Soul Searching

I only know how to do it for Firefox so far. I’ll keep you posted on how to do it for Explorer.

In the firefox browser when you’re on www.frankbutler.net, in the lower right hand corner of the browser in an orange icon (a square with a white dot in the corner and waves radiating out of it), left click on it once, then move your mouse over it and click once more. A screen will come up that says “add bookmark.” Click on the upside down triangle to the right of “create in,” scroll down to “Bookmarks Toolbar Folder,” highlight that and click ok.

then go to view -> toolbars -> Bookmarks Toolbar

and it should appear just above the browser window!

I treated the royal family once again, and everyone was feeling much better. Whew! They were super nice, the two princesses served me tea personally. I was honored. They sent me all over with their driver for my errands.

After all that I headed to an ancient buddhist temple called Borobudur. It’s a many tiered temple. As you approach the higher sections there are all these buddhas under these giant bells. You can see through the stone bells (they have lots of large holes). Very beautiful.

The hotel i’m staying in is very expensive in terms of what you get for your money. Kind of dingy but it’s right next to the temple, and it has a/c - so i’m not going to complain too much.

It’s just a couple of days until I head to Aceh, where there are no amenities (even food is scarce). Malaria is rampant. All the volunteers sleep on futons on the floor of the clinic, in one big room.

I’m doing my best to appreciate what I have now, while I have it…

Life is full of surprises, and this certainly was one of them. The setting is mind-boggling, absolutely stunning. More on that in a minute.

The first amazing thing was that the royal couple I met sent their personal driver to take me here. Truly generous of them. Then I got here and simply can not believe the view. Nestled on a mountain top is a tiny temple. Originally a fertility temple, in Mayan style no less. The moon is full, and this is the temple of the moon. What good fortune! There is a brother temple for the sun an hour’s hike away. I am going to try and do it in the morning. The royal couple came up here and had dinner with me before they left back to solo.

Back to the view, gorgeous. I love mountains, and this one is stunning. You look down onto the verdant rice fields as the sun pases through the mist. It’s magical.

One note, apparently this ara was a Taliban stronghold until very recently. Apparently those i spoke with think that this fact makes it a very safe place. They don’t want any attention brought here. All I have to say is that everyone has been extremely nice to me. They seem like truly kind, generous, and honest people.

I took a much needed break today. Finally a day with no patients. The place I am staying is beautiful. On the side of a mountain, overlooking a green valley of rice fields. Nothing fancy. Running water, the hot water is a trickle. None of the staff speaks English - this is where the well off locals come. The room is two walls of floor to ceiling windows, to help enjoy the view. It cost around 15 USD a night.

okay, so I didn’t treat the royal family at the palace, but I got an invitation to dinner at their house tha evening instead. they have a wonderful place in the town of Solo and two beautiful sweet kids. We had a scrumptuous dinner (the best food I have had so far) of baby papaya with hot chilis, served on rice steeped in coconut milk. Absolutely delicious.

After that I treated the princess and her husband and diagnosed and wrote herbs for two more princesses. I took their pulses and told them the things they weren’t telling me, which they greatly enjoyed. In the end, they were happy with their treatment I was happy with my meal, a good day for everyone.

After all that waitng at the palace they wanted to get me set up in a hotel, which they graciously arranged.

Actually, now that i’m looking back at it, it is completely possible that they were checking me out. Those two guys, the waiting with seemingly pointless conversation. very possible…

In any event I guess I passed the muster because they went to great lengths to ensure my comfort and convenience. The first thing they did was make sure the palace made hotel reservations for me. They booked me a reat room at the local luxury hotel at a super discounted rate.

The hotel, called the Lorin, used to be a Hilton, but Hilton pulled out a while ago and the Indonesian government stepped in and took over. Gorgeous, the grounds, the staff, all perfect. It was nice to be mosquito free for a night, especially after my night in Yogyarkata. Anyway no complaints from me on the room. It was just what the doctor ordered.

The husband came and picked me up himself from the hotel, and they both brought me back to the hotel. Very sweet of them.

So I get to the royal palace and i’m informed that the princess and her husband are running late. About an hour late. So they kindly fired up the dozen Gamelon musicians that make up the royal musicians (there wasn’t a one under 50, and I think most were pushing 80) and let them play. During which a royal guide kept prodding me to take a tour of the palace and its museum. After 15 minutes of constant polite nudging by my friend, I finally acquiesced. (I think the Gamelon guys didn’t really want to be playing but I somehow needed to be entertained, so they sent the guide.)

The tour was pretty lame but the guy was nice and sincere. At the end two smiling men met me in a palace hall and laughed and joked around with me. After about a half an hour of that I was told the royal couple wouldn’t make it this afternoon, but the two guys would drive me to the hotel which had been arranged - kind of.

We loaded into the car and proceeded to back out while my two escorts were chatting away (very cheerily and slowly i might add), at which point we promptly ran over a royal tree! Needless to say this was the cause of another furious outburst of joviality (from in the car and out) and we went on our way.

In the end I got to see the Gamelon, the palace, the museum, and didn’t get to do what i came for…

While I was in Ubud I figured out a couple of landmarks to help me navigate around town, while jetting here and there on my scooter. One of them was a doctor’s sign by the name of Gigi. I thought it might be some German expat that got sick of the west and came to Bali for the sand and sun. Anyway, it was a great landmark - how many Doctor Gigi’s could there be on Gali?

Anyway. My memory for directions isn’t great but I started to notice that sometimes I turned right at Dokter Gigi’s and sometimes left but I always made it back to the place I was staying. I thought maybe Ubud is a big circle?

It wasn’t until I went up and down the volcano I realized that Dokter Gigi means “tooth doctor,” or dentist. And Ubud is full of them!

This and Solo are supposed to be the intellectual and artisitic capitals of Java. I didn’t get to much of either. In Yogja I stayed at a very nice couples’ place that was really cheap. About 7.50 USD. You get what you pay for. The room was nice enough, the people were wonderful, but what i didn’t know was that the people don’t go to sleep until late, and they gt up really early. That combined with a very testosterone ridden rooster (it could have been blind also) that crowed every hour on the hour for about twenty minutes (it was located directly below my window), and some mosquitoes that seemed like kamikaze trained dive bombers (the mosquito net stopped some) led to an almost sleepless night. But it was a place to rest and the people were great.

I blew out in the morning to solo and the palace….

I can’t say I’m sorry to leave Bali. It was great, and the people were super. It’s just that the energy on Bali is kind of frenetic, the scooters, the driving, even the local music - Gamelon - is frantic compared with the music of its neighbors.

The people at the local clinic where I was working gave me a sarong as a parting gift. They were very sweet, and warm. It was great to work with them.

In true frank form, I was treating patients until the end. I’m going to try and layoff a bit during the next week (although i’m supposed to treat the royal family on Java…). What can you do?