I know Bali from four angles.
One: the revolution of affordable air travel in the 1970s has revolutionised the way middle-class Australians holiday. What was once a trip in the caravan to Mooloolaba or Brunswick Heads (which could have been to Cornwall or Wales in a not-so-distant past version of our culture) to fill the union-enforced 2 weeks of annual leave; is now, for the same or less expense; a hop to one of several tropical air ports in a sub-$500 return airfare radius - Nadi, Port Vila, Phuket and Denpasar, where tourism industries have grown like fungi clustered around the runways to cater for this market. Indonesia - despite its proximity - features traditionally the greatest disparity in currency out of these options and hence is the best deal and draws the greatest hordes.
The aim is relaxation - a pleasant view, a neutral temperature, essentially nothingness , a blank period of existence - to have the basic necessities and comforts provided, interjections of entertainment and nothing more - a room, a clean lavatory, clean linen, three high-calorie meals a day, alcohol and Tobacco, and the physical sensual pleasures of massage or prostitution, depending on the depravity of the individual.
These 10 days are but a brief escape from the bondage of full time work and servicing a mortgage in their home country.
The young adult who buys a package holiday to Bali from Flight Centre and drinks bintangs on Kuta beach in this fashion may be disparaged by others of his age as being less adventurous or to posses inferior cultural sensitivities, and this may be so, but ultimately is not their commitment to domestic sensibility and responsibility more noble?
An Australian youth - and I am generalising here - in his first years of independence has a choice - to prolong his adolescence as a romantic backpacker, wanderer, a pseudo-vagabond and spend a year or two abroad, or to immediately occupy themselves in the depressing business of building a career, a family, a house deposit, the foundations of his estate.
A hard working young man can gather a house deposit and secure credit for a loan in his early twenties. A traveller in his early twenties deposits an equivalent sum in hostels and cafes around the world - not to mention the greatest loss - time - a year long of third-world backpacking may total 10 grand if frugal, but is four times that in lost industry.
The more sophisticated tour of Europe remains in our culture as if it was a short hop across the channel for young gentleman of noble birth in the Victorian era.
Bogan parody is nothing but classism and likewise elitism directed at the ghastly Australian cultural outpost of Kuta is merely an expression of a more privileged class to whom individualistic self-development by way of extended and more distant travel and university study takes priority over an apprento, ute ownership and wealth creation, and once all that is in place - a quick trip with the boys to Bali (yewwww).
Two. Surf Pilgrimage.
The psychedelic-fuelled cultural revolution of the 1960s - Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Black Nationalism, Feminism and so on, was also experienced in the world of surf.
Surfing as a counter-culture, a method of creative expression; an art form; is I argue, is one of the most important contributions of white Australia to global culture - and Bali was a critical frontier where heaven-on-earth was discovered by an adventurous generation of artistic spirits. The seminal film Morning of The Earth (1972) would establish Uluwatu as a surf Mecca, and if you go there now you will find it utterly overrun.
Surf travellers come from all over the world to Bali in the mode of pilgrimage - paying homage to the pioneering artists mentioned above, just as modern hippies are drawn to visit the Ashram the Beatles spent time at in Rishikesh, but also a metaphorical God who created the miracle of nature of a coral reef perfectly angled so that swells break in the perfect shape to ride.
Three. The quest for enlightenment.
Ubud, Bali, in the last two decades has emerged as a global centre for all those with the economic power to abandon worldly pursuits, fly over, and practice yoga - much has already been written in a cynical tone about the yoga-mat-carrying middle aged woman here for this purpose.
What I am interested in lately is the fantastical pursuit of 'breatharianism'. Victor Truviano, known as the worlds preeminent breatharian is currently in residence at Ubud. Victor, an Argentinian, claims to have not the need to eat food and lives off pranic energy.
Given the amount of people in the world whom worship the historical Jesus myth, it is not surprising that rumours of a real and living man with similar supernatural powers might attract attention.
Four. Canguu: Hipster Wall Street.
Travel west from Kuta and you will start seeing hipster-aesthetic street art and find Canguu. Its initial appeal over adjacent towns was a couple of decent reefbreaks that drew the surfers initially, and now it has transformed into an outpost of the kind of culture found in Noosa, Byron Bay and Bondi beach - surfing, coffee, youthful business enterprises: bikinis made in Bali and sold in Sydney boutiques, all-in-one surfshopsslashcafeslashgalleries. It is quite a separate scene to the youth with aesthetic sensibilities in inner Brisbane or Melbourne. I define the difference as being pointed towards the ideal of good health, or not.
Surfing, primarily an artistic pursuit, has the pleasing side effect of generating fitness, almost without effort. In Brisbane, with no ocean to play in, the children experience not this joyful intersection of nature, expression and exercise, and direct their abilities instead to operating a computer, drawing, painting, photography or musical instrument playing - activities which develop only the musculature of the fingers and hands and do not engage the body as a whole.
Indeed, some youths revolt against the concept of sport and fitness altogether, and revel proudly in a state of ill health and bad diets, covering their body with clothes to demonstrate their taste, shaping their hair quite carefully, and rely on God-given facial features as the sole biological element of their beauty. These youths do not go to Bali.
Five. Bali itself.
I know nearly nothing of. The country plays a charming host to all these scenes, mostly without complaint and with a smile, and partially with an undercurrent of gangs, crime, violence and territorialism. They humour us by putting up with our attempts at Bahasa Indonesia, yet the true tounge of the isle remains mostly secret.
The economy is ever-growing, highways and overpasses are being built, and according to trickle down economics the standard of living might rise, I suppose?
The beauty of the landscape is ever-eroding, new hotels and condos being built on the cliff line, and the water becoming more putrid.
As an Australian, it is tempting to draw a parallel between England's invasion of Australia with Australia's invasion of Bali. The Balinese people, after all, are indigenous to their isle. I had a dream once that the government took over Bali in an official sense, and the roads were re-laid, gutters and stormwater drains installed to Australian standards, and high-vis wearing garbos collected the rubbish from green wheelie bins in neat rows on a Tuesday morning. Would this be improvement?
