Afterwards

 

 

I've been over 80 for over a year now but I didn't quite grasp the reality of that until I was in Bali recently.  

I've accepted that I don't need to deny being 'elderly' and accepted the physical changes that come with aging, the wrinkles and sags.  I think I've maintained a positive outlook on life and felt happy in my new home in a retirement village.  OK, there are a few physical challenges and health issues but generally I've been happy and content with my lot.

When I've reflected on the years it's more on the joys of life than the challenges.  I've been blessed with good physical genes including the gene for happiness.  That's the one I appreciate most and am most thankful for.  (By the way, I gave up caring about ending a sentence with a preposition when I turned 80.)

But I have to admit Bali almost undid all that.  In Bali I felt old.  Like struggle to keep a smile on my face old, struggle to take 10 steps old.  I've lived in coastal tropical North Queensland and in north-west Queensland but I'd forgotten how long ago that was and the difference those years had made to how my  body would cope with the heat.  And while I was struggling negative thoughts crept in and I remembered that my great-grandmother died in Australia during a heat wave.  When she was 91, Pauline, 91, not 81!

Thankfully, that happiness gene is a strong one.  Once my body had recovered from Bali heat and Bali Belly I bounced back.

I'm pretty sure that my lasting impression of Bali will be the people, the traffic and the food.  The people are the most polite and courteous I have ever met.  Obviously older people are accorded great respect.  When I needed help on stairs (or stepping stones) someone would quickly step forward to assist, as if it were an honour to do so. 

I can't even begin to explain the traffic.  It's just crazy.  The bikes and cars are practically crammed together yet the traffic flows, if slowly.  There is no aggression, the constant tooting of horns is simply someone saying, "I'm a bike, coming through."  There are very few traffic lights and I couldn't figure out any Give Way rules.  

 

 photo courtesy https//thebalisun.com

With both my daughter and grandson being regular visitors to Bali, I ate local dishes that they recommended. Most of them seemed rice-based, light but spicey and built around meat, mostly pork.  Often it would be a plate of rice topped with small portions of different dishes.  The meals were never large but always filling.  There was lots of coconut, herbs, and spice pastes.  It was always tasty.

I won't forget the overhead wires in a hurry, it was hard to take a photo and avoid them.  All the photos I took of the ducks in the paddy fields have wires in them.  A driver told me the wires have got a lot worse since the arrival of the internet.  The ducks live in the rice paddies helping manage pests while naturally fertilising the soil. Their eggs are collected fresh and used in the kitchens although I don't remember seeing duck on menus.

 

Can you imagine a serviceman trying to find the line that has the fault in this lot?