I've Been to Bali Too

The End

2006-03-18T17:23:00.000+11:00

Well, that's it folks until the next trip to Bali. What's here is quite a lot about western artists in Bali, rice, Balinese food, these accommodations: Seraya Shores (near Candidasa), Tjampuhan Hotel (Ubud), Apa Kabar Villas (Amed), Puri Tantra Bungalows (Legian), and the links that I like after way too long cruising the internet (not quite ever gathered into one place: see the links down the right of the page as well as this post).

At the end of the day, I think Murni's Warung has the best site about Bali, the best guidebook is The Natural Guide to Bali, Seraya Shores is really worth staying at, and the cooking class at Casa Luna worth doing.

If you have a link you think should be added, please let me know. Thanks for reading. If you have been one of the hundreds of silent repeat readers, I'd be glad if you left a comment with your thoughts on this little enterprise.

Thinking about sex and exposing navel to be banned in Bali?

2006-02-25T09:46:00.000+11:00

Strange reports about a proposed law against exposing one's navel which were beginning to circulate on bulletin boards have escalated into 2 articles in today's Age. Apparently a special unit of the navy is going to police the impending ban au bord de la mer, and kissing in public is going to be infra dig.

The police didn't wait for the bill to be passed, though, as this 7 February Jakarta Post article explains:

A total of 105 books, 37,000 tabloids and 350 magazines were confiscated recently from newsstands in the five municipalities of Jakarta as well as Depok municipality.

This Indonesienne professor of feminism better be careful of Indonesia's few fundamentalists if she is going to continue saying things like this:

INDONESIANS also have sensuality, says leading feminist and university professor Gadis Arriva. "Women here have always dressed sexily and in tight clothes. This law is something very alien to us. We have bare-breasted women in Bali and Papua, this is part of our culture.

Bare breasted women in Bali? I think not, though it is of course the bare breasts which lured intrepid adventurers there in the first place. Mind you Balinese formal wear for women comprises gauzy embroidered tops which are quite diaphanous and show very clearly the underlying brassieres of inevitably non-matching colour, and this attire has already been raised as an issue in the context of this law.

Indcoup, who has been championing the burgeoning career of Tiara Lestari, Indonesia's first Playboy centrefold, whether out of a desire to boost traffic or out of genuine admiration, will not be pleased.

Thanks to a 20 year old Filipina for the magnificent navel photo.

The Courier-Mail: Bali judge fought back tears [17feb06]

2006-02-17T22:12:00.000+11:00

The Courier-Mail: Bali judge fought back tears

The Indonesian legal system is certainly different from ours. Lawyers admit being involved in the giving of bribes; judges give comments to the media as the case progresses, part heard; judges reveal the deliberations in chambers over sentence in cases their hearing.

49 year old mother of two daughters aged 14 and 18, Judge Suryowati sat with two others on the trial of 20 year old Myuran Sukumaran, one of the Bali 9. She revealed to Brisbane's Courier Mail that she lobbied her two fellow judges against imposing the death penalty. Then she struggled to hold back tears as the word "mati" (death) tripped off the tongue of he presiding judge.

As the article points out, Sukumaran, of Tamil descent, did not make her entreaties easy. As Wikipedia puts it:

"During the separate trial of fellow defendant, Michael Czugaj, Sukumaran refused to give testimony, stating '...I am also on trial' [3]. He has denied knowing fellow accused Michael Czugaj and Scott Rush, or any knowledge of a heroin importation plan [4]. During his trial he frequently blamed amnesia on his inability to remember events leading to his arrest [5].

Sukumaran denied signing police statements, and when asked by judges to sign his name as an example of his signature, signed his name in four different styles."

Perhaps Judge Suryowati had taken the time to find out about the protocol for executions in Bali though it was her Court's first ever death sentence. Only a couple of days' warning will be given of the day (but not the hour) of the execution before in the dead of night a convoy bearing a priest, a doctor, one of the prosecutors, and 12 gunmen (two with live bullets) selected after a trial involving shooting at dolls, will bear down upon a deserted beach or jungle clearing, and shoot the hooded convict, shackled to "a post, tree, or chair", having aimed at the red cross marking the position of his heart on his white apron. I do not approve.

Thanks to Nick O'Neill's Bali Blog for bringing the story about the Judge to my attention.

Two books about the media and Indonesia

2006-02-15T21:46:00.000+11:00

CJR November/December 2005: Ideas and Reviews — Books

Here is a review of two new books, one the memoirs of a foreign correspondent during the overthrow of Suharto, Richard Parry's In the Time of Madness, and Janet Steele's Wars Within: The Story of Tempo. Tempo is the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Le Monde of Indonesia, a weekly magazine since 1971, twice banned by Suharto. According to Steele's book, during those days they published an internet version, but it was a cover for the real magazine which was circulated clandestinely by cells of guerrilla journalists.

Tempo's English language website is here.

Kill bottled water

2006-02-11T15:10:00.000+11:00

Message in a bottle: The Age

If ever you need an indicium of the ascendancy of consumerism, just pause to think about the ridiculous ubiquity of the plastic bottle of mineral water. Not Perrier: that I get, but still "mineral water" the principal aim of which seems to be ultimate tastelessness and complete absence of minerals.

Now living in Melbourne as I do, with some of the best drinking water in the world, the concept of paying more for water than for petrol makes the modern world look a tiny bit like Joseph K. perceived it in Kafka's The Trial (though the weirdness of that trial is more easily explicable than all the folks prepared to pay $2.50 for a bottle of water these days, since scholarship has demonstrated that the fellow who put the chapters of the novel together which Kafka's death left unfinished had to make up their order, since they were all stored separately and no instructions were left as to their order).

This article confirms my fears, though I was supposed to learn that the bottles which get thrown away take only 1,000 years to decompose.

I just drink beer in the third world. But why not have reuseable glass bottles? If we can have an economy where beer comes in glass, why not water? Gee I like those bottles, all crazed on their outside from years of joggling against the sides of crates transported over bad roads. I can't quite remember where I travelled amongst them, but it was probably India. I used to carry around a Sigg water bottle and use iodine pills. The taste wasn't too good, but it was potable.

Update: More in February 2006 article in The Age:

A recent report by the Washington-based Earth Policy Institute said global consumption of bottled water rose 57 per cent from 1999 to 2004 to 154 billion litres. Much of the growth came from countries such as Australia, where most tap water is just as high a quality as anything that can be bought.

Packaging worldwide required 2.7 million tonnes of plastic each year, the report's author, Emily Arnold, said.

The manufacture of bottles used up 1.5 million barrels of crude oil in the US because the plastic is made from the fossil fuel, Ms Arnold said.

"In contrast to tap water, which is distributed through an energy-efficient infrastructure, transporting bottled water long distances involves burning massive quantities of fossil fuels," she said.

In Australia, the energy cost of buying water instead of drawing it from a tap was comparable to driving a car, said Mr Grant, who is the assistant director of design at RMIT University.

While driving a car for one kilometre used four megajoules of energy, drinking a 600-millilitre bottle of water used 1.5 megajoules, when the transport costs were included.

By contrast, drinking water out of a tap used only 0.2 megajoules, Mr Grant said. And when they are no longer wanted, water bottles were taking up space in landfill sites."

Thanks to a Connecticutian masquerading as Complexify for the photo.

The Jakarta Post - The Journal of Indonesia Today

2006-02-05T15:33:00.000+11:00

The Jakarta Post - Bali Blues Review

Here's a review of a new book which is either a novel or non-fiction or a mixture, by an expatriate, about life in Bali.

Bali's farmers bid goodbye to life on the land

2006-01-24T22:20:00.000+11:00

The Jakarta Post - Bali's farmers bid goodbye to life on the land

Here's a little article about Balinese rice. It says that though more than 60% of Bali's population rely on farming to make a living, only 3% of the island government's budget is allocated to the agricultural sector. The farmers sell their unhusked rice at 1,700 Rp per kg (A$0.25), and after it is processed the industrialists sell it for 4,500 Rp per kg ($0.65). It costs more than that at my local supermarket, and it's not Balinese rice. I seem to recall Janet de Neefe telling us at the Casa Luna Cooking Class that it's impossible to bring Balinese rice into Australia. More rice posts here and in nearby posts.

Bali Starling Extinct in the Wild? Drat those bird markets.

2006-01-20T20:12:00.000+11:00

Asia, Far East, news and analysis Times Online, The Times, Sunday Times

So the Bali starling is extinct in the wild, but there are, or were at one stage, three in the Curraghs Wildlife Park in the Isle of Mann (thanks for the picture). So, a Manx Bali Starling. Globalisation eh? It's a great article. Here are some tastes:

Birds are a national obsession in Indonesia and no home is complete without a caged song bird, the more exotic-looking the better. Fears over bird flu have spurred many families to open their cage doors in recent months to give their pets an unexpected taste of freedom.

