Ubud is a pretty quiet town, and there isn’t much there for a handsome, young
single man like myself. Sure, there’s the Enchanted Monkey Forest, but that’s only good
for about an hour’s entertainment, and it does come with a risk of monkey bites which
can, apparently, be quite painful.
Therefore, when my friend tracked down a place giving high colonics for only
$55 a shot, I decided to make an appointment.
My expectations were pretty high. $55 is a lot of money in Indonesia and, for that,
I’m sure there was any number of people willing to stick a pipe up my butt. So, I kind of
expected gleaming white cisterns with gold taps, high ceilings with immaculate white
walls and classical music playing in the background. I’m not sure what kind of clinician
I thought would administer the procedure, but in the playground of my imagination, she
was an attractive Swede wearing a nurse’s uniform two sizes too small.
What I got, instead, was a poorly-lit bungalow and two middle-aged Indonesian
women, both of whom seemed very nice and experienced. For the last seven years, they
have been administering up to 11 colon cleansings a day to Western tourists like me and
my friend Nick.
My friend Nick was the driving force behind the colon cleansing, even though I
was quite game to give it a go. I had been having some odd pains in the lower regions of
my belly and a steady diet of greasy meat over the last 32 years had left Nick feeling
rather clogged up. It just seemed natural, after pampering ourselves with frequent Thai
and Indonesian massages, to go that extra step and give our colons a bit of a washing.
Nick went first for his cleansing and signed up for two more immediately
afterwards. Nick, apparently, had been right to feel clogged as, on the first go, not as
much came out as would have been hoped for. His colon, apparently, was a blocked-up
filthy mess.
As for my colon…well, I don’t like to brag, but I was a vegetarian for almost 20
years before moving to Mongolia and in Korea, I certainly do get my fair share of kim-
chi, which helps keeps the pipes pretty clean. As the warm, clean water went into my
colon and the dirty water came out, the woman just kept massaging my belly and saying,
“Much better than Nick…Much better than Nick.” My self-esteem is pretty low these
days, so I take what compliments I can get.
The procedure definitely left an impression on me. The two women, despite
having been doing this for so many years, greeted each new thing that came out of my
colon with real enthusiasm. “Oh, look at that,” they would say at a brown lump flowing
out of my colon, “very dry”; or “Oh, do you see that?” they would query excitedly, “You
must have had food poisoning a while back.” It was nice to see them so happy in their
work.
And it made me feel good too. Although, apparently, the dry, brown lump and
the other bits and pieces had been with me for many months or, perhaps even years, there
was no sense of nostalgia in seeing them go; only a profound sense of good-riddance.
Bottom line (pun intended): if you ever feel, for any reason, like you need your
colon cleansed…by all means hurry out and do so. Not only does it give your skin a
healthy glow, it also makes for fascinating dinner conversation. Nick and I talked of little
else over the next couple of days.