Travel with Indigo

After a few days in the Arafura, we detoured slightly to the northwest into Indonesian waters and the Banda Sea, a course change that got us out of head winds and a steep chop.  Near the far eastern end of the Indonesian islands we came upon a volcanic cone protruding from the sea. As we drew near we could see that it was active, very active. Great flumes of dense dark cloud burped from its cone, eruptions of white steam ballooned into the sky. Though we got within a few miles of it we never heard a sound.

Indonesia is now, and over the earth’s geologic history has ever been, seismically active. Sited on the Pacific Rim of Fire, it has numerous active, dormant and extinct volcanoes. One notable eruption, this one not far from Bali in 1816, exploded with the force of 60,000 Hiroshima-sized A-bombs and killed 100,000 people. And then there was the world’s largest bang when Krakatau exploded in 1883 sending up columns of ash nearly fifty miles high and spreading it all the way to Singapore 500 miles away.

As the fourth most populous nation in the world, Indonesia is also one of its most congested with a density of people four times that of the UK, concentrated mostly on Java. The country is a big mess and seems always to have been so.  It has a bewildering array of languages, cultures, races, tribes, political parties and religions. Corruption and cronyism are endemic and the threat of military domination hangs over its political institutions. The population, spread over 17,000 islands, is 88 percent Islamic with the rest divided among various sects of Hindu, Buddhism, Christianity, even animists. Its people are comprised mostly of light brown Malays and darker skinned, fuzzy- haired Melanesians. Just three percent of Indonesians are Chinese, and they are, as everywhere in Southeast Asia, by far the wealthiest and best educated and are, perhaps accordingly, resented.

To enter the country legally, we were obliged to visit the main port at Bali before setting foot on Indonesian soil. This meant we had to bypass the Komodo National Park where the famed dragons live. We never did get there as commercial flights are scare air and charters are absurdly priced. But we took some solace in the knowledge that the Komodo dragon, actually a very large monitor lizard, is a close cousin of a smaller version of the species we saw back in Australia and would soon see along a beach in Thailand.

Bali is a fairly small island of 2,100 square miles that can be driven around in a long day.  It is by far the most tourist-friendly island in all of Indonesia, and its population of 3.2 million, quite differently from the rest of the country, is 95% Hindu. This for Westerners means they are tolerant of alcohol consumption and other un-Islamic hedonism. The locals are quite small in stature, light brown in skin color and invariably warm, affable and polite.

Although Bali has a long and lovely coast line, its tourist development is concentrated on a peninsula along its south coast in the towns of Jimboran, Kuta, Legian and Seminyak. Each has its own personality and caters to a different segment of the tourist market. Kuta and to a lesser extent Legian are, or rather were, frequented by the younger backpacker crowd. Such exploring as we did was concentrated in Seminyak and Jimboran, where the high-end restaurants and hotels, all largely empty, are concentrated.

Without exception, the crew and I did not care much for Bali and would not return there. Its roads are quite good, many with landscaped medians, but their entire length is lined with squalor and dereliction broken only here and there by bizarrely out of place modern buildings. Traffic is a chaotic blur of motorbikes three and four abreast on a single lane wending in and out of dense creeping thickets of autos and trucks. Lane striping is treated as merely decorative or at most suggestive. Sidewalks are either non-existent or unusable.

When we think of Bali our mind fills with images of a tropical paradise, lovely white sand beaches and palm fronds fluttering in gentle breezes. Alas the reality is quite something else. The beaches, of which there are many, are colorfully dotted with every manner of plastic flotsam from Pepsi bottles to discarded grocery bags and beer six-pack holders. Spars, rotted fish nets, and assorted other detritus complete the picture. While we were there, the first fifty feet or so of the surf was a dingy tobacco brown murk lapping at the shore into which I saw not a person venture, not even the locals. This, we were told, was a temporary condition brought on by unusual tides.  Beach sand was mostly dull pewter.

What is most noticeable about Bali’s tourist locales is that there are no tourists there. I mean nearly none at all. There are far more security men standing on station than there are tourists to protect. No place frequented by tourists is entered without a thorough search of the vehicle, involving mirrors that peer underneath, raised hoods and trunks, and bomb sniffing dogs, carried out by security teams clad in combat uniforms toting automatic weapons. Web sites of most Western governments warn against travel to Bali.

All of this is the result of the 2002 bomb explosions in densely packed Kuta bars that killed or wounded 500 or more and the 2005 bombs that killed another 20, the bombs of course planted by an extremist Islamic faction that objects to the Western influences in Hindu Bali. Most Western governments, including our own, advise their citizens not to travel to Bali, or anywhere in Indonesia, on account of threats of reprisal arising from the soon to be carried out execution of three bombers.  It didn’t help the tourist economy that at the time of our visit there was a world-wide recession and the slow season was in effect as the monsoons were just beginning.

