Bali Tourism News

Bali: the last resort for long haul pleasure?

October 17th, 2008

The island has been swamped by greedy development that threatens to extinguish the soul of the island, argues Jonathan Hart

Jonathan Hart

So much for serendipity, as the late artist Antonio Blanco might have muttered.

Uniformly adorned in ethnic scarves and sandals, the audience tonight at his memorial museum and gallery high in the hills of Bali is a group of western ladies of a certain age, earnestly pursuing cultural enlightenment.

That they are visibly baffled by the exotic nudes and erotic daubs splashed before them in lurid colour would have come as no surprise to the flamboyant Blanco, who once told me that the essence of Bali is found in the heart rather than the eye.

No surprise, either, to the handful of surviving lotus eaters still languishing in the bars and cafes of Ubud.

As all foreigners who live here are quick to confirm, the fabled magic and mysticism of the Island of the Gods can be as illusory as it is intoxicating; as disparate as it is dumbfounding.

An hour’s drive from the heavily commercialised south, this once laid-back artists’ colony has always mixed the western esoteric with the eastern philosophical; in often intricate works depicting the transcendental or local devotions to satisfying the good spirits of the mountains while appeasing the demons of the sea.

A combination of the eclectic and metaphysical, inspiring endless curiosity but defying easy capture by anyone other than the island’s introspective own.

Amid the jumble of market stalls and arts and craft shops, there used to be a studiously profound and curiously trance-like atmosphere here, at once absorbing and intriguing for the voodoo undertones that could be detected but never fathomed.

Yet these days, with its sleek galleries, supermarkets and suffocating traffic, Ubud can be hard to distinguish from anywhere else in an overburdened holiday island seemingly hell-bent on putting the natural and supernatural on the back burner, paving over its rice paddies and sacrificing the unique on an altar of progress.

No question that a visually enticing, off-shoot Hinduism remains in the ritual temple offerings, cymbal-crashing dances, colourful processions or spiritual festivals that can last for a week or more.

The general vibe, though, seems to be less casually inviting; more fraught in the aftermath of what has been, in visitor terms, a full recovery from two devastating terrorist bombings.

Not merely for the radically heightened security measures that now pervade the island but also, perhaps, for an unsettling increase in crime plus an apparent land grab that conservationists view as a form of environmental rape as potentially as destructive as the bombs.

In and around Ubud, as well as all over the island, vast amounts of agricultural land are being traded for the construction of hotel annexe or private villa complexes. Luxurious slices of paradise to be sold to the highest foreign bidders aspiring to the world-class second homes of the global industrialists or celebrities that already dot the island.

Foreigners, mostly of an artistic or literary bent, have been gravitating towards Bali since the 1930s or earlier, if not to live like natives then to intermingle and interact, the better to absorb the culture and soak in the influences.

So potentially no problem if this new building wave was controlled or restricted to individual homes that blend with the environment and support local economies. But they don’t.

Corruption is rife and calls for a mass building moratorium or strict planning harmonisation have been stifled or ignored, allowing big developer complexes of the modular, buy-off-plan type to become a potential tsunami of concrete spreading across otherwise pristine landscapes or cramping urban spaces.

No longer, it seems, do you have to jump through interminable official hoops and sit cross-legged with village elders to negotiate the future of every precious blade of grass or palm frond, as was tradition.

Money has always helped to oil official wheels in Bali but never before was considered a God, say critics, mostly from an older generation of full or part-time foreign residents who fear the island is pandering to those who have no respect for its traditional ways of life.

True or not, it is evident to frequent visitors like myself that Bali is fast losing its core easy-going appeal; a place that’s relaxed but stimulating , frantic but friendly, happy and harmonious in its own uniquely creative skin.

Chasing the real estate dragon, in particular, appears to be creating growing disenfranchisement among the young in an island where family, from the ancient royal households to the remotest villages, was once deemed paramount.

Displaced by cheaper and less indolent workers from Java, perhaps their least favourite bedfellows, young Balinese are increasingly finding themselves in limbo; educated but unable to find a job.

A syndrome, coupled with apparently conflicting national and local government edicts plus a western tendency to meddle, that seems to be fomenting increasing disaffection plus a ‘them and us’ divide.

Disaffection, too, in the fields where workers can deliberately make incessant and unnecessary noise on the fringes of unwanted developments in order to vent their anger, send a message to the management and disturb the tourists who have come to find peace.

Some solace can be found in a sprinkling of older villa resorts that have made harmony a priority from the outset; notably the iconic Amanresorts whose three eminently stylish but unobtrusive properties remain unquestionably the island’s most accomplished for quality, service and a guaranteed calmness.

All moulded into the surrounding landscape, Amanusa on a promontory in the south; Amandari, currently under renovation on the outskirts of Ubud, and Amankila on a remote East Coast cliff are also predominantly supplied, staffed or serviced by local families.

Yet these resorts, along with a handful of other methodically-planned hotel villas, are the preserve of a wealthy few in an island that’s economically obliged to appeal to all comers.

As with the bombs and subsequent recovery, Bali has been beset many times over many years with alternating periods of tourist drought and surfeit, constantly struggling with the demon that is room supply and demand together with balancing its infrastructure .

The difference today is that the small hotels or ‘home stays’ that traditionally have underscored the integration and experience of visitors seem largely to have been discarded in favour of a generic modern model or mostly large villa or hotel complexes that, for all their efforts to provide a localised imprint, could be anywhere in Asia.

With the ubiquitous motor scooters buzzing around me like a swarm of mosquitoes, I drive down chaotic, overcrowded roads to see an old friend who runs just such a local guest house; a courtyard of simple but spotlessly clean bungalows on the very edge of a beach. A haven now surrounded by building sites.

Nyoman tells me that business is poor due to changing tastes plus crime and security concerns confining many tourists to their resort compounds. We recall more carefree days of sharing breakfast on my terrace, surrounded by trees, birds and peace rather the jackhammers of today. Nyoman shrugs ruefully: “ Sorry, Papa, but all very different now. No bagus (good).�

Cheap is still available but not so much the cheerful in an island whose soul, it seems to me, is evaporating in direct relation to progress. Beyond the hotel complexes, I stroll along the near-deserted beach and stop for coffee at a makeshift café in the shade of a jacaranda.

All, for once, is quiet. Back from their night’s labours, fishermen slumber beneath an early morning sun glinting off an azure sea, surfers riding the white breakers of the reef beyond.

I reflect that snatches of a more traditional, less aggressive Bali can still be found in the eye. But for how much longer?

NEED TO KNOW

Seven nights at an Amanresort costs from £2,645 per person, excluding flights, www.amanresorts.com. Return flights are from £634, www.netflights.com.

There are no direct flights from the UK. Daily connections are available via Singapore and frequently via Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong. Seven nights, inclusive of return flights and a 3-star resort is from £765, www.travelmood.com.

Bali is hot an humid year-round with minimum day-time temperatures averaging 28º-30º. The rainy season runs from mid-October to mid-April with drier weather, cooled by breezes, during European summer months.

Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk

Entry Filed under: Bali Tourism News