Archive for October, 2008
Tri Vivi Suryani, Contributor, Denpasar
Inanimate materials are the usual media used by artists to portray their ideas, but fine artist I Gede Merta chooses living organisms for his artistic expressions and for that he has made a name for himself among Indonesia’s fine art enthusiasts.
Merta is highly skilled in transforming a unique tropical plant, adenium, into art pieces of high value. In his hand the desert-rose species is sculpted into works of creation.
It was impressive to see the modest and hospitable artist at work at Paras Bali. His nursery is located in the Hayam Wuruk area, Denpasar, where his art pieces are also on display.
Born in Karangasem, eastern Bali, Merta recalled the first time he had seen adenium, locally known as kamboja jepang, at an exhibition in Situbondo, East Java, in 2006.
Out of amazement and affection for its stem’s exotic shapes, Pakde, as this painter, woodcarver and sculptor is commonly called, began to entertain his desire to use this plant as an artistic medium. For this purpose, the sturdy man set off to all parts of Bali to hunt for adenium and to gather its unique trunks. His efforts have been rewarded, as he has a wide range of phenomenal pieces in human, animal and other forms.
The 42-year-old uses the subspecies adenium obesum for his creations because of its bigger, swollen trunk sizes and abundant supply. The plant stems must be healthy and have the necessary elements for them to be crafted into the desired figures. For example, if the image of a man is to be created, the base of the chosen desert-rose should be complete with its body, head, arm and leg forms.
Pakde categorized adenium into several classes. The first group has bulging stems that offer a lifelike character for artistic expression. The second is incomplete in anatomical structure, giving the impression of an object, such as a monkey figure with only one arm. The third is anatomically beyond representation.
“The difficulty in processing adenium stems into objects of art involves not only the cutting but also the sorting of trunks to find the shapes required. Once I sorted over 300 desert-rose trunks and none of them met the criteria for human images,” Padke said, who is also a law graduate of Saraswati University, Denpasar.
It takes quite some time to turn unique adenium stems into exquisite figures. The problem is that after cutting, sufficient time must be allowed for the plant’s recovery. A hasty process bears the risk of the plant rotting, which Pakde experienced when he was crafting a lizard. As the time he allowed between the first cutting and the next was too short, his adenium died. In fact, he had already spent seven months on what he calls the plant’s training period.
As a natural artist, Pakde is highly talented, creating valuable works of art. However, while before he only used inanimate materials such as wood, canvas or stone to portray his ideas, he is now dealing with a living medium and like other beings, it involves some emotional handling.
To prevent shaped adenium stems from decaying, Pakde grows desert-roses in a blend of goat dung, volcanic sand, burnt straw and garden soil in equal proportions, with their first watering only after three days of its planting. As of today he has turned out more than 200 adenium creations in intriguing forms, including humans, animals, legendary figures and other images.
At present there are about 90 pieces in his collection and he hopes to one day hold a solo exhibition.
Meanwhile, Pakde also travels as far as Banyuwangi, East Java, and Surakarta, Central Java, in his search for adenium bases. While most people are seeking plants with well-formed stems, he sees weird and even flawed ones as his best sources of inspiration. In addition, adeniums with unattractive stems are less expensive to buy, ranging in price from Rp 100,000 (US$11) to Rp 500,000.
With some cigarettes and a cup of coffee, Pakde spends quiet nights letting loose his imagination. It doesn’t take long for him to transform the bulging trunks into diverse figures. People regard his craftsmanship as superb in being able to treat objects with accuracy, thus making them look animate. A lion image, for instance, appears to be ferocious rather than merely decorative.
Those interested in following in his footsteps are welcome to come to Pakde’s Paras Bali nursery for training. At present, 15 people are developing their artistic skills, learning how to shape adenium stems into their own creations.
“I want to impart my knowledge and skills. By mastering the techniques needed to create unique adenium pieces, they are able to produce objects of different designs. Everybody has an individual sense of art, which makes the difference.”
Source: The Jakarta Post
October 13th, 2008
The Indonesia Open will move from the capital Jakarta to the paradise island of Bali in 2009.
