Battered body of Kuta waiting for 'Ngaben' to lure tourists
By Rob Goodfellow
DENPASAR (JP): Some time between the early 1970s and the mid 1980s, the area around the Balinese seaside village of Kuta Beach, from Bemo Corner to the coconut groves of Legian, reached its zenith as a bottom of the market tourist destination. For hippies, surfies, travelers and tourists, Kuta and Bali were either "The Morning of the Earth", the perfect wave, or the ultimate escape.
Together with a number of other points of reference on the backpacker's list of "must see" destinations, Kuta offered some of Indonesia's most inexpensive, uncomplicated and unpretentious accommodation. It was the first port of call for young Australians setting off on the well worn track across Southeast Asia and it was the jumping off point for "travel weary" Americans or Europeans on their way to Sydney. It was an obligatory destination for a generation of young men and women intent on "doing Asia".
Dramatic physical and social changes have transformed Kuta Beach into something very different from the image so carefully crafted by the tourist brochures. The development, or rather decline, of Kuta into something of a tourist ghetto is a symptom of cultural change. On a deeper level, it is a metaphor for the whole of modern Indonesia, a society in which the trauma of nearly 350 years of colonialism and exploitation of one form or another has come home to roost.
It is extraordinary what sort of distorted image can be conjured by a clever photographer. The tourist literature which catalogs a whole range of hotels across Kuta and Legian depict scenes of outstanding tranquility. The collage creates a mirage of exclusive and luxurious opulence. While this may be true of the inner sanctum of a small number of five star hotels, the actual state of most budget losmens, and the reality of street life in the back lanes is very different.
The slow equatorial rot, the piles of plastic, the overflowing open drains, the mildewed ceilings, toilets that don't work, rooms that smell of neglect and cat urine, the noise and danger of speeding motorcycles, the thump of the empty discos, the offensive outbursts of drunken Australians, the prostitutes, petty drug dealers, bag snatchers, pickpockets, pimps and gigo los, the thousand "Hey, you want transport?", the poisonous clouds of diesel exhaust, the dust, the heat and humidity, the unrelenting hordes of cheap watch sellers, the merciless hawkers of poor quality "real silver" jewelry, the pathetic peddlers of meaningless bric-a-brac, the sharp tongued street salesmen of doubtful objects d'art, the relentless "hello mister" and "I lub you" and the inevitable smutty curse rendered incomprehensible by the use of Balinese or Javanese or Maduranese, remind one more of the tormented subjects of a Hieronimus Boch painting than a taste of the "last tropical paradise".
The hassled expression on the faces of the Smith children from Sydney as they flee the hawkers like prey from a hunter, or the heavily-hair-braided and severely-sunburnt semiotics of newly married Mr. and Mrs. Munz from Dusseldorf, pathetically clutching their abdomens while searching for the public toilet that doesn't exist, begs the fundamental questions: When does the fun start? Is the welcome drink now a poison chalice? At what point did the free airport transfer make a terrible detour?
Obviously change in Kuta has been swift and relentless, even brutal. Twenty years ago Legian was a coconut grove, now it is a city. Billions of tourist dollars have siphoned through Bali turning rice farmers into millionaires, petty merchants into owners of conglomerates, irrevocably altering the social order. Now everyone wants a piece of the action. And why not? In the artificial world of mass tourism with its five nights package (plus breakfast and welcome drink) for most ordinary Balinese is at once highly visible yet practically unobtainable. This relationship is now fruiting as frustration and violence.
In recent months there has been reports of heated verbal and even physical confrontation as tourists and hawkers play out their mutually created antipathy. The more aggressive the hawkers the less likely they will make a sale. With diminishing business comes an even more desperate approach, and so on.
The world is out that Kuta is no longer in. A sumptuous platter of alternate exotic destinations is seductively offered up to the budget tourist, promising other "last paradises" that are "just like Bali (read Kuta) used to be".
On a superficial level Kuta's rise and fall is easy to explain. As Denpasar-based anthropologist Degung Santikarma explains, "you can imagine what agony goes through the mind of an Indonesian wage laborer who earns Rp 3000 (A$1.20) a day when a tourist pulls out a roll of bank notes equal to that same person's entire years income, and then, just orders a cheese and tomato jaffel. Consciously and subconsciously the aggressive behavior of the hawkers is either their way of taking back some control in a world that is out of control, or it is their own private form of revenge."
Perhaps, like their fathers before them, a new generation of colonized Indonesians are fighting a guerrilla action. However, this time it is not against the Dutch but against the late 20th century which has punched and brawled its way into their lives like a violent drunk. Only now the fight is neither heroic nor hopeful.
One of my Balinese friends, a high school teacher, reminded me of the delicate balance of Kuta's high wire act.
"All it will take is a tidal wave, a major eruption of Mt. Agung, a World recession, another Gulf War or national instability and the whole circus will collapse. Then what will the Kuta traders do? They will be back in the paddy with their feet in the mud planting rice again!"
While this may be the case, this statement betrays a deeper symptom of Indonesian modernity -- a weary acceptance of the way things are, a perceived inability to confront change and make an individual and moderating contribution to it. It shows a dullness of spirit. Because of this, at least in Kuta Beach, there appears to be none of the nationalistic idealism that inspired a previous generation to confront European colonialism.
But, more relevant to Kuta's "hospitality industry", this malaise is compounded by the fact that there is no contemporary tradition of popular critical thinking. Most young Indonesians have not been trained in lateral or independent analysis. There is little initiative. Rather, everything is bapakism, an officially encouraged paternalism which produces automatic deference to a higher authority.
Bapakism ensures that decisions are rarely made. Even the most minor concession to protocol is unthinkable. This results in human "programming" rather then "training". No one can authorize the fixing of the leaking toilet, replace the broken fan or alter the breakfast menu to accommodate individual tastes. No one can act outside of rigidly set parameters. Nothing can be done without permission, a situation which frustrates Western tourists who are accustomed to the cult of the individual and who cannot appreciate the nuances of Indonesian social history and adjust their expectations accordingly.
What then will keep the tourists coming back? Obviously the owners of capital and the governments' central planners believe that more five star hotels and elite tourism are the answer to occupancy rates of around 40 percent or lower. This bizarre reinvention of the cargo cult produces an unwanted commodity (in this case luxury hotel rooms) and then patiently waits for the customers that will never come, while, clearly, the greatest need is for good one and two star accommodation, the sort that Kuta Beach was well known for. And even when they do come the elite tourists are easily frightened off. This was clearly seen with the recent Bali cholera scare (Bali belly) that resulted in the cancellation of thousands of Japanese bookings.
But with the appeal gone, the spirit broken, perhaps what the battered body of Kuta is waiting for is ngaben, or ritual cremation. Perhaps what Kuta needs is physical and spiritual reincarnation. But for now I fear it is to be, alas, the late great Kuta Beach.