Taking nature's way around paradise island

Bruce Emond, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

There is the inevitable risk that a guidebook is dated as soon as it reaches bookstands. One only has to flip through the most recent edition of Lonely Planet's guide to Indonesia, with its eerie description of the sleepy towns of Aceh's west coast and pristine beaches, for sad evidence of this.

But the best guidebooks -- well-written, informative, packed with cultural curiosities, travel tidbits and helpful hints -- remain faithful friends on one's journeys long after a particular restaurant has closed its doors or a once-favored hotel has slipped into disrepair.

Bill Dalton's Indonesia Handbook falls into the above category -- devotees still hang on to precious copies, despite the huge changes in the country's map in recent years -- and The Natural Guide to Bali seems sure to follow in its footsteps.

The guide is a travel book specifically for today's environmentally fragile world, in which tourism has also been blamed for environmental degradation and the assault on traditional culture.

It provides guidelines on places that are not only friendly to the environment, but also to the community and to travelers who pass their way. A system of "hearts" -- one for favorites, two for outstanding favorites -- identifies those establishments, ranging from hotels and restaurants to shops selling eco-friendly gifts or produce, judged worthy of its hall of merit.

The book passes the "flip" test: Turn to any of its pages, and there is bound to be a fascinating vignette about how a business got started, or a side-bar of cultural information that is worth reading about, even if the place in question is not part of your travel plans.

It's chock-full of information without being self-consciously pedantic, the failing of lesser guides that instead descend into torpid, showy cultural treatises or glossy say-nothing advertorials. Credit for the guide's success on this front must go to its contributors, who know the ins and outs of the subject at hand.

While some guidebooks dispatch writers from their headquarters to scour distant lands, giving a "new" perspective but inevitably losing something along the line in the translation, Equinox and Gouyon have assembled a top-notch and knowledgeable group, especially the formidable Degung Santikarma and Leslie Dwyer of Latitude magazine.

Some of the more thought-provoking essays include explorations of the history of tourism in Bali, the role of cremation ceremonies and also the island's less savory reputation for "sex 'n' sand" tourism.

Gorgeously illustrated, beautifully written and replete with maps for each area, The Natural Guide to Bali is exactly what one would expect from Equinox, a publisher whose collection of Indonesia-focused works shows style and substance.

The guide deserves a place on any bookshelf, for not only is it invaluable for those of us concerned about our declining planet and those who make frequent trips to Bali, it is, simply, a fascinating read.

The Natural Guide to Bali
Edited by Anne Gouyon
Equinox Publishing
447 pp