Indonesian Diary Entry

27 January 2002

On Sunday the 20th of January I made a trip to Bali – the fabled Bali. It is appropriate to begin with a couple of words about Bali.

Bali is part of Indonesia. This is obvious to anyone from this area of the world, but around Woburn and Dedham this is not so obvious. My understanding is that many people there believe that Indonesia is either part of Bali or that they are neighboring cities, or countries, or some such thing. Of course all of Indonesia today was not all of Indonesia hundreds of years ago, so maybe the folks from Woburn and Dedham are on to something. In any case Bali is a very special part of the country. For one thing, it is an island as well as a province (or we would think of it as a state). The island is blessed with lovely beaches, mountains, and a distinct culture (and history). It is also an area much favored by artists, and the arts are a very important part of the culture and history. This means that a number of things that we might think of as art or art forms are just part of the daily life of the Balinese. A conspicuous example is dance. Dance is very much a part of the Balinese and to do Balinese dance is not to perform as much as to participate in something important. Bali is the one part of Indonesia that is renown for tourism, and it is well known all over the world. This is due in some measure to Hollywood and its portrayal of the island. Finally, Bali is predominantly Hindu, while most of Indonesia is predominantly Muslim. That is terribly brief, but it covers the basics.

My trip to Bali was a little unusual. Recall that my home in the University is Fakultas Ekonomi, and that is somewhat akin to a college in the States (UNS-FE). On occasion people in FE go on a trip. At first I thought this was like a retreat, but it is not. It is simply a trip or a holiday. Family vacations as we know them in the States are not common here. I don’t believe this is because of the income level, but it may be related to that. So a trip like ours to Bali was a holiday trip that included families and individuals. There were about 25 travelers, and that included a few families with children, a number of couples, and a few singles. There apparently would have been more families, but for the usual problem of a lack of coincidence of vacation periods.

Faculty in Indonesia are paid very little. The basic salary is around $150 per month. One consequence of this is that most faculty members have some type of supplemental income, such as a second teaching job or a job completely outside teaching. Another consequence is that many just don’t have much money to spend on such things as vacations. So the trip to exotic Bali, an area with a very high cost of living for this country, was a budget trip. That was part of what made it interesting to me. I had not planned on going to Bali before one of my colleagues mentioned the trip to me and invited me to go along. I felt that Bali was so different from the rest of Indonesia that I didn’t want to alter my image and feelings about the country with a trip to such a place. This may seem like reverse snobbery, but that wasn’t my intent. I just wanted to have a consistent picture of the country to take back with me. But the idea of traveling this way had much appeal, so I signed on.

The trip began on Sunday and we returned to Solo Friday morning. We traveled by bus and because the trip is quite long we spent Sunday night and Thursday night on the bus, and the other three nights in a hotel in the city of Denpasar. The expected travel time from Solo to Denpasar is about 18 hours. As it turned out, the trip each way was a bit longer than that for reasons that I will get into below.

I want to describe the trip a little bit, but I also want to say some things about the trip. So I will start with the overall impressions, and then do a précis of the trip itself.

A few of the things I will say about the trip will be critical or may sound that way. So it is appropriate to say near the top that Bali is beautiful, different and exotic. It is an area infused with the arts, and its people are different from others I have met here. We saw many things that are unique and striking. We did have rather bad weather and as such there was much that we were denied seeing and experiencing. This was particularly true with respect to our trips to the mountains and central highlands. This also meant that we were on the bus much more than I would have liked. I can easily understand why this island is a tourist magnet, and why Asians and westerners favor it for travel.

An unexpected experience was that of traveling with families. I live with a family, as I have so often written, but that is only one family and it is not typical. The trip put me in with a few other families, and in circumstances that were somewhat trying. The bus rides to and from Bali were really pretty rough. Being with families with young and adolescent children was different. So what did I pick up from this? It seems that family relationships here are much closer than in the States. If a child shows signs of discomfort everyone (family and friends) makes an effort to ease the situation. Children rarely complain in the way that they seem to in the States. I have asked a number of people about this and related matters. The consistent answer is that children and parents are simply closer and more affectionate than they are at home. I want to say that children are better behaved, but that is not the important thing. It is the tighter relationship, and the implications of that relationship. On the one side, the children are “better behaved.” Children listen to parents and follow their wishes to a surprising extent. (I have heard a number of stories of children who wanted to go to one college and their parents wanted them to go to another, and the parents always dominated.) On the other side, children seem to be allowed to do things that seem to be unreasonable or even unsafe. (A trivial example is that they are never confined to a car seat, or bus seat. One sees children leaning against dashboards all the time, and on the bus a couple of the little ones would frequently stand up while the bus was traveling at high speed.)

