Enjoying blissful Bali on a budget<\/p>\n
Burhan Wazir, Observer News Service, London<\/p>\n
I have a habit of going east when I should be traveling west
\n-- east London instead of west London; New York instead of Los
\nAngeles -- so I'm hardly surprised to find myself 60 feet in the
\nair, strapped to a parachute and drifting out toward the deep
\nblue Pacific.<\/p>\n
Below me and in a speedboat, George, my ever-patient
\ninstructor, is screaming through a megaphone: \"Pull the cord. You
\nare going away from shore. Pull the cord and head back to the
\nbeach.\"<\/p>\n
I look down and smile apologetically; he gives me a defeated
\nlook and steers the coughing boat back toward the bay. Quantum
\nmechanics takes a hold, and minutes later I sink into the arms of
\nGeorge's friends on the beach.<\/p>\n
The watersports course -- and each dose lasts a well-tutored
\none hour and 45 minutes -- is a steal at only US$15. It
\nalternates disciplines as varied as snorkeling, windsurfing and
\nparagliding. \"You're not a bad snorkeler,\" says George. \"But I
\nwouldn't try any hard windsurfing until you've had a few more
\nlessons.\"<\/p>\n
By far the best known and certainly the most celebrated of the
\n13,000-plus Indonesian islands, Bali has been a stopping point
\nfor Europeans since the sixteenth century. In 1597, a small fleet
\nof Dutch war yachts, headed by Cornelius de Houtman, landed on
\nthe island. He and his crew of 89 men were all that was left of
\nthe 249 who had sailed from the Netherlands on a trading voyage
\n14 months earlier.<\/p>\n
The Dutch sailors made fast friends with the king, who,
\naccording to accounts written at the time, was \"a good-natured
\nfat man who had 200 wives, drove a chariot drawn by two white
\nbuffaloes and owned 50 dwarfs\". And after a lengthy stay that was
\nhampered by many postponements, de Houtman announced a date for
\nhis ship to sail home. History has it that reluctant crew members
\nwere disappearing up to the moment of the ship's departure.<\/p>\n
Having spent six nights in Bali, it's easy to see why those
\nfirst Europeans were so disinclined to return. Early records show
\nthat even by the ninth century Bali had developed many attributes
\nsimilar to those it has now. Rice was grown in much the same way
\nand the Balinese had begun to develop the rich cultural
\nactivities which make the island so enticing to its present-day
\nvisitors.<\/p>\n
I decide to hire a moped -- for $26.46 a day -- and ride the
\nthree kilometers into Denpasar, the island's administrative
\ncapital and gateway to the main tourist resorts. The town's main
\nthoroughfare has a steady stream of traffic that needs to be
\ncarefully negotiated, all heading for the resorts off the
\nnorthern coast. But Denpasar, with its quaint, ramshackle stalls
\nselling bamboo furniture, is a hidden gem of a town, light years
\naway from Bali's huge indoor shopping arenas and the
\nAmericanization that now seems to dominate the rest of the
\nisland.<\/p>\n
Inching the moped between \"Mom and Pop\" stalls, I stop finally
\nat Bob's Furniture Shack to have a look at long lines of wood-
\ncarvings and ornamental furniture. Bob immediately jumps out from
\na store-room in the back: \"We'll give you a good deal,\" he says.
\n\"Choose what you want and we'll give you a good price.\"<\/p>\n
I pick my way through the stall, idly inspecting Buddhist
\nfigurines and Japanese Manga-influenced paintings. Picking up a
\npyramidic set of shelves, no more than three-feet high, I turn
\nround to ask Bob for a price. \"Thirty dollars,\" he says, a sum we
\nimmediately agree on. He helps me load and tie the shelf on to
\nthe back of the moped; it will fall off three times before I
\nreturn to the hotel.<\/p>\n
Once an exclusive retreat for the upper classes, Bali's cheap
\ncost of living has earned it a place in mainstream holiday
\nbrochures and opened the doors for tourists from most walks of
\nlife.<\/p>\n
At a bar in town two nights before my return, a newlywed
\ncouple from Newcastle, in England, stand chatting to the barman
\nbefore dinner. They have been slinging back Sea Breezes --
\ntropical fruit juices laced with vodka and rum -- all day. \"You
\nhave to learn how to say this,\" slurs Ben, pointing for the
\nbarman to look at his wife. Denise laughs: \"Wahaay, mon!\"' The
\nbarman, normally able to give his best on subjects as diverse as
\npolitics, literature and cinema, stares back. Angela, repeats
\nslowly: \"Wa-haa-y, m-o-n!\"<\/p>\n
They are joined, within minutes, by a broad cross-section of
\nBritish society: Mancunians, Glaswegians and Londoners. \"Go on,
\ntry and say this,\" says Andrew, a bricklayer from Plumstead in
\nsouth-east London on holiday with his girlfriend. \"Sorry, guvnor,
\nwhat woz 'at?\" The bar -- now full predominantly of British
\npatrons -- collapses into giggles.<\/p>\n
The barman, meanwhile, is still struggling with the Newcastle
\ncolloquialisms from earlier in the evening. The guests will
\ndisappear downstairs for their evening meal -- and come back two
\nhours later to find him, notebook and pencil in hand, still
\npracticing intently.<\/p>\n
The pan-European tourists make for an unexpectedly delightful
\ntrip, and it's easy to meet people. Bali, an island evocative of
\nparadise itself, is no longer the domain of wealthy Americans,
\nand has become as affordable as a week in Spain.<\/p>\n
A few words of caution, however, are delivered to me by
\nAndrew: \"I hope there aren't too many Brits coming here.
\nOtherwise this place will end up like Majorca -- a British
\ncolony.\"<\/p>",
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