Small armies of bird catchers using nets or birdlime trawl the islands of the archipelago snaring finches, larks and warblers to be sold in huge sprawling bird markets such as Jalan Pramuka, in Jakarta.

Migrating waterbirds from Siberia and China are trapped in their thousands in the marshes of Java to be fried and sold as roadside snacks.

Conservationists say that trapping wild birds for sale is a bigger threat than habitat loss to Indonesia’s 1,539 species, 17 per cent of all the birds recorded on the planet.

Times Asia's Review of the new Covarrubias book

2006-01-17T21:53:00.000+11:00

Here is a review of the new book about Covarrubias I heralded earlier in my blog. An extract:

Covarrubias' newly revealed work in Bali stands among the finest of his career: his deceptively polished, Art Deco-inspired compositions and intensely colorful palette were a flexible medium for the artist to explore every aspect of life on the island. His portraits of Balinese women capture their frank sensuality without the overlay of leering orientalism frequently found in the work of other foreign artists in the tropics—perhaps because of the similarities between village life in Mexico and Bali. The paintings of the island's legendary dance performances are carefully observed yet imbued with a full measure of mystical atmosphere.

I must point out that no Balinese women I know look anything much at all like the one in the painting. Bali

Perfect gifts for Bali tragics

2006-01-01T15:07:00.000+11:00

I'm a sucker for geckos. This photo is from a series of notecards on Bali being sold online by one Dirk Yuricich and his wife, of Nevada. Ten blank notecards cost US$20, and you can see the images here, here, here, and here. Bali

Javajive goes to Bali

2005-12-24T09:00:00.000+11:00

Brandon Hoover is an American who lives in Jakarta and posts outstanding photographs of Indonesia on his flickr account and at his blog, Javajive. The one above is of Tanah Lot, the famous sea temple west of Kuta. He goes to Bali from time to time, and is there now, though he won't be posting his photos till his return to Jakarta. A blog to keep an eye on, particularly now. Bali

Carved boundary wall at Seraya Shores, Seraya Berat, East Bali

2005-12-17T13:25:00.000+11:00

There is a lot of carving at Seraya Shores, including this lovely boundary wall. Room 1 is next to it. Bali

The rooms at Seraya Shores

2005-12-17T13:05:00.000+11:00

Looking from the sea, "daydream" (left) is the leftmost bungalow, and then the one we stayed in, half the price of all the others, described on the website as "bungalow" (right). Room 1, described on the website as "loft" is the righthand-most in the line of accommodations, and between it and the pictured bungalows is "seaview", a double storey bungalow which can be booked as one or two separate accommodations. I tell you all this because the staff don't seem to use the nomenclature adopted by the website, and Nick O'Neill's Bali Blog came up with a whole different system of taxonomy. Bali

The pool at Seraya Shores and the adjoining bale for looking out at the ocean

2005-12-17T13:03:00.000+11:00

Bali

The pool at Seraya Shores, Seraya Berat, East Bali, at dawn

2005-12-17T13:01:00.000+11:00

Bali

One of the cats at Seraya Shores, Seraya Berat, East Bali

2005-12-17T12:31:00.000+11:00

For some reason, I like this photo of one of Seraya Shores' cats. Bali

Food at Seraya Shores, Seraya Berat, East Bali

2005-12-16T22:06:00.000+11:00

There is no menu, but it was relatively easy to influence what's for dinner. We asked for satay lilit (minced seafood satay) and water spinach, and tempeh, and that's what we got. I went to the Amlapura market with Susa and bought the ingredients, and then Miss K and I hung out in the kitchen with Susa and Wayan and learnt how water spinach is prepared (shallots, chilli, garlic), and taught Sussa and Wayan how to make hibiscus tea, to wit: remove the stamen from a hibiscus flower and pour boiling water over the petals, add sugar and lime juice; it goes from purpley black to bright red. Lunch can be whatever you like I expect, but we had salads and toasted sandwiches. Somehow or other I managed to wrangle food included in the room rate. Whereas in many places, that might be a curse, there it was not. (Food is so cheap in Bali that free food is something that tethers you psychologically but irrationally to eating the guff that comes free.)

The photo is of the dining bale. Night photography is like great, right, but what it does not show is the beautiful ocean which the bale gives onto. A nice place to eat. Bali

Breakfast at Seraya Shores, Seraya Berat, East Bali

2005-12-16T22:03:00.000+11:00

Breakfasts were good; tea, coffee, ginger tea, eggs, bacon, tomatoes, good bread toasted, French butter, pancakes, fruit, etc. Bali

The food at Seraya Shores, Seraya Berat, East Bali

2005-12-16T21:59:00.000+11:00

Susa (pronounced "Suss-a") is the cook and manager and was assisted by the charming and graceful Wayan and Comeng. He cooks inventively: one night we had an unusual vegetable curry unexpectedly redolent of nutmeg and cinnamon; another night we had mahi-mahi, a fish, topped with tahini and capsicums, with a kind of deep fried grated potato pattie and small boiled potatoes. The black rice pudding was good too. It was not necessarily traditional Balinese fare by any means. Bali

Jamie, Seraya Shores, Seraya Berat, East Bali

2005-12-16T21:36:00.000+11:00

I said to Jamie one afternoon "Suddenly, I need a beer" and one thing led to another. I had quite a few Bintangs with him over a short time up on the balcony of the fourth room, which he was good enough to shout me, and Wayan and Susa came along from time to time with more, and with tempeh in a violently hot sambal, popcorn, and peanuts. I had been carrying on about how very hot was, like, way cool for me. Then I rubbed my eye and tears jerked out of it in spasms for the next ten minutes. There I was, wearing the ridiculous gear described below, on the way to drunkenness, squirting salt out of one red eye, protesting that the chili was not too hot for me, and talking about the world government aspirations of the UN. Memorable.

He called me "man" all the time, which was fine, desirable even in a conversation between a hotel owner and his guest. Had I been a surfer, I reckon I would have been "dude". It might have been because I was wearing what Miss K calls "the rug", a holiday ritual like buying and reading "The Economist" (substituted with "The Monthly" on this occasion). The rug is a thickly woven waistcoat clearly intended to be worn alone. It is the most uncharacteristic present ever received from my parents, though purchased in rural Turkey at a time when I expect I had long hair, green glasses, and was in the early years of university. It has a bit of a lapel like a suit on either side, and it has tassles. It is kaftanesque; in colour it is white, red, green, and brown. It doesn't get a lot of wear in Australia, but some talismanic quality has protected it through each wardrobe purge, like a pair of overalls from a rig in the Timor Sea I scored while working as a photocopier at BHP, quadruplicating the manual for each and every bit of machinery on an oil rig named I no longer recall what, day after day for a month.

We talked about drugs in Bali (he professed complete disinterest in whether Schappelle did it), whether you were as likely to get poisoned by the stewards on Qantas as on Garuda if you are a human rights activist (he thought so) and whether the United Nations had double standards in dealing with Apartheid and whatever the Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe is called (yes). Also about his grandmother (a friend of Donald Friend) and his grandfather (a highly decorated war pilot).

The guy is kooky, successful, an artist and a hard man, hedonistic, smart, Australian. I enjoyed drinking with him. The photo is room 1, the one of the interior of which I posted a photo earlier, Jamie's and Amanda's home away from home. Bali

Jamie and Amanda, Seraya Shores, Seraya Berat

2005-12-16T21:30:00.000+11:00

I spoke to Jamie and Amanda separately. Listening to them you'd think they both conceived of, designed, purchased, developed, and owned the hotel themselves, and that the other did not exist except in some entirely ancillary realm.

The photo is of the soap dish in room 1. It's taken at night. Most of the photos in this part of the blog were taken at last light first light or little light. Bali

Jamie and Amanda, Seraya Shores, Seraya Berat, East Bali

2005-12-16T21:15:00.000+11:00

Jamie is a surfer first and foremost ("these arms are paddling machines" he told me), a big bloke who couldn't possibly be anything but Australian. He studied design, and his ceramics and paintings dot the place. The pair have exquisite taste which the French lap up like thirsty dogs. The whole hotel has a laid back humour to it, if you look closely which is, I think, very Australian.

A year and a half ago or so he married Amanda, then general manager of the upmarket Alila Manggis. More recently, they had Jude. The Alila Manggis, generally very well reiewed, is in Manggis, near Candi Dasa; the village's name means mangosteen. The pair had private rooms at the Alila, an enviable little asset. It is sister to the Alila Ubud, formerly the Chedi. They ferried back and forth between the two places, and seemed to have carved out lives of more or less leisure for themselves.

