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