As one might expect, the local currency, the rupiah, has plummeted in value. One hundred thousand of these were at the time roughly equal to nine U.S. dollars. An hour and a half massage at an upscale spa, though not in one of the top hotels, cost just $20, and a thirty minute taxi ride was about $5. Cold beer was less than a dollar.

One afternoon we all visited a local beachfront bar/restaurant on Jimbaron Beach just down from the Four Seasons, Ritz Carlton and Intercontinental hotels arriving in time for one of the fabulous nuclear orange sunsets for which Bali is justly famous. The brilliant kaleidoscopic colors are said to be the result of the atmosphere being filled with minute dust particles blown from the Australian desert. This was the kind of place where plastic tables and chairs sit on the beach sand and the water laps at your feet.

As we finished dinner, gaping at the spectacular skyline, three strolling musicians led by an Elvis impersonator came to our table and performed. Elvis was all of maybe four feet, ten inches tall, weighed at most 100 pounds including guitar, and had the appropriate sweeping ducktail and hip swivel. He and his band put on a show that delighted us all, doing faithful renditions of Hound Dog and Jailhouse Rock and Blue Suede Shoes.

Anchored just beyond the breaking surf were colorful fishing boats with the upswept prows and jaunty pavilions one might expect on an ancient Egyptian ceremonial barge. On shore near these was a crude encampment of huts where the fishermen often slept between outings, tended to nets, and partied into the night.

Through Sandy Barblett, a guy I met on the Gold Coast, I was introduced to his sister, Jane, and her husband, Richard Manser, living with their young children in Bali. He is the director of design and development of Karma Resorts, a developer of resort properties all over Asia and the Mediterranean. One night they invited me to dinner at one of their resorts, a wonderful property sited atop a 300-foot cliff overlooking the Indian Ocean. We ate on top of the cliff then took a funicular down to the beach where in the comfort of a thatch roofed bar we watched a troupe of Balinese perform some of their intricate native dances accompanied by a large ensemble of musicians playing traditional music instruments. Jane and Richard also kindly invited the entire crew and me to their home where their house chef prepared a delicious Balinese dinner. They joined us on Indigo for dinner another night.

Growing somewhat weary of tourist Bali, I took a car and driver and ventured an hour and a half north to the artsy town of Ubud, something akin to Florida’s St. Augustine.  Along the way we passed through many miles of rice paddies and through charming, tidy villages whose general aspect was far superior to anything we saw in the touristy areas. In Ubud I stayed several nights in a slightly warn but still fine Four Seasons sited on a cliff overhanging a deep ravine of dense jungle. On the first night I visited a local jazz club where Balinese musicians sang blues and another where small brown guys dressed in combat camouflage and draped in bling sang James Brown hits. The second night out Captain John and Chef Fiona kindly hosted me at Ubud’s finest restaurant for a fine meal of local delicacies.

What I found most remarkable about Bali’s countryside is that each of the many tiny villages along the way was devoted to a different cottage industry. At Ubud they manufactured– and that is just the right word– art objects in a bewildering array of choices, everything from Holiday Inn schlock to brilliant Picasso copies to Henry Moore knockoffs. Roadside stands selling and making the stuff stood lined up along both sides of the road for more than a few miles each with its own specialty. And it’s very cheap too. I’ll never again buy overpriced art from a hoity-toity gallery.

Other villages devoted themselves to ornate wood carvings. I stopped at one of these and there visited a gallery displaying an immense collection of works of astounding artistry. Or is it craftsmanship? One piece, not exceptional, stood about four feet tall and maybe three feet on a side at its base. It was a carving of a Balinese peasant man seated in a full squat, a traditional cloth tied around his head, wearing farmer’s short pants and shirtless. His poignant face showed the wear of his hard life. Held up in his left hand was a wicker basket containing a finely detailed fighting rooster. Now none of this might be thought particularly notable until you learn that the entire piece was carved by hand from a single block of wood, including the rooster within the basket, and all without any plan other than what was inside the artist’s mind. Every other piece in the large gallery was equally elaborate. The only reason I didn’t buy a work was that it was all in the vernacular of Indonesia and so not suitable for a modern American home.

Other villages along the two-lane highway specialized in ceramic roof tiles, silverwork, landscape decorations, large pots for flowers and plants, outdoor furnishings, religious icons, and much else. Each artisan is descended from a line of artists who were themselves taught the intricacies of their craft by their forebears.