The tournament will take place at the New Kuta Golf Resort from February 26 to March 1 and boast an increased prize fund of US dollars 1.25 million.
The 7,500-yard, par-72 layout, which overlooks the stunning ‘Dream Land’ Balangan Beach on the Indian Ocean, was designed by Golf Plan, USA (Ronald Fream, David Dale and Kevin Ramsey) and is the first links-style course in Indonesia.
Source: http://ukpress.google.com
October 13th, 2008
The Indonesia Open, co-sanctioned by the Asian and European Tours, will move to Bali in 2009 with the prize money bumped up to US$1.25mil - the richest sporting event in the country.
The acclaimed Dream Land-New Kuta Golf Resort will be the setting for the Feb 26-March 1 championships after organisers decided to shift it from Jakarta.
Asian Tour Executive Chairman Kyi Hla Han welcomed the decision to shift the tournament to the tropical holiday island resort, which overlooks Balangan Beach, Bali’s best known surfing destination.
“The championship has been staged in Jakarta for the past four years and taking the event to Dream Land-New Kuta Golf Resort in Bali in 2009 will further spread the gospel of golf across Indonesia,” he said.
“The Asian Tour fully supports initiatives to move a national championship around a country as it will instil greater interests in the game amongst the masses.”
Last year’s US$1.2mil event was won by Chile’s Felipe Aguilar, who beat India’s Jeev Milkha Singh by a stroke. €” AFP
Source: http://thestar.com.my/
October 10th, 2008
BE NICE WHEN IT’S FINISHED: An excavator passes amid the many tourists enjoying the view at Kuta Beach, which is currently being renovated. White sands are being transported to the beach to rehabilitate and preserve the damaged coast line. (JP/Ni Komang Erviani)
Domestic tourists have started flocking to Kuta beach, as of Sunday evening, ahead of the Idul Fitri celebration, mingling with foreign tourists from various countries, including Australia, Japan and European countries.
Head of the Kuta Beach life guard unit, I Gusti Ngurah Tresna, said Monday that the number of tourists visiting Kuta has jumped to about 7,000 per day from a normal average of 5,000 per day.
The peak for visitors will probably be on Wednesday, the first day of Idul Fitri, with the number of visitors to Kuta beach likely to reach about 10,000, he said.
“Most of the domestic tourists come from a number of big cities, including Jakarta and Surabaya,” Tresna said.
Aside from domestic tourists, the rate of foreign tourist arrivals to Kuta Beach is still relatively high.
“There are many foreign tourists coming to the beach because it is still the holiday season in their countries,” Tresna said.
The reclamation work being carried out on Kuta beach, however, has been disruptive and has reduced the level of amenity for the tourists. The movement of heavy equipment, especially excavators, amid relaxing tourists, has caused inconvenience.
These conditions has forced lifeguards to take part in assuring visitors’ safety on the beach as well as in the sea. The lifeguards have had to warn visitors through loudspeakers to watch out for their own safety and also that of their children because of the passing of heavy equipment.
“We have to keep reminding the visitors about the movement of heavy machinery in the area, otherwise it will be dangerous for them, especially their children,” Tresna said.
The Kuta reclamation project has forced lifeguards to close parts of the beach from visitors. The lifeguards have also coordinated with the project operators not to work in the evening.
“We have asked that the work be stopped in the evening when the number of visitors sharply increases,” Tresna said.
Meanwhile, the coordinator of the Badung Water Tourism Preservation Agency, which oversees the Kuta reclamation project, Made Suparka said that he and his personnel were ready to anticipate sharp increases in the number of tourists to Kuta.
Suparka said his agency has assigned six people to guard watch posts at Kuta beach.
He said his personnel would do their best to maintain safety for visitors so as to prevent any accidents.
Suparka said that the most frequent incidents taking place in Kuta were drowning accidents in which swimmers were carried away by strong currents.
“We have anticipated this by installing flags informing visitors not to swim in certain areas. But there are visitors who are stubborn,” he said.
