Once a serene island of colourful ceremonies, emerald rice terraces and elaborately carved temples, much of southern Bali is now infested with opulent hotels, "exclusive facilities" and "ocean sanctuaries". The outbreak of construction sites around the tiny island threaten many more of these buildings to come – many more than the roads, infrastructure or environment can handle.
The Balinese, whose
regional governments control development, are eager parties to this
relatively recent phenomenon. Tourist numbers are up by 9 per cent on last
year. The economy is booming! Everyone is drinking the Kool-Aid. No one wants
to spoil the party of a culture on a suicide mission subsidised by affluent
hedonists, seeking peace, tranquillity and harmony.
More than 3.2 million
tourists visited Bali last year, using up scarce water resources and producing
tonnes of rubbish, which the island's infrastructure couldn't handle.
Plastic waste chokes the mangrove swamps and litters the beaches. There are
signs everywhere of a looming cultural and environmental crisis, but the
ubiquitous building sites indicate that no one is paying attention, at least
not for the right reasons.
In January, the Jakarta
Post reported on the moratorium on new hotels in southern Bali that
Governor Made Mangku Pastika issued in early 2011. "It was designed to
tackle the southern region’s room oversupply, as well as guiding investment to
other regions in Bali." However, the Post wrote, new hotels
continue to be built in southern Bali "as the moratorium was rejected by
the regents and city mayor, who have the authority to issue hotel
permits".
The Indonesian
Tourism Industry Association Bali chapter is only concerned that the
over-development will be "unattractive to international tourists" and
that oversupply makes prices cheaper. The solution? Move it to other parts of
the island. The writing is on the sheer white marble walls.
Thirty years ago, the
small village of Ubud in southern Bali was surrounded by rice paddies and
rainforest. Now Ubud spreads out for kilometres in all directions, a growing
sprawl of resorts, where guests pay up to $700 a night, and the Balinese
minimum wage is $123 a month. For $183, you can have a three-hour spa treatment
at the Four Seasons that includes a "soul purification experience by a
Balinese spiritual guru".
Who would have
thought that Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction, would take the form of
ayurvedic massages, and infinity-edge pools with cantilevered floating Buddhas?
Thousands of tourists
throng Ubud’s cracked footpaths, and busloads of Chinese arrive from the
coastal resorts for the day. Everyone has come to see the "cultural heart
of Bali", complete with clogged arteries.
Land, sold for
tourism or bought up to protect the view, is disappearing quickly. Farmers who
earn less than $5000 a year can now sell their land for about $35,000 per 100
square metres. Beside the spectacular rice terraces of Tegallalang, a dozen
tourist buses line the side of the road. Local authorities charge for the right
to park there and look at the view.
The traffic is
relentless. Lines of tourist buses and four-wheel-drives, along with thousands
of motorbikes, are squeezed into the clogged, narrow roads of small villages,
which are morphing into one big town. The roads, bordered by family compounds
and sacred temples, become one lane when cars are parked on the other side. The
43-kilometre drive from the airport to Ubud takes more than two hours.
Exquisite women in
fitted silk kebayas still offer flowers and waft incense smoke towards holy
statues, but it’s often against a noisy, jarring backdrop. One evening, I saw a
temple ceremony struggling up the street against the traffic. Women with high
conical baskets of fruit and flowers on their head, priests in white, musicians
playing gamelan music, were walking to their temple, hemmed in on both sides by
idling buses. The incense mingled in the air with diesel fumes.
The Balinese
philosophy of Tri Hita Karana teaches that the three causes of well-being are
harmony with people, God, and nature. Now, the whole fabric of this ancient
civilisation is under threat, trampled by tourists rushing to be "immersed
in the mystique of this spiritual land".
Bali is
153-kilometres wide, and 112 kilometres from top to bottom, about the area from
Sydney's central business district to Newcastle and out to Blackheath in
the Blue Mountains. This small, finite Hindu island lies alone in the vast
Muslim archipelago of Indonesia. When most of the land is a web of hotels and
traffic jams, that will be the end. There will be nowhere to go.
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