It didn’t take long after the wide open spaces of Arnhem Land to get right back into the swing of Go Go Bali’s high season. I guess we must be glad that the place is full of tourists again but I must say I have mixed feelings about it. It seems to me that the whole of the central South side is pretty much a write-off. From Canggu to Sukawati the roads are choked with traffic and on a bad day you can pass 2 miles of tourist buses parked along the road. The by-pass now has daily traffic jams. Not just at the Galleria roundabout but almost anywhere on it. Just about anywhere some belching behemoth is attempting a U-turn and major intersection will do it. I have the horrible feeling we ain’t seen nothing yet and it is only a matter of time before traffic jams on the by-pass are routine year round.
What Price Enlightened Self-Interest?
It didn’t seem so long ago that you could whiz along the by-pass with bucolic vistas of rice fields, grazing cows and mangrove swamps on either side. Now the stretch between Kuta and Sanur is almost entirely built up with shophouses and furniture stores. Same thing on the stretch to Nusa Dua. Though I have to say the plate glass and stone fascia of today’s shophouses are an improvement on the depressing prospect of concrete and metal grilles of yesteryear. Nowadays, a stranger driving from Canggu to Sukawati could be forgiven for thinking they were in the suburbs of some enormous 3rd World city, the strip development is so bad. The sad thing is that one property in from the road you are back among the rice fields, grazing cows and mangroves but you’d never know it. One wonders why the Great & the Good of Bali haven’t considered some elementary form of zoning? Restricting strip development along major roads through green countryside is not exactly a novel concept. Not only is it smart on ecological and aesthetic grounds, it also preserves something of what the tourists come for. Quite apart from that, it is smart business. It develops commercial and retail areas in depth in a density that promotes business, property prices and taxes. Since there’s money to be made doing the right thing you might think something of the sort would be on the cards, mightn’t you? Dream on.
By September I’ll be more than ready to return to the wide open spaces of Australia’s Central Desert. If any kindred spirits who’ve survived the silly season more or less intact but who could use something different, you are welcome to join our small band.
In the Land of the Flying Phallus
Decades ago, when I first came to these here parts, I well recall the feelings of intense wellbeing as I relaxed in a bosky bale, nodding off over a book as I let the cares of the world drop away over a period of days. The weather sublime, sunny, cool and dry. The sky blue and a constant breeze that kissed the skin. High above the kites fluttered with their wonderful distant clattering, mingling with the eerie high pitched fluting from the wheeling doves. Truly when you come here to kick back, Bali showers you with her blessings.
Even now, away from the by-pass, the belching behemoths, tourist hordes and the daily round, as I lie in my garden I re-capture those idyllic moments. Lost in reverie I cast my eyes upward, drawn by the sound of the soaring kites. Musing all the while on the felicities of a culture where so many young men are engaged in such edifying pursuits. AND THERE IT IS! A great big Flying Phallus! The biggus dikkus of all kites as Centurion Cleese might say. It had a livid red gland and a jet black shaft. What message lay herein, flighted in the profaned skies?
As if in answer, the Gods rebuked the gross impiety and the winds dropped clean away. The next day the landscape, including the by-pass, was littered with kites as they fell to earth, no longer sustained by the breath of the Gods. Somewhere the dishonourable, its ignoble course run, had returned to earth and the hands of it’s vulgar creators.
O Tempora! O Mores! What is become of sleepy old Sanur? Such sights one might expect in the tacky purlieus of Kuta and beyond, but in dear old Snoring-on-Sea.....? And worse yet, the origin of this impious deed lay in our very own banjar. And not the first such outrage either. A week or so before, I emerged one morning to be confronted with 50 yards of obscene graffiti spray painted in black along the corrugated iron fence the owners of a derelict beach proyek in our lane had been silly enough to waste yet more money erecting. What debased and banal young minds lurk in the mean and scruffy undergrowth of Mertasari I wonder and how does it bode for the future of our fair city?
Of MICE and Men
While pondering such thoughts our leafy lane was filled in succession with traffic for two conferences held at a hotel near us. The first was an international meeting with mostly overseas delegates attending and was a pretty decorous affair. The buses rolled in and out throughout the day, or lay parked and empty for hours on end, belching exhaust fumes and emitting a low pitched and incessant throbbing pulse that shook the neighbourhood. Apart from when the belching behemoths were on the move the disruption was no greater than has to be expected at such times in our narrow lane, I suppose.
