Bali High

One of the many E-mails I sent to my friend Jo during my first Round The World In Drag Tour in 2001,- Dear Jo, Just time for an E-mail before we are off again. Love from Bali! – a fabulous place, and a fabulous adventure to tell you about. We’re in Ubud which is very good for plays with puppets and dances that set your hand-bag on fire (another time, girl, another time!) and the local market is Sarong City (I’ve got Paula and Kerry one each) but not exactly Manhattan Central when it comes to night-life. And the place to be, on a Sunday night anyway, is in Kuta on the coast – the Hulu Café where they have a drag-show which everybody says you need to see. But Roger insisted we stay a million miles away from the beach - how to get to Kuta? Answer,- the Head-Boy at the Hotel – he’ll find a driver for the night – and since I can’t get an answer when I call Hulu’s he’ll take me to Paddy’s Bar instead where all sorts happens apparently. But I’ve got a headache in the afternoon so a nap is called for. I tell you, making up is easy to do when you allow for the slap melting in the heat. It’s time for the long slit dress to make its debut, but with all those hotel paths to manage in the dark it’s the green sandals. Long blonde, Indian jewellery – the hair needs a wash. Night-time in Bali is when the frogs and birds and God knows what else in the way of animal-life come out to play. I sit listening to them, but at dot on 9.30 the telephone rings. Your carriage awaits, my lady. Insect cream on my arms, condom in my bag, and away…. until I get lost in the jungle which this place is built in. The boys are waiting in the lobby, hippy types – Nyoman and friend. So I give the Head-Boy my key, and slip into a brown saloon with dodgy timing and exhaust. We’re off. It’s a long drive, an hour at least, but I don’t get bored. The tape is playing ballads and I feel incredibly calm. Bali’s not all a tropical garden, and there are road-works and bumps and eventually when we’re in traffic-island, fast-food, bill-board country, it’s dark and I’m lost. I hope they’re not, - Nyoman and friend – every song on the tape seems to be about this. Jo, the East is about getting lost. In Bombay even the taxi-drivers didn’t know where they were or where they were going. At least it’s not just me. We’re in city-type stuff, a maze of roller-front shops, little bars, motor-bikes and hotel gates, and we don’t know where we’re going. Legian-strip? – we’ve got instructions on a piece of paper, and we go through the maze again, U-turning all over the place, – well, we’re somewhere near…somewhere, - hey, the Hulu Café, bright lights! - and the boys will wait for me . I sashay up the steps. The place is smaller than I expected, with an open front, and down the back a whole heap of folks are sitting in front of a stage. There’s a lot of ex-pat looking types mixed in with local boys, all rather cute and attractive, and some tourists. I ask one of them “Show?” She says she’s been there for an hour and no sign of the show. That’s good – I’ve missed nothing and I’m bursting for the loo. When I get to the bar someone has just ordered a little pink thing. “I’ll have one of those” It’s a cocktail, and while it’s getting shaken up, I ask what it is? They point out the sign – “Pink Poof” – how appropriate! And it’s lush – bacardi, grenadine, coconut milk and something I didn’t catch. Standing by the bar I’m getting lots of fascinated looks. A camp voice on the speaker says,”Sit back and enjoy the show”. Basically the Hulu Café is a shed, running back from the street, with a bare stage, and a back curtain with spiky gold and silver stars, over the top “Drag and High Heels” – it goes dark. First up in the follow-spot is Marlene in O.T.T. drag with a Nazi cap on and blue spangly dress. She gets a man up to sit on her knee, and the audience love it. Then there’s a Latin dance-number with a good-looking girl who moves nice. Then “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend”, and, yes, Jo, darling, we’ve been here before – but it’s fun. This is Bali, for God’s sake. Everything’s fun. At one moment, the “H” in “High” over the stage slips – it’s that sort of a show. Two Madonna mimes, one with the cowgirl hat, Maddy’s body but not her face, then the black bodice ballad look. More Latin. The Big Fat Girl who you have to have somewhere, a sad creature in glasses squirting tears over the audience. Fine girls, big glittery ballads, good synching – it takes a lot to keep a drag-show going and this one lasts an hour – and the climax is two Edith Piafs fighting over a microphone for “No Regrets”, and the final walk-down is the five girls, two dark, two fair, one petite, sharing vocal mime, joined by two short-haired men in shorts, one the MC and chief drag and his “partner from Belgium”. The girls are called Brenda, Angela, Poppy, and so on. The show’s over and instantly the place starts to clear a bit, leaving a bit of space and time to notice how cute the bar-boys are. I get talking to the tourist woman and her husband – Hella and Peter from Amsterdam, in Bali for three weeks. Now they’re fun, party people. The girls have joined us. I get introduced to Poppy, she’s all girl, she also works in the Q-bar, says I should do a spot before I leave Bali. (Sister, my lip-synching is rusty – really!). The place is closing, has to for some reason, but the Q-bar is open late and, hey, that’s what my boys, Nyoman and Friend, are for, so I invite Peter and Hella along for the ride. Graham is the head man and owner and drag and everything and he gets an address for us while I go to the loo. And while I’m fixing my face who should be in front of the mirror in jeans, T-shirt, and full make-up with a motor-bike crash helmet half over his head, but one of the girls, off for another gig, or maybe just a lazy slut (we’ve all been there), so we have a little chat. The streets are now empty, it’s after midnight but there are lots of bike-riders who swarm round us when we set off for the Q-Bar. So we’re back on the dark-streets kick, empty stalls, closed bars, and then a turn later we’re on a big lit strip and there’s the Q-Bar, bright and open to the street. It’s big and sophisticated with a big oval bar. full of the cutest boys and, Jo, we just sweep in, just sweep like Riviera millionaires. Drinks, rum and coke, sweet boys from Surabaya, a space near the dancefloor, and Hella turns out to be a real go-er. “I like big men” Asian men are “too small”. I tell her not everything about them is small. She’s been to Cuba and learnt to Salsa. I give my card to the DJ and he duly obliges with Hella’s request, Gloria Estefan. We’re on the small corner dance-floor dancing. Hella dances a storm and steals a lovely boy, “A-am” (that’s Bali for you, Jo – it makes introductions nice and short) off me with some quick footwork. She tells me in Cuba she danced with a big black man. Peter watches us from the bar. You’ve got to hand it to these Nederlanders, they’re not hung up about these things, they know how to swing. The most beautiful boys in tight ribbed tops, some of them very girly, one or two with ex-patboy-friends, but no self-conscious queens, and all happy, relaxed, having heaps of fun. “You’re a good dancer,” one of the boys says. Baby, I am, - a touch of voguing, house-dance, snake-hips, cute foot-work – I never moved better, - then he starts to copy me. “You funny.” Yes, I’m that too, sweaty but happy. And eventually it’s Cinderella time – I have to say my good-byes. I’ve had my offers but a jungle in Ubud is calling. I do the rounds of the oval bar giving and taking compliments, and sweep out onto a hot rainy strip. No sign of my Nyoman and Friend, so I walk up and down in front of the other bars until they appear. Nyoman asks “Enjoy?” “Bali is brilliant, Bali is the best” When I’m stumbling round the hotel grounds an hour later in the dark, it’s still true. We’ve had too short a time in Bali Jo. Next time remind me to book a few days (and nights!) in Kuta. The boys are just divine! Any action your end? Love and kisses, Mandy P.S. – we’ll be in Sydney soon.