Kuta, from humble surfers' paradise to top tourist spot

Kuta, from humble surfers' paradise to top tourist spot

David Fickling, Deutche Press-Agentur, Sydney

When Australian surfers first came to Bali in the mid-seventies,
Jl. Legian where last Saturday night's bomb attack took place was
just a bike-track through paddy fields.

Those who arrived were following the surfer's quest for the
perfect wave - in the case of Kuta, a hard-breaking crest that
comes in from the north throughout the March to November trade
winds season.

Surf author Peter Neally turned up in 1975, when the only
other visitors were Jakarta's upper classes, who occasionally
flew to the island for getaway breaks in second homes. There was
no sign of the hotels, clubs and bars which now crowd the
southern tip of Bali in a 25-mile (40km) strip from the foothills
of Ubud down to Nusa Dua on the Bukit peninsula.

When he wanted to get accommodation near the beach, Neally had
to strike a deal with a local farmer: in return for one year's
rent in advance, the farmer would put him up in a room of his
house and buy a water tower for cooking and washing.

Where surfers paved the way, other holidaymakers have now
followed in droves. In 2000, the Indonesian government estimates
that the island's three million people were joined by well over a
million tourists, including 350,000 Australians, 250,000
Japanese, 170,000 Taiwanese and 150,000 Britons. At any one time,
20,000 Australians are expected to be on the island.

Neally - who was on Sunday night trapped in Bali by the chaos
at Denpasar airport - has seen his book on Balinese surfing pass
into 30 editions, and though serious wave-chasers have now fled
the increasingly crowded beaches of Kuta, nearly all of the
island's two dozen surf shops are still in the town.

Nowadays the dollars which pour into of Bali make it the jewel
in Indonesia's tourism crown. Its unique status is akin to one of
China's special economic zones, a place where the normal rules
are bent and broken.

During Indonesia's periodic outbreaks of unrest, consular
advice for tourists traditionally exempts the island from the
warnings which apply elsewhere in Indonesia. In 1999, when
Australian support for East Timorese independence caused a
chilling of relations between Jakarta and Canberra, only Bali
seemed immune from the tourist drought.

Part of this comes down to the island's unique culture, a
blend of Hinduism and animism which visitors regard as more
tolerant than the Islam practiced in the rest of Indonesia. The
island is home to what are probably Indonesia's only openly gay
bars, where the Australian influence makes itself evident by the
popularity of drag cabaret.

Topless bathing, which is regarded with extreme disapproval in
most of the rest of Indonesia, is also tolerated by the Balinese.

The tolerant culture and the beauty of its landscape have
meant that Bali is now a holiday destination as popular with
Australians as Ibiza is with the British. The island caters for
every taste, from celebrities in search of exclusive resorts and
designer boutiques, through hippies and artists who idolize the
island's unique culture, to the 18-30 crowd who come for the sun,
sex and clubbing.

The island has even managed to corner an unusual sector of the
sex tourism market, in the form of the so-called "Kuta Cowboys" -
young men who regularly hook up with Australian women visitors.
Many are educated, who have come to Kuta in the hope of getting
to the west by way of marriage.

Until now, Bali had managed to keep this paradise island
status pristine, despite Indonesia's economic collapse and the
growth of religious, ethnic and separatist violence in the
archipelago.

The Indonesian government regards the island's tourist
industry as a cash cow, and has been careful to keep it free of
the strife which has affected other parts of the country.

But it sits in the midst of a ring of violence. Thousands fled
the neighboring resort island of Lombok in 2000, when Muslim mobs
looted and burned Christian, Hindu and Chinese houses in the
capital Mataram. The province of East Java to Bali's west has
also been rocked by periodic rioting against the region's Chinese
minority.

In both cases, Bali was the first port of refuge for people
fleeing the violence. It has become known as a safe port in the
storms which have torn through Indonesian society since 1997 - a
happy reputation which has now been irreparably damaged.

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Bali facts

* Most of Bali's three million people are Hindu, unlike the
rest of Indonesia's 207 million people who are predominantly
Muslim. In urban centers, there are small Indian, Arab and ethnic
Chinese communities. Bali has a relaxed lifestyle and culture,
which unlike many other parts of Indonesia is tolerant of alcohol
and Western-style night life -- Bali has remained relatively
immune from the political, religious and ethnic strife that has
wracked the country for the past five years during its transition
from three decades of dictatorship to democracy. Most Balinese
supported President Megawati Soekarnoputri's party in the 1999
elections

* Bali has been one of the world's most popular tourist
destinations for decades. Kuta is the center of the tourist
trade. It is filled with hundreds of restaurants, cheap hotels
and gift shops

* Bali is a fairly small tropical island measuring about 90
miles (144 km) by 60 miles 96 km), and is one of 17,508 islands
that comprise Indonesia. It is located about 560 miles (900 km)
east of Jakarta.