I’m an electrician, not a traveller. Back in the ‘70s, when I went to Bail, instead of packing (like everyone else who was ‘on the road’ at that time) a Swiss Army knife and a Carlos Castenada book, I threw into the bottom of my bag-for no reason other than habit-an old, insulated screwdriver.

            At Denpasar airport a gaggle of kids shanghaied me and my surfboard onto a red bemo truck which deposited us at a guesthouse, somewhere in that  rainbow scrum of paddies and people which blooms halfway along the cloast between Kuta and Ligian beaches. The old mud-brick building was distinguished from its neighborus by having once been the home of a Dutch colonial administrator who’d gone, in sequence, native, nuts, then home.

“Hullo, I’m Nyoman,” said the keeper of Losmen Hanuman. “And this man,” he added, pointing to the grinning youth beside him, “is my cousin. His name is Nyoman too.”

            “Go it,” I said. “Nyoman One and Nyoman Two.”

            Nyoman Two showed me to a batik-curtained room. It was tidy and clean, though dim.

            “Is there a light in here?” I asked. Nyoman Two grimaced, poking out his tongue and bulging his eyes like a Barong dancer.

            “Yes,” he said. “But ghosts too.Look.” Cautiously stretching his finger towards a light switch which dangled from a twist of wiring, he flicked it on. A blue flash arced around the connections and Nyoman quickly pulled back his tingling finger.

            “Not earthed?” I said.

            “No. Not earth. Maybe Hell,” said Nyoman. “Bad ghost I think. Maybe left here by the Dutchman. I’ll bring you candles. They don’t make the devils angry like the electricity does.’’

            I took the room, then hit the surf. This was my reward for a year of ten-hour days building a power station north of Sydney. Three weeks full of nothing but Kuta Reef and Ulu Watu surf lay  ahead of me. And soit was.Black rice porridge at Mades Restaurant. Hibiscus heat and dragonfly mornings. Massages on the beach. The evening ritual when everyone rolled down to the shore to peer for the fabled green flash just as the sun blipped into the sea.

            The Nyomans and their families were prosperous only to the point of not caring whether they were or weren’t. Some days they feasted; on others they ate only rice and papayas. I felt free to leave my door unlocked at all hours. The little offering of rice and incense in a woven palm frond which the family plaed in front of my room each dawn seemed security enough for my few possessions.

            “Any thieves in Bali?” I once asked Nyoman Two.

            ‘No, not in this country. But be very careful with your things.”

            “why if there aren’t any thieves?”

            “The thieves are all from another country,” said Nyoman. “java.”

            My three weeks in Nirvana slipped out to sea in an endless succession of good waves, fruit salad days and gado-gado dinners. The only interruption to losmen life occurred when Didier, the languid Frenchman in the room next to mine, emerged dripping from the bath and flipped his light switch with a wet hand. The sparking blue demon rushed out of the socket, up Didier’s arm and kicked him onto his bed before short-circuiting the building.

            “Nyoman,” I said the next morning. “in Australia I build temples for these sorts of demons. We keep them locked up there, then we let them out only to do work for us.” I winked, hoping I didn’t sound too patronizing.

            Nyoman one winked back: “It works that way here too. John, we understand electricity. What you don’t understand are demons. There’s been one in this house since long before tourists came, even back to the Dutch time. When the Dutch left, my grandfather had the priest banish this spirit into the sea. Then he changed the name of the house so that the spirit would not be able to find it again.”

            “Did it work?”

            “No. The priest must have made the wrong offerings.”

            “If you can get rid of the ghost, I’ll give back the rent for your whole stay here.”

            “If I can do it, I’ll do it for free.”

            Methodically, I began the exorcism. With a spool of electrical flex purchased in Denpasar and with that old, insulated screwdriver from the bottom of my bag, I stripped the exposed wiring from the walls and ceilings, replaced the copper vermicelli which bristled across the antique fuseboard, stapled new wires in place, screwed switches securely to walls and then completed it all by installing a proper earth. The ritual took a day and a half.

            When I had finished, I waited until dark, then called Nyomans One and Two, their parents and kids, plus assorted neighbourhood Mades, Ketuts and Wayans, as well as the singed Didier and the other guests. Having turned every seitch in the darkened building to “on”. I waved my magic wand the redoubtable screwdriver and inserted a new fuse.

            Losmen Hanuman lit up like a Christmas tree-with lights that stayed on. No flashes, no flicker and fade. Hamming it up now, I stepped up to a light switch and flipped it, then held on- no kick. No ghosts. The watchers erupted in their quiet Balinese way, clapping and laughing, then gathered round to examine my wondrous demon-slayer, the screwdriver.

            Next night the Nyomans prepared a thanksgiving feast of roast pig, all the gado-gado I could eat, sticky rice and Bintang beer. Nyoman One attempted to return my rent, and offer which I side-stepped by promising to come back and take advantage of next year. Four neighbours played an impromptu gamelan performance and Nyoman One’s daughter, little Ketut, and her friends danced around the coconut husk fire so fluidly that I thought they must have liquid bones.

            Too soon, it was time to leave. One my last morning on the island, the waves far out on Kuta Point were pumping and there were still three hours until the jet would exile me back to Sydney. I said googbye to Nyomans One and Two and walked down the beach to the point, dropped my bag on the sand and took the long paddle out into one of those surfing sessions where nothing else counts. The waves were my own private Fire Dance – every move worked as though this were a trance where only perfection could enter. After more tube  rides than I can remember, I stroked, in a bliss of exhaustion, the half kilometre back to the beach.

            On the sand was my bag open. Beside it, my camera snd my traveller’s cheques. A little further away was my passport and wallet, still containing the rupiah bills I had kept for airport tax. Puzzled, I upturned the bag and inspected the belongings that fell out. Two batik T-shirts, a kris knife from Ubud, spare board shorts, a sarong for my girlfriend, jean,  jacket, a towel. All present but not correct.

            Puzzled, I stuffed it all back into the bag and caught a bemo to the airport. Somewhere over the Timor Sea, while reading an article about Java, I realized what was missing: my old, insulated screwdriver.