What is tourism doing to Bali? I have no idea what Bali was like before the surge of tourism (in the 1970s), but it is clear that tourism is the dominating factor on much of the island. I can form the question more easily than I can answer it: At what point does all the looking at the Balinese people transform them from individuals and families to actors? There is so much happening for the benefit of tourists that it is impossible for anyone to ignore their (our) presence. Traffic is terrible in Southern Bali, virtually everywhere. But that is a price one has to pay for tourism. There are some parts of Southern Bali that have been developed just for high-end tourism, and these parts are virtually off limits to ordinary Balinese. There are other parts where all one sees are tourists, and most of the services are there for the tourists. The artwork of Bali has become a tourist industry, with the favored items being mass-produced in huge volume. There has been substantial internal migration to Bali (and to other tourist friendly areas of the country) from other places in Indonesia and those who have come to Bali have done so either to exploit on the high end or to bite off a little bit on the low end. So one gets a lot of money flowing out of the area and a lot of money going to non-Balinese and one also gets a lot of begging and solicitation and intimidation. Once again, as in other areas, getting off of the bus puts you in the welcome arms of people wanting to see you anything and everything – people who simply will not take no for an answer. Everything seems to be for sale, and everywhere there are things for sale. Tourism is such an important part of the local economy that it cannot be ignored, but it is inundating Bali. Tourists want to see Balinese dance, arrange for special tourist shows of dance. Tourists want to see Balinese houses, build some houses especially for tourists to visit. Is this Bali, Baliwood, Bali-lite, or what? I found myself thinking of neighborhoods in the States that had been transformed by new residents with a desire to live in an authentic or ethnic neighborhood, only to find that their numbers had displaced the neighborhood they had moved to (such as the North End of Boston).

And finally, how was it traveling on the cheap? Well, it was inexpensive, and not always very comfortable. The bus rides were very long, and a couple of times I wanted very much to scream. Our coming and going was a little difficult, so we were on the bus even longer than the predicted or scheduled time. The hotel we stayed in was rough. But the food we ate was always tasty (if not always Veg. friendly), and the places we visited were the places I would have chosen to see. When we drove through a few high-end tourist areas I was particularly happy that I was on the bus gawking at the rich, even if I was the person on the bus with the highest income. I loved seeing what my colleagues and fellow travelers were buying, as well as what they enjoyed and disliked. Not everyone on the bus spoke a lot of English, and a number of people spoke none. But everyone was so very kind to me that I managed to feel pampered, even traveling on the cheap. “Is everything OK Pak Maurice?” “Do you have enough to eat Pak Maurice?” “Is your room all right Pak Maurice?” “Is there anything in particular you would like to do Pak Maurice?” This is traveling in luxury, not traveling on the cheap.

And now, here’s the précis. We left from Fakultas Ekonomi on Sunday (the 20th), at mid-afternoon, and returned on Friday morning. In between I would guess that I was on the bus for about 75 hours. That is not a joke. It was close to 50 hours there and back, and each day we were on the bus for at least 5 hours. We slept on the bus (me less than most others), ate on the bus, conversed on the bus, but alas did not go to the toilet on the bus. (This is Indonesia, after all.)

Sunday: I was picked up at home around noon. The bus was to leave at 1 PM, and we wanted to get there in plenty of time. Since the bus didn’t actually leave until after 2, we did. I was sly and picked out a good seat. Or so I thought. It wasn’t really. It was behind a child, and he or his sister always had the seat leaning back quite a bit. The bus seated about 24 and every seat was taken. Thank god no one smoked on the bus. Since Indonesian men almost all smoke this is really important. The bus was smaller than we’d think appropriate: a little less space than on a U.S. domestic airplane. The seats were somewhat comfortable when you sat down, but over a longer period they felt like hard benches. As we were about to leave there was a pause for prayer. (A bad sign. I didn’t want this trip to be dependent on anyone other than the driver.) As it turns out, this was an omen. Prayer was a constant on the trip. All of the rest of Sunday was travel, of course. We got lost a couple of times, and at about 8 PM we encountered flooding on the road. This IS the rainy season, and this was a rainy trip. The rain had flooded a field, and it overflowed onto the road, to a depth of about thigh high (on the young men who were pushing cars through the water). So our driver decided to wait it out a bit, and that lasted an hour. But the water level did come down so it was probably a good decision. It meant that we wound up eating at 10 PM. (There was an early evening stop at a mosque for prayer.) We continued through the night and arrived at the channel separating Java and Bali at about 5:30 AM. Nice sunrise while we waited. We were to have breakfast at someone’s house (I thought) in Bali, so we got some coffee and stuff before getting on the ferry. A good thing as we actually got to the breakfast stop around 9 AM. (I could say I had about 2 to 3 hours of sleep.) It turned out to be a hospital, which was owned and run by the husband and son of a woman who teaches at UNS-FE. Nice breakfast. Then back on the road to Denpasar, the main city of Bali (population about 350,000). We did a little touring in the afternoon, including visiting a couple of temples. Bali is primarily or predominantly Hindu – about 80%. The culture is rather different from Java. At some point we had lunch, which was a box lunch and eaten on the bus between stops. This was a precedent for the next four days. For dinner, we ate in a restaurant, courtesy of the same family that fed us breakfast. Mercifully it was short as I was absolutely exhausted by this point. At last we reached the hotel.

