At the risk of offending all the Bali lovers out there, I
have to say it; we don’t love Bali. Part of
the reason is as boaters we didn’t long to arrive here from a foggy winter
somewhere. And our first view of the sky meeting the sea isn’t from a hotel
room window in a nice neighbourhood. Instead we come to Bali
through a polluted harbour that’s located on the wrong side of a garbage dump.
Garbage in Bali is as much
of the landscape as Gunung Agung, as it sticks its head out from a low-flyin'
cloud. There was a sign on the beach in Kuta apologising for the trash in the
surf and explaining the floating plastic bags were a ‘natural phenomenon’
linked to rainy season… Yesterday we watched dolphins leaping through an island
of plastic. When we swim we need to swat bags out of the way.
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| Bali is a handy place to have guests join us--our friend Sarah has arrived for a few weeks on the boat |
But for us, the bigger loss is with the people. We’ve met some
of the kindest people we’ve ever encountered in Indonesia, people who continuously
make us fee like honoured guests and who seem invested in making us feel like
we’ve found something special. We still catch glimpses of the kindness here
(the fisherman who came out in the pouring rain to guide us past Lovina’s reef
last night for instance) but mostly the saying we encountered on our first day
holds true, “Westerners come to Bali for peace of mind, Indonesians for a piece
of your wallet…”
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| We were pretty impressed with our newly acquired Batik skills |
Looking past the garbage and the hawkers we still saw some
of the Bali that people love so much. We
happened upon an incredible driver, Made Sumartana who toured us around for a
few days. We gave him our wish list and he took us through the insane traffic
to temples that looked over volcanoes, to rice paddies and batik lessons (not to
mention massages and grocery shopping).
In the quiet moments he told us about his life as a Balinese
Hindu and explained some of what we saw around us. It felt like if we stayed
longer and searched more deeply under the surface that maybe the Bali
people dream of was still here. We could also imagine Bali before its most recent tourism boom. Not sure when it happened but for Aussies this is the place
to come and get stupidly drunk while for busloads of Chinese tourists this seems to be the
place to shop and then make the bathrooms really messy.
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| A huge benefit of Bali is all the options for stuff to do--Maia took a great trapeze class (that's her flying through the air!) |
Maybe Bali has called to
too many people over the years. And maybe rather than finding their own special
island everyone has flocked to the one with an international airport. But for us BaliHa’i has slipped away. We’ll sail on and find our own special island.
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| Diving the Liberty wreck |
We did find a few great things in Bali:
If you are looking for a safe driver, Made Sumartana has a
clean seven passenger mini van. For about $50 a day he’ll take you anywhere
you’d like to go 0878 6172 5409 or imadesumartana74 at gmail.com
We loved our traditional Batik class with Nyoman Deking. $45
for a three hour class in his lovely garden. Dekinga at hotmail.com
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