As readers who also receive the Travelfish newsletter might already know, last Monday I announced plans to move both the Travelfish newsletter and Couchfish off of Substack. I won’t get into the reasoning again here, and instead ask those who are not aware of the pending move to please take a look at the Travelfish post here.

Feels like 8,000 years ago. Two weeks ago on Ko Kut, Thailand. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

While both moves are complicated and labour intensive, this is more so the case with Couchfish as there are both free- and paying readers here, so I thought it was important to explain what is happening. I planned to get this email out last week, but it just got away from me—my apologies.

So, in summary, here is the plan in six main points.

1. All billing through Substack was paused last week. This means regardless of if you are a month-by-month or annual subscriber, the time that passes from when I suspended billing does not count towards your subscriber period.

2. Once the move is finished, all paying Couchfish readers will receive an additional three months added to their Couchfish subscription free of charge. So, if you had a month or a year left on your subscription, once I finish the move and turn payments back on, you will have that same month or year, plus three more months from me.

3. My timeline is currently to finish moving the Travelfish newsletter this coming weekend, and I’m hoping to have Couchfish moved by the first week of February, though it could slip a little. If it is going to be delayed, I’ll let you know.

4. Once the move is finished, both the Couchfish and Travelfish newsletters will be better integrated into the main Travelfish.org website. This has long been a point of confusion for readers and frustration for me, and I’ll be very glad to have them all under the one banner again—and off of Substack. Hopefully, for you as a reader, the change will have as few—if any—speed-bumps as possible

5. The existing archives will be replicated onto a new home on Travelfish eventually, but this will take time. For the time being, the archives will also remain accessible via Substack, so you can access any old posts you want to read as you would normally.

6. Regular posting on Couchfish will resume after the move.

I’d like to apologise for the inconvenience this whole thing has caused—believe me it wasn’t on my dance card a month ago! I’m working as quickly as possible to get all my ducks in a row, but I’ve also got an already overdue thesis proposal, a house with exploding plumbing, and two dogs that bark really loud, so your patience is very much appreciated!

If you have any questions about the move, please feel free to comment below or email me directly at stuartmcdonald@travelfish.org

Cheers and good travels

Stuart

Firstly, just a short note today to let you know that I’m wrapping up Couchfish for the year. We’re off to Thailand tomorrow morning, and once there, after eating most of Bangkok, we’ll be spending a couple of weeks on the glistening beaches of Ko Kut, as far far far as possible from laptops and phones.

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Planning the trip has been a funny process. With three weeks, we started off thinking Bangkok and Amphawa and Sangkhlaburi and Khao Sok and Ko Pha Ngan and Nakhon Si Thammarat and and and … Then it was how do we fit all that together—without flying—nor spending half the trip in trains and buses? The planning stopped being fun quick smart.

Down to counting hours. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Then I had a moment—what the hell have I been writing about all year? Slowing down, less is more, and so on. The bonkers itinerary got thrown out the window and with it went a good dose of anxiety. Instead we’re now just hitting Bangkok, the coast south of Chanthaburi, and Ko Kut. Three weeks, three spots—feels about right.

One of the highlights I’m really looking forward to is while in Bangkok, we’ll be doing a street food tour with Chili Paste Tours. I’ve done a tour with Chin before, but this time it will be a family adventure, and it will be fun to wander Chinatown (where we’re staying) and the Old Quarter, stuffing face as we go. Other than that we’ll be catching up with old friends and, yeah, more stuffing face.

From Bangkok we‘ll bus it east to Chanthaburi for a few days exploring the coast—and yes hitting Farm Pu Nim—before bussing onwards to Trat for the ferry to Ko Kut. And once on the island, some diving and a bit of poking around by scooter, but also plenty of not doing very much at all. That’s the plan anyway.

So that’s us—how about you? Have any travels planned? Let loose in the comments.

There will be pier jumping. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Secondly, I just want to thank you all for supporting Couchfish. I hope you’ve found it an interesting and thought provoking (at times!) read, and I really hope you’ve got as much enjoyment out of reading it as I have in writing it.

I know I’ve been somewhat less consistent this year compared to 2022, but here’s to 2024 and the battery recharge some Ko Kut island-time will bring me.

Lastly, while the last few weeks of Bali coverage has all been free-to-read, come the new year, I’ll be reverting most new posts to being for paid subscribers only. The news is not all bad though—to soften the blow, I’ve set up an end of year special deal that gives 50% off of all paid subscriptions. This is a forever deal—not one of those deals that bounces you back to full rate after a year—it is fifty percent off forever. US$35 for a year—bargain.

