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In Bali, Indonesia – “Java” never tasted so good!

By Donald James Dunn

As an inveterate “computer-nerd” (though some kind souls call me a “Computer Guru”), I come in contact with the term “java” quite often. It always makes me smile, because instinctively my brain registers the deliciously aromatic black brew laced with coriander seeds, which one is served throughout the Indonesian Archipelago. I speak of coffee, of course. Rich, steaming, dark roasted beans from the Indonesian island of Java, which lent its name to this ubiquitous beverage consumed daily in most parts of the world.

It is only after this olfactory recollection recedes into my sub-consciousness, that my brain focuses on computer programs. I wonder how many “bean-counters”, who came up with the name “java” for their new programming codes, have ever tasted “real java”?

Picture a 1.9 million sq. km. archipelago (the former Dutch East Indies) consisting of 17,000 islands ranging from Sumatra in the west to Irian Jaya in the east (a 6,000 km stretch). Picture a tiny island named Bali, east of Java, 140 km by 80 km in circumference, 8° south of the equator, with 2.7 million inhabitants, two major semi-active volcanoes (Gunung Agung and Gunung Batur) and 25,000 temples and shrines. Picture an idyllic beach on the Indian Ocean, the morning sun rising like a giant fireball from its liquid depths. Picture this computer nerd sitting in a rattan chair under some stately palms, a hibiscus blossom tucked idly into the hair atop one ear, sipping flavoured coffee in the early morning quiet before the tourists have awoken.

This is the taste of “real java”! Selamat datang ke Bali, Pulau jannah. “Welcome to Bali, the island of paradise,” in Bahasa, the local language.

When I was a young lad back in the 1950s, one of the first 70mm “Cinerama” movies I ever saw was the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical “South Pacific”. “Bloody” Mary chewed betel nuts and sang “...Bali Hai, she will call you...” It made an indelible impression and the South Pacific kept calling to me ever after.

I resolved to follow in the footsteps of fellow poets, writers and artists who yielded to the sirens’ call. My ever-unsatisfied appetite for adventure, romance and the exotic had been thoroughly developed through the writings of Margaret Mead, Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling, Aldous Huxley, Somerset Maugham, Anaïs Nin and the art of Gaughin and Rousseau, among many others. So when the opportunity arrived to explore paradise non-vicariously, I alighted like a migratory bird and headed south.

I remembered that Anaïs Nin had written in her diary of her sojourn on Bali: “...the separate bungalows were built in native style and set in opulent gardens. Among them were discreetly placed small stone temples with the traditional pagoda shape and black thatch roof. Statues of Gods and Goddesses appeared in niches. The room with its split bamboo walls, mats, rafts, poles tied together with bark fibre, gave off vibrations which I can only describe as similar to those one feels in a forest, as if natural materials never lost their power to conduct life. It had the quality of refuge which so few hotels have...” She was writing about a place called Tandjung Sari on Sanur Beach on the east side of the island.

Some inquiries later, I discovered that it still existed as it had in Nin’s day. Reservations were quickly made and I was off to Bali via a circuitous route that took me first to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Australia and finally Indonesia.

We step off the Garuda Airlines plane onto the tarmac of Denpasar airport (Diana, my better half, flew from Toronto to Sydney to join me for the last leg of this journey to Southeastern Asia). It is quiet, hot (but not oppressively so) and peaceful.

We hire a taxi and make the 10 km ride from Bali’s capital city to the Tandjung Sari. Everything is just as Nin described and instantly we fall in love with this tropical paradise hideaway. I marvel at the fact that the dreams of my youth have materialized into reality and wonder if our bungalow is the one in which Nin had slept...

The Balinese inhabitants are a happy and friendly people. Their daily routine centers around communing with nature, religion and the family. There are rural areas where locals still bathe openly in the many streams which lace the island. Animals and ancestors are revered – a practise which hails back to their Hindu past. But the Balinese religion is a unique homogenized mixture of Hinduism, Islam (which pervades large portions of Indonesia and the surrounding region) and Buddhism. This religious homogeneity is a perfect statement on the Balinese general philosophy of life: an avoidance of confrontation mixed with practicality and tolerance. It has assured their survival as a unique society within Indonesia in spite of centuries of foreign invasion, rule and subjugation.

Each morning we arise prior to sunup and take our freshly brewed java at the Tandjung Sari’s beach-front bar, watching an intensely spectacular orb of liquid gold rise out of the Indian Ocean’s ever-changing hue of turquoise-azure. As the sun slowly drifts towards zenith, the beach awakes with life. Fishermen gather their nets and prepare their boats for the sea; women sway daintily through the soft sand, balancing on their heads large woven baskets filled with fruit and cloth for the local markets; tourists, yawning, stretching, some sun burnt, scuttle hesitantly like hermit crabs into the ocean for a morning dip; hawkers and beach vendors, a vocation reserved primarily for children and females, assail every tourist in sight, plying their trade...

“You buy some batik, mister? No? Ok, I have nice wood carving of beautiful girl for you...” Ignoring them or remaining silent only makes them more tenacious and we marvel at how quickly they size up one’s nationality and switch to the language they presume you speak. “Du Deutscher? Du schön blau Auge. Du kauf kris, ja?” (“You German? You nice blue eye[s]. You buy kris [an ornamental Indonesian fighting sword], yes?”)

