Enjoying blissful Bali on a budget

Enjoying blissful Bali on a budget

Burhan Wazir, Observer News Service, London

I have a habit of going east when I should be traveling west -- east London instead of west London; New York instead of Los Angeles -- so I'm hardly surprised to find myself 60 feet in the air, strapped to a parachute and drifting out toward the deep blue Pacific.

Below me and in a speedboat, George, my ever-patient instructor, is screaming through a megaphone: "Pull the cord. You are going away from shore. Pull the cord and head back to the beach."

I look down and smile apologetically; he gives me a defeated look and steers the coughing boat back toward the bay. Quantum mechanics takes a hold, and minutes later I sink into the arms of George's friends on the beach.

The watersports course -- and each dose lasts a well-tutored one hour and 45 minutes -- is a steal at only US$15. It alternates disciplines as varied as snorkeling, windsurfing and paragliding. "You're not a bad snorkeler," says George. "But I wouldn't try any hard windsurfing until you've had a few more lessons."

By far the best known and certainly the most celebrated of the 13,000-plus Indonesian islands, Bali has been a stopping point for Europeans since the sixteenth century. In 1597, a small fleet of Dutch war yachts, headed by Cornelius de Houtman, landed on the island. He and his crew of 89 men were all that was left of the 249 who had sailed from the Netherlands on a trading voyage 14 months earlier.

The Dutch sailors made fast friends with the king, who, according to accounts written at the time, was "a good-natured fat man who had 200 wives, drove a chariot drawn by two white buffaloes and owned 50 dwarfs". And after a lengthy stay that was hampered by many postponements, de Houtman announced a date for his ship to sail home. History has it that reluctant crew members were disappearing up to the moment of the ship's departure.

Having spent six nights in Bali, it's easy to see why those first Europeans were so disinclined to return. Early records show that even by the ninth century Bali had developed many attributes similar to those it has now. Rice was grown in much the same way and the Balinese had begun to develop the rich cultural activities which make the island so enticing to its present-day visitors.

I decide to hire a moped -- for $26.46 a day -- and ride the three kilometers into Denpasar, the island's administrative capital and gateway to the main tourist resorts. The town's main thoroughfare has a steady stream of traffic that needs to be carefully negotiated, all heading for the resorts off the northern coast. But Denpasar, with its quaint, ramshackle stalls selling bamboo furniture, is a hidden gem of a town, light years away from Bali's huge indoor shopping arenas and the Americanization that now seems to dominate the rest of the island.

Inching the moped between "Mom and Pop" stalls, I stop finally at Bob's Furniture Shack to have a look at long lines of wood- carvings and ornamental furniture. Bob immediately jumps out from a store-room in the back: "We'll give you a good deal," he says. "Choose what you want and we'll give you a good price."

I pick my way through the stall, idly inspecting Buddhist figurines and Japanese Manga-influenced paintings. Picking up a pyramidic set of shelves, no more than three-feet high, I turn round to ask Bob for a price. "Thirty dollars," he says, a sum we immediately agree on. He helps me load and tie the shelf on to the back of the moped; it will fall off three times before I return to the hotel.

Once an exclusive retreat for the upper classes, Bali's cheap cost of living has earned it a place in mainstream holiday brochures and opened the doors for tourists from most walks of life.

At a bar in town two nights before my return, a newlywed couple from Newcastle, in England, stand chatting to the barman before dinner. They have been slinging back Sea Breezes -- tropical fruit juices laced with vodka and rum -- all day. "You have to learn how to say this," slurs Ben, pointing for the barman to look at his wife. Denise laughs: "Wahaay, mon!"' The barman, normally able to give his best on subjects as diverse as politics, literature and cinema, stares back. Angela, repeats slowly: "Wa-haa-y, m-o-n!"

They are joined, within minutes, by a broad cross-section of British society: Mancunians, Glaswegians and Londoners. "Go on, try and say this," says Andrew, a bricklayer from Plumstead in south-east London on holiday with his girlfriend. "Sorry, guvnor, what woz 'at?" The bar -- now full predominantly of British patrons -- collapses into giggles.

The barman, meanwhile, is still struggling with the Newcastle colloquialisms from earlier in the evening. The guests will disappear downstairs for their evening meal -- and come back two hours later to find him, notebook and pencil in hand, still practicing intently.

The pan-European tourists make for an unexpectedly delightful trip, and it's easy to meet people. Bali, an island evocative of paradise itself, is no longer the domain of wealthy Americans, and has become as affordable as a week in Spain.

A few words of caution, however, are delivered to me by Andrew: "I hope there aren't too many Brits coming here. Otherwise this place will end up like Majorca -- a British colony."