So, if you’re sitting on the fence thinking about becoming a paid subscriber, now isn’t a bad time to jump off the fence and become one—and if you do, thank you.

I can taste it already. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

So that’s it from me—a mercifully short post for a change. I wish you all a happy stretch to the end of the year, and I’ll be back in touch in the first week of January 2024.

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Thanks again for your support—to all readers, and particularly to those who have been reading Couchfish since day one way back when—what a journey it has been. Thank you.

Good travels

Stuart

My piece on finding a beach house thanks to my dog wasn’t so much a humble brag, and today’s post explains why. Much as I wrote, our little garden was a (very messy) canvas for the landscaper, and the beach house would be a canvas of my own. One not so much to try my hand at art—think yourself lucky—but rather a sustainability one. I’ve been writing for years on sustainable tourism, and here was an opportunity to put my words into action. Grand plans and all that.

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In case you’re new to the couch, sustainable tourism (in theory) rests on three foundations—the environment, the economy, and the social. While I have no intentions in turning the beach shack into a rental, how can I de-shackify it with these principles in mind? As it turns out, few things come easy.

Inventiveness through necessity. The builders’ entire tool set. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

As with the foundations of a real house, sustainable tourism’s three bases intertwine and rely upon one another. Viewed in a holistic manner, it’s all well and good to source local labour, but if they’re building eleventy million private pool villas in a water-stressed locale, the end result is not ideal.

In my case, there is much to do. The house has a bathroom my kids won’t touch with a bargepole, the “garden” is like a set out of Apocalypse Now, and the electrics, well, as an Australian electrician once said of our flat in Bangkok, “it’s a death trap.”

I’m a travel writer—not an architect. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

With Agung’s help—and at my instruction—we source a local building team. From two villages very close at hand, these guys know how to mix concrete, and at that they excel. While I need that talent, I also want a staggered and curving bamboo wall for a far larger bathroom. One of the team has worked with bamboo before, though never a curving, multi-section wall. He reckons it won’t be too much more complicated and I agree. We are both wrong.

While Agung “searches in the jungle for bamboo he likes,” the team busy themselves on the wall base and piping. I want to move the toilet and have two showers, one at either end. At the prompt of another, I asked after P-traps. P whats you ask? Yeah, same—it is to be one of many terms I learn that I wish I never needed to. After I sketch one out (thanks Google) the builders confess to having no idea, nor any idea where to buy them. Not for the last time, they improvise, building them out of pipe joins to make the same. Over and over their inventiveness impresses—as does their willingness to do things over as needed. In general, three times is a charm.

Is this the second or third try? I forget. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

In the end though, we get there. It takes twice as long, and my costs blow out a little—thanks in part to someone helping themselves to some bamboo—but the end product is great. The tub, one day to be used far in the future when I have hot water, is Bali-made.

The tub is a nice pivot point to water. As with much of Bali, there’s no mains, and instead out back I have a ten-metre deep well. Back in the day they’d hoisted it by bucket, but now a pump gives a much appreciated assist. It isn’t drinking water though, which leaves me needing to buy aqua gallons. Sure they’re refillable and all, but treated water would be great. We have a filtration system at our house in the south, but that cost close to what the shack is costing me per year, so I stick with the refills.

The kids’ names, ok, but cats and the dog? Crazy bule. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

What about hot water? Youtube tells me to lay black hose all over the back off the roof, use the pump to fill it, and let the sun heat it through the day. A cheap man’s solar I guess. This seems simple and something even I could manage, only then another alerts me to the risks of Legionnaires’ disease through such an approach. The risks are, it seems, low, but given how accident-prone I tend to be, I figure this is tempting fate. I stick with cold water—perhaps one day I’ll invest in solar to warm it up.

Solar brings me to power, and researching this, I talk to a solar set-up in South Bali. They ask what fittings I have, and I say one pump, nine lightbulbs, and some plugs for my laptop. They reply saying they need the information for the whole house—not one room. When I say this is the whole house, they suggest a car battery, explaining solar will take longer than my lease to pay itself off. End result, a future discussion with Agung to extend the lease by twenty years or so. I do however, rewire the entire house—the sparky conveniently lives just up the road—and yes, I have him on speed dial.