Heriawan, a tourist from Jakarta, said he was happy to be able to have a holiday in Bali. He said he has planned his vacation ages ago.
“Bali is the favorite place to pass the vacation for me and my family,” said the father of two.
However, Heriawan expressed concern over the reclamation project which is being carried out during the holiday season.
“It is a pity the project has partly ruined the view,” he said.
by Ni Komang Erviani, The Jakarta Post , Denpasar  Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com
October 10th, 2008
Bali - an Island Becoming Increasingly Accessible to Handicapped and Special Need Travelers.
(10/3/2008) At balidiscovery.com we want to share the magic of Bali with the world – no exceptions!
In an effort to make Bali accessible to handicapped and special need travelers, we’ve identified Bali hotels that cater to special need travelers; secured special vehicles customized for the wheelchair bound; lined up the services of nurses, care givers and specially-trained tour guides; identified medical equipment available for rental; and established contracts with air ambulance service providers.
Our staff of travel professionals are constantly on the look out for attractions and accommodation offering hassle-free access to special need travelers. We also encourage accommodation providers and travel operators to contact Bali Discovery and tell us about any new products and services for special need travelers that we can offer.
Articles and images are copyright of Bali Discovery Tours
Source: http://www.balidiscovery.com
October 9th, 2008
Bali and East Java reported the rising number of foreign tourists in the regions since the beginning of this year.
Statictics Indonesia office in Bali province said by the end of August this year there were 1,29 milion of foreign tourists visited the island.
During Juli-August there are roughly 6,000 tourist came to Bali everyday, or equal to 180,000 tourists every month.
The statistics agency said the province could pass the 1,7 milion targetted by the government by the end of the year if Bali administration could keep the number. The tourism industry could also get a boost from several festivals and events until the end of the year like the Asian Beach Games and the Ubud Writers & Reader Festival.
Japan came at the top for the percentage of foreign tourist with 18,8 per cent, followed by Australia at 15,7 per cent, then France with 6,77 per cent, China with 6,16 per cent, and Malaysia with 6,02 per cent.
The statistic agency office in East Java also reported a steady rise on the number of tourist visiting the province since the beginning of 2008.
The agency recorded 18,171 foreign tourists visited the province in August, rose 29,74 per cent from the previous month. Foreign tourists in the province had been increasing since January from around 8,000 to 14,006 in July.
Rofiqi Hasan | Rohman Taufiq
Source: www.tempointeractive.com
October 8th, 2008
45 countries and more than 1,500 athletes will converge on the island of Bali October 18-26, 2008, for the first-ever Asian Beach Games.
19 separate fields of sporting endeavor will be fought out in four separate “cluster areas:”
â—Ź Kuta Beach ClusterÂ
- Body Building, October 19 & 20
- Dragon Boat Racing, October 18-24
- Surfing, October 18-26
● Nusa Dua – Benoa Cluster
- Water Polo, October 18-22
- Beach Kabaddi, October 19-22
- Beach Basketball, October 24-26
- Beach Basketball, October 24-26
- Beach Wrestling, October 24-25
- Beach Pencak Silat, October 18-20 & October 22
- Jetski, October 23-25
- Paragliding, October 18-25
- Woodball, October 18-22
Sanur Beach Cluster
- Beach Volleyball, October 18-26
- Beach Sepak Takraw, October 18-21 & October 23-25
- Beach Handball, October 18-25
- Beach Soccer, October 18-22 & October 24-26
- Marathon Swimming, October 25-26
- Triathlon, October 26
â—Ź Serangan Island Cluster
- Sailing, October 19-25
- Windsurfing, October 29-25.
Setting the stage for more than a week of world-class competition will be a gala opening ceremony to be held at the Garuda Wisnu Kencana Monument on October 18, 2006. In a spectacular presentation involving more than 1,200 dancers drawn from 8 local high schools, choreographed dancers will pay tribute to the cultures of 45 the participating countries.
Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is scheduled to open the event.
Articles and images are copyright of Bali Discovery Tours
Source: http://www.balidiscovery.com
October 7th, 2008
By Wang Yong
“CLICK! click!” three scampering little girls yelped at us in great joy as we wandered about a village in Ubud, central Bali Island, last month.