The photo is of the interior of room 1 which is kind of Jamie & Amanda's bolt hole when they're there, and kind of a room to be rented out when they're not. It was like no hotel room I have ever stayed in. A bookshelf full of books is a great look in any room. Bali

Seraya Shores, Seraya Berat, East Bali

2005-12-16T21:02:00.000+11:00

They bought the land for a ridiculously small amount (say three-quarters of one-tenth of what my small house cost) several years ago (whether Australian or American dollars, I no longer recall), and built 3 bungalows for the cost of a couple of decent bicycles. Since then other expatriates have moved in, turning the little strip into what Jamie calls "Hollywood Boulevard". Someone is trying to sell a bit of land a few blocks down the coast and smaller (from recollection) than Seraya Shores' for A$500,000, in the realm of ten times what Jamie and Amanda paid. Bali

The pool at Seraya Shores, Seraya Berat, East Bali, after sundown

2005-12-16T20:55:00.000+11:00

Bali

Seraya Shores, Seraya Berat, East Bali

2005-12-16T20:00:00.000+11:00

Jamie and Amanda Pummer, the one from Noosa Heads, the other from Perth, have created in Seraya Shores a little patch of stylish green out of the dry scrubby shore of East Bali in the village of Seraya Berat, a couple of headlands north from Candi Dasa (pronounced "Chundi Daasa"), and a fifteen minute walk down the road from the water palace in the village of Ujung (pronounced "ooj'ng"). The regional capital, Amlapura (also known as Karangsem, apparently), is closer than Candi Dasa. It is on the coastal road from Ujung through Seraya and up into the string of villages which are collectively known as Amed (including Aas (pronounced "arse") and Lipah. Though only about 25 km from Amed proper, the journey takes more than an hour by car and, inexplicably, is said to take the same amount of time by motorbike. The villages along that coastal road seem very impoverished and far far away from the modern world of tourism. It is a fascinating drive though inconvenient for the drivers. Take it if you get half a chance. There are large fishing villages with hundreds of fishing boats hauled up on the black beaches, and steeply terraced slopes of scratchy dirt which are cultivated only in the wet season. Then there are lush landscapes on the other side of ridges. It's windy and the views are great. Bali

The dry and scratchy landscape around Seraya Shores, Seraya Berat, East Bali

2005-12-16T15:11:00.000+11:00

The luxurious verdure and pool of turquoise was a stark contrast with the dusty and scratchy landscape in which Seraya Shores has been implanted. The patch next door was for sale, but at a price which had the wealthy Australians' need for it way factored in. There are no real estate agents which deal with little pieces of land like this out in the sticks. Little signs posted to trees marked "di jual" signify the place is for sale, and from there, it's direct negotiation with the villagers. Bali

That pool

2005-12-14T22:53:00.000+11:00

Bali

Especially at dusk

2005-12-13T23:34:00.000+11:00

Bali

Which brings us to Seraya Shores where the pool is very nice

2005-12-13T23:31:00.000+11:00

The pool, which is divine, is a relatively recent addition. It is as good to swim in as it is to photograph; though I was a particularly keen photographer of the pool, it was amusing to watch each new arrival get out their digital cameras and snap away at it. I did not find out how they treat the pool, but it tasted of fresh water.

The management recommended against swimming in the sea during July and August. I was ready to ignore the advice, but the slippery rocks over which the waves surged defeated my enthusiasm.

There were 5 other guests while we were there, and there was no danger of the pool being crowded. At this place, the chances of having the resort, or the pool at least to yourself are good. Bali

Jeff Greenwald's despatch from Bali from www.seacology.org

2005-12-12T22:24:00.001+11:00

Today, I am pleased to bring you something genuinely interesting from the web. It's about the water palace at Tirta Ganga which I did not visit, having been rather underwhelmed by the water palace at Ujung, and it's about poo, which is being treated by architect and environmental engineer, Emerald Starr, who has lived in Bali since 1988 and designed the Sacred Mountain Sanctuary near Sideman. (If you want to see what someone named Emerald Starr looks like, there's a photo of him on the seacology page linked to.) I popped into the Sacred Moutain Sanctuary when driving past. I cannot recommend it to the casual traveller. The bamboo bungalows are a bit weird, and the whole place looked very underfrequented. It caters, I think, mostly to spiritualists' retreats, and my driver told me the gardener whispered to him that the whole thing was for sale.

It's also about relatively benign sounding Balinese royalty, like the pictured Dr. A.A.M. Djelantik, the 86-year-old son of the Balinese king who built the Tirta Gangga Water Palace in 1948. He is said to have been internationally honored for his work in public health. I am deeply suspicious about benign royalty, but I keep reading about them in Bali, and Dr Djelantik looks so lovely. Who can rip open the seedy underbelly of this oligicharcical remnant? Anyone? Bali

A yuppy's eggs

2005-12-11T23:41:00.000+11:00

This has nothing to do with Bali. It has to do with Babka, a bakery and absurdly popular breakfastry on Brunchswick Street, Fitzroy. That's in Melbourne for all you Danes and Puerto Ricans. It only got through my very strict relevance test on the basis that it's about blogging, and is inherently amusing.

Some guy goes around enthusing or not enthusing about breakfasts he eats at super-expensive places around Melbourne. Pictured are his eggs, which were fantastic but didn't quite make up for the bad service. I wish I'd thought of the idea; then I'd be eating free breakfasts regularly at super-expensive restaurants and people would not have to suffer so service-obsessed a reviewer.

Complaints about service are a source of constant revulsion to me, and the point of this post is that they were a source of revulsion for this woman who almost certainly is not Marilyn Buck, and may or may not have been one of the waiters described by the blogger as "chick #1" to "chick #3".

Which just goes to show, you can never quite delete a comment.

Lighter side of a Hindu Bali wedding: The Jakarta Post

2005-12-11T15:31:00.000+11:00

Here is a somewhat interesting article about a Balinese wedding. Truly a weird and foreign culture, this one. Bali

Abdul Aziz - The Book - "The Artist and His Art"

2005-12-05T22:04:00.000+11:00

Well, here's another book just out about an artist in Bali, but this time it's a Javanese, Abdul Aziz. He made violins as well as painting and sculpting.

www.artistabdulaziz.comis heavy on hyperbole -- it seems a great shame to put the words "remarkable" and "virtuosity" next to each other. Nor should "genius" appear anywhere near "Indonesian" when next to "Mona Lisa" but what the hell, it's written by his wife. The book can be yours for only $US70. Thanks go to Bali Discovery Tours' Bali Update for this story. Bali

See what I mean? The pool at The Ibah

2005-12-03T18:17:00.000+11:00

Of course such beauty comes only at a price: rooms start from A$290 according to the website, though I would be interested to know how much they can actually be procured for. The aforementioned advertorials claim 100% occupancy. My recollection is that the Japanese were lapping it up a few years ago. So much money, so little time, the Japanese.

Bali

Three articles about the Ubud Royal Family

2005-12-03T18:03:00.000+11:00

Here, here, and here are three articles from the Malaysian newspaper The Star on the Ubud royal family. They are quite interesting though suspiciously like a junket-induced advertorial for The Ibah a set of fantastic luxury villas. As usual I soaked up its atmosphere by shelling out a few dollars more than a mixed drink was worth rather than by spending hundreds of dollars on a room. I can assure you the bar, and the gardens, are extravagantly beautiful. It's just down the road from the Tjampuhan Hotel, also a royal holding.

The photo is of Tjokorda Raka Kerthyasa, a prince and the creator of The Ibah who has lived in Australia and married a Sydney kindergarden teacher. Bali

View from the gardens of Apa Kabar, Bunutan, Amed

2005-12-03T14:28:00.000+11:00

View from the gardens of Apa Kabar, Bunutan, Amed
Originally uploaded by Trapped In A Suit.

Dragonfly at Apa Kabar Villas, Bunutan, Amed

2005-12-03T14:25:00.000+11:00

Dragonfly at Apa Kabar Villas, Bunutan, Amed
Originally uploaded by Trapped In A Suit.

I love dragonflies, and the dragonflies which flitted about the ponds of the hotel were the best thing about it.

Foliage and flower at Apa Kabar Villas, Bunutan, Amed

2005-12-03T14:24:00.000+11:00

Foliage and flower at Apa Kabar Villas, Bunutan, Amed
Originally uploaded by Trapped In A Suit.

The gardens, it has to be said, were very beautiful.

Our room at Apa Kabar Villas, Bunutan, Amed

2005-12-03T14:23:00.000+11:00

Our room at Apa Kabar Villas, Bunutan, Amed
Originally uploaded by Trapped In A Suit.

