, made of natural materials and bear the mark of an environmentally-conscious artist. Everything that is planted on the land is edible, used to provide the hundreds of local workers a daily wholesome lunch.
We arrived at 11:30 and began with a private shopping hour in the showroom – a tall, steep-pitched structure made of bamboo and thatch and built over a rice field. I could sense Aaron starting to sweat and justifiably so. We have spent the past eight months shedding our shallow materialism, one layer at a time, but get me into a room full of shiny, sparkling pretty things and, in two seconds, I regress to the former shameless victim of American consumerism whose gluttonous desires I’ve worked so hard to squash. Oh, the humanity! Only this time, I don’t have a job. My husband doesn’t have a job. Our sole source of current income is the unimpressive interest rate on our ever-shrinking pot of travel money. These facts alone should cause a rational person to say “Thanks, but no thanks” to the private shopping hour to begin with but the gleam in my eyes, reflecting off the hammered gold of the Palu collection blinded me to all rationality I might otherwise have been able to muster. What is it with women and the forbidden fruit? Fine jewelry is like a drug – the more you get, the more you want.
We both knew that Aaron came along as the good shepherd of his credit card. He sat patiently in one of the showrooms hanging chairs while I circled each display case like a lioness stalking a herd of wildebeests, carefully selecting its prey. Seduced by my surroundings, I knew that I wanted something – a remembrance – because you can’t visit John Hardy’s workshop in Bali and leave empty-handed, can you? Of course you can, thought the good shepherd silently. His face betrayed his thoughts and so did mine. It was like a silent standoff, each of us gauging the other’s determination and contemplating our own limits of compromise. No words had been exchanged. Aaron sat in his hanging throne and I took a seat on the steps in the middle of the showroom, pondering defeat but trying not to show it. But then something changed. I looked over at Aaron and he nodded. I stared into his eyes, trying to determine whether that nod could possibly mean…could it? He nodded again. Yes. As I held his gaze, I was overcome with sudden emotion – my eyes welled up with tears. It sounds silly, I know, but it was the gesture that got me. You see, when you’re unemployed travelers, every unnecessary dollar spent on frivolous wants means less days on the road (a.k.a. less days until you have to wake from the dream and get a job). Aaron has no interest in jewelry and I was touched by his selfless willingness to drop some dough on a glittery treasure to make me smile.
With renewed enthusiasm, I began circling the displays again. There were so many beautiful things. My natural (inherited?) affliction of champagne taste tangled with my desire not to take advantage of Aaron’s generosity, sparking a stalemate of indecision. My husband knows me like the back of his hand and sensed my plight. Both to assuage my guilt and hedge against the potential damage, he suggested a round of rock, paper, scissors – an elementary but effective way of decision-making. He suggested the following terms: if I won, I could guiltlessly take home any single piece in the showroom but, if he won, I got nothing. I’ve never been much of a gambler – a decidedly positive trait passed down from my father – so, at first, this seemed like a bad deal for me since I was technically already authorized to make a purchase. But in the glitter and gleam of gold, silver and precious stones, I somehow became that greedy game show contestant who puts her big winnings on the line to go for the grand prize. I went for it. My heart was racing as was Aaron’s, I’m sure. One, two, three! Tie: rock-rock. One, two, three! Tie: paper-paper. Madness! On what would become the third and tie-breaking round, my paper covered Aaron’s rock and the crowd (inside my head) went wild! I could hardly contain my excitement. I wanted to scream “The world is mine!”
One o’clock came with my staggering indecision still hovering over us with Aaron patiently waiting to determine the final damage. We walked over a bamboo bridge to a long table set beautifully under a canopy. We took our places, listened to a brief welcome announcement, and chatted with the staff as we passed the steaming Balinese dishes. The food was fresh and delicious and the conversation stimulating since several of the employees were well-traveled themselves; a few were European or Australian, working for John Hardy out of Bali or Hong Kong. The conversation stayed centered around our favorite subject: travel. Regrettably, Mr. Hardy was not present.
After lunch, we took a brief tour of one of the workshops, where Balinese craftspeople were creating the individual pieces. It was fascinating to get behind the scenes to watch the shiny materials being molded, hammered and plied into the beautiful treasures coveted by women in pretentious department stores. The workers were all friendly and the work conditions seemed pleasant.
After the tour, it was time to pick my prize. I’d circled the showroom several times already. At lunch, most of the female employees were dripping with John Hardy jewelry and one of them had worn a small silver bracelet that was simple and pretty. With carte blanche to choose anything I wanted, I chose a similar small bracelet (notably one of the least expensive items on display), much to Aaron’s surprise. I liked it because I can wear it while traveling without worrying about getting mugged…and I earned some brownie points with my relieved husband, which will undoubtedly be leveraged at the appropriate time. I walked out of John Hardy’s showroom happy as a fat kid in a candy shop, my new treasure already shimmering in the afternoon sun.
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