My Coming of Age in Bali

Where I’m befriended by a local teenager, take magic mushrooms and secretly lose my innocence

Out of the blue, Sani burst out laughing. We were leaning against the temple wall at one end of the tiny village of Kuta, in Bali.

“Ada apa?” I asked, taken aback by her sudden hysterics.

“I’ve lived here all my life,” she managed, gasping for air, “I know what’s here!”

I waited.

“All these people, they are so busy! But what are they doing? Where do they think they are going— and so importantly?”

I couldn’t help but laugh, seeing the scene from her eyes.

The dirt road thronged with white, barefoot hippies — mostly male, sunburned, and bearded. The men clutched surfboards, while the women wore Indonesian kains knotted western-style under their armpits, and sleeves of silver bracelets that tinkled and clunked every time they moved their arms.

Some were waiting in line for fruit ices, while others had parked their surfboards and crowded the food stalls, where there were only two items on the menu: mushroom omelet, and mushroom soup.

That would be magic mushroom. These hippies were tripping. Every day, all day, and well into the night.

Their talk was loud and in English, peppered liberally with Americanisms: Cool, Dude, Far out man!, Like — wow! A stream of striding young men with surfboards were heading for the beach.

Sani told me that she had never been to the beach. Her people avoid the sea. The only time they go near it is for a cremation burial, and not at Kuta — the undertow is dangerous.

“Come on, it’ll be alright, let’s go down together,” I said. So we held hands and took the path to the vast pristine beach.

There were several lone figures on the sands, waving their arms in the air and swaying in rapture, talking to the air, or just standing stock still, staring intensely at nothing. One woman was trying to bury herself with sand but kept jerking her legs, destroying the mound and patiently rebuilding it.

“What’s wrong with them?” Sani asked, giggling.

“They ate magic mushrooms,” I explained to her, “they are off their heads.”

There were surfers in the water, riding the huge waves. We were both entranced and stood watching their acrobatics for ages, until Sani regretfully had to go back to her duties.

Though I was only 15, I would also be partaking of the mushroom soup, along with my sister and step-brother who were my companions on this holiday.

We three spoke Indonesian fluently. My step-brother was not a surfer. He was an anthropologist, had learned Indonesian in college, and when he wasn’t fucking my sister he was interviewing local farmers and headmen for his MA thesis on traditional Balinese farming practices.

For my sister and me, Indonesian was our second mother-tongue, and we called Jakarta home.

This was 1975, and Kuta was a tiny village with one dirt road, plus another short one down to the beach. The only dwellings on the five-mile beach were an abandoned pink bungalow and some foreigner’s house on tree-high stilts.

Though I haven’t seen it with my own eyes, I am told Kuta’s beachfront has become five miles of high-rise hotels. I’d hate to go back and see it now.

I did go back to Kuta the next year, and the first thing I did was look for Sani. I went to her family’s losmen where we had stayed and asked for her. No one knew her name. Their eyes slid off mine sideways, they mumbled “kurang tahu.”

I was beside myself until I found and cornered Sani’s sister.

“O,” she said, “Sani mati!”

Sani is dead.

“Mati?!!”

Sani had gotten together with an Australian surfer and left Bali with him. As far as her family and village were concerned, she was gone, never to be seen again. Whether she had actually died was a moot point. She was no longer around, and that was as good as dead.

I mourned her. We had become instant and firm friends, and that is still a rare thing for me, fifty years on.

But back to 1975, and me, a third wheel to my sister’s and step-brother’s dubious romance.

On the ferry, as we were approaching Bali, a massive shooting star blazed across the sky, passed down in front of a mountain and seemingly fell to earth. I took it as a portent that my long-time wish would finally come true.

We stayed the night in Den Pasar, and on the bus to Kuta, I noticed a clean-shaven surfer guy who couldn’t get on the bus ‘cos it was full. He didn’t make a fuss, just shrugged his shoulders and smiled ruefully. I liked him for that.

That same guy turned up at our lodging the next day, and I took that as a portent, too. His name was Steve, and he bonded with my step-brother but paid scant attention to me.

At 15, I was sulky, sultry, sex-obsessed — and spotty. I’d had acne since I was 12 and believed I was hideous, and that was why I’d never had a boyfriend. My confidence and self-esteem were rock bottom. Here is a photo of me then, Clearasil hiding my spots. Sigh. If only young women could know that youth is beauty!

If you haven’t guessed already, my long-time wish was to have sex — with a guy.

Three days in Kuta, and my step-brother suggested we all try the magic mushrooms. We sat in a stall and ate the soup, but then I was left to my dissatisfied, hormone-filled self, while they disappeared back to bed at the losmen.

I wandered down to the beach and tried body surfing — jumping onto a breaker and letting it carry me into shore. That was fun, until I missed, and got sucked under into a maelstrom. I was in a washing machine, pelted by sand and being tumbled around so much that I couldn’t tell which way was up, and was powerless to move there, anyway.

Finally, the ocean let me go, I surfaced, coughed, and found that I had been sucked out to sea by the undercurrent, and another massive wave was bearing down on me. Into the washing machine with me again, and all I could think was I don’t want to die a virgin!

Here comes Steve.

He was surfing, saw me in trouble, and saved me.

We went back to the losmen together, and without even the slightest hint of an invitation, I walked after him into his room, peeled off my bathing suit, and lay down on his bed.

I was under the influence of Mills and Boon romance novels as well as psilocybin, so your guess is as good as mine what was going on in my head right then. Happily, Steve didn’t think twice, took off his clothes and duly tupped me.

There was a bit of difficulty, — possibly my hymen was in the way, — but the deed was done, and was over before I knew it.

I got up to pee, and saw there was blood on the sheets.

“I suddenly got my period,” I lied, “sorry.”

Steve was as embarrassed as I was, so I put my wet suit back on, and left.

He never said a word to me the next day, or the next, and then he was gone.

I only told Sani, and only after he had gone.

“It was boring,” I told her, “nothing like I expected. And afterwards, he acted like I didn’t exist.”

“Do you feel different?” Sani asked.

“I thought I’d feel ‘grown-up’ after I’d lost my virginity, but I don’t. It’s more like… I’ve lost my innocence. They should call it that, losing your innocence. You know how men look at you? It always made me feel uncomfortable and horribly self-conscious, but now I know why. I know what’s behind the way they look at you. It’s worse.”

“And you can’t un-know it?” Sani, my wise young friend said.

“Yes! Exactly.”

Did I influence the course of Sani’s life? Within a year she too had slept with a surfer and then left Bali with him. I often wonder what her life turned out like, whether she stayed with him, and whether she ever returned to her childhood home.

Strange things do happen, so maybe, just maybe, one day I will know.