Apa Kabar Villas, Bunutan, Amed

2005-12-03T14:08:00.000+11:00

We went to Apa Kabar Villas in Bunutan in the Amed area. We did not like it. Compared with the other little places we stayed, this was too hotel. There were more rooms than we expected, and we got dumped into one of the larger family suites with two bedrooms, one of which they locked on us so we couldn't mess it up presumably. There were weird French magazines with erotic comics in them along with English teen zines. The room was very dark. The rooms with a loft are much nicer, but some guest had broken the lock checking out and it wasn't fixed by the time we arrived. Though I would have been happy to inhabit a room whose lock was being fixed, we did not get a choice. When the lock was fixed, they gave the room away to a French couple. The gardens were beautiful, but the cafe was pretty backpacker, with no emphasis on Balinese cuisine. A man we met on the beach told us the whole village hated the greedy owner, and for some reason I believed him. And, they got me to sign for the room rate being $US100 a night when in fact I had booked at a lesser rate. There was a room with two computers connected to the internet. The connecttion over there was so slow that I could hardly bear to use it. We didn't like it and left after one instead of two nights. There were dramas about the second night's room fee. Bali

Bali Agung Nirwana

2005-12-03T12:48:00.000+11:00

We left Cilik's for Amed, and had lunch at Bali Agung Nirwana, east of Tejakula near the village of Les. I did not take any photos, but this photo is from its website, which is written by someone who knows what they're doing but usually just goes a bit far, and has a fixation with "250 percale, brushed Egyptian cotton sheets and 50% goose down pillows". For example:

By the way, the little girl top right that features throughout our web site is "Putu", a 7 year old from the village. She exemplifies our motto "Paradise, Purity, Perfection". She is making an temple offering called a Canang ("Cha-nung"), and her expression seems to say "You can't touch this". Perhaps a bit like our villas, when you compare them with other accommodations in Bali!

It is a beautiful place, but I was disappointed. The website is a lot for a place to live up to. It is certainly a beautiful hotel, but seven staff per guest is a bit much for me, and something about the place was just too concentrated on justifying the huge room fees (A$265 a night in August, though for an extra A$120 you can upgrade to:

a) Daily American / English buffet breakfast with jug of freshly squeezed orange juice.
b) Beds graced with our finest sheets (610 percale, Italian designer, brushed Egyptian cotton) and pillows (90% goose down).
c) Fresh sheets daily, fresh towels twice daily [a weird bonus at a place so ostensibly committed to the environment].
d) Full maid service plus personal butler / waitress from 7am to 9pm.
e) One hour each per person per day of spa treatments / massage.
f) Specialist hair and body treatments provided in your bathroom.
g) 10% off all restaurant / personal dining bale food.
h) Soft cotton dressing gowns.
i) All personal laundry included.
j) Complimentary (finest, fresh ground) coffee and tea.)

I was glad to have had the homeliness of Cilik's over this place. There were some particularly ugly fat Germans with sunburn staying there, eyeing us suspiciously, which didn't help the ambience. Nor did the fact that the particularly heavy seas kept crashing over the sea wall (a common problem I think in August) which had killed off the grass and flooded the little restaurant.

A little temple? shrine? by the side of the road

2005-12-03T12:45:00.000+11:00

Who knows exactly what this was, but it struck me that shrines, or whatever it is, don't get a lot simpler than this. It was just by the side of the road on my walk.

The seawall along the north east coast of Bali

2005-12-03T12:39:00.000+11:00

I actually walked most of the way from Cilik's to Puri Bagus Ponjok Batu, and it was on this walk that I took the photos of tamarind trees featured earlier. It was very hot, and the people I passed by were a bit starey. This was typical of the seawall I walked along.

Young rice, middle aged rice, dead rice

2005-12-03T12:36:00.000+11:00

Bali

Rice seedlings nursery near Air Saneh, north Bali

2005-12-03T12:23:00.000+11:00

I asked Cilik to take me to see some more sawah and he did. He exhorted me to take photographs, from the side of the road, of a wonderfully bucolic harvest scene like something from the pages of an Emile Zola novel, but I did not feel comfortable snapping away at people hard at work without talking to them first. The photo is of a little rice seedling nursery. Once you know that such things exist, you can find them around the place, and a more irridescent green is impossible to imagine than is present in these little corners of rice fields. Bali

Coral as a building material; the washing away of beaches

2005-12-03T12:17:00.000+11:00

Here is a photo I took to document the use of coral in building. It was this that washed away Candi Dasa's beach.

Pura Ponjok Batu (Temple at the Rocky Corner)

2005-12-03T12:07:00.000+11:00

Kadek guides tourists around the nearby temple, which gets a good rap from The Natural Guide to Bali:

The temple is built on a special site oozing with energy, just above a small promontory beaten by the waves. Mystical stories and archaeological discoveries attest to the importance ofthis location. According to one of hte local guides, Pura Ponjok gatu was built at a time when the high priests believed that there needed to be a new temple on the north coast to maintain abalance of sanctuaries across Bali. Longbefore, however, the site of Ponjok Batu was already used for sacral purposes. An ancient sacrophagus was recently found in the area; it is displayed in a shrine outside the temple.

The temple is now dedicated to Danghyang Niratha, the Javanese priest who exerted a great influence on the Balinese religion in the 16th century. He is said to have liked to sit on these rocks and prray, meditate or write poetry, inspired by the energy of the waves. The story also says that one day, the local villagers witnessed lights radiating up from the ground in the area. During his meditation, Niratha forecasted the wreckage of a ship. Soon enough, a boat landed on the beach and the holy man brought the dying eamen back to life using fresh water from a spring that magically appeared on the beach. A statue of the ship can be found ona small rock amidst the waves, just below the temple. Another, smaller shrine in front of the beach marks the site where the sacred spring can be seen at low tide. At the entrance of the temple, yet another shrine is set in front of a giant tree. This devotion to tocks and springs attests to the animist spirit that runs through the Hindu Balinese religion.

The gardens at Puri Bagus Ponjok Batu

2005-12-03T12:03:00.000+11:00

It is beautiful, unexpected, cheap, quiet as all get out, and the food is good. I ate too much: nasi goreng with seafood (about A$2.75), and a magnificent dish of "young fern" which is, as far as I can tell, exactly as described, with grated coconut and other spices familiar from other vegetable dishes. The Natural Guide to Bali told me to try it, and I am glad I did -- I reckon it will be one of the culinary highlights of the trip -- and it only set me back about A$0.75. The beers were A$1.50 each.

Puri Bagus Ponjok Batu

2005-12-03T12:02:00.000+11:00

Kadek told me that the owners are Bainese and German, and that they have the Puri Bagus hotel in Lovina on the north coast, a hotel in Candi Dasa on the east coast, and this restaurant in between. Transfers between the two often end up with lunch in the middle, a neat little model.

Puri Bagus Ponjok Patu

2005-12-03T11:59:00.000+11:00

There is a plasant restaurant near Pacang, 3, or 5 km from Cilik's, Puri Bagus Ponjok Batu. It is in the middle of nowhere really, though near Pura Ponjok Batu (a temple). A sign advertises it 3 km in advance, and then a similar sign points up a driveway. Although I had seen both, I did not manage to stop the bemo until the temple. At the temple, I met Kadek, a man with good English and a "broken down hand", a disability he was born with. He took me up to the restaurant in a quite unnecessary bit of guiding which probably earned him a commisssion and ended up with me buying him a beer when he sat down with me at the table and stayed there throughout my meal. I didn't mind; although he regaled me with stories of hardship, he did so apparently without expectation and without self-pity, and I thoroughly liked him. He told me that his father sired him when he was already old, by his second wife. When he was 5, a virus wiped out the family's source of income, the particularly sweet and juicy Tejakula oranages much loved by Jakartans. He went to school and studied hard; he had no pocket money and could eat only palm sugar which he took in his pockets.

Lovina

2005-12-03T11:53:00.000+11:00

There is in fact no such place as Lovina, except in guidebooks. It was the name given by the king of the local regency to the bungalows he built there in 1953. One version of the story has it that it is a contraction of "Love Indonesia", which seems improbable. Pandji Tisna was a novelist and columnist, and this apparently attracted guests, spawned more bungalows, flourished, and petered out when tourism became top heavy.

I strolled along the beach. Few tourists were there to be remarked upon. There was an air of great indolence. A nice young man approached me, gave me some useful information, and soon enough, produced a cloth and invited me to see some of his work. I suspect there are a lot more people who claim to be selling their family's work than there are in fact. He had a little patter about how much he sold the little polished pearl pendants backed by polished coconut wood for in the high season (A$4.70 each) and invited me to name my price. The implication was that I could have them for whatever I was willing to pay, the old Indian taxi driver trick used everywhere where western guilt or ignorance, or a combination reveal over time that it is impossible to conceive of, or express orally, a price which is as low as the cost price plus a profit margin appropriate to the locale.

They were nice things. I named my price (A$0.60) and after some time it was accepted with good cheer even though to do so was going to bankrupt him at one stage. This price was the lowest I could bring myself to name, though I knew that it was probably far more than it could be bought for (different of course from what it was worth) since I had encountered peddlers in Ubud who wanted to sell me things for "one dollar". The carvings they unwrapped from cheap foam were very elaborate things indeed. I have bargained little on this holiday, buying what few things I have bought from unduly expensive fixed price boutiques, generally content that whatever price I pay for anything will result in me saving money by being on holidays (the suspension of my gym membership has approximately cancelled out my daily expenditure on beer, ironically). I actually bargain for a living, and have no difficulty with the concept of contention, and of its elegant management.