Two were six or seven years old, and the eldest was about 12. They sat by a short wall of brick and clay as my wife and I entered their village, a few steps from our hotel, Royal Pita Maha. The fancy hotel is located between a cliff and many villages in the true sense of the word - villages that are insulated from urban “civilization”.
The girls were so shy that they kept a distance from us while they tried to catch our attention with their crisp sounds of “click! click!” We were not sure whether they wanted us to take a picture of them. The moment I raised my camera and waved it to them in a gesture of inquiry, the girls burst into giggles and rushed with a light foot toward us. Now we knew what they wanted. I gestured them back to the wall ready for a shot.
“Click!” went the sound of my snapping camera. “Come, have a look!” I shouted. The minute they saw their own images in my digital camera, the girls giggled, grinned and ran away, their chubby and tanned faces covered by their hands in shyness. Their eyes brimmed with joy. Their happiness was a click away.
We took some steps further into the village tucked in lush greenery. We peered into the courtyards of some households which reminded me of my childhood when I had great fun with my late grandmother collecting for sale chicken manure in our backyard. Although I lived in a city, city life in the 1960s and 1970s in China was not greatly different from rural life as industrialism had yet to take hold.
My thoughts were wandering to the beauty of rural simplicity when I heard another yelp of “click!” The eldest girl was calling us again. This time she had invited another three girls, all of her age, to enjoy the encounter. Word must have spread about us. What a pity, then, when I found my digital camera overloaded. I had taken more than 1,000 high-resolution pictures since I arrived in Bali from Shanghai in late August. In disappointment, I smiled to them and said sorry. They smiled back politely and fluttered away with glee, nonetheless, along the rugged road of soft earth.
We returned to Shanghai at dawn on a red-eye flight, leaving behind the fragrance of tropical flowers like plumeria rubra and the luxury of the Royal Pita Maha. The smells and views will fade away with time, but what cannot and will not go away is our memory of those village girls for whom happiness was only a click away.
British philosopher Bertrand Russell discovered this spirit of simple joy among ordinary Chinese people when he visited China in the 1920s. In 1922, he wrote: “It seemed to me that the average Chinaman, even if he is miserably poor, is happier than the average Englishman, and is happier because the nation is built upon a more humane and civilized outlook than our own. Relentlessness and pugnacity not only cause obvious evils, but fill our lives with discontent, incapacitate us for the enjoyment of beauty, and make us almost incapable of the contemplative virtues.”
He further wrote: “But those who value wisdom or beauty, or even the simple enjoyment of life, will find more of these things in China than in the distracted and turbulent West, and will be happy to live where such things are valued. I wish I could hope that China, in return for our scientific knowledge, may give us something of her large tolerance and contemplative peace of mind.”
Whether Russell would say the same if he was alive and visited China today, I am not sure. Way down the road of industrialism, China is a far cry from what it was in Russell’s time. More and more people have abandoned “contemplative peace of mind” in their pursuit of material pleasures in the labyrinth of cities or, to borrow from American writer Scott Fitzgerald, the Valley of Ashes.
Part of Bali Island is bordering on the Valley of Ashes, too. Walk in the central business area of Kuta, southwest of Bali, and you will choke on car emissions despite cleansing sea winds. Tourism has a price. But overall, Bali is a rare reclusion from the modern craze for urbanization and industrialism. And Bali is more than an island of coconut trees and rice paddies and Hindu temples. It is an attitude.
This attitude, or the contemplative peace of mind, defined almost everyone my wife and I met in Bali, not just those rural girls living around Royal Pita Maha.
One day we dragged our feet along Desa Kedewatan, the road leading to our hotel, after we had lunch at a faraway restaurant called Bebek Gengil (its nickname is “dirty duck,” “bebek” meaning “duck.”). The road to Desa Kedewatan was in a deadly traffic gridlock as two big trucks running in opposite directions blocked the narrow road, resulting in a long line of cars and mopeds. No one honked. Most drivers were quiet, some smiling to passengers.
