Allergies in Seminyak Bali

I read in the Bali Advertiser today that a 40 year old American tourist had a motorbike accident where he slammed into a 19 year old Balinese woman. She was killed instantly, he died 8 days later in hospital. I am not going to preach, but if you are going to ride a motorbike do yourself a favour and wear a helmet.

One of the biggest personal things to happen to me lately was the result of witnessing Ika in agony after days of sneezing. I suffered last year all through the dry season (April-October) sneezing, blowing snot and feeling like I had the flu. I remember those days well and the feeling at the end of the day of being beaten down by the heat, pollution and the allergies. This year I have been a bit better but Ika has had a severe reaction. My neighbour Lorenzo from Italy said to me he has heard Ika coughing and sneezing all day and was worried.

The thing with Bali is there is no Fall, the trees retain their leaves all year, but they produce leaves and pollen all year too.

Ika and I discussed renting another place for her to live as I was worried about a pregnant woman having fits of sneezing non-stop all day. Finally I decided to take action. What was causing the problem I thought. Obviously the massive amount of tropical vegetation we live in close proximity to. In our garden we have a variety of flowering plants but plugging in my brain I managed to identify the culprits. There were 2 tall trees on either side of the garden overlapping our porch area with many white blooms the size of car headlights. One tree was only about 6ft from our bedroom window, no wonder I wake up at 5am every day with a nose full of snot.

This was going to be their last day on Earth. I have a flexible camping saw and in less than an hour chopped both down. Ika and I spent an hour cutting the trees up with 2 small saws I bought from Bintang supermarket and we hauled the debris outside to the garbage bin. During the cutting up process I became aware of an ants nest that seemed to like my feet. In fact as fast as I stamped on the ants the faster new ones seemed to climb on me, occasionally biting, these were red ants after all.

Outside in the parking area one of the staff told me the ant were tree ants and were dangerous when the sun shines. They are okay when in the morning, he said, but when they get hot they are aggressive. No worries I just cut their nest down.

Two days later Ika is breathing much better and so am I. Before I would get pollen in my sinus and it would stay there all day giving me the impression the whole of southern Bali was a allergy festival. Now that does not happen.

I talked to Jim and older fellow from California this evening. Jim has lived in Bali for 12 years and has terrible allergies. His area of affliction is his skin. Jim told me he scratches his arms raw when he is asleep and his backside is that way too, all because of pollen that irritates.

Down here in the Kuta / Seminyak area traffic fumes and these kind of flowering plants and bushes are at their worst. At higher elevations, in Ubud and even higher the air tends to get cleaner.

Ika and I visited the doctor, Adam Zakaria, a Muslim in Denpasar the other night. Dr. Zakaria did his usual ultra-sound and told us the little bugger is now 1.175 kg. Ika being short is looking very pregnant and the launch date is somewhere in the last week of June.

There are a couple of private places that Indonesians go to over here for birth, Puri Bunda and Kasih Ibu. Ika has both of their brochures and has good recommendations for both. They quote prices for natural birth and caesarian. Indonesians are so straightforward when it comes to this kind of thing. My friend Palus wife Wiwin told me with a caesarian you can choose the date.

So I am sure I will be told what date is considered good and will show up like a good father awaiting whatever pops out. Here in Bali they do not appear to have pregnancy classes, you just show up and do it. The ladies in Bintang supermarket saw me shopping for milk for Ika and asked how far along she was. They said I should take her for mandi di pantai (bath in the ocean) as it was supposedly very good.

The weather these days is partially cloudy but with enough sun to scorch the most ardent sun-lover.