I named my price, waited, watched the young fellow bid repeatedly against himself, made the most modest feign at walking away, got my way, and part of me still felt ripped off. The other part of me knew that I had only bought the thing because of a combination of embarrassment at saying "I don't want one", the fact that I liked them, the fact that I had got 10 days into a Bali holiday without even thinking about buying something from the beach, the fact that I had nothing else to do, and the fact that I wanted to get something for Miss K.

Singaraja

2005-12-03T11:46:00.000+11:00

I went with Cilik in his fancy new few months old car to Lovina and Singarajah. The trip took 3 hours with about half an hour in Lovina. Most of it was boring driving, particularly through the unexpectedly expansive, and even more ugly than expected Singaraja (pictured). Cilik deposited me in the main part of the main beach in the main village which along with other villages constitutes what is known as Lovina, and said "take your time". Bali

Prosecutors recommend life for Pollycarpus: murder of Munir

2005-12-03T11:04:00.000+11:00

Here's the answer to the question posed in an earlier post about where the trial of Garuda Captain and suspected secret policeman Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto is at. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Bali

The food at Cilik's Beach Garden

2005-12-02T23:18:00.000+11:00

The food was really good, and apart from breakfast, authentically Balinese so far as I could tell. Breakfast had coffee, tea, ginger tea, toast from freshly baked bread, bacon, eggs, jaffles, baked bananas, pancakes, french toast, fruit salad, yoghurt. Otherwise, the food is Balinese, though there were some Thai dishes. We tried sayur ikan, a fish curry, ikan dalam daun, a kind of fish casserole steamed in banana leaf packages, mie goreng (fried noodles, and really an Indonesian rather than specifically Balinese dish, pictured), pepes ikan (usually fish wrapped in banana leaves, but here, fish wrapped in the leaf of the palm used for palm sugar) sate ikan (you should be able to guess what that is by now), urab, a dish of green vegetables (beans, water spinach, and sprouts) in garlicky coconut milk, and buncis dan Cabe Lombok green beans in a sweet and sour tomato sambal. All good. The fish is sure to have been caught the same morning.

In the boondocks it is best to stick to the local cuisine as a rule. That is true of Cilik's; the omelettes are not quite omelettes, the eggs and bacon just a little on the weird side. The yoghurt though, is made there, using a yoghurt maker, and was fantastic, good enough, in fact, to make me want to have a yoghurt maker.

There were a couple of warungs and restaurants nearby but the other hotels in the area have fallen prey to the downturn occasioned by the bombing. There is another home stay run by, or perhaps owned by, a German woman up the hill, with rooms for in the vicinity of A$10. The village of Air Saneh is one and a half kilometres east from Cilik's Beach Garden. Bali

The kitchen at Cilik's Beach Garden

2005-12-02T22:58:00.000+11:00

The kitchen is "no secret place" according to the English translation of the German literature left for guests by the owners, and Miss K and I hung out there while Miss K's ikan dalam daun (fish in banana leaves, not the thing in the picture) was being prepared. The cooks do not speak any English, and one of the other staff translates. I ground up the spice paste according to the wristy technique I had learned at Casa Luna cooking school in the big shallow mortar and pestle used there. We watched coconut milk being made, from grated coconut and water, the gratings squelched with bare hands. The method for folding up banana leaves was quite different, and considerably more elaborate than the version taught by Janet de Neefe. It beat me. Another time, we saw how sate sauce for chicken is made: chilli, shallots, tamarind goo (but this smelt more like molasses than anything I have tasted in Melbourne), tiny roasted peanuts with their skins on, and water. The paste was somewhat pale, and we learnt that chopped shallots and kecap manis, the sweet and thick Indonesian soy sauce, are added before serving. The satay sauce was quite different but equally good, on a tomato base.

It was good to be in the kitchen because it made us appreciate how much work went into everything on the menu, not all of which was always available whenever you wanted it. Most dishes involved taking raw ingredients and grinding them for a long time using manual labour into a paste which was then fried, or a mash which was steamed in banana leaves. The cooks worked from early in the morning until the evening. Bali

Spank me! Another one

2005-12-02T22:55:00.000+11:00

Bali

Forgive me, a sunset shot from Cilik's Beach Garden

2005-12-02T22:49:00.000+11:00

Bali

Too much information?

2005-12-02T22:47:00.000+11:00

Bali

The octagon's bathroom at Cilik's Beach Garden, Air Saneh, Bali

2005-12-02T22:45:00.000+11:00

It was great showering in the sun. Bali

Bali 2005: a new blog about Bali from someone who lives in a snowy place

2005-12-01T22:12:00.000+11:00

Here it is. Bali

P.s. this was my 222nd post.

A Mexican in Bali: Covarrubias book sheds new lights [sic.] on the artist

2005-12-01T21:01:00.000+11:00

Here are some snippets, not paticularly elegantly snipped, from Bruce Carpenter's Jakarta Post article about a new book on the friend of Frida Kahlo's bonk, Miguel Covarrubias (more about western artists in Bali about here in the annals of my blog; someone else's blog entry about Cavarrubias here and a lovely website associated with an exhibition of his work is here (sorry for stealing the photo Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin). Such a pity I haven't read the book because I'm sure the sentiment that "After all these years, Island of Bali remains the greatest book written about the island" is hyperbolic and one of those things that just keeps getting said while fewer and fewer people actually read the thing, and I'd love to be able to say that with authority.

"Friend and contemporary of the older, legendary artist Diego Riviera and other Mexico City artists, Miguel moved to New York in 1924 at the tender age of 19.

There he would establish himself as one of the leading caricaturists of his generation, creating numerous memorable covers, articles and illustrations for books and periodicals; including the popular magazine Vanity Fair.

In 1930, the successful artist would leave New York with his beautiful new wife Rosemonde Cowan, a Broadway choreographer and dancer, on an around-the-world honeymoon cruise.

It was their intention to spend several months on an exotic island in the Netherlands East Indies acclaimed by many as the "new" paradise on earth -- Bali.

The island at the time was also home to a colorful array of expatriate artists, scholars, eccentrics and hopeless idealists, including the handsome German musician and surrealist painter Walter Spies.

Spies, who had fled the jealous arms of the German film director Fritz Murnau, had set up court in Ubud where he entertained an endless procession of international guests, who arrived regularly on luxury cruise ships.

Guide and friend to Miguel and Rose, Spies introduced them to the highlights of the still pristine island and its peoples during a period that is often called Bali's Golden Age.

Smitten by the unique culture and lively company, Miguel was inspired to launch himself on a new career as an artist-scholar. After returning again he would publish in 1937 the classic book, Island of Bali, illustrated with his original work.

It was an immediate runaway best seller that brought widespread fame to the author and irrevocably lodged the island forever in the international psyche as the ultimate tropical paradise.

Richly illustrated, Covarrubias in Bali is complemented by two sets of texts. The first, written by Adrianna Williams, author of a 1991 biography of Covarrubias, gives an intimate glimpse of the wondrous experiences of the young artist and his new wife and their interaction with the Balinese and expatriate communities before the outbreak of World War II.

Her story not only covers their time in Bali but also the return to New York where a "Bali Craze" would break out after the success of the Island of Bali.

The second essay, by the Malaysian art dealer, Yu-Chee Chong, discusses the impact of Bali on the artist's work and vice versa. The artwork includes not only illustrations from his books and articles but also many lesser known works such as the sensuous oil painting Bather Holding Up Her Kamben, described by Yu-Chee as one of his masterpieces.

Even now, and in spite of earlier and countless later books, the Island of Bali, stands out as a monumental achievement considered by many the best book ever written on the island. I believe that Miguel's success was largely due to his Mexican roots, which allowed him to intuitively grasp Balinese art and culture, spiritually and emotionally.

While nominally Christian, Mexican culture still owes much to its animist, tribal past. This sense is the secret ingredient missing in so many other books and studies.

Ironically, for many years after his death, the art of Covarrubias remained in the shadows of this book. This changed in the 1980s when two exhibitions, one in the Smithsonian, and a second major retrospective in the Cultural Center of Contemporary Art in Mexico City stimulated new interest and established his legacy as more than being a mere illustrator or caricaturist.

Interestingly enough, one of his most avid early collectors was the first president of Indonesia, Sukarno. In spite of this, the booming Indonesian art market only really began paying attention to him five years ago when several major works appeared in the auctions."

