Bedridden in Bali is a bloody bummer. Say that five times fast.
No surprise, really. I’ve been in more airplanes than cars the past two-plus months. Indonesia will only let me stay 30 days. That’s the bitch of it. There’s so much to do here that trips my trigger: hiking, ATVs, rafting, exploring. This place is stunning.
If Japan is Papa Bear and Thailand is Baby Bear, Bali is the smoking hot Auntie Bear. Wowza. For real. Breathtaking, beautiful Bali. Thailand was infatuation. Bali might be the real deal.
Five days of laying in bed—no Vicks, no Emergen-C, no aspirin, none of my traditional placebos to ease cold and flu symptoms. Back home, if it wasn’t in my medicine cabinet, it was at the store down the street. Here, my translator app won’t play Indonesian, so I’m clueless as to what’s comparable. Deciphering gibberish is not my forte.
If I knew what to ask for, I’d order a Grab to bring me supplies. Like Thailand, scooters are everywhere. The streets are so narrow, two cars can’t pass side by side. Pedestrians don’t have the right of way—they have no rights at all. No crosswalks. Sidewalks, if you find one, are mangled and full of potholes. Scooters whiz by inches from your skin. No one’s afraid to brush you with their vehicle. It’s crazy, for real.
Foggy head and all, I shift into high-alert bob-and-weave mode. My cough’s gone from a dry sinus situation to a full-on lung-infested phlegm fest. Swift, precise action is called for. I’d rather die in the street than spend my final moments in bed.
My incubator period passed in a haze. I managed to get through six entire seasons of Hell’s Kitchen—albeit not in order. I started with 23, then 22, 21, jumped to 11, then 10, before finally deciding to just start at the beginning.
Kind of mirrors my trajectory through Southeast Asia..
There’s something oddly comforting hearing Gordon Ramsay drop F-bombs every other sentence.
Americans think you can walk into any pharmacy in Asia and pick up whatever drugs you want. You cannot. Not that I’m seeking drugs—but I know when bronchitis is about to hit. What I need is antibiotics, codeine cough syrup, and Albuterol to attack and alleviate.
Instead I”m given Lord knows what. I can’t even find a cough drop in this place.
Just a bag of hocus pocus that cost me 730,000 Rupiah. That’s right. Seven-hundred-and-thirty thousand Rupiah.
Good God. I thought Baht was confusing.
Boggle boggle—whose mind is boggled?
Mine.
Maybe it’s just all the snot coagulating in my sinus cavities but I’m standing at the counter unable to comprehend this massive number. All this juju better work. That’s a shit ton to fork over for whatever mystery meds they gave me.
I have no choice but to charge it. My little purse only holds a measly 600,000 Rupiah. It’s all the cash I have till I’m well enough to make it to Western Union for reinforcements.
Apparently, Chase considers Indonesia a “high-risk country” and refuses to mail me my ATM card.
OMG. The never-ending saga continues.
Making my way back home, I stop by a flesh eating fish place to bite off my callouses. Maybe these little carnivorous guppies can somehow eat away my cold. No luck. It does distract me from impending doom for 10 minutes
Walking up the steep hill to my villa (actually, my place overlooks the real villa, I think I’m in the maids quarters), I pass a stall advertising a 7-hour sunrise hike up Mount Batur.
Right up my alley. Takeoff is 3:00 a.m.
Groovy. I’ll still be awake.
This is the incentive I need to take my medicine, whatever it may be, make myself better, and get back to living.
Sick in Bali with no medicine, no Vicks, no antibiotics, no Albuterol. Boggled by prices, symptoms, and scooters. This Bali travel experience took a turn. If you’re traveling to Bali and suddenly get sick—bronchitis, cold, flu—here’s what it’s really like. What to expect at pharmacies in Bali, how to survive being sick while traveling, and why 30-day tourist visas don’t help.