The second conference must have had a local attendance for it seemed everyone who came, came by car. For 3 days the road was in complete chaos, with much altercation, honking, hawking and general argy bargy. Everyone it seemed wanted to park in the lane, and insisted on doing so despite the fact that the hotel had ample signposted parking space off the road on each end of the property. Hotel security staff were much in evidence and could easily have directed them to the parking, bringing some order to the scene, but they stood around and watched.
I suppose in any service profession there is a hardcore minority of generally bolshie or bloodyminded people who make their presence felt by their truculence and relish in any bovver to be had. Certainly this was true of more than a few of the drivers bringing their employers to this meeting. For 3 days they shouted and argued incessantly. Their cars blocked the road, they peed ostentatiously in the nullahs while passing obscene remarks amongst themselves or at any unhappy female, local or foreign, young enough and unfortunate enough to have to run the gauntlet of their insolence. Then, the conference ended, they were all gone as if they had never been and peace returned to our lane. And good riddance too.
Now much as I support Bali getting it’s share of the lucrative MICE market this must be a scene that is repeated all over Bali. Hoteliers, if they know what’s good for them, should have a care not to spook their normal guests, which was patently what was happening in this case. You had only to look at the fear and loathing writ large on their guest’s faces as they emerged from the lobby and into the road. Essentially it is management failure. It should be a simple thing to require security staff to direct visitor traffic properly and not let them stand idly by, or worse still, join in the unseemly banter.
Sanur Gets Serious......
While on the subject of MICE and Sanur I was intrigued to hear from a friend of the attempts to put our town on the MICE map. After all, it seems to me that Sanur has dropped off the travel map rather, when it comes to tourism of any kind, despite such inspired efforts as ‘The Red Road’ (and even that was a while back now). In some ways this is a pity. Sanur has a lot to offer visitors. But then again, why mess with something that chugs along well enough in it’s dusty old way. We don’t really want to go the way of certain other more raffish resort areas, now do we? Maybe the City Fathers in their wisdom know a thing or two. But a slice of the high-yield meetings & incentive travel market? That would be nice and wouldn’t upset Snoring-on-Sea’s matronly decorum, would it? So thinking, certain hoteliers and stalwarts of the inbound market leapt into action and formed a group so that Sanur could seize it’s rightful share of this multi-billion dollar market. In an excess of zeal, their first step was to allocate a massive worldwide promotional budget of US$50,000. With dazzling acumen and the dawning realisation that the amount allocated might not be up to the job, their next step was to cut the budget in half. In the face of such stellar vision and commercial activism I don’t think the sleepy charms of Sanur are going to be threatened any time soon.
One of Nature’s Gentlemen.....
What is it about certain of our long term Bali expats that turn perfectly nice and intelligent men and women into self-appointed lecturers whenever any subject relating to Bali comes up, I wonder?
On my monthly foray up from the seaside to the hill station recently, I witnessed a classic instance of the genre. At a gathering before the evening performance various of us were chatting away in groups. The visiting American couple who were with us happened to mention something about art in Bali and our ‘expert’ was off to the races! It wasn’t that he wasn’t well informed about art here and didn’t know of what he spake, so far as I could judge he did. No, it was just the general stridency of it all and the hectoring nature. Whatever the subject he bestrode it like the Colossus, reserving particular contempt for any fond illusions he supposed any of us might harbour about Bali. I was struck by the obvious need he felt for us to see things as he saw them and the underlying bitterness, even anger, in his voice. I suppose that’s what can happen when you stay in another culture for a long time and haven’t really come to terms with it. Perhaps it was just an off day, but somehow I doubt it.
Pretty soon everyone except our American friend had backed off and were engaged in more reciprocal conversations elsewhere. Even I, who am not short of an opinion on occasion nor the wherewithal to make it heard, saw little point and withdrew from the field. I noticed the man’s wife, an artist herself and a woman of considerable charm and character, casting a knowing look over the scene from across the room. Unabashed and with an audience of one, our lecturer continued regardless. I was hugely impressed by the unphased, affable and interested demeanour maintained throughout by our American friend in the face of the onslaught. Such innate courtesy, geniality and self-possession are rare qualities indeed and I am always lost in admiration when I see them. No doubt because I am somewhat lacking in such qualities myself. I also have to admit deriving some sly amusement from the knowledge that our American friend is a professor of Art History at a major US university and not exactly a stranger to Bali himself.
Paracelsus
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