Our travel agent made our flight arrangements to Bali yesterday, saving a lot of money with the sacrifice of time and comfort. We’ll fly from Portland to Los Angeles to Sydney to Denpasar, Indonesia. After crossing the International Date Line, it will actually take two days to get there. We come back through Seoul, Korea, as we did on our trip to Thailand. We should have enough layover time to take a city tour, if we’re not too exhausted. It took several weeks to get over the jet lag associated with that adventure, so it will be an equally challenging journey across the world. 

My wife is particularly excited because of childhood memories of the musical South Pacific. It was her dad’s favorite, and she knows every word of every song. In the Wikipedia summary, the story is based on James A. Michener’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific and combines elements of several of those stories. Rodgers and Hammerstein believed they could write a musical based on Michener’s work that would be financially successful and, at the same time, send a strong progressive message on racism. The plot centers on an American nurse stationed on a South Pacific island during World War II, who falls in love with a middle-aged expatriate French plantation owner but struggles to accept his mixed-race children. A secondary romance, between a U.S. lieutenant and a young Tonkinese woman, explores his fears of the social consequences should he marry his Asian sweetheart. The issue of racial prejudice is candidly explored throughout the musical, most controversially in the lieutenant’s song, “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught”. Supporting characters, including a comic petty officer and the Tonkinese girl’s mother, help to tie the stories together. Because he lacked military knowledge, Hammerstein had difficulty writing that part of the script; the director of the original production, Logan, assisted him and received credit as co-writer of the book.

As a result of this musical, both Tahiti and Bali have always topped her travel bucket list. We had a great trip to Tahiti and Bora Bora three years ago. It was before I started writing this blog, so I couldn’t find a reference to that trip. I remember we stayed in a thatched hut over the water with a glass coffee table that opened so you could feed the fish below. I had my wife’s birthday breakfast delivered by kayak. Our week-long stay was a romantic experience of a lifetime. Hopefully, Bali will be a similar fulfillment of bucket list dreams. She’s already singing this song:

Most people live on a lonely island
Lost in the middle of a foggy sea
Most people long for another island
One where they know they would like to be
Bali Ha’i may call you
Any night, any day
In your heart you’ll hear it call you
Come away, come away
Bali Ha’i will whisper on the wind of the sea
Here am I, your special island
Come to me, come to me
Your own special hopes,
Your own special dreams
Loom on the hillside and shine in the Streams
If you try, you will find me
Where the sky meets the sea
Here am I your special island
Come to me, come to me
Bali Ha’i, Bali Ha’i, Bali Ha’i
Some day you’ll see me
Floating in the sunshine
My head sticking out from a low flying Cloud
You’ll hear me call you
Singing through the sunshine
Sweet and near as can be
Come to me, here am I
Come to me
Try, you’ll find me
Where the sky meets the sea
Hear am I, your special island
Come to me, come to me
Bali Ha’i, Bali Ha’i, Bali Ha’i


Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: O HAMMERSTEIN / R RODGERS
Bali Ha’i lyrics © Irving Berlin Music Company, Emi Music Publishing France, Williamson Music CO.-A Div. Of Rodgers And Hammerstein