Zombies – in a Bali Paradise?

Don’t miss  Linda Watanabe McFerrin’s new story “Bali Belly and the Zombie Apocalypse,” up today on World Hum, the best travel-zine in the Ethernet.

Linda spins a spooky tale that will make you rethink your travel medicine bag. She proves, once again, that old travel-writers’ saw: Anything that doesn’t kill you is  fodder for great story-telling.

 

Linda also organizes magical travel experiences that generate bewitching books-full of stories, as well as  memories to last a lifetime.

I was on Bali last year with her fabulous group of Wanderland Writers.  Her World Hum story brings back one of my own favorite memories:   a visit to master mask-maker Ida Bagus Anom Suryawan. In addition to carving masks–to international renown–Anom is  a wood carver,  mask dancer, and puppeteer. His workshop, Astina, is in the village of Mas near Ubud.

http://bit.ly/Kpw72x

 

These scenes from his shop make me think zombies aren’t far behind:

 

 

 

 

I couldn’t resist the allure of remembered adventure. The mask below now hangs on my porch.

Stay tuned for more stories from Bali in the forthcoming anthology Wandering in Bali: A Tropical Paradise Discovered.

Bali in 2011. Next up, Paris. I’ll be along for that mystery tour as well. Can we expect a zombie lurking in the basement of the opera house?

 

Photos by Anne Sigmon