Balinese traveling in search of tradition

By Degung Santikarma

DENPASAR, Bali (JP): With over one million visitors descending on their tiny island each year, the Balinese are no strangers to tourism.

As air routes and information networks expand, and as Bali is boxed into easy-to-consume packages -- the honeymoon package, the spiritual retreat package, the millennium package -- Bali has become a typical stop on the transnational traveler's itinerary.

Indeed, under pressure to provide the ultimate in authenticity to their experience-hungry guests, tourist advertisers tout not just the beauty of the Balinese landscape and the colorful complexity of Balinese culture, but the charms of the Balinese themselves, who are said to be a natural, graceful, artistic, spiritual and peace-loving people, whose ancient way of life remains unchanged and uncorrupted.

Yet for many contemporary Balinese, it is no longer enough to simply play the part of the tourist attraction. As the flow of foreign funds enriches that segment of Balinese society that has managed to tap the tourism market, many Balinese are using this newfound wealth and their newly certain sense of modernity to become tourists themselves.

Many of them, sponsored by their new foreign friends, go to places like Australia, America and Europe, where they can practice their foreign language skills, anthropologize their adopted homeland and possibly even do some business.

Returning home to Bali, they acquire a new social status as someone who, equipped not only with foreign currency but with firsthand knowledge of the weird ways of the West, can become mediators of transnational encounters, acting as brokers, interpreters, cultural commentators and guides, helping other Balinese to meet the demands of the modern tourism market.

Yet for many other Balinese, these secular sightseeing journeys, despite their potential for worldly profit, have grown stale. These days, the latest trend is to head not west but east, in search not of the marvels of the modern world but the ancient glories of the past.

Seeing themselves not as tourists but as pilgrims, on a spiritual journey rather than a leisure tour, these travelers are elaborating upon the traditional Balinese custom of tirtha yatra (journeying in search of holy water). In years past, before the advent of buses, bemo (motorized three-wheeled vehicle), automobiles and asphalt, Balinese would make long journeys on foot to temples like Besakih or Batur to find holy water to use in special ceremonies.

Trips

These trips were often grueling, requiring days of travel along winding, mountainous roads, and the difficulties faced by travelers became themselves signs of the sacrifice one was willing to make and the hardships one was prepared to endure to fulfill one's responsibilities to the gods.

While holy water from Bali's six major temples is still a crucial requirement for many ceremonies, these days, with the parking lots of Bali's temples packed with air conditioned luxury tour buses, pilgrims in search of a spiritual challenge often choose to go elsewhere.

At the same time as many Western tourists are heading to Bali, intent on discovering the pristine pleasures of a premodern society and engaging with its centuries-old spiritual wisdom, these Balinese, taking advantage of a modern culture of mobility, are looking to rediscover their own sense of "Balineseness" by using their new wealth to trace back connections to their cultural and religious origins.

One of the most popular spots on this new itinerary is a Hindu temple on the slopes of Mount Semeru, East Java. According to Balinese historical chronicles, Hinduism established itself on the island when migrants from the ancient Javanese kingdom of Majapahit took refuge on Bali.

Recently, this temple was renovated, with funding from wealthy Balinese patrons, and now sees caravans of rented cars and minibuses unloading groups of Balinese worshipers eager to reestablish their links with what they see as their own past. One recent pilgrim to the temple was Made, a 30-year-old man who has worked on the fringes of the tourism trade as a masseuse for the past 10 years, after a childhood illness left him blind and unable to find other employment.

Recently, Made was called to the home of a wealthy French expatriate to try and heal the man's painful back injury. After a number of long massage sessions, the Frenchman was cured.

Impressed with Made's skill and determination to work hard despite the obstacles in his life, the Frenchman decided he wanted to give Made a gift.

"What would you really like?" he asked, expecting Made to reply by requesting a cassette tape player or some new, Western- style clothes. But instead of asking for the latest modern marvel, Made responded that what he wanted more than anything else in the world was to visit the temple at Semeru.

Confused but willing, the Frenchman called a travel agent and booked a tour bus that could take Made, his wife, and 30 of his friends from a local school for the blind on a trip to the temple.

"Going to Semeru made me realize how old Balinese culture is, and how important it is to preserve it," Made said upon his return. "It made me think that the Balinese need to learn not just English or French, but about their own history."

And for those Balinese who want to travel even further afield and back in history -- and who are willing and capable of paying US$1,750 to do so -- the ultimate spiritual excursion is sold by Denpasar-based Krishna Tours.

This trip, advertised as the Tirta Yatra India Tour, takes Balinese pilgrims on a two-week visit to see the sacred sights of Singapore, Malaysia and, of course, India.

Pilgrims make stops mentioned in the ancient Indian epic story Mahabarata, and journey to the Ganges River, where they may obtain holy water to take back to Bali. "The most amazing part of the trip for me was seeing that those places from the old stories really exist," said Ibu Sukerti, a 60-year-old woman who made the pilgrimage last year.

"Even though India is a poor country, even poorer than Indonesia, the people there are happy because they have such a strong spiritual tradition," she said. "And, of course, the shopping in Singapore was wonderful," she added.

Traveling home with two suitcases, one full of bottles of Ganges water and the other crammed with chic fashion and the latest electronic gadgetry, Ibu Sukerti perhaps epitomizes the contemporary Balinese pilgrim/tourist: materially successful yet spiritually seeking, using one's modern means to travel in search of tradition.