Bali laughs

Kia ora. I'm on a volcano. And look closely: I'm voting Ros Connelly for Upper Hutt for Greater Wellington Regional Council.1

During today's adventure, I bit off a little more than I could chew climbing Mount Batur, an active volcano. But it wasn't the volcano that turned out to be the problem.

It's a couple of hours drive from where I'm staying in Canngu. A driver picked me up in one of those tinted-glass black vehicles that US security companies use to have misadventures in Iraq.

The first part of the drive is flat, through the city, with its shacks and scooters and crowds. The second part climbs through the jungle, towards the mountains. The land here is no longer good for rice - too rocky, uneven and sandy - and so the locals grow chillis, cabbages, green onions. Mount Batur, with a lake of the same name at its foot, rises into cloud.

The driver dropped me in a carpark near the foot of the mountain. It was there I met with my guide: the lecherous farting dipshit who will haunt my nightmares.

The guide told me to get on his motorbike, for the first short leg of the journey. I hesitated. I don't like motorbikes. I like them even less when I'm not insured to be on them. I like them even less still when they come without helmets.

But the guide insisted, and I got on behind him, placing my arms awkwardly around the sweaty torso of this stranger.

The guide, as we bump along: 'I just broke up with my girlfriend'.

Me, stonily: 'I'm sorry to hear that'.

The guide: [Reaches back and grabs my bare thigh.]

Me: [Grits teeth and reflects this is going to be a long day.]

We parked up the motorbike and set out, up the first slope, through sunlit bush on a sandy track. The guide kept trying to take my hand. My refusals were polite at first.

He kept urging me to walk slowly, reminding me we had all day. At first, I was confused. I love a good climb at a good clip. I'm pretty fit, and had the bonus energy of someone mentally preparing to run away from a pervert on a volcano.

It took me a while to work out the problem: the guide was in fact a bit lazy. He kept wanting to sit down and relax. On one occasion - when he'd stopped to ask me if he could have my water, because he'd forgotten his own - he must have sensed my inward eye-rolling.

The guide, defensively: 'I did this this morning'.

The guide again, after a pause: 'I RAN'.

The guide again, to break the awkward pause: 'I don't sleep well. My wife is sick'.

Me: 'I thought you broke up with her'.

The guide: [Gets to his feet again in a pause possibly even more awkward than the earlier pause.]

We marched on up the volcano. The moment that things really turned to custard occurred during another break I didn't want, when the guide turned to me.

The guide: 'So, are you married?'

Me, bellowing: 'STOP!'

Me: [Storms up the mountain in a giant shitty.]

The guide, running after me: 'Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry!'

Higher up, where the bush gave way to dust and red volcanic rock, we stopped at a hut for the fancy lunch I'd paid for. What was actually served is pictured. The guide fannied around so long I got my novel from my backpack and read quietly on the crater's edge.

When we made it to the top, there's no denying: it was remarkable. Geothermal steam from the volcano's vents brushed my legs as I looked into the crater. Then I turned and looked down, through the clearing clouds, at the lake and the jungle, and a vast black stretch in a valley below, the tract where the lava flowed in a massive eruption in the century before the last.

We started back down.

In summary: today I went up a mountain with a mountain guide who didn't really know much about guiding people up mountains. You had one job, mate. PS, dude: it's 'mountain', not 'mounting'.

We made it back to the motorbike, and he urged me back on to ride the final stretch. There are many things in this world I do not understand, but I understood with absolute certainty that I was not getting on that motherheckin' motorbike.

And so I did what I usually do when I don't have the answers in life. I ran. Ran the rest of the way, on the pasty legs of a woman trying to outpace the patriarchy. The guide 'helped' by riding beside me, shouting admiringly, 'You are STRONG'.

Yep.

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