Bali

Cilik's Beach Garden: costs

2005-11-29T22:00:00.000+11:00

We paid 75 euros ($A118 or 875,00 Rp) per room. That included laundry, a great breakfast, and snacks at morning and afternoon tea. Cilik is happy to drive you wherever you want to go, though he is a somewhat phlegmatic, taciturn guide, and his services do not come particularly cheap, comparatively. He has a brand new car, which is a decided cut above the average transport, and the airconditioning is effective. He charged A$14 to take us to the temple, A$28 for a several hour trip to Singarajah and Lovina, and $A21 for a dash into Singarajah market. The literature provided by the Europeans provides good ideas about where to go. Bali

Again, the octagon at Cilik's Beach Garden, Air Saneh, Bali

2005-11-26T18:37:00.000+11:00

The octagon bears the personality of Inge Croe. It is akin to staying with Cilik's family in Inge's holiday house, making the experience about as far removed from staying in a resort as is possible without actually being someone's private guest. She keeps stuff here in the locked parts of the cupboard and the desk has on it a box with her scissors, glue, and collection of business cards. She has a good cd collection too, mainly classical. The sound system's speakers are mounted in the roof space, and the lighting system is far better than in the other places we have stayed, though still quite inadequate for reading at night on the sofa or the bed. Its magnificent traditional alang-alang thatch ceiling is pictured. Bali

The octagon at Cilik's Beach Garden, Air Saneh

2005-11-26T18:36:00.000+11:00

The octagon, where we stayed, is half of glass and half of something solid, probably cement. The floor is of a glassily polished terazzo. It is just a few metres from the sea wall against which the waves lap, or crash, according to their mood. There is no beach. Initially, I was disappointed, but soon realised that in truth I have never been a sand lover. A pair of padded sun lounges on a private patch of grass in a beautiful garden right next to the breaking waves is preferable to a stretch of beach. Instead of walking along the beach, you can walk along the sea wall. Bali

Cilik's Beach Garden, Air Saneh, Bali: best rooms

2005-11-26T18:35:00.000+11:00

The four bungalows are the east and west villas (that is, Cilik's Beach Garden, an investment by a German, Dr Rudiger Krechlor, a doctor of linguistics), and the octagon and the lumbung (that is, Just Beside CBG, an investment by another German, Inge Croe). The east villa has by far the better garden and is removed from the other four buildings. It is easily the best lodging, but the octagon follows close behind, particularly if you are a couple.

I much prefer the octagon to the west bungalow, certainly if the lumbung is unoccupied (as it was for most of our stay). The lumbung (pictured) is probably a little overpriced. The upstairs is relatively small; the downstairs is a terrace, which is pleasant enough, but inferior to the generous bale provided in substitution for the octagon's lack of terrace. Bali

Layout of Cilik's Beach Garden, Air Saneh, Bali

2005-11-26T18:34:00.000+11:00

I was not sure after reading the website how close everything is to everything else. All the buildings are close in the sense of being spaced more or less like normal Australian suburban houses, though the lumbung and the octagon are more or less on each other's doorsteps. Bali

The vibe at Cilik's Beach Garden, Air Saneh, Bali

2005-11-26T18:33:00.000+11:00

Generally, being one of two sets of guests to whom 9 staff are devoted (because two rooms were vacant) in a town where the youth have nothing to do and those who do have things to do are making crude concrete bricks in palm leaf shelters, or threshing rice in the sun, is a little difficult. As one lazes away, it is difficult not to wonder what the staff make of such lassitude. According to Cilik, very few Australians have stayed here. It is the preserve of Europeans, Germans, Swiss, and Dutch in particular. Wayan, dubbed the gardener, but in fact the servant dedicated to the occupants of the octagon and the lumbung, is pictured. Bali

The ocean at Air Saneh, Bali

2005-11-26T18:31:00.000+11:00

The sea stretches away to the horizon, just 30 tiny footsteps away, as though the sea were the largest pool possible to imagine, just across the lawn, either flat and undulating and sparkling, or, more often during our stay, with small waves breaking and then sloshing against the sea wall. The water is the warmest I have experienced anywhere, and you can use Cilik's snorkels and mask to swim out to a small coral reef 100 metres away. Apparently you can go out on a little fishing boat and there is better snorkelling. There is no beach although some sand is exposed at low tide. There is a metre or so of slippery rocks to navigate even at low tide (the room literature advises wearing "bathing slippers" if you happen to have included them in your packing list), and at high tide the water is high and the swell against the rocks sufficient to discourage swimming. Mind you, we left on the day of a full moon, and the tide was apparently at its highest when we were there, and Cilik is talking about clearing away the rocks to provide a more attractive entry to the ocean. Bali

Lassitude and decrepitude in Air Saneh, Bali

2005-11-26T18:30:00.000+11:00

There was an air of lassitude and decrepitude in Air Saneh, also sometimes spelt Yeh Sanih. Bali

The seawall at Air Saneh and other north coast places

2005-11-26T18:23:00.000+11:00

The seawall is in disrepair. Bali

Decrepitude in Air Saneh

2005-11-26T18:03:00.000+11:00

Generally, the little stretch of road on which Cilik's finds itself is scratchy and dry and unremarkable. Mind you, this photo I took in an effort to avoid contributing to the perpetuation of the idea that Bali is 100% tropical idyll goes too far in the opposite direction; this was clearly an abandoned dwelling, and not really indicative of its environs. Bali

Little kids are a safer conversational bet

2005-11-26T17:53:00.000+11:00

Bali

The north coast of Bali near Lovina

2005-11-26T16:26:00.000+11:00

The traditional use of the land was salt production. Now, the traditional use is selling the land to developers. Nonetheless, large tracts of prime waterfront land lie completely undeveloped along this coastline. Some of it is sitting there, owned by Chinese in Denpasar, waiting for tourism to grow up again. It has to be imagined though that a garden and a view of the ocean stretching off from right in front of you to the horizon can be had for not too much money.

Air Sanih is not really close to anything much of interest, though it is within reach of the clove gardens of Munduk, the rice paddies of Jatiluwih, and the botanic gardens at Bedugul to the west, the mountainous region of Kintamani, Tirtagganga in the East, and the whole of the north coast really.

Really close landmarks are limited to beautiful temple of Pura Meduwe Karan (temple of the land's master) in next door Kubutambahan featuring the famous carving of W.O.J. Nieuenkamp, who cycled around Bali in 1904 on "Bali's first bicycle", and some cool springs which have been made into swimming pools fringed with frangipani trees, where locals swim, wash clothes, brush their teeth, and splash around. One tends there to get accosted by Nyoman, a man who complains about being "bored, nothing to do", a beach masseur without a beach and without a private room in which to give massages, or an 18 year old Lomboker selling songket (gilded handweaving) the day after finishing final year of high school, in order to finance his hoped-for English studies at university, find a job, and then a wife etc etc. But such requests soon enough give way to pleasant conversation (if morose in Nyoman's case). Bali

Cilik's Beach Garden, Air Saneh, Bali

2005-11-26T15:40:00.000+11:00

Cilik's Beach Garden has only four bungalows, not counting Cilik's family's house ("Born right here, live right here, hopefully not die right here"). Two are officially at "Just Beside Cilik's Beach Garden", but it's all one.

Cilik has been lucky. He was a bemo driver in Singaraja for many years, until Rudiger decided it would be nice to build a villa on Cilik's land. Now he and his venture capitalists are the employer of 9 staff at Air Saneh, more at Tejakula, 15 km away, where he is the manager of a new development of two bungalows; the investors in this new case are Americans. He says the gardens are better there, being closer to the mountains, and not so arid as Air Saneh's which do have a proliferation of cacti and thorny things, not entirely what one expects of Bali, but pleasant nonetheless. Bali

Desperate Leslie lied for her freedom - The Age

2005-11-26T12:08:00.000+11:00

Desperate Leslie lied for her freedom - National - theage.com.au

An Age investigation has revealed that hearsay statements of people to whom Michelle Leslie apparently confided suggest:

she had taken ecstasy on the night of her arrest (well, she was going to a dance party which was presumably going to be playing music that only made sense to the stoned)
Mia (in fact Siti Nameera Azman) had not put the pills in her bag, and had not disappeared
that Leslie's family and legal team offered and paid numerous bribes, including to the police who tested the pills
that she was not addicted to Ritalin.

Now I haven't made a study of the facts' detail, but it seems fair to say that according to gossip good enough for the front page of The Age, substantially no part of her case was true.

It occurred to me that bribing Indonesian officials in Indonesia was probably a crime under Australian law, but apparently not, since s. 70 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code only prohibits the bribery of foreign officials in business. If the conduct may be said to have occurred, or been procured in Australia, I daresay a crime would have been committed, and any Australian lawyer's knowing involvement while in Australia in the conduct would probably constitute misconduct of a kind which would make regulators think hard about striking the lawyer off. Of course I am thinking about rumours (which The Age suggests were put about by her campaign team) rather than her case actually put forward in court. It may be that all this flowed around the case, and that she more or less adopted a submissively apologetic silence in court.

It is interesting that The Age has suddenly discovered all this now that Leslie is home. If they knew of a campaign of bribing Indonesian officials, and kept quiet until the bribes had done their work and our girl was back home, they would be implicated in precisely what they're purporting to expose. Bali

Be Serious, Okay?: November 2005

2005-11-26T00:04:00.000+11:00

I'm so sorry. I know this is supposed to be a blog about nasi campur, and where to stay in Bali if you're a progressive but sceptical young white western man, but I'm getting increasingly distracted about the execution of Van Nguyen.

