Bali was dripping with, well, Bali.
It's a small island.
Dotted with two volcanos.
It has rice terraces, swamplands, mountains, tropical forest, black volcanic beaches, white sandy beaches, crystal clear waters, death-defying cliffs, surf that stirs your loins, and crappy food.
It's a smokers paradise: Dunhill, Camel, Marlboro.
Bali is what you want it to be.
I'm not one for the Kuta nightlife.
Give me the slower pace of the villages.
I find myself chainsmoking.
It certainly can't be good for me.
The chicken farms.
I'm a regular visitor.
But where have they gone?
They have all shut down.
This isn't the Bali of my wet dreams.
It's become drab.
No more chicken farms.
I was honored to be part of it.
The five buck fucks, if you were lucky.
It's all vanished.
Bali has cleaned up.
But around Kuta way, it's business as usual with night clubs and massage joints.
The locals are being deprived of their chicken.
The Ayam Kumpongs are vanishing from the landscape.
Bali is becoming drab.
Maybe it's time to hit Borneo.
At least there, they don't give a fuck about the puritan edicts Jakarta dishes out to its colonies.
