fear and loathing in bali: dancing with statues

we turned the corner to the front of the temple with some difficulty. the sarongs were wrapped too tightly around our legs.

the women sitting nearby caught sight of us and giggled. in fact, they did more than giggle - they pointed at us and laughed outright. it sounded menacing, though they were only mocking our badly fitted sarongs. one of the women came up, smile of amusement still on her face, and proceeded to help wrap our cloth more comfortably.

with our newly fitted sarongs, we climbed up the stairs leading up into the temple. tranquility. all around us were weather worn statues of deities. i took a few close-ups. one of them winked at me through my camera lens. i reviewed the photos but there wasn't any mischievous glint in the statues' eyes on my screen.

must have been the sunlight, i thought. or the martini that i just had.

i went through a little doorway, just in time to see that a little statue had jumped from its perch and was clinging to the side of my friend's body. she shrieked and jumped about, a crazy dance spurred by horror. the statue held firm and bared its teeth at me.

i shrank back cowardly.

the boyfriend rushed forward and swatted at the stone figure that came alive. it hissed and leaped away into the relative wilderness in the far corner.

all around us, the other statues were beginning to stir...

we hitched up our sarongs and ran out as fast as we could. the mocking laughter of the women still ringing in our ears.

there was a cut on the boyfriend's hand where the wayward statue had lashed out at him. no apparent side effects though he had started complaining about stiff shoulders recently...