Looks solid. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

On the social side of things, there are two strands—work and food. Aside from the builders, who could I invest in my shack? The farmer who keeps an eye on the place now continues to do so, but is paid for his efforts. I even get him to stop setting my compost on fire. Another guy from a neighbouring village drops by every Friday to take to the garden with a machete—he heads to prayers afterwards, no doubt asking for forgiveness. The farmer’s wife both washes the sheets when I’m away and comes to make the offerings at the shack temple. These are all little things, and, save the offerings, things I could do myself, but this seems the least I can do.

Food wise, as I mentioned the other day, the shack kitchen is good for nothing but boiling water for coffee. Near all my meals come from a local babi guling warung or a line of nasi warungs up at the temple. The food is, I think without exception, all sourced locally.

About as pan-Asian as my meals get. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

There’s also a side story to the warungs. One morning I’m at one, and another customer asks me where I’m staying. Before I can answer, the owner replies on my behalf, telling her “He’s Australian, but he lives in Kerobokan. He comes up here a lot, but his wife and kids don’t come much.”

This is the thing—I keep to myself. Some days I chat to the fishermen on early morning walks, farmers drop by to sit on my porch, drink my coffee, and correct my Indonesian. I don’t go to the frequent cremations, though I do make a donation whenever the temple asks. Somehow all this filters up to a warung owner a kilometre away by the temple.

No photos of the magic helicopter, so here’s a magic pineapple. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

One morning chatting, a farmer tells me the house is haunted. “Babies in the well,” they say, “bad teenagers,” says another during a different session. This is, unsettling, and I do dream unweildy dreams while there. I’d put them down to the sea breeze and the sound of the surf, but perhaps there is something more at play. There’s a huge fragipani in the back corner overhanging the temple, and every month local villagers visit to make offerings at its base. I think this is for the babies or the teens, but instead it’s for good luck in some local numbers competition.

Very pre-dawn one morning I watch a helicopter offshore in darkness. Hovering, lights ablaze, I wonder if there is a search and rescue underway, as the fishers’ boats sink with disturbing regularity. But then it simply flies off. When I later ask Agung about it, he nods pensively, saying it is the “magic helicopter.” I’m still not quite sure what to make of that.

The cover is there for a reason. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

I don’t know quite what ghost stories have to do with sustainable tourism’s social pillar, but these conversations, at least for me, are useful. They help me understand—or not—in the smallest of ways, the cycle of life the local people follow. It is a very different cycle to mine, and they’re just as curious about mine—though nothing is off limits when they’re asking me stuff!

Grievances and inter-religious resentments surface fast, as does a sometimes sense of helplessness. Farmers keep cows in simple shelters on a few spots on the beach out front, and during the foot and mouth outbreak this is a big problem. Cows are sick, and some die, and as they tell me about it, as with rice cultivation, the brutal economics behind beef surface. The government is of some help, but as indicated by the collapsed retaining wall down the beach, not always in the most appropriate manner.

Seasonal squatter. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

For the first year, a local twenty-something guy drops by most days to chat. Smart and a tourism worker in the South but now mostly jobless thanks to the pandemic, he tells me about the trade. Miserly pay rates, exploitation, long commutes, then much of the wage lost paying for accommodation and food. He left some time ago, like many offshored young Balinese as an employee in the cruise industry. I remember talking to him not long before he left, his eyes bright with the expectation of seeing the world. He queries better-travelled me endlessly on what to see where. The debrief upon his return will be interesting to say the least.

So shaking it out, I managed to hire locally and use mostly local goods. The math on power and water changes, at least for the moment, don’t add up. I eat locally and contribute where I can to local undertakings. Still it’s a superficial affair, and yet, there is a far higher impact approach I could have taken—if I’d had the money. I could have knocked down the joglo, built an inward-looking expat ice cream cake with a big wall, a pool hidden behind, and an Ubud-sourced chef and attached staff.

The first of many visitors, though I didn’t mention the ghost helicopter. Photo: Putu.

I don’t want any of these things though, and truth be told, while I haven’t specifically asked them, I get the feeling the local people don’t either. To them, I think I’m a bit of a curiosity, the bule who listens to Led Zeppelin, who sweeps the leaves in a sarong every morning, and who pointlessly moves piles of dirt around.

Most importantly though, we all know I’m a guest.