I very much like the look of Mr Darren's Singapore blog. I like his letter to drug dealers, and the comments which follow it. It took a Singaporean's blog (or the blog of a person in Singapore? I wonder) to lead me back to Melbourne University's Associate Professor John Fitzgerald's analysis of the actual potential end-user effect of the importation of 400 g of heroin (a year's worth for 6 to 8 dependent users; only 10 to 30% of heroin users need treatment), as well as to Phillip Adams' piece on the Van phenomenon.

What I find odd about this episode is the special treatment accorded in the public mind to Van Nguyen. The "and back home now" parochialism which seems to be accepted as a natural facet of the nation state seems to extend to him without much question. It's coz-he's ozzie we're upset about this execution.

[How, conversely can we be so ambivalent about David Hicks, the quintessential Ozzie adventurer who is penning a fishing novel in prison, and enjoys skinning roos? Because we can understand drugs at least at one level (bad, but everybody's doing them arent' they?), and hanging (barbaric!), but terrorism is difficult? America's spinning it, England's spinning it, and Australia's spinning it, and theh spin is easy: terrorism plays on our fears of indiscriminate violence (unlike drugs, which wouldn't happen to us). Or is it only because of his association with bearded fundos we intensely distrust, and dislike?]

But can someone answer this? This is the kind of thing I think about all the time. What about the young girls being gang raped by the state-sponsored Janjawid in Sudan, the kid dying of diarrhoea in Chad because the aid for the new well has been siphoned off by a military thug to bribe the university to let his malicious little son into computer studies, the human rights campaigner murdered by the state? Compared to Van Nguyen, these people are infinitely more deserving of our sympathy. Why shouldn't we just look at Van Nguyen and say, uncaringly, "so what?" as we do in relation to each of the above examples of state sponsored death which is infinitely more likely to be moderated by a sustained international campaign, and which we know to be happening over and over again?

The only answer I can put up is coz-he's ozzie, even though he's not, in the minds of those for whom I imagine the coz-he's ozzie thing matters most, in the sense that his Mum can't even read English. I'm relatively confident this outpouring of love for this comparatively un-innocent kid is not about capital punishment. Most Australians are not exactly implaccably opposed to it -- it was only rid from our statute books in 1985 and our Prime Minister brayed for it behind carefully chosen code in the case of the Bali bombers -- particularly in these difficult times, when we might just have to dust it off if we are to preserve our all important way of life. It's about Chinamen being disrespectful to an Ozzie.

Of course I think a kid who's nowhere near organising the heroin trade shouldn't hang. Of course I think capital punishment is abhorrent. But I am already so worn down by the preventable misery of the unAustralian world that it surprises me that so many find it in themselves to become so passionate about this already over-resourced campaign over something so trifling in the catalogue of global misery? Bali

exit 105 : A Jersey Girl's Travels Through Time and Space

2005-11-24T22:30:00.000+11:00

Dear Readers,

Exit 105 @ Blogspot

I know I am getting distracted. I have abandoned for a short time the greatly interrupted reminiscence of our jaunt in Bali. This blog is about Mali and Bali, and its authoress has been kind enough to link to my blog on hers. So here's a repaying of the favour.

Back when I travelled to places like Timbuktoo, many Australians said "I've been to Bali too", which made me feel smug (curiously conversely, when I went to Samoa three people thought I had taken winter sun in Somalia, which made me feel interesting).

Joyfish can say that I've been to Mali and Bali too. Her blog, with its news of Dogon country which I too trekked through (more anthropologists / peace corps workers per capita than anywhere else in the world?) may be more interesting to me than you, but heck, armchair travel doesn't get much better than the boondocks of Mali. Bali

Singapore accused of hypocrisy on drug stance - The Age

2005-11-23T07:31:00.000+11:00

The Age has picked up my story of last night about Singapore's heavy investment in Burmese drugs.

Financial Times: Bali bombings revive calls for special autonomy

2005-11-22T22:07:00.000+11:00

Here's a better than average little article with a human perpsective on the downturn in tourism since Bali2.

Not a must read, but interesting nonetheless. It talks about how most of the Balinese tourism industry is owned by cronies (including family) of Suharto. Suharto was a terrible dictator of the twentieth century -- a fact which is filtering through only slowly to Australia and everywhere else.

And it talks about a push within Bali for a greater share of the profits from tourism, using as a point of argument increasing proportions of natural resources able to be kept by the island provinces where they are found. If natural resources qualify those above them for such treatment, why not cultural resources of the Balinese which, it is argued, drive the tourist economy in Bali. It seems another reason to desire increased autonomy is the consequential increased ability to keep out those pesky Javanese muslims who keep on blowing the place up, and who threaten to make the Balinese a minority in their own land, much as the Han Chinese are doing to the Tibetans. Bali

My two cents worth on the execution of Van Nguyen

2005-11-19T20:17:00.000+11:00

Have drug importers ever been so popular? The popular outpouring of warmth for Van Nguyen is doing strange things to Australia's prime minister John Howard who actually has not the slightest sympathy for Van Nguyen (if he did, he wouldn't come out with lines like this to comfort the object of his sympathy in his last days on death row:

"I could only say to anybody contemplating ever taking drugs or committing drug offences in Asia to bear in mind, if they have no concern for their own fate … the terrible pain that is inflicted upon those who love them most."

But, swept up on a wave of adoration for the lad, Howard is grudgingly telling Singapore that his execution will not go unnoticed.

It's almost as though importing drugs to help your brother's debts is a kind of cute thing to do. I wonder what Lex Lasry QC (pictured) is actually doing over there. I would have thought a Singaporean lawyer might be thought more likely to be effective. Lasry wrote a great article in The Age. He astonished me by making some points I had not thought about, and did not repeat the obvious. In particular, he pointed out that Nguyen was only transiting Singapore; his only link with the jurisdiction of his execution was incidental. And he said that the mandatory death penalty meant that at the trial there was none of the usual enquiry into how evil the defendant was, or what excuses could be made on his behalf, so that these were matters which needed to be ventilated during the plea for clemency.

There has been much criticism of the letter advising of the date of the execution, but it seemed most appropriate to me:

"Dear Madam,

1. This is to inform you that the death sentence passed on Nguyen Tuong Van will be carried out on 2 Dec 2005.

2. We will arrange for additional visits from 29 Nov till 1 Dec 2005. Approved visitors may register for their visits between 8.30am and 9.30am and between 12.30pm and 1.30pm at the Prison Link Centre, Changi (990 Upper Changi Road North Singapore 506968).

3. You are requested to make the necessary funeral arrangements for him, however if you are unable to do so the state will assist in cremating the body.
Please do not hesitate to contact our officers in charge if you have any queries.

Yours Faithfully,
Chiam Jia Fong"

Any "It is our melancholy duty to inform you"s would have been criticised for insincerity. Perhaps Lasry has a point though, that the message could have been sent through diplomatic channels. Personally though, I think I would trust the postie to convey the news with sensitivity more than I would an acolyte of John Howard or Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.

This death sentence is terrible, like all death sentences. If Australians are to get so worked up about death sentences against our drug couriers, we must practice restraint when conniving at the death sentence demands arising out of the Bali bombings, though. It is ethically possible to approve of the execution of a terrorist who has murdered many but not to approve of the execution of a drug dealer. A death sentence might sometimes be justified ethically, but I do not think so. Even if it were, you would have to be very confident about your justice system before you would have the presumption to sentence someone to death. There is a brutalisation of society which goes along with any lawful execution. What is really icky though is the grotesque efficiency of lawful homicide. I think our revulsion at the gas chambers has an awful lot to do with Western revulsion for state-sponsored death. Very Nazi, and very American a phenomenon at the same time. Enough to turn anyone off. There is no euphemism. It is not collateral damage. It is the most premeditated form of life taking conceivable.

Ah but it gets worse than this. 400 hangings since 1990 gives Singapore the highest rate of execution per capita. Quite an achievement given the rate China terminates undesirables. But here's the thing: Singapore props up the drug trade in Burma, supplier of 60% of the United States' heroin, with state investments in the business of a SLORC-sponsored heroin king-pin according to this article:

"Singapore has achieved the distinction of being the Burmese junta's number one business partner -both largest trading partner and largest foreign investor. More than half these investments, totaling upwards of $1.3 billion, are in partnership with Burma's infamous heroin kingpin Lo Hsing Han, who now controls a substantial portion of the world's opium trade. The close political, economic, and military relationship between the two countries facilitates the weaving of millions of narco-dollars into the legitimate world economy."

People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

The Times' Feature on the US-funded Indonesian anti-terror unit's taking out of Azahari

2005-11-13T18:37:00.000+11:00

Bali bomber shot as he plotted new blitz - Sunday Times - Times Online
It seems US$8 million a year is what was needed to prevent the death in terrorist attrocities being planned at the time of his death by Azahari in Bali and Jakarta for Christmas Eve. That's the funding given by the Americans to create Indonesia's first anti-terrorism squad, Detachment 88. The Australians' no doubt considerable funding was extra, I suppose.