The good news about the hotel is that it was centrally located (I guess that’s good news), I had my own room, and it had a bathroom. The bad news was that it was very noisy, not particularly clean, and had no soap, no shampoo, or towel. It did have a sheet, and I was tempted to use it for double purpose, but didn’t. The bed was very hard and the mattress very soft. Anyway, I did bathe (I had to – it wasn’t a matter of choice), and dried myself with my dirty underwear. Bali is very expensive, and I don’t recall what the actual cost of the hotel was, but the expensiveness of accommodations is a real issue for my colleagues as their salaries are very low.

Tuesday was the next day. Breakfast at hotel, and what I thought was meatless wasn’t. No matter. That must be what the fork is there for – to push things away that are unacceptable. I now discovered that Bali is in a different time zone, so I lost an hour on the clock, and we were off early. At least I was told to be on the bus by 7:30, although it took a while for the bus to fill. And we were off – to a store to do some shopping. Now I don’t mind shopping, and in fact bought some a couple of shirts here, but shopping at the break of the day when you’ve had a couple of rough nights is a little like beer with breakfast – it has nutrients but isn’t what I think of as culturally acceptable. We finished at about 9 and then were taken to an outdoor theater for a performance of Balinese dance. This too was a bit like beer with breakfast, only I’d say this was more like a bloody mary. Not something I’m accustomed to, but quite nice just the same. We were not the only group there – I’d say there were about 125 to 150 in the audience. The whole thing lasted about an hour. Then the rest of the day was a combination of temples, a journey up to the central mountain range of Bali for a visit to a very large mountain lake, and then a trip back down to a beach to watch the famous Bali sunset. I think we also stopped at one mosque, although it could have been two.

Tuesday night. Now I found another reason for the cheapness of the room. I have roommates: roaches. The president is Megawati. I have mega roaches. Big guys (and gals I guess), and they prowl the bathroom. As I had beer with dinner this meant I went to the bathroom too many times for comfort and each time was an adventure, or perhaps a safari. Oh well. It is supposed to be something out of the ordinary.

Wednesday. Same routine: up pretty early (this morning I ran, which was a pain through the city streets, but I needed something as an offset to the bus riding), temples and mountains and beaches. One interesting site was a vacation place of Sukarno, the first President of Indonesia, and Megawati’s father. It was actually pretty uninteresting as architecture, but the grounds were lovely and they overlooked a fabulous temple. Then I read about it and realized that Sukarno designed the structure and that the site formerly had been a Dutch estate of some sort. You can criticize the Dutch, but they knew how to plant a yard. We visited a few temples (and saw many more from the bus), but one was really special. This was a temple surrounded on three sides by the sea, and over-run with monkeys. The monkeys are very aggressive. People sell little packets of food at the entry to the temple, and then you give the food to the monkeys. Of course the monkeys know this, so if you don’t give them food at the first opportunity they encourage you to do so – including jumping on you. It is interesting how quickly you can move from a perception of cute to one of assailant. I was told to take off my glasses as the monkeys like to go for glasses, but as I can’t see without them it seemed wiser to wear the glasses and beat the monkeys back. Happily, it was not necessary (although I did take a swipe at one mid-sized fellow). At the end of the day when the crew set off for another attempt at viewing a sunset I begged off and went back to my roommates. During the day we also went to a strange museum (I’m reminded of a Roz Chat cartoon in the New Yorker), and then took a glass bottomed boat ride to an island where a variety of animals that should have been enjoying the wilds of Bali were there to be touched by tourists. Yuk. I had dinner with only two others, and went light on the beer. Mosque count for the day: only one.

Thursday. This was our departure day so only a morning of activity. It involved shopping: a jewelry “outlet” and then a traditional market (which was actually mostly artisan stuff, a very large amount of which was the same from one stall to another). And then, around noon, we started the trip home. For some reason we didn’t eat lunch (although the box lunches lurked on the floor of the bus). By two I was getting very hungry, and then fortune struck. We had a flat. So the driver and his assistant (mainly the assistant) went out into the rain and changed the tire. The great news was that we didn’t have to get off the bus. The not so great, but good, news was that we got to eat lunch. The least good news was that we were on the side of a mountainous road and basically were blocking one lane at a curve in the road. The tire changing took about 45 minutes and then we stopped at a mosque. I asked someone if the prayers were for a safe journey, as apparently the others either were not directed at that or not well received, but I was told that prayer is not directed at such mundane matters. Then back to the ferry across the Balinese straits, and the most time consuming short ride of my life. Why it took two hours to go a rather short distance is beyond me, but it did. And why we didn’t eat dinner until around 10 PM is also beyond me. But the biggest surprise was the tire. I had not been repaired, so we were driving on a spare (which necessitated driving at a slower speed). Once or twice the driver stopped to see about getting it fixed, but unsuccessfully. So at about 2 AM he found a kiosk that did tire repair, and an hour later we sped off with a different (not new) tire. 45 minutes later, a stop at a mosque. Again, routine maintenance. Estimated time of arrival in Solo: 6 AM. Actual time of arrival: 10 AM.

Some trips are memorable because of what you see, and what you hear about the sights. That was the Thai trip for Trudy and me. This was a memorable trip for a lot of reasons, most of which I led this entry with. Now I’ve been to Bali! Selamat tinggal.