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I’ve always wanted a beach house, but little did I know my route to one would be a puppy. A few years ago I got one of the latter, an accidental one. Fostered upon us by a pair of Sam’s yoga students who’d rescued her abandoned on a Bali building site, she was a family dog, but in no short time she became mine—or me hers, or whatever. Today, we’re pretty much inseparable. Her name is Skye Govinda—no, don’t ask.

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Where we live in South Bali, we have a small garden area beside the pool. It is one of those super compact gardens, but the soil is so fertile even a gardener as inept as me can develop a thriving jungle. Controlling it, well that’s another question, and when Skye arrives, she sees the muddy mess as a perfect canvas to build her scale model of the Somme. Long story short, we get a landscaper in to swap out the Somme for a Batuan.

Not quite a Batuan, but it will do. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

The landscaper’s name is Agung. He’s Balinese, and midway through the de-Somming of the garden, we’re chatting, and Medewi in West Bali comes up. Best known for its surfing, it’s roughly halfway between our house and Bali’s western ferry port at Gilimanuk.

Chatting with Agung about the area, he mentions he has a beach house there, “oh that must be nice,” I say. A moment later he asks if I’d like to buy it. I laugh, do I look like I could afford a beach house? He grabs his phone, and after flicking through a bazillion plant snaps, hands it to me.

Garden needs work. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

The house is a joglo, a Javanese wooden house which he purchased in Java, dismantled, and shipped to Bali. He plonked it on some of his land and listed it on Airbnb, expecting to hit paydirt. Things didn’t quite work out, and in the two years since, he’s had one guest. He’s keen to offload it.

Joglos come in all shapes and sizes. Traditionally they’re associated with Java’s aristocratic class, but they need not be so grand. Boiled down they’re a square house with four inner columns holding up the roof with everything else hanging off it. For years they’ve been popularised as an “authentic” slice of holidaying, much like what you see with the wooden houses in Cambodia and Thailand.

Plenty of rice out back. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

On the fancy to not-grand-at-all time-space-continuum, Agung’s joglo falls off the end of the not-grand-at-all side of things. Think barn. The photos though, don’t illustrate how close to the beach it actually is. For that, he has a brief and bouncy walk-through video. It seems like the beach is right out front, and by that I mean Right Out Front—it is an absolute beachfront house. Despite this, he’s had one live body in it. What’s the catch? An abattoir or sheet metal factory next door? I ask more questions.

I ask where exactly the house is. He’s vague, but confirms he has a clear title for the land. I pour over Google Maps and find somewhere that may be it, the beach out front, farmland for hundreds of metres on the other sides. I ask if this is it, but he’s unsure, the satellite view confuses him. He rattles off directions related to a temple and some warungs, but this doesn’t make much sense to me. He’s talking about a location further west of Medewi than I expect and I’m unfamiliar with the area.

Like the garden, the bathroom needed some work. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

We give up on maps and Agung shows me the listing on Airbnb. To be fair, the photos do not show it in its best light. The solitary guest has given Agung a long letter of recommendation, so I read it. She pulls her punches a bit, noting that the house is “still being built,” but later mentions how quiet it is, that during her month-long stay (she’s a writer apparently), she never sees another foreigner on the beach. The locals in the closest village stare a lot, she writes, but are friendly. Starry nights and blissful silence—save the surf, get a mention.

Yes, the shack is a shack, but putting aside its absolute shackery, everything else sounds perfect. I’m one of simple pleasures—and I know shacks can be unshacked. I love it and, as I wrote up top, have always wanted a beach house, but again I tell Agung I’ve not the means to buy one. This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been down the track towards beach house living—first in Thailand, and then Cambodia—is this to be a case of third time lucky?

The tub in the new bathroom will be more useful once I get hot water. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

“Just lease it then,” he says, “one year, two years, twenty, I don’t care, up to you.”

I’ve not even considered this option, and as soon as I ask for a number, his eyes glint, he knows he has me. He throws out an opening gambit, “nego of course,” he laughs. We agree to meet up at the house the next day.

Not 24 hours later we’re sitting on the back steps, looking over rice fields that run out for miles towards the western tail of Bali’s mountains. Behind us, thirty footsteps from the front stairs, the surf crashes in. The gardens are wild and overgrown, with bougainvillea covering much of the front of the house and ready to leap onto the roof. It’s hard to tell how big the block is for the garden.

