When the tide comes in, they may shuffle in the shifting film of sewage and gasoline. By low tide, they smother in the sand, gasping as they await an impending painful death. Bali's premier tourist belt, over a hundred plus battered turtles are tied up in a praying position. Their fore flippers are ruthlessly punctured to allow a cord to be strung through them. Dehydrated and un-fed for weeks, these ancient mariners who have outlived the dinosaurs, lie in indignity, spilling their last teardrops, sometimes lifting their heads off the floor, with a foamy mouth in question for an answer to their nemesis.
Death comes but slowly.
Scratching their fat bellies, the butchers stride into the room and place a turtle upside down on a stone board next to the dirty stove with a wok of boiling water. Without killing them first, the men cut at the margin of the yellow underside. The turtle's head retracts as if to accept her fate. A sepulchral gasp, she weeps. A ladle is then forced into the body to scoop out blood, which is then packed into tiny plastic bags.