Lessons in tourism from Bali
Let’s face it – tourism is what people turn to when everything else fails. And the worst thing about Kuta (Bali) is still the young yobbo Australians who come here in droves on super-cheap fares.
Thankfully, most don’t make it much past the bars of Kuta, Legian and Seminyak. These once separate and impoverished villages along 27km-long Kuta Beach are now all fused into one seething carnival where night and day there’s something going down.
Tourism here goes back to 1936, when ex-Hollywood workers turned globetrotting Americans Bob Koke and Louise Garrett set up a guesthouse of Balinese thatched bungalows on the near-deserted beach. Their concept of ‘‘fun in the sun followed by a few drinks’’ tourism knocked the socks off the Dutch packaged holidays which existed up to that time. Bob taught all the Kuta locals to surf, too, something they truly excel at today.
Things really exploded in the mid- to late 1960s, when Kuta established itself as a way stop on the Australia to Europe hippie trail. Dirt-cheap accommodation in small Balinese hotels set in shady gardens, the streets around interspersed with delicious warungs (restaurants) and vendors offering magic mushrooms . . . it was bohemian paradise.
Balinese are often rightly described as the friendliest people in the world. But underneath, Asli Bali (original Bali) is all that really matters to them. Their society is intense and multilayered, full of jealousies and historical animosities.
You don’t get driftwood in Bali, just drift plastic. It’s gratifying now, though, to see gangs of beach cleaners and tourists alike picking it up. The Balinese say it just keeps floating in from ‘‘somewhere else’’.
There’s no public transport on Bali, so we did what anyone sane does after a couple of days – hire a driver and get out of Kuta.
It’s a nearly two-hour drive inland to Ubud, the compelling cultural heart of the island. It’s a town full of fabulous artistic endeavours, delightful warungs, yoga courses, cheeky Balinese macaque monkeys and picturesque rice paddies.
A big section of Eat Pray Love is set in Ubud. Critics panned the film version when it came out, but without a doubt the book and film have inspired many a traveller to visit Ubud, seeking yoga and traditional healers (balian).
With a policy of never ever turning anyone away, the balian around Ubud are now under so much stress from pushy, worriedwell Westerners that they don’t have the time to treat the genuinely ill in their communities.
Ubud was delightful, but we felt like we were the only ones in town not on a yoga course. We fled to Padangbai on the east coast, and waited in a harbourside warung for the first fast boat to the Gili Islands, situated just offshore from Lombok.
Crossing Lombok Strait from Bali is not for the faint-hearted. The Wallace Line goes through here, that fauna division between Indian Ocean and Australasian species – simplistically, monkeys on one side and lizards on the other. I could see how this rough stretch of sea at the edge of the Indian Ocean would stop anything from crossing. Waves crashed over us, and water poured in around every window and door.
It was great to get to the Gilis, three tiny, desert-like islands fringed by white sand beaches, coconut palms and crystal-clear turquoise seas. A bylaw prohibiting motorised vehicles means you get around on foot, rented bicycle, or a horse-drawn taxi cart called a cidomo. These jingle as they go, incessantly warning pedestrians to get out of the way.
Foreigners only began coming here in the 1980s. Today, Gili Trawangan (Gili T) ranks with Bali and Borobudur as Indonesia’s most popular destinations for foreigners. The Party Islands, Indonesians call them. A most bohemian atmosphere prevails, and above the house beats and drum’n’bass comes the call of the muezzin from the mosque. I went to meet him, but found he was just a CD, too!
Unlike Bali, which has been largely Hindu since the 7th century, the Gilis were converted to Islam by early Arab traders, like much the rest of Indonesia did.
All day, boats come and go from the ‘‘public landing’’ beach, bringing in new tourists and carting off spent ones.
In a bar one evening, we met one Kiwi reveller who’d just been branded on his chest with a red-hot horseshoe by his Canadian mate, whose chest carried the brand already. I asked them how they got the horseshoe hot enough. Easy – they’d revved up the coconut embers of the street stall I’d just bought barbecued corn from.
The sea around the Gilis is crystal clear. One cafe offers a free coffee for every bucket of plastic beach rubbish brought in, but you’d be picking up long and hard to make that pay.
Scuba courses, diving and snorkelling tours are big out here. Swimming with green and loggerhead turtles is guaranteed. Free-diving courses are hot here now, too – the objective after first two days of lessons is 20m.
Everywhere, I saw signs for SUP (Stand Up Paddleboard) Yoga, the worse case scenario touted as at least you get a refreshing swim.
Gili Meno is the smallest and most minimalist of the Gilis – it’s a pity that a sizeable chunk at its northern tip is surrounded with a massive corrugated iron fence.
The 170-room hotel nearly finished here will command the best fine white sand on the island. It has the backing of big Australian property investors in conjunction with a high-profile pitchman, exBaywatch star David Hasselhoff.
Already, a sculpture by Jason de Caves Taylor has been installed on the reef just offshore for the future benefit of the hotel’s snorkellers. It did not feel at all appropriate to me – monstrosity being the word that came to mind.
I will never forget the sunset view of a Gili fisherman, looking like he was dancing as he repeatedly threw out and then retrieved his net in a huge, shallow tidal pool. It was a timeless scene. Except that in this one, a tourist’s drone was hovering above him the whole time, shooting sky high for the long shot, buzzing down for closeups.
Just another surreal tourism scene.