Destination: Ubud, Bali 2007

Even after drinking a huge glass, salt-encrusted, of potent margarita, I can still read the writing over there on the wall…..

GET TWISTED @ Naughty Nuri's Warung and Grill  

The hash house in Ubud.

My plate of ribs pushed to one side, I type away on my laptop. 

The sound of motorbikes, Aussie accents, children laughing, Balinese voices, nasal in the smoke- filled air, comes to me as if from under the ocean. 

That margarita must have been stronger than I thought. 

The bowl of mashed potato, scraped clean, sits on the bench behind the laptop. 

The steamed vegetables, barely cooked, swimming in buttery juices, fragrant with garlic, have long gone. 

I have paused in my rib attack… this is only the third time in my life that I have eaten ribs.

I counted them as they lay across the plate, glistening in their coat of red shallots (finely chopped insists, Nuri, the owner), garlic and soy sauce (must be ABC brand). Eleven ribs in all. Hmmmm. 

Is it possible for a cow to be this small I wonder? 

Recollections of an article I read somewhere last week about the number of dogs consumed in the restaurants of Bali comes to mind. 

I check the ribs again…..could be a Pomeranian? 

Better not to go there. 

They ARE very tasty. The meat falls off the bones.

 The barbecue smokes constantly outside Nuri's Warung, mingling with the exhaust of passing motorbikes and the gentle smoke curling upwards from clove-scented cigarettes. 

This eating place has its regulars. A 10 year institution in the mountain town of Ubud, it encompasses the former site of three garages.

The smiling waitress asks if I would like another drink. I am down to the ice in my glass.

I laugh and say 'Motorbike' making a driving action with my hands.

 'You come back tomorrow for martini!' she grins back at me. 

I still have seven ribs to go. 

A group of Japanese have slid onto the bench beside me. The slim woman next to me is standing up to take a photograph of her bowl of soup. 

Perhaps I should offer for her to take a shot of my seven remaining ribs?

It is decidedly hot in this small eating house, despite the enormous open side windows and front doors. The mix of cultures here is indeed global…Balinese, Japanese, Australian, German, American. 

There is a cow smiling down on me from the top of the wall. 

On second thoughts…it must be a Balinese buffalo. 

Cows don't have horns like that…or at least not the cows I remember. 

A voice from across the warung says 'I could drink twenty more of those'. 

I could drink a martini myself……supposedly the best in Bali. 

But for that I will have to finish my ribs and ride on down to the ATM machine.

On second thoughts…I could wrap up the ribs and offer them to the dog that guards the passageway to my house. He looks like he could use them more than me.....