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.