Proceed as the way opens

I never envisioned myself climbing a mountain to see a holy temple across from the sea and a volcano in a Balinese sarong, corset and sash that I bought speaking Bahasa Indonesia.

But here I am, doing just that.

Jagged stairs, seventy degrees sharp, two hours, straight up, no stops except for prayer.

We must keep our water bottles and sunglasses close to our bodies, we are told, or the monkeys will come after them. If they take your stuff, you will be forced to barter with them, a feat, I am told, that is more difficult than haggling at any market in the world.

I have never bartered with a monkey, and I guess I’m supposed to hope that I never will, but I believe this. Everything I have been told so far by Bu Ari, my guide to life here, always full of humor, grace, and stories of magic, has been as unmistakably true as my name is Hannah.

So I will not mess with the monkeys.

After two hours of huffing and puffing up the hill, bound like a geisha crossed with a Victorian courtesan, we get to the top to pray with our offerings of incense, and flowers, and holy water, and rice with the guidance of a priest with the sweetest smile.

There is no bathroom, so after prayer, we pee off the cliff as the monkeys watch.

Our souls relieved by holy chants, our bladders relieved by themselves.

We snack on the leftovers of our offerings to the gods, rice wrapped in banana leaves, apple-pears, miraculously appearing Oreo cookies found in Karangasam or brought all the way from Denpasar.

Life is good. Life is simple.

I must do nothing but put one foot in front of the other and try not trip on my batik sarong, initiating a terrible but stunning domino effect of American girls flying down a holy mountain deep in the Tropics, sarongs and Balinese corsets falling like ripe jackfruits from laden trees.

I can only imagine the headlines.

Proceed as the way opens, my new friend Kadek Zoe says.

And I do.