A driver whose truck was full of pigs grinned to me in amusement after he heard me saying aloud the world “pig” in Balinese: Babe.
For almost half an hour as we walked and watched, every driver was nice to each other. No honking, no complaining, no yelling, no spitting, as you so often see in Shanghai and many other so-called metropolitan cities the world over.
When I bought things at the gift shop of KiRANA Spa, a joint venture between Shiseido and the royal family of Bali, the sales ladies - Balinese trained by Japanese - were all smiles. When I wanted to buy a tea set, one of the ladies brought out 10 sets for me to choose from. Even if I didn’t buy a thing, they were happy. You don’t have this service in Shanghai, especially when you look like a small potato.
If the Balinese ladies at KiRANA Spa were good because of Japanese training (which I am not so sure of), our driver, Wayan Sumadi, was good because he was Balinese (”Wayan” means “the eldest”. Sumadi was the eldest son in his family.) He never lured us to any shopping center or restaurant in which he had an interest. He went anywhere we desired. When we wanted to go to Bamboo Corners for lunch in the Kuta area, he asked local people for the restaurant and took us all the way to it, although he was paid only for driving, not for being a gourmet guide. In some scenic spots where banana vendors turned aggressive, he helped fend them off before they approached us. In case you need a driver in emergency, here’s his phone number: 081-239-07762. He drives a mini Suzuki. His English is tolerably good.
Bali is not free from the “obvious evils” Russell mentioned, but my short stay in the island south of the equator gave me pleasures unknown to many modern urbanites. In Ubud, the artistic center of Bali located in mountains, many art shops are closed at 5pm. No one tries to maximize profits the way a typical capitalist does. Had the Balinese embraced brutal capitalism, there would be no poor villagers - hundreds of them °?- living near such a gorgeous hotel as Royal Pita Maha.
Source: http://www.shanghaidaily.com
October 6th, 2008
FROM the crowded bar of the Bounty Club, where bare-chested Australian youngsters mount the stage and drunkenly bellow karaoke, to the luxury Luna 2 villa where the glitterati sip French champagne on the Legian foreshore around a pool inlaid with a 20-metre Marilyn Monroe mosaic, Bali is booming again.
A tourist influx has replaced the downturns that followed the two Bali bombings in 2002 and 2005. Total numbers swelled to new highs this year, and 33,000 Australians came in July alone, a record. Visitors walking the 10-kilometre beachfront strip from Kuta to Seminyak any day in the past three months could not find a single available room.
Across the island, a multitude of new hotels and villas are under construction. Bagus Sudibya, from Bali’s Tourism Board, says the island hosts 60,000 tourist rooms, up from 40,000 just three years ago.
He predicts that this year visitor numbers will top more than 2 million for the first time.
In Bali’s bars, beaches and shops, locals welcome the revitalisation of the tourism trade, which provides the island with 80% of its income, but newly elected Governor I Made Mangku Pastika, the softly spoken former police chief known to Australians for capturing the Bali bombers, is watching the influx with alarm.
He sees another time-bomb ticking, an environmental catastrophe set to overwhelm the holiday paradise. Development is denuding Bali’s forests and literally sucking the island dry, Pastika warns.
“We are very concerned about the environmental problems in Bali, because our forests now are only 22% of the whole area in Bali — according to our laws there should be at least 30% — and of this 22% only 59% is in good condition and can function as a real forest.”
Demand for wood was three times what legal logging could supply, so that even young trees are cut down, eating into the remaining forest, Pastika says.
“The next problem this creates is water. Now from 400 rivers there are 260 dry. We have 140 left, but they are in the process of drying.”
Bali’s environmental balance is under threat, he says. “First we have to talk about the environment; that is the most important thing. This is the relationship of our life. First is water, forests needs water, water needs forests. Water is the source of life.
“Water levels are decreasing. People are exploiting water, taking deep water. There is a massive exploitation of our underground water by hotels and big companies like Coca-Cola. The process of drying is destroying our environment.”
Source: http://www.theage.com.au
October 6th, 2008
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