Archive for February, 2008
Denpasar, Bali (ANTARA News) - Japanese topped the list of foreign tourist arrivals in Indonesia`s resort island of Bali in 2007, reaching 351,752 persons, or about 21.11 percent of the total number of foreign tourist arrivals (1,666,079), a local official said.
Head of Denpasar`s statistics bureau Ida Komang Wisno said here on Saturday Australian tourist arrivals came second on the list with their number recorded at 204,811 or about 12.29 percent. Next were tourists from Taiwan who accounted for 138,859 or about 8.33 percent of the total.
Compared with the previous year, when the figure was 1,262,537, the number of foreign tourist arrivals in 2007 had increased 31.96 percent.
He said the occupancy rate of hotels in Bali in 2007 was recorded at 60.58 percent, while foreign tourists` length of stay averaged 3.34 days.(*)
Source: ANTARA News
February 18th, 2008
JAKARTA, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) — Indonesia’s resort island Bali is expected to organize 17 festivals, 14 of which already approved by the Minister for Arts and Tourism, to celebrate the “Visit Indonesia Year 2008″, according to local media on Sunday.
    The festivals were expected to attract tourists to visit Bali, Antara news agency quoted head of the Bali Chapter of the Indonesian Hotels and Restaurants Association (PHRI) Ir Tjokorda Oka Artha Ardhana Sukawati as saying.
    The promotion for the events had also been made, he said in Bali.
    Oka said his side had set the target of drawing 1.9 million foreign tourists from the events in 2008. The target was set based on the arrivals of 1,664,047 foreign tourists in 2007.
    Last year, about 5.5 million foreigners visited Indonesia. The government wanted to have 7 million foreign visitors in 2008.
Source: http://news.xinhuanet.com/
February 18th, 2008
Early on in the two-year transcontinental creative process, American architect David Wahl informed his Jakarta-based British client and interior design collaborator Melanie Hall of Mimpi Designs, that the rare 1,600 sq m of prime Seminyak beachfront on which Hall’s Luna2 was located would not be quite expansive enough for two of her dream spaces, the 24-seat cinema and underground cocktail lounge.
Named for the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon, Luna2’s five-bedroom Modernist estate marks a giant step away from Bali’s bamboo-clad, antique filled accommodations inspired by the understated luxury of Amanresorts.
Wahl’s severe sliding glass-walled exterior recalls Richard Neutra’s 1946 Kauffman House in Palm Springs. Here too an imposing stone wall acts structurally as the main support spine, while white lacquered horizontals delineate the bi-level property.
The ground floor’s geometric simplicity and open plan lets the party flow from the sunken living room with requisite Noguchi coffee and groovy geometric carpets woven in Vietnam to the well-stocked mirrored bar, extending outside on cool grey slabs to a fishpond inhabited by psychedelic-hued aquatic life.
Marilyn Monroe appears as a Bisazza-tiled mosaic at the bottom of a 20m swimming pool that reaches towards the considerable surf along Seminyak Beach; while a few footprints in the volcanic sand lead to Ku De Ta, the perennially packed lounge where Bali’s most beautiful bodies congregate for sublime sunsets.
Return to the villa and slide onto transparent orange Pedrali chairs in the Pop Art-filled dining room, though seated dinners for 60 can also be organized on the buzz cut lawn. Yellow Formica lines the exhibition kitchen where three Australian chefs headed by Danny Drinkwater (he does double duty as executive chef and GM) turn out twice-baked goats cheese souffle with tomato jam, and wagyu tenderloin, porcini mushrooms and foie gras wrapped in pastry, or comfort foods at any hour for vacationers craving scrambled eggs with caviar, and homemade chocolate éclairs.
1960s inspired furnishings fill the five festive bedrooms upstairs, literally covering the spectrum from a rose-colored children’s room equipped with low- to high-tech toys, to a shocking violet adult lair; while ensuite bathrooms are outfitted with the latest Philippe Starck cube loos.
Source: http://www.wallpaper.com/travel
February 15th, 2008
Denpasar (ANTARA News) - Bali`s exports of handicraft products and other non-oil/non-gas commodities to Japan in 2007 were valued at almost US$60 million, an increase from US$45.4 million in 2006.