The Indonesians' mobile phone tracking technologies are sufficiently good now that the terrorists needs use couriers bearing snail mail, and it was one of the couriers who led the cops to Batu where Azahari was doing his thing. And there they found a video made by the 3 suicide bombers who perpetrated Bali2 on 1 October 2005.

Meanwhile, the brother of one of the bombers recognised one of the severed heads and contacted police, who took a DNA sample and confirmed that the bomber was Misno. According to Pravda:

Sukarto spoke at a news conference organized by the family's lawyer in the hope that reporters would no longer disturb the family once it was over. His wife cried throughout, and chose not to answer any questions.

Sukarto said [his son] Misno, the sixth of seven children, dropped out of school during junior high, and left the family's poor home near central Java's Cilacap town soon after. His last job was that of a vendor of chicken porridge, Sukarto said.

He said his family had not been attracted to hardline Islamic teachings.

"He (Misno) wasn't especially religious and neither am I," he said. "He was a normal kid."

In August, Misno returned home and told his father that he was leaving for Batam, an island near Singapore, to find work as a construction worker. Sukarto said he told him he would write him when he had settled in there. Bali

2005-11-13T15:38:00.000+11:00

We drove up the slopes of Mt Batur, and then down through beautiful clove farming communities. The price of cloves has been high recently, and our driver told us how rich all the clove farmers were at the moment. Their homes did not show it. Clove trees are biggish things with reddish brown aspects amongst their verdure. Plastic sheets weighed down by logs on four sides lined the roadside, with great quantities of cloves set out to dry. We passed too through orange plantations.

Ubud to Air Saneh on the north coast

2005-11-13T15:30:00.000+11:00

Enquiries indicated a relatively standard price for the exactly 2 hour trip from Ubud to Air Sanih on the north coast of 250,000 Rp (about A$33), and the Tjampuhan was quoting 300,000 Rp (A$40). The cost of a public bus would have been about 20,000 Rp according to our driver whom we ended up hiring through the Tjampuhan. Although we paid all of the money to the driver he told us he was obliged to pay a commission (he described is as "a kind of thanksgiving") to the hotel. No doubt the journey could have been achieved more cheaply, however our driver was a lovely guy whose English was good. The photo is someone else's, and is of the ubiquitous Toyota Kijang.

An Ubud Cafe

2005-11-13T15:26:00.000+11:00

This was a particularly nice looking cafe. Can anyone remind me of its name?

The jewjaw I resisted in Murni's Warung, Ubud

2005-11-13T14:35:00.000+11:00

After a couple of Bintangs, I very much wanted to purchase the cast iron Ganesha statue which was going for A$12,000 (less whaat might be bargained off, plus the cost of getting a huge metal elephant statue back to Australia). But $12,000 is a small price to pay for the lavishings of good karma a Ganesha that big would bring you. Bali

More about Murni's Warung in Ubud

2005-11-13T14:30:00.000+11:00

Murni's is an institution with a great website, in my view, the best there is on Bali, which I discovered to have been written and designed by an English chap, one Mr Jonathan (and if Mr Jonathan reads this post I very much hope he will drop me a line). It is a bit out of the way unless you are staying at the Tjampuhan, and apt to be overlooked, in favour of newer, flashier places. It is well worth a visit, though, furnished as it is with beautiful South East Asian antiques. Bali

This is the Tjampuhan bridge near Murni's in Ubud

2005-11-13T14:23:00.000+11:00

The photo is from the vacation memoirs of the Singaporeans who put me onto Sa Gu. Bali

Murni's Warung, Ubud, Bali

2005-11-13T14:10:00.000+11:00

Miss K and I went back to Murni's Warung, and ate in the room known as The Lounge. It is a beautifully furnished room, on the second level. The first is ground level, and the levels go down from there, ending on the fourth not too far above the Tjampuhan River. I had tenggiri. I got it because it was described as coming in an "award winning" sauce. It was good. It had the unexpected taste of celery, and tiny snow peas swimming around. It was unfussy; the room was really a bar; the white rice was divine. Sorry about the outoffocusedness of the photo. Bali

Nasi campur at Dirty Duck Diner 1, Ubud

2005-11-13T00:27:00.000+11:00

Nasi goreng at Dirty Duck Diner 1, Ubud
Originally uploaded by Trapped In A Suit.

Miss K and I ate there. This, out of focus as it is, was my nasi campur. You've got your nasi in the middle with a couple of fried shallots atop. Then prawn crackers, a kind of bean and sprouts and coconut milk thing, a lump of beef from a curry, an egg with some sambal on top, salad, peanuts, satay lilit (seafood) skewered on a bit of lemon grass, a prawn, what was from memory some kind of corn fritter, and some chicken currry. The food was not up to the ambience of the place, but there was nothing to complain about.

Remarkably, this photo is not the only one of the Dirty Duck Diner 1's nasi campur on the web. Bali

Ducks at Dirty Duck Diner 1

2005-11-13T00:24:00.000+11:00

Ducks at Dirty Duck Diner 1
Originally uploaded by Trapped In A Suit.

Quack. Bali

Dirty Duck Diner 1, Ubud

2005-11-13T00:19:00.000+11:00

Dirty Duck Diner 1, Ubud
Originally uploaded by Trapped In A Suit.

Now that's what I call a nice restaurant, or "resto" as they sometimes get called, somewhat hilariously, in Bali. Bali

Looking back towards Dirty Duck Diner 1, Ubud

2005-11-13T00:18:00.000+11:00

Looking back towards Dirty Duck Diner 1, Ubud
Originally uploaded by Trapped In A Suit.

That emerald verdure in the middle distance is rice, not lawn. Bali

Dining bale at Dirty Duck Diner 1, Ubud

2005-11-13T00:17:00.000+11:00

Dining bale at Dirty Duck Diner 1, Ubud
Originally uploaded by Trapped In A Suit.

Bali

Dirty Duck I, Ubud, Bali

2005-11-13T00:12:00.000+11:00

Eventually, I got to one of the two Dirty Duck Diners. I had a beer there while waiting for the shuttle bus to buzz my way. I had a look around. It is a beautiful restaurant, consisting of a relatively orthodox front section, and then a beautiful garden featuring growing rice bordered by a row of pavilions in which one can lounge and dine. Bali

L'Arbre a Plumes, Ubud

2005-11-13T00:06:00.000+11:00

Down Jl Hanoman was a surprise at no. 49, L'arbre a Plumes (The Feather Tree), a charming little bookshop cum cafe with a few quality English books amongst its otherwise Francophone collection. A French man hangs out there and cooks up what I imagined after scanning the menu to be good European and local food. Its telephone number is 747 0163. As I have said elsewhere, the French love Ubud and there were a lot of them there when I was. Bali

Interior of Sa Gu Ubud

2005-11-13T00:00:00.000+11:00

Originally uploaded by Trapped In A Suit.

One last photo of Sa Gu, a clever shop. I knew when I was buying these things at these prices from the beautiful sales girl that I was paying through the nose for things which could be got at the supermarket for next to nothing, but I didn't mind. I liked everything about the place: the coffee with ginger they gave me and Miss K, the cup and saucer in which it was served, and the fact that you could taste everything.

Peanut cookies from Sa Gu, Ubud

2005-11-12T23:54:00.000+11:00

Peanut cookies from Sa Gu, Ubud
Originally uploaded by Trapped In A Suit.

Finally, some tiny biscuits which stick together, and have a slightly gooey exterior, described as peanut biscuits, but being impossible to describe except that they don't taste much like peanuts or anything usually associated with them. Wonderfully bitter. Bali

Shrimp paste cookies from Sa Gu, Ubud

2005-11-12T23:51:00.000+11:00

Shrimp paste cookies from Sa Gu, Ubud
Originally uploaded by Trapped In A Suit.

The shrimp paste biscuits were great: pungently stinking pellets of shrimp paste combined with wonderfully crunchy deep fried pastry, like nothing a placid Melbourner like me has ever tasted; sweet and salty and oily and crunchy.

Jackfruit at Singaraja Market

2005-11-12T23:45:00.000+11:00

Jackfruit at Singaraja Market
Originally uploaded by Trapped In A Suit.

And this is what the fruit looks like. My earlier post has a beautiful picture from Miss Yasmina of the segments of the jackfruit.

Its eating is impossible to describe, but I'll try anyway. It is very smooth against the tongue, chewy, and slightly like bubble gum in taste.

It was a great disappointment that durian was not in season when I was in Bali. Bali

Jackfruit tree

2005-11-12T23:34:00.000+11:00

Jackfruit tree
Originally uploaded by Henrique Vicente.

Thanks to a Brazilian, Henrique Vicente, for this photo. Bali