Dawn, with Mount Batukaru in the distance. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Agung introduces me to a local farmer who keeps an eye on the place for him. Then comes his offsider, and the offsider’s offsider. We drink coffee and eat watermelon. There’s chit chat, but also a lot of just sitting. For me I’m soaking it up, but for the locals, they live it, and they’re baffled why I’m even interested. There’s no air-con nor fan, no hot water, and just a few light bulbs. One asks, why would you want to live in this? I want to tell him it’s my antidote to the south—an area of the island I’ve drown to dislike with a passion—but I don’t know the Indonesian word for antidote. Instead I tell them I like simple stuff. They nod, but they clearly think I’m mad.

To a point they’re on the money as the shack is in a right state. The bamboo bathroom walls have collapsed, replaced by a wall of ferns and palms. The roof has some leaks. The water pump looks like it came from the Titanic. The “kitchen” is anything but. You get the idea, but it is obvious the bones are solid—at least to my utterly un-expert eyes.

Skye gets her reward every afternoon as well. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

The others drift off and Agung and I haggle a little bit over the price, but not much to be honest. He tells me I can stay there for a month for free to decide, but we both know I’ve already made my mind up.

It takes me a month to hack back the boggainvillea—and I’ve got ten years to clean up the rest. Third time lucky indeed.

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By the time the earliest hint of first light appears overhead, I’ve been swinging in my hammock at the Sun & Surf Stay for an hour or so. The stillness and silence of pre-dawn is a welcome reward for my insomnia, even if with the steady rumble of Bingin’s break, it isn’t silent at all. In the distance, a fat moon sinks towards Java, edging golden as somewhere behind me, the sun breaks the horizon.

Views from the hammock are better. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

On the sand below me, two of the first of the day’s surfers are prepping. Boards on the sand, they limber up, rub down their boards, then attach leg ropes. They cast their boards over a shore wave washing in, and never letting go, they’re paddling as they hit the water. By the time the wave sucks back they’re already a half dozen metres behind it—with plenty of paddling to go.

It’s a couple of hundred metres out to the back, and this time of day, with no breeze at all, inside the reef is as smooth as glass. The two surfers break the smooth, left right left right they paddle without pause, two trails in the glass behind them. They’re headed to Bingin’s famous left hander—a near perfect barrel that runs 24/7 and that wouldn’t look out of place in a wave pool. The perfection comes thanks to the volcanic reef below which shapes each and every swell into a work of art—one painted to be carved.

Pain me a picture. Photo: Sally Arnold.

With dawn now on the scene, I can make out a couple of even keener surfers who must have paddled out in the darkness. For their early morning efforts they have Bingin’s wave pool to themselves. I watch one after the other effortlessly launch onto a wave, plummeting down its drop, bottoming out in a long arc then launching themselves at the lip. At the summit, they snap back, spray launching into the sky, then race down and across the face, as the wave curls over and above, closing into the barrel the break is famous for. If they pull it off, seconds later they shoot out of the barrel’s end, careening along the unbroken remainder of the wave. It’s at this moment they ease, standing taller, looking back along the wave, before rolling over the rim, and falling back on to the board. It’s over, and the paddling begins again. Rinse and repeat.

Like many sports, those who are apt at it make it look effortless. Having been out there myself ... once ... it is far from it. Knowing this though, makes it all the more pleasurable to watch from my hammock.

Just keep walking. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

By breakfast there’s a dozen or so out there, a number that will double, then perhaps triple through the morning—depending on conditions. The beach itself though doesn’t pick up with day-trippers till a little later, so once caffeinated, I get my morning walk in before they arrive.

My mornings are always west (right when facing the ocean), and when the tide is out I can get almost to the base of clifftop El Kabron before it gets too tricky. It’s a pretty stretch, swinging between narrow and non-existent stretches of sand—depending on the tide. Along the way I can see the mess of the next beach along—one you’ll never read about on Travelfish—and after that the golf course headland before Balangan, another of my favourite Bukit beaches. A low tide walk there and back, allowing for fossicking and faffing around, easily eats up a few hours.

Long shadows at Lucky Fish. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

By the time I’m back, the sun is right overhead and I decamp to one of the many beach cafes built into Bingin’s cliff. Lucky Fish is my preferred option thanks to the long deck and great staff. If the deck is full though, nearby Bingin Ombak is my close second, with the trendier Kelly’s a distant third. Regardless of where I put my feet up, there’s a solid few hours to lose before getting them sandy again.