Bali`s exports of handicraft products to Japan are very encouraging and the value of the commodity export to that country increases every month, head of the foreign trade department of the provincial industry and trade office, Ni Wayan Kusumawathi, said here Thursday.
Ni Wayan said Bali`s exports of handicraft and commodities produced by small-scale industries contributed 11 percent of the province`s total foreign exchange earnings from non-oil/non-gas exports in 2007 worth US$504 million.
“It reflects that handicraftsmen and exporters from the Goddess island are increasingly able to meet the Japanese consumers` demands,” she said.
A handicraftsman from Ubud, Ketut Sudi, said among Bali`s handicraft products exported to Japan were artistic wooden chopsticks.
Besides handicraft products, Japan also imported fishery commodities from Bali including fresh tuna fish, crabs, lobsters and a kind of seafish locally known as ‘kerapu’. (*)
Source: ANTARA News
February 15th, 2008
Irawaty Wardany, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar
Werddhi Budaya Art Center in east Denpasar turned into a mini China town Sunday night, with red ornaments and paper lanterns lining the path to an open stage in the compound’s center.
The Chinese ambience was further enhanced by female visitors dressed in red Cheong-Sam (traditional Chinese dresses)-style outfits.
Their appearance might have been Chinese but the women spoke Indonesian with thick Balinese accents. Only once in a while could we hear voices spoken in Mandarin.
Sunday was the Imlek (Chinese New Year) 2559 brotherhood night, honed by the Chinese Indonesian Association (INTI). Head of INTI, Rahman Hakim, said the aim was to commemorate multiculturalism and pluralism.
“We usually commemorate Imlek only with our families, but now we celebrate Imlek openly. It has become a party for all communities,” he said.
The event was attended by Bali Governor Dewa Made Beratha, Bali Police Chief Insp. Gen. Paulus Purwoko, Bali Legislative Council Speaker Ida Bagus Putu Weswana, several community and religious leaders along with hundreds of ethnic Chinese Bali residents.
Rachman said Imlek should be a time for introspection as well as for joyous celebrations.
He said earlier that day the association planted 10,000 trees across Bali in the hope they would preserve nature’s balance.
Dewa Beratha asked the Balinese people to maintain their harmonious relationship with all non-Balinese ethnic groups and religions, including Chinese-Indonesians.
“People of Bali should spread love and eliminate all the things that can ruin the social harmony in Bali,” he said.
Secretary of the Bali chapter of INTI, Sudiarta Indrajaya, said the Chinese in Bali hardly ever felt any discrimination.
“I don’t mean to underestimate the pressure felt by the Chinese in other regions, but Balinese Chinese have experienced peace and comfortable living on this island even during the New Order regime,” he said.
He added that Balinese had accepted pluralisms long ago because Balinese abide by the concept of Menyama Braya (brotherhood).
Endang Sulistyawati, a Udayana University professor of Chinese descent, saod discrimination experienced by Chinese in Bali was not as strong as that suffered by Chinese in Java.
“The traditions of Chinese people, who are mostly Buddhists, and the Hindu Balinese are quite similar, therefore we feel a familiar closeness to Balinese culture,” she said.
The night sky was later set ablaze with a colorful fireworks display. The event also featured a traditional Balinese dance, Puspanjali, poetry reading and singing by a prominent Balinese poet of Chinese-descent, Tan Lioe Ie, and dancing by Qian Shou Guan Yin (thousand hands of Guan Yin Goddess).
The arts depicted the role of Chinese people in the country’s struggle to gain its independence.
The event closed with a joint-prayer session that saw four religious leaders, all of different religions - Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic and Islam - leading the prayer together on stage. For one brief moment, all participants bowed their heads and knew no difference from each other.
Source: The Jakarta Post
February 14th, 2008
Laws to protect the Sumatran tiger are failing to prevent body parts of the critically endangered animal from being sold openly in Indonesia, according to a report released today.
Body parts including canine teeth, claws, skin pieces, whiskers and bones were found on sale in one in 10 of the 326 retail outlets in 28 cities and towns across Sumatra that were surveyed during 2006 by the wildlife trade monitoring body, Traffic.
