There’s a point in every solo traveller’s life when you start wondering if you’re gonna have a nice funeral.
It’s a question you ask yourself a couple of times a day when the enormity of being all alone in a foreign country hits you right between the eyes and you quietly start imagining about five million ways to die.
Run over by speeding motorcycle taxi, mauled by macaque amidst photoshoot in Monkey Forest, eye watering dehydration death after saying imbecilic “yes” to query of “Spicy?”
The most likely end of life scenario while I’m agreeing to go on an eight-hour tour of Bali with a taxi driver I just met on the street?
Murder by taxi driver I just met on the street.
The tragedy here is that I always place a solid last at the Back-Pedal Olympics.
In fact, history clearly shows that I’ve eaten entire meals after eating entire meals and bought some stone cold crap for the price of a night’s accommodation because I’ve never quite grasped the concept of “get the hell out of there!”
My mother knows I’m being an idiot.
Sure, I’m miles and even oceans away but as I nod my head at the cabbie’s pick-up time and price, my mom, via travelling ancestors and witchcraft, delivers a furious and familiar “Don’t be a fool!” quite clearly into the ear I tend to tug when I’m uncomfortable.
The problem is the man is delighted.
Like many Ubud cabbies and motorcycle taxi men he’s been sitting out on the sidewalk, smiling hopefully at passersby while gesturing enthusiastically to his vehicle for the umpteenth fruitless time that day.
Me, I’ve paid fifty bucks for what turned out to be a trip around the corner and another which was no more than a cough in the opposite direction so I’m wary.
The niggling fear could be abated a little if I had any friends to go with me.
Instead I’ve spent the first five days of my trip pretending I don’t speak English so I don’t have any to make eight hours of small talk with in-between awkward requests for photos.
I don’t mind that as much as being murdered and thrown into some random tangle of Ubud forest so I do what any rational person would do and agree to meet all 130kg of my taxi driver in front of my hotel at 08h00 sharp.
But not without sending his name, number and photograph to my best friend James via WhatsApp with a full itinerary of where I’m gonna be.
At first I leave out the part where I cyberstalk the taxi driver and find out that his name isn’t the name he has on his business card because I don’t want him to worry. About five minutes later, however, I tell him the whole troubling thing because I want the authorities to have a snowball’s chance at justice.
At this point, my thoughts are simply: So people lie about their names. Big deal.
Besides, I’ve cyber stalked this man to within an inch of prosecution so to test his honesty, I ask him if he’s married or has any kids.
His answer is a vehement no and I realize that we would have that in common if he wasn’t a flaming and unflinching liar whose wife and kid I could refresh his memory about on Facebook if I was in the mood to piss off the taxi driver I was currently speeding towards a royal temple with on some treacherous forest-edged road.
It’s clearly time to get a grip.
I allow a shudder of fear, decide that he can keep his secrets and smile brightly at him before saying “Oh, yeah? Me neither.”
Look, if I die at least I’ll die delighted.
The man is taking me to a royal temple, a coffee plantation, a volcanic lake, a rice terrace and a sea temple for less money than I spend on a raucous night out. He’s been nothing but kind, friendly, punctual and accommodating since I met him on the street and I’m in beautiful Bali where I didn’t know a soul until one caught my eye and said:
“Do you want to go on a tour?”
The answer was and still is yes and the man’s name is Yadi.
He doesn’t know that I know he lied about having a wife and kid but by the time he drops me off at my hotel eight hours later he knows a little about me and I know a little about him and I’ve had my best day in Bali.
Him chain-smoking and wolfing down nasi goreng before showing me the way to Tanah Lot. Me lingering at lakes, trying out this thing called trust and thanking Ganesh I didn’t pick a serial killer.