Chasing Amy-Lou

Ubud, Bali, Indonesia;

I naively thought (because I’m so young in my years), that Golden Showers were what pornographic dreams were made of. Some people find it a turn on. Some people find it sexy. Not me. I find it pretty repulsive. And as it turns out, Golden Showers are actually not what pornographic dreams are made of but what dormitory dreams are made of. Let me explain…

Returning from a wonderful first day at the Ubud Village Jazz Festival, full of the joys of music and song, I jumped into bed and awaited the onslaught of beautiful sleep. And beautiful sleep came: I’d been struggling to get a decent nights kip for a long while but that evening (albeit after a few shandies and a lot of free sangria) I managed it. That was however, until I was woken at around 5:30am by some strange and suspect noises.

I was staying at a place called In Da Lodge, a really chilled hostel not far from Ubud Palace. It was the same hostel I’d stayed in two years previous and coincidentally, this time, I’d ended up in the exact same room too. Taking the bottom bunk (as I always liked to do) I thought I’d hit the jackpot – no one likes sleeping on the top bunk unless it’s in a prison cell. Anyway, all was good; I’d had no problems with top bunk people and their shenanigans on my trip so far and I was pretty pleased with my roommates too.

As I was saying though, all that suddenly changed when I was rudely woken around 5:30am by some very strange noises. Trying to decipher where these noises were emanating from I listened intently, ears pricked up, senses alert; and I deduced that the muffled mumbling was coming from the bunk above me. “Oh Jesus,” I thought, “he’s not got a bird up there with him has he?!” As I listened a bit more, trying to stretch my ear as far as it would go, craning my neck to make out whether the guy on the top bunk was fornicating with a woman or whether he was just playing with himself, I heard some moaning and then a shuffle, and then some bizarre repositioning. “Surely he’s alone”, I continued to think. “It doesn’t sound like there’s a female up there”.

To my relief, there wasn’t a female up there, but what there was was a sleep-talking, half-drunk young man whose immaturity and inability to distinguish between dreams and reality gave me (and subsequently him) a very unwanted wake-up call. The repositioning and mumbling continued, and by this point I was beginning to get a bit tetchy, after all, he’d disturbed my R.E.M. Then, all of a sudden I heard a very distinct sound. An unmistakable sound. A sound that can be recognised world-wide. A sound that would resonate with me for years; a sound I would probably take to my grave. A sound that I would forever shudder at. I heard the sound of a man pissing against a wall. And the pissing didn’t stop. The bloke on the top bunk had pissed the bed…but not just the bed – he’d pissed against the wall, it had trickled down the side of the bunk and had landed on my mattress, soaking my sheets and splashing onto my legs and arse at the same time. I had literally just been pissed on! I’d been privy to a Golden Shower, in the middle of a six bed dorm, hadn’t even been involved in the build up to it and hadn’t even consented to it. I was mortified!!

Jumping up like one of those Buckaroo Donkeys, I banged on the bunk, shouting: “What the fuck are your doing?! You’ve just pissed on me!!”, and proceeded to utter more obscenities of extreme distaste, waking the whole room up in the process.

My banging must’ve disturbed Pissy Pants’ dreams of pristine porcelain urinals because as soon as I’d kicked the shit out of the mattress he woke up and literally launched himself out of the bed, flying and then falling like a ridiculous Bambi on ice, landing face first on the marble floor, smashing his forehead in the process. Traumatised, not being able to offer any sympathy to his injuries whatsoever (I’d just been pissed on, I was not down for comforting anyone apart from myself), and not really knowing what to do – fuming because I had soiled sheets – I went to reception to plead with them to change my bedding. On the return, I saw Pissy Pants and collared him about his weak bladder. To my amazement he tried to deny it! “Mate, why would I make it up; reception just had to come and change my sheets; everyone in the room knows; do you not remember?” I said, the look of utter disgust and astonishment on my face. He just shrugged and went outside to nurse his probable banging head. And, AND, he didn’t even offer an apology. So, not only had I given zero consent to being showered in urine, I’d been offered not an ounce of retraction either. At that moment in time, at 6am on a Saturday morning in August 2017, I decided I was officially over dorm rooms. The next trip I took, wherever and whenever it would be, I was Air BnB-ing it all the way.

Unfortunate excretion woes behind me (I couldn’t let the incident piss me off too much), I eventually laughed at the situation, made sure my bed was properly fumigated, and took myself off to the final day of the Ubud Village Jazz Festival.

Meeting back up with San Fran and Sisco, our little trio spent the day in blissful escapism – swaying to the sounds of jazz piano and sax, losing ourselves in the glorious tones and colours of the music. Jazz had hooked me and reeled me right in that weekend, and if ever there’d been a time where I was glad, pleased and felt great about spending money on something a little out of my comfort zone, a little different, a little adventurous, then Ubud Village Jazz Festival was it.

The night extended out gloriously before us, and as the festival drew to a close we found ourselves in the company of and in conversations with a few of the artists who’d played the previous day. By sheer luck – and because of our obviously glowing positive auras – we ended up being invited to an after hours artist jam session. Once all the festival-goers had departed, we joined the trumpet players and singers, pianists and guitarists, double bass players and saxophonists, and partied well into the early hours of Sunday morning. It was by far THE highlight of my South East Asian trip.

During the evening I had had a heated debate with an Austrian saxophonist about Brexit and Europe, the state of the UK, and world politics (a dangerous subject for anyone, especially after a few drinks); but then, in total contrast, as the jam session wrapped up, I ended a fantastic two days of music, friendships and new experiences locked in a wonderfully beautiful, charismatic conversational embrace with a Grammy nominated pianist – his cool, calming, gentle and gorgeous aura resonating to the depths of my soul. We talked for hours about music and life; and his actions and tone, the way he spoke, the way he carried himself, his demeanour; they totally affected my every being.

Ubud had helped to heal me, it had reminded me of the person I really was, the person I knew I wanted to be; it had given me strength and had made me realise my self-worth again – I had meant to return to this special place – and this man, this creatively talented artist, this stranger, this delightful human – he had swept through my life for a reason, and I believed he helped contribute to that healing too…and just like the unwanted Golden Shower, I shall never forget it.