Its report, The Tiger Trade Revisited in Sumatra, found tiger parts being sold in goldsmiths, souvenir and traditional Chinese medicine shops, and shops selling antique and precious stones. Trade was concentrated in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra province, and Pancur Batu, a smaller town nearby, the report found.
Based on the number of teeth on sale, the survey estimates that 23 tigers were killed to supply the products found.
Traffic says this figure is down from its last survey in 1999-2000, which estimated that there were 52 tigers killed per year for the trade in body parts.
“Sadly, the decline in availability appears to be due to the dwindling number of tigers left in the wild,” said Julia Ng, programme officer with Traffic south-east Asia and lead author of the report. “The Sumatran tiger population is estimated to be fewer than 400 to 500 individuals. It doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that the Sumatran tiger will disappear like the Javan and Bali tigers if the poaching and trade continues.”
The Sumatran tiger is listed as critically endangered on the IUCN-World Conservation Union’s “red list” of threatened species – the highest level of threat that a species may become extinct in the wild.
Indonesia’s only wild tigers are found on the island of Sumatra. Wild Bali and Javan tigers became extinct last century due to habitat destruction and hunting.
Despite international and domestic bans preventing trade of the animal, a thriving black market for tiger skins and bones is threatening to wipe out the world’s remaining wild tiger population.
Traffic says that despite providing Indonesian authorities with the details of traders involved, it is not clear whether any serious enforcement action has been taken.
“Successive surveys continue to show that Sumatran tigers are being sold, body part by body part, into extinction,” said Heather Sohl, wildlife trade officer at WWF, which runs Traffic as a joint programme with the IUCN. “This is an enforcement crisis. If Indonesian authorities need enforcement help from the international community they should ask for it. If not, they should demonstrate they are taking enforcement seriously.”
The report recommends that resources and efforts should concentrate on effective enforcement to combat the trade by arresting dealers and suppliers. It says trade hotspots should be continually monitored and all intelligence should be passed on to the authorities for action. Those found guilty of trading in tigers and other protected wildlife “should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law”, it says.
“We have to deal with the trade. Currently we are facing many other crucial problems which, unfortunately, are causing the decline of Sumatran tiger populations,” said Tonny Soehartono, the director for biodiversity conservation for Indoneia’s ministry of forestry. “We have been struggling with the issues of land use changes, habitat fragmentation, human-tiger conflicts and poverty in Sumatra. Land use changes and habitat fragmentation are driving the tiger closer to humans and thus creating human-tiger conflicts.”
Sumatra’s few remaining tigers are under threat not only from the illegal wildlife trade in their body parts, but from loss of their habitat due to deforestation. Unless tackled immediately, these combined threats will be the “death knell” for Indonesian tigers, Traffic says.
“The Sumatran tiger is already listed as critically endangered,” said Jane Smart, the head of the IUCN’s species programme. “We cannot afford to lose any more of these magnificent creatures.”
At last year’s climate change summit in Bali, the Indonesian president launched a conservation action plan to protect the Sumatran tiger. As it chairs this year’s Asean Widlife Enforcement Network, Traffic is urging Indonesia to show leadership in south-east Asia by taking action against the illegal wildlife trade.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/
February 13th, 2008
Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Indonesia will host an international environmental conference in June to address efforts to reduce exports of hazardous waste from industrialized nations to developing countries.
Rasio Ridho Sani, deputy assistant to environment minister for management of hazardous waste said Sunday environment ministers from 170 countries were expected for the ninth Basel Convention on the control of transboundry movement of hazardous waste.
Scheduled to take place on June 23-27 in Bali, the conference is expected to bring together more than 1,000 delegates from developed and developing nations.
The conference is set to be the second world event on environment that Indonesia will host after Bali’s UN Climate Change conference last December.
The Basel Convention was started in 1992 and obliges signatory countries to ensure waste is managed and disposed of in an environmentally sound way.
It says parties should set adequate disposal facilities for the waste and covers toxic, poisonous, explosive, corrosive, flammable, eco-toxic and infectious waste.
Some 168 countries have ratified the convention, excluding the U.S.
Indonesia, the world’s longest coastal area, ratified the convention in 1993.
“We are very vulnerable to illegal dumping of hazardous waste,” Rasio said.
