For those of you who have not visited Ubud lately, we now rejoice in a perfectly enormous hole in the main road, right in front of the market. Apparently a small opening appeared one July morning and a thoughtful citizen put a flowerpot over it to warn traffic. By evening it had become about a meter wide. By the next morning the road had completely subsided into a cavernous hole about 10 meters deep and water could be seen running along the base.
In trying to get to the bottom of the story, several hypotheses have been presented to me by Balinese and long-time expat residents. All agree that a tributary of the river that runs behind Ubud crosses what is now the main road at that spot. Diana thinks the Dutch constructed a bridge over it in order to build and pave the main street. Dek claims that it was an subak irrigation tunnel carved out eons ago by Balinese. The waterway emerges south of the market and runs past Batan Waru restaurant.
As the decades (or centuries) went by erosion broadened the subterranean waterway, weakening the unreinforced roof. Of course no one at the time of building, whether Balinese farmer or Dutch engineer, had ever dreamed that what is now Jalan Raya Ubud would one day would have to cope with heavy vehicles like trucks and tour buses. Finally the vibrations of heavy traffic created sufficient stress to collapse the roof of the waterway, and the whole thing fell in.
It’s quite a sight. The west wall of the hole has been tidied into a straight cliff giving a cutaway view of the inner Ubud, so to speak. A thin membrane of paving sits atop a perpendicular wall of heavy clay soil, pierced with a dozen fractured water pipes of various sizes, some of them two metres deep. The day I first saw The Hole after returning from a long trip, eight men in yellow plastic hard hats were seated along the edge of the chasm smoking cigarettes. Below them, a single workman slowly chipped away with a pick at a big rock. It looked like it would be a very long haul, but I was later assured that a reinforcing structure is being built off-site.
I learned that there are six old irrigation tunnels running north to south under the main road between Campuhan and the traffic light at the eastern end of Jalan Raya Ubud. None of these have been reinforced to bear heavy weights. Two or three of the larger ones are in similar condition to The Hole in front of the market. Heavy rains continue to widen the channels between ancient clay walls. Heavy traffic continues to weaken the roofs. So we are living with a strong possibility that our main traffic artery could be further compromised in one or more places at any time.
The Hole has caused considerable inconvenience, as it’s closed one of our few (already hopelessly clogged) roads to four-wheeled traffic. There is always an upside -- the fleets of stinking oversized tour buses can no longer park in the market’s tiny lot, backing up traffic as far as the Campuan Cut as they manoeuvre to insert their huge selves into impossibly small spots. (The downside of the upside is that they now park at my neighbourhood temple with their engines running, or anywhere else they can find.) These buses have been a growing bone of contention for years now, and since the appearance of The Hole are now trying to force their way along Ubud’s smaller lanes, causing long traffic jams and becoming stuck in tight corners.
“This is a wake-up call for Ubud. The Hole is a symptom of too much traffic,” says Ubud-born Dek Gunarta. “Now we have a reality check. We need to limit large vehicles in Ubud, not just because the infrastructure can’t cope, but to maintain the integrity of Ubud as a village.”
Dek echoes the opinions of many Ubud residents, both Balinese and expat. In the past two years, little Ubud has lost much of its appeal. “There’s been an unspoken consensus among the Balinese that shop facades should be in keeping with Balinese culture. There’s no law to preserve the culture here.” Between hellish traffic and rows of plate glass windows featuring fake branded goods where craft shops used to be, we might as well be in Kuta.
He also proposes a plan that many residents have been talking about for years. “The tour companies have their own agendas,” Dek points out. “They bring tourists on short visits and direct them to just one or two shops, so there’s very little benefit to Ubud from all the inconvenience of heavy tour bus traffic. But every temple has empty land. The big buses could be parked on temple land outside of Ubud and the parking fees used to maintain the temples. Tourists could be brought into town in small buses. We could have pedestrian precincts and encourage people to walk around and visit more local businesses, with frequent shuttle buses to move them around the rest of the village. They would spend more time in Ubud, leave more money here and probably enjoy their visits more too.”
Dek’s voice is just one of many expressing concern over Ubud’s inadequate infrastructure and rapidly diminishing charm in the face of uncontrolled tourism. “We need laws and they need to be enforced,” he stresses. “All the travel agents and tour buses must comply. Ubud should be left quiet.” Legions of us would love to see Dek’s dream for our beleaguered town come true. Ubud could and should be a model of enlightened, well-managed tourism that protects local culture. How can this be done?
Meanwhile, I check progress back at The Hole, climbing carefully down to the edge. The stream far below has been covered in reinforced concrete, a necessary barrier between an ancient waterway and the pressures of the modern world.
’Dragons in the Bath’, a collection of Ibu Kat’s stories,
is now available in paperback from
* Kuta : Dijon
The Bali Advertiser office
* Seminyak : Ganesha at Biku
* Ubud : Ganesha Books, KAFE, Threads of Life, Eve Body Treatment Centres
