Ah, The Glorious Tropics. A Place Of Soaking Rain, Ruined Gardens And An Environment Where Bacteria Thrives.

The Tropics.

You know the place, that deliciously warm band of the planet situated five degrees north and south of the equator. For those poor souls currently experiencing a Polar Vortex, close your eyes and imagine this.

Long beaches with sand, the colour of snow, fringed with palm trees lapped gently by the turquoise coloured ocean under an azure blue sky.

Heaven on a stick right?

Well, sometimes it's not!

It's a lazy Saturday morning or perhaps it's a Sunday or Friday as really, most mornings these days are lazy, each one following the same languid and slothful pattern of the day before.

The rainy season has arrived, and this year its bang on time, replete with a sky full of huge purple clouds that gather in the late afternoon conjuring up images of baskets of bruised plums. Those self-same clouds, as if being led by a demented conductor, suddenly create a cacophony of sound beginning with a kettle drum roll that rises in pitch until deafening claps of thunder from the cymbal section drown out all everyday sounds. The acoustic display is almost always accompanied by an impressive lightning show which sometimes has the unfortunate side effect of knocking out the power. 

After the sound and light show, a mighty deluge begins and one can only wonder how the heavens can hold that much water. 

Given that my house (like most in Bali) has no gutters, the rains cascade off the roof tiles tumbling like giant waterfalls submerging the gardens which in no time flat resemble a lake. (This is akin to instant waterfront living without the price tag)

This year, my carefully tended vegetable garden was unfortunately swept away in one of the first storms of the season leaving behind mangled and dead plants which now lie forlornly in the baking sun.  

Actually, truth be told, the garden was a complete failure anyway as the delicate seeds I purchased in Spain and Italy on a mid-year trip were no match for the unforgiving tropical climate. I had diligently planted tomatoes, onions, squash, carrots, asparagus and celery in small pots and nurtured them until the seeds behaved in the way that the information on the back of the packets said they would. However, I must confess that the script was in Italian, Spanish and German so perhaps something might have got lost in translation.

Within a few days, little shoots sprang up which looked plump and healthy until came the time to transplant them which is when disaster struck.

 The heat at this time of year is fierce and these European poncy plants were no match for the Balinese sun.  Slowly but surely they withered, keeled over and were virtually at death's door when the rains came and finished them off. Now, all that is left are the seed packets showing images of the fully grown plants, erected in neat rows supported on small stakes to identify which plants were which.

The patch now resembles a forlorn cemetery with the seed packets beginning to look like fading tombstones paying homage to the departed European imports. Looking at the patch now, all one needs is a little tumbleweed to complete the picture.  

We could go hungry this winter!!

Another side effect of tropical living is the fact that I have become completely deaf in one ear!!  

This little affliction set in not long after we returned from Europe when I developed what I thought was a bout of flu. My head, in general, felt like it was packed in cotton wool and, whatever cells within the body that trigger mucus production, suddenly began working double and triple shifts. Naturally, this excess muck migrated south to the chest and I developed a cough worthy of a Victorian poet with a dire case of terminal consumption. Days in bed chewing through cold and cough medicines did nothing beyond boosting the profits of our local pharmacy. 

As my hearing in one ear disappeared completely it was off to an ENT specialist who operated out of rooms that looked like they had been styled on a Dickens-era novel; all shop soiled green and brown.

After a gruff introduction, I was seated in a chair, a camera inserted into the left ear and I was directed to look at the picture that emerged on a large, wall-mounted screen. The image resembled a bed of dead coral one sees on the Great Barrier Reef.

With little warning hot water was suddenly squirted at the offending coral garden from a high-pressure device that I am sure could have extinguished a raging forest fire.!

Apart from the excruciating pain, nothing was really achieved even when the ENT's nurse proudly showed me a tiny slither of wax that the stream of hot water had managed to dislodge. My torture session complete, the miserable doctor then prescribed some ineffective ear drops and sent me on my way.

The next morning, the hearing in the left ear was completely gone. 

Now, don't get me wrong, an affliction such as this does have one or two positive advantages as I can switch off when sitting at a dinner party next to an incredibly boring fellow guest Alternatively, I can feign deafness when I neglect to perform certain chores assigned to me by management as she scurries off to work first thing in the morning. 

I tried a different specialist at a hospital deep in the heart of Denpasar and this chap was altogether delightful. A rotund fellow with an impressive girth, who, when reading my ailment form, exclaimed with great glee that he had never in his entire career treated a "writer" (a fraudulent title I assigned to myself under the section marked, "profession.")

He spent the next ten minutes or so googling me and was delighted when my photo appeared. He was, he told me a 'frustrated writer' (I thought I had possession of that particular title) and would much rather be doing that than peering into people’s ear canals. A further ten minutes was spent taking selfies with me and then summoning his nurse to do the job for him when he discovered that each of his shots had cut our heads off.

He then proceeded to go through the same ritual as the previous specialist with the obligatory camera thrust into my ear, only this time the images were in glorious Technicolor and therefore double the price.

Then the squirt treatment began.

Once the treatment was complete the nurse held high the stainless steel receptacle containing a miserable speck of detritus much like a tennis player who has just won Wimbledon. The specialist, gazing lovingly at the recently taken photos of the two of us, pronounced me cured, prescribed more ear drops and sent me on my way.

The next morning, I hear only in mono.

After a week or two after having trouble listening to the Rolling Stones at full volume, I visit Dr Agung at the local clinic. Now, this chap is a gem; barely five-foot-tall who sports a Sammy Davis Jr moustache which gives him a rather dapper and, dare I say it, a jaunty appearance. His squirting is altogether gentle and does indeed clear the ear for a couple of days before the condition returns.

And so I now attend a weekly ' squirt' session' after which I pour hydrogen peroxide into my ear which is a pretty surreal experience. The liquid fizzes as if I have poured half a can of Coca Cola into my ear. The solution finds its way to the eardrum and then mysteriously heats up but strangely does provide some relief.

Sammy tells me the ear is completely infected and a colony of bacteria has established a thriving megacity at the end of the ear canal complete with public transport, schools, universities and shopping malls behind a wall of wax that would make Mr Trump envious.

"What causes this?" I ask. " "Well, quite simply" he answers, " It is a condition commonly referred to as tropical ear and comes from living in a humid climate”

" Is there a cure? " I ask. 

" Oh, indeed there is " he replies " You can move!"

So I guess, until we move to somewhere dry, like Arizona, I will have to live with just one headphone plugged into my ear when listening to music.

Ah, the tropics, tis a glorious region.

 “Anything harmful there?” you ask.

“I’m sorry, I’m having a little trouble hearing you.”

Paul v Walters is the author of several best selling novels and when not cocooned in sloth and procrastination in his house in Bali he scribbles for several international travel and vox – pop journals.