Indonesia has more than 2,000 entry points along the coastal zone vulnerable to illegal dumps of hazardous waste.
Data from the State Minister for the Environment Office said since the 1980s Indonesia has become a dumping ground for hazardous and non-hazardous waste.
It says the government has accepted requests from foreign countries and companies to dump waste containing hydrocarbon.
This waste results after tankers are cleaned in Indonesian areas, including Tanjung Ucang on Batam Island.
The government has also re-exported tons of hazardous waste to its origin countries, including Singapore.
Japan is the biggest exporter of hazardous materials used for industry and agriculture sectors to Indonesia, sending 31 tons of waste in 2006.
Indonesia yields about seven million tons of hazardous waste per year — one quarter of which remains untreated.
The country currently has one facility for the treatment of hazardous waste, PT Prasadha Pamunah Limbah Industry (PT PPLi) in Bogor, West Java, with a capacity of 100,000 tons.
Rasio said environment minister Rachmat Witoelar would be the new president of the conference of parties (COP) of the Basel Convention for the 2008-2010 period.
“Pak Rachmat is scheduled to visit the secretariat of the Basel Convention in Geneva this month to discuss issues that would be promoted during the Bali convention,” he said.
Source: The Jakarta Post
February 12th, 2008
Denpasar, Bali (ANTARA News) - Bali earned a total of US$71.8 million from aquatic product exports during 2007, an increase by 37 percent from US$52.4 million in 2006, according to a local official.
The increase was thank to good quality of the aquatic products which had satisfied foreign buyers, Ni Wayan Kusumawathi, head of the Bali provincial trade service, said here on Saturday.
The province`s marine products had met the international standards and gone through laboratory tests, she said.
Fresh and frozen tuna exports alone brought in US$59 million of foreign exchanges last year, up by 56 percent from US$37.6 million in 2006, she said.
The volume of the tuna exports last year reached 18,621 tons, compared with 9,941 tons in 2006.
Bali exported fresh tuna especially to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and Korea, and frozen tuna to European countries and the United States.(*)
Source: ANTARA News
February 11th, 2008
Denpasar (ANTARA News) - Bali Island received 154,000 foreign tourists in January 2008, an increase by 29.88 percent from 107,800 in January 2007.
“On average, Bali is visited by around 5,135 foreign tourists daily, an improvement compared to the days before the 2002 and 2005 bombings,” head of the Bali provincial tourism service I Gede Nurjaya said here on Friday.
Bali would maintain and even improve its image internationally, he said.
“The image has various aspects, namely safety, comfort, cleanliness, and good service,” Nurjaya said.
The Bali administration had set itself the target of attracting 1.9 million foreign tourists in 2008. In 2007, the tourist island received a total of 1,664,047 foreign visitors.
Bali was also planning to stage various tourism events to support the Visit Indonesia Year 2008. (*)
Source: ANTARA News
February 11th, 2008
Natural beauty, spas …and a special Holocaust conference
February 07, 2008
Elyse Glickman
Jewish Exponent FeatureYears ago, when Bali was mentioned, honeymoons, scuba-diving, lavish resorts and Bob Hope “Road” movies came to mind. Later, with the Kuta bombings and knowledge that Indonesia was a Muslim country with its fair share of turmoil, I figured that there must have been something very special beyond Bali’s verdant surface that made it such an attractive destination for so many.
The chance for me to visit Bali surfaced unexpectedly when I was invited by bodog.com to interview founder Calvin Ayer for a men’s lifestyle magazine. Certainly, Ayer must have been inspired by Bali, as he was there to tape segments for a television series his company was producing.
Sweetening the last-minute deal would be the fact that I’d be flying Cathay Pacific over (one of the best economy-class flights I’ve ever experienced), staying in a gorgeous resort and would have plenty of leisure time to travel around the island. Eighteen hours and one Hong Kong stopover later, I would get one of the great surprises of my life as a traveler.
Though the airport in main city Denpasar looked a little like an old Trader Vic’s (albeit with 21st-century touches of airport security and cappuccino kiosks), once outside, I realized quickly — and with great delight — that I wasn’t in Honolulu anymore.