We brought combs and ballpoint pens with us. These could be bartered along with a few Rupiah for some colourful batik cloth and interesting carvings made of ebony and monkeypod wood. Or used as a gratuity for letting themselves be photographed (they are a beautiful people with delicate skin hued the colour of light café au lait, thin-limbed and graceful in movement; and they always smile!).

One of our principal interests in Bali was to experience the almost infinite variety of dances flourishing in this culture. Crisscrossing the island in search of ever new and different variations, we are held spellbound by the grace and agility of the dancers and the elaborate costumes used to personify mythical and allegorical creatures of legend. Even the names of the dances evoke a feeling of exotic sensuality: the Barong, the Legong, the Ketchak, the Ramayana...

Most fascinating of all, we witness a “fire dance” in which the dancers, deep in trance, trod back and forth on live, searing coals made from coconut husks and shells. An inspection of their soles after the dance reveal no blisters, burns or scars! A haunting testimony of faith! Or an inexplicable ability to let the power of the mind rule over matter? One of the inscrutable mysteries of the Orient…

Each of these dances relates a different story – a mixture of some historical fact shrouded in a veil of folklore and myth. Each subtle undulation of the body, each graceful gesture of the fingers adorned with 4-inch-long metal “talons”, each exaggerated movement of the eyes, has a specific meaning and tells a part of the story in a wonderfully exotic combination of sign and body language intertwined. It is the “physical multimedia” version of telling a tale; of spinning a yarn.

As mentioned before, the inhabitants of Bali are a very attractive, graceful and friendly people. A millennia or two of being conquered and subjugated by many different cultures have made the Balinese a pragmatic and tolerant race who genuinely appear to be comfortable with the unending flow of tourists visiting their island. There are very few incidents of violence against foreigners. But to the uninitiated farang (foreigner), a perfectly benign situation can be misinterpreted and lend itself to unwarranted paranoia.

We had spent the day in Denpasar, capital of Bali, and now wanted to get back to our lodgings at the Tandjung Sari on Sanur Beach, some 15 km or so distant. It is after 6 p.m. and already pitch black outside on a moonless night. No taxi is available, so we decide to take a local covered pickup truck-like mode of transportation routinely used by residents of Bali. A price is negotiated with the driver and we hop onto the back and sit on one side on a wooden bench. There are four Balinese males already on the truck, apparently headed in the same direction. They look rough and dirty, eye us furtively and speak in low tones in a local Bahasa dialect. We are driving along an unlit dirt road with dense jungle on either side. I am immediately alert.

Many Indonesians speak some English, so I address Diana in German. As we are obvious farangs (= persons with some money) and as I have several expensive cameras draped over my shoulders, I convey to her my feeling that these men might want to rob us. Should such event come to pass, I say that I would use the one camera with the telephoto lens like a club and that she should jump from the moving truck at my signal, hit the ground in a tumbling roll and head into the jungle. I would follow. She “replies” with a look that combines the best parts of bewilderment, disbelief, mild annoyance and subtle humour – it seems that she has sized up the situation somewhat less dramatically.

The perceived tension evaporates into a complete denouément when one of the men speaks to me in broken English. Seems he has been asked to be the spokesperson for the others as his English is best. They just want to chat, ask about my cameras and find out where we are from. By the time we reach the Tandjung Sari, all fears have vanished and my faith in humanity is restored!

After a few weeks on Bali, we learn that its inhabitants are actually a very peaceful people who are wont to celebrate anything – including the passing away of relatives. A funeral is a joyous and colourful rite of passage to another world; to a rich and beautiful afterlife.

Outsiders are not invited to funerals, as these are family affairs. However, the concierge at the Tandjung Sari is able to arrange for us to view the proceedings of a Balinese funeral, as long as we did not mix in with the participants. Held within open-air temple grounds, we are able to watch it all from an elevated perimeter.

The photographic opportunities are as incredible and rewarding as they are colourful and unique. My telephoto lenses pay for themselves that day!

Borrowing some aspects from Hinduism, the uniquely hybrid Balinese religion calls for cremation of the deceased person. An elaborate pyre is built out of bamboo and wood. Tied together with thongs made from coconut fibre, the pyre is adorned with colourful feathers and ornamentation made from coloured coconut paste. The body is place underneath the towering pyre. Relatives dress up in their finest clothes and come to parade and celebrate in the daylong funeral “festivities”. There is food for everyone, as well as music, merry-making and eulogizing.

Towards the late afternoon, the pyre is ignited and everyone applauds and cheers as the fire rages into intensity. When only charcoal and smoldering ashes remain, do the relatives and friends of the deceased depart for home and hired pariahs (“untouchables” – a caste-system metaphor also borrowed from Hinduism) come to rake through the coals and sweep the ashes away. Only pariahs are allowed to touch the remains of the dead. They are the undertakers of Bali.

It is very easy to fall in love with this island and its unique culture; with its gentle breezes and fragrant flora; with its aromatic Java coffee and its spellbinding dances and music. No wonder so many writers were drawn here in the past, to make this island paradise their own. No wonder I am drawn back here, again and again… And “Bloody” Mary’s voice keeps echoing like a half-forgotten refrain amidst the rustling palm fronds and rolling surf: “Bali Hai, she will call you; Come to me, come to me…”

All pictures = copyright Donald James Dunn

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