If the skies are clear, it is time to start wandering again around four in the afternoon. It’s that magic light time of the day, when the touch of the sun’s rays feels more like a warm massage than an angle grinder. Walking east (left when facing the ocean), the sand vanishes quick smart and you’re left to rock hop and cliff lip dodge—do watch your head. Also, keep an eye out for the famous Instagram spot near the start of the walk—you’ll know it when you see it.

East is best. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

If the tide is out, this is a magnificent wander and you can get all the way to Padang Padang and beyond. You’re walking atop the same formation that builds the surf, and when the tide is really low you can get a long way out towards the surfers. Do watch the tide though, as it comes in fast over the platform and walking back with the tide rushing in is not fun.

This is a longer walk than the morning one, but with a few hours there’s time to get back to Lucky Fish for sunset. If I’m feeling energetic, it’s a breathless five minutes or so back to the top of the cliff for sunset cocktails at Temple Lodge or perhaps Mû.

Sunsets are ok. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Light show over, back down to the sand for a beachside seafood barbecue. Perhaps a couple of iced drinks afterwards to round out yet another day on Bingin Time.

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After spending New Years of 1941 in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, 75 crew boarded the Kaidai-class cruiser submarine I-66 and left port. Along with the crew, were six torpedo tubes, a deck gun, and an anti-aircraft gun. On her second war patrol of World War Two, she was bound for the Bay of Bengal via the Lombok Strait and the Andaman Sea.

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As the I-66 made her way southeast, through the South China Sea, the USAT Liberty, a US-flagged freighter, was heading north. Laden with rubber and railway parts—or explosives, depending on the source—the Liberty was enroute from Australia to the Philippines—or Batavia (Jakarta), again depending on the source. With a displacement of over 13,000 tons and 70 crew, the vessel had but two small deck guns.

The I-65, the same class of submarine as the I-66. Photo: 日本海軍艦艇写真集 潜水艦・潜水母艦p70, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

You know where this is going right?

Before dawn on her sixth day at sea, around 15 km due south of Nusa Penida’s Kelingking Beach, the I-66 sighted the Liberty. She torpedoed it at 04:15, leaving the Liberty dead in the water, then made her escape. Two Allied destroyers—the USS Paul Jones and the Dutch Van Ghent—took the Liberty under tow and steamed for Singaraja on Bali’s northern coast—the primary port of the Dutch colonialists.

With the Liberty crippled, even after they’d cleared the fast moving waters of the Lombok Strait, she continued to take on water—Singaraja was to be a nautical mile too far. Deciding to cut their losses, and hoping to salvage as much of the cargo as possible, they beached the Liberty, and she capsized on Tulamben’s pebble beach on January 14. For the Liberty, the war was over, and once relieved of her cargo, she became yet another coastal rusting skeleton.

The USAT Liberty in better days. Photo: U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Some twenty and a bit years later, in 1963, Bali’s Mount Agung erupted. Windsor P. Booth of National Geographic was on Bali enroute to Sangeh Forest at the time, and later wrote in the September 1963 edition:

“There was a gentle tapping, as of rain, on the roof of our car. Oddly, no drops appeared on the windshield. Then the sky suddenly darkened.

I stepped out of the car to find that the “rain” was volcanic ash mixed with cinders.

No longer was the landscape a joyous rhapsody in green. Now all was bathed in an unearthly saffron light, because ash and clouds had blotted out the sun. Familiar objects, like trees and houses, took on grotesque shapes.”

When colleagues returned two weeks later, they wrote of the devastation, noting:

“By far the worst havoc struck a group of villages due east of Besakih. So sudden and complete was their destruction that even two weeks later officials could not be sure what happened. Many places, cut off by avalanches and lahar flows, were still too hot to be entered. Bodies were buried—or eaten by dogs—where they fell.”

The eruption took place around the greatest of all Balinese rituals, the Ekadasa Rudra. In the very readable Bali A Paradise Created, Adrian Vickers describes it as “the centennial rite of exorcism of the eleven forms of the terrible god.” An exorcism the eruption was, with thousands of lives lost, and vast tracts of land reduced to stony moonscapes.

“Acrid muck, 30 feet deep in spots, buried much of nearby Selat.” Photo: Robert F. Sisson, National Geographic.