The cab ride to the hotel in the Nusa Dua resort area was a living documentary of daily life in Bali, complete with a savvy driver and motorbikes buzzing around us in all directions. In his narration, he put any fears to rest, praised the perseverance of Bali’s people, and pointed out shopping and restaurants along the main drag.
However, as the Nusa Dua resort area opened up to embrace us like a Southeast Asian Emerald City, he recommended that I and my journalist/companion (also there to profile Ayer) hire a driver to take us around the island instead of a bus tour.
“I can tell you ladies are far too independent for the touristy thing,” he declared. “As the dollar goes farther here than other places, you’ll find a private driver is worth every penny.”
The Nusa Dua resort area — put on the map by the Sultan of Brunei — is an oasis dotted with sumptuous hotels built for coupling and diving. This is the Bali that I imagined, marrying the exotic with the manicured.
At the very center of the development was our home for the week, the Nusa Dua Beach Resort (www.nusaduahotel.com). Although it’s no longer the most posh hotel in the enclave, it remains plenty luxurious, yet also retains a wonderful sense of authenticity thanks to its astute, committed and mostly local staff.
The presidential suite is the one-time private vacation residence of the sultan (where our billionaire bachelor was sultan for the week), complete with elegant landscaping and over-the-top 1930s’ decor.
Perfect Day, Every Day
However, what was most appealing about the resort was its real local flavor (as opposed to standard-issue five-star resorts that could also exist in Honolulu or Puerto Rico). The perfect day, which was almost every day, began with watching an indescribably spectacular sunrise on their jetty and then wandering to their main restaurant for a massive breakfast buffet that could carry you through the entire day, not just with tempting local fruits but also an entire halal/kosher/ vegetarian section that added real peace of mind to enjoying local cuisine.
I carried it a step further by taking the Nusa Dua Spa’s daily yoga class. The instructor shared her story of losing her business after the Kuta bombings; continuing her work with the hotel was a way of rebuilding her own life, as well as Bali’s livelihood.
The hotel activity planners — in addition to the private drivers they hooked us up with — also told similar tales that added substance and gravity to the island’s limitless supply of beauty.
Our driver Made (Mah-dey) took our interests seriously, grilling us with a smile as he took a mental inventory of everything we wanted to see and do. We had to shop for jewelry, naturally, and we heard Ubud was a must.
Of course, we also had to see some of the Hindu temples and local wildlife.
And though he looked at us quizzically, he agreed to show us some of the more interesting sites in Denpasar (that were not outlet malls) later in the day. For days so carefully planned, everything felt very spontaneous and relaxed.
Ubud was certainly charming, with a main street that featured Seraphim, an elegant shop showcasing pieces by Rah & Katie East light years away from familiar Balianese-made baubles sold in American college towns and gift shops.
We also wandered through Puri Saren (Ubud Palace), where locals were preparing for a major Hindu celebration that involved floats and costumes. Yet the real “wow” moments came with visits to spots like Pura Puseh Batuan, the Bahian Village, Tampak Village and Pura Gunung Kawi Temple.
Made impressed us with a jaunt to I Ketut Pasta in Sukawati/Gianyar (a village where the main street is literally paved with gold and silver), offering beautiful silver jewelry at reasonable prices (chunky silver bracelets with semi-precious stones go for $25-$50), as well as a larger, more expensive mega-shop, where you could actually watch pieces being made. Working our way home via Denpasar, we stopped at the larger-than-life Bajra Sandhi Monument, which symbolized Bali’s independence from the Dutch … something still relevant in the 21st century.
A few months on from that trip, I realized just how enlightened Bali could be beyond facials and architecture. A news story called my attention to a conference staged on Bali to affirm the reality of the Holocaust.
Former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid criticized Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for insisting that the Nazi killing of 6 million Jews was just a myth. The Hindu outpost of this predominantly Muslim country brought together moderate Muslim leaders, Hindu spiritual head Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Buddhist teachers, a Jesuit priest and several respected rabbis to discuss peace and tolerance.
On many fronts, with all this in mind, Bali is paradise found.
To learn more, visit: www. bali-tourism-board.com.
Source: http://www.jewishexponent.com/
February 8th, 2008
Next Posts
Previous Posts