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History
of Bali
Modern Bali: Island of
Contrasts
With a mere three
million inhabitants hosting upwards of a million foreign
guests each year, today’s Bali has become a complex,
cosmopolitan island of contrasts. Today’s Bali is a
gorgeous, crazy, glittering tropical rave, where day turns
into night and night back into day with barely a pause for
breath under the strobe lights of Bali’s legendary
nightspots. It is also a place for peaceful contemplation,
where removed from the pulse of the crowds the only sounds
breaking the silence are the frogs and crickets humming
their tranquil songs. It is a place where neon flashes,
where delicately drawn paintings arouse in the viewer a
mystical, magical mood and where the bright stars of the
southern hemisphere cast their silvery light over ancient
temples and sculpted rice terraces. Today’s Bali is a
place of incredible luxury, where lucky guests can escape
the cares of the world in fantastic five star hotels with
their every wish and whim catered to in gracious style. And
today’s Bali is also a place where intrepid travellers can
enter a social world that, in many ways, still follows
ritual rhythms established generations ago. For its guests,
Bali lays out a banquet of choices: from the perfect pasta
al dente, imported smoked salmon and caviar, and
American burgers and fries to local delicacies such as roast
suckling pig, smoked duck and luscious fresh seafood. It
offers a variety of entertainments available nowhere else on
earth: from temple hopping and traditional dance
performances to surfing, sailing, sunning and even elephant
riding. The options are virtually endless, the possible
pleasures limited only by one’s inclinations, imagination
and spirit for adventure.
And today’s Balinese
possess a complicated character as well. Your tour guide who
has polished his English (or his Italian, or his German, or
his Japanese) so well may also be an expert in reading the
ancient palm leaf lontar manuscripts written in the
Kawi language brought to Bali five centuries ago. Your
waiter, decked out so stunningly in his sarong, headdress
and ceremonial sash to serve you tropical treats with
traditional flair, may ride on his Harley-Davidson back to a
home equipped with a satellite dish beaming down all the
latest news and trends from CNN and MTV. Your hotel maid,
whose artistic touch is evident in the care she takes to
tidy your room, almost certainly goes home in the evening to
place flower and incense offerings to the gods and ancestors
in the household shrines that mark the corner of her house
yard. Your driver, whose knowledge of Balinese culture is so
exhaustive, may well take his taxi home, pile his kids in
the back seat, and head over to McDonald’s or the Hard
Rock Café. Your local travel agent has probably seen as
much of the world as you have, even if she never forgets
that the home of her ancestors is on Bali. Even the young
boys with their rock-n-roll T-shirts and American blue jeans
who offer to sell you watches or Coca-Cola or transport or
toys are certain never to miss the temple festivals that
mark the turning of the age-old Balinese calendar.
Today’s Bali, despite the
romantic rhetoric, is not a paradise. It is something far
more human, far more complex, and far more fascinating: home
to the Balinese people, their complex culture, and their
colorful stream of welcome guests.
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