While the Nat Geo correspondents kicked around Bali’s south and east, to the lesser-populated reaches along the island’s northeast coast, torrential rain and lava flowed. From Agung’s northern lip a blanket of lava gushed down to the sea, destroying all in its path. At the coast it tumbled over the black round pebbles that give Tulamben its name, and there, with an assist from earthquakes, it cradled the long-forgotten Liberty, and pushed it back out and into the depths one last time.

The wreck lay there, only a couple of dozen metres from the shore, out of sight and out of mind for another fifteen years. Through these years, Bali’s tourism scene grew, and while diving was a thing, its focus was the east coast out from Candi Dasa. It wasn’t till 1978 that an enterprising tourist agent in Denpasar started offering dive packages to visit the wreck. It would be another eight years before a dive centre opened in Tulamben—at the Paradise Hotel.

Baskets before bottles. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

By 2005, Tulamben was on the map, but while attracting almost 8,500 foreign visitors and over 2,000 locals wasn’t nothing, it wasn’t a lot—for Bali. Fast forward another decade though, and the numbers increased to over 65,000 and 7,000 foreigners and locals respectively.

As tourist numbers—and revenue—exploded, tensions rose, but community leaders enacted a customary law that decreed that “every person will have an equal chance to serve visitors.” Through working with and empowering the local community, local people became well-represented in the trade. Training programmes were enacted, and all manner of tasks, wherever possible, drew from local labour sources.

Me and some chunk of the Liberty. Photo: Intrinity Divers.

Unlike some other areas of Bali where foreign divemasters are common, not so much in Tulamben. Indeed some locals, such as the women who carry the oxygen tanks on their head to the dive entry point, became almost an attraction in their own right.

Alongside this, steps were taken to protect the viability of the wreck—essential if divers were to continue to visit—and the undersea environment has thrived. Aside from the wreck itself, artificial reefs have been set up and coral restoration work continues both in and around Tulamben and elsewhere along the coast.

It isn’t perfect by any measure—in season there are too many divers—and too many do touch and damage the coral, but compared to some other diving spots, Tulamben is quite well run. Most importantly, the community management of the site has strengthened the sense of both pride and ownership, and those vested in it understand the potential it holds for future generations.

Nat Geo’s 1963 spread.

Back to the eruption for a moment, Vickers suggests the eruption may have marked the success of the ritual, noting:

“Great state rituals such as this are meant to bring about an age of harmony in the world, but the way they can bring it about is by harnessing and even accelerating the forces of chaos and destruction which precede the renewal of a golden age. In the eyes of many Balinese, the eruption was a manifestation of great change which could bring good results as well as bad.”

It might be a bit of silver linings and all that, but I don’t think Tulamben would be the place it is today, lives changes and all, if the wrecked carcass of the Liberty was still laying on the pebbles.

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While it has resort in its name, the place we are staying at is more a private property with a couple of extra houses than a resort. Set right by the sea in a secluded area of Bali, down an un-signposted dirt trail, behind an un-signposted front gate, the effort involved in finding it makes it feel like a worthy prize.

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Our accommodation comes in the form of a large two-floor wooden house. Airy bedrooms and cool-on-the-feet wooden floors are upstairs, while below, lazy chairs and fresh air beckon. Bags dropped, the kids make a beeline for the freeform pool by the sea, while we put our feet up. A grassy expanse runs almost to the ocean, where fast waves peel in, their foam rolling up onto a loose black pebble base. Roar rattle, roar rattle, roar rattle—the noise reverberates like a sack of marbles in my head, massaging by brain.

Time for a brain massage. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Between the grass and the wave orchestra, pavers trace a curve around the property’s extremity, a small promontory of sorts. Beyond the pavers, enormous charcoal-coloured smooth boulders slope down to the water. With the afternoon sea breeze and a high tide, the spray rains into the pool—delighting the kids. The landscaper—not so much. When the waves later withdraw on the falling tide, I can see the bed of black sand the pebbles rattle over. The remnants of the original beach.

Bali is famous for its beaches, but like many things here, you need to work a bit to find the good ones. On our first few visits, hanging out in Seminyak and Sanur, we couldn’t understand what the big deal was. Sure there’s surf—a nice change from most of mainland Southeast Asia—but the strips of sand themselves, not so much.

Oh Nyang Nyang. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

It wasn’t until we got off our backsides and headed west—for the squid-ink black beaches that seem to stretch forever—or south to the Bukit, that we understood. The first time I saw Nyang Nyang from a Bukit cliff top I thought “holy crap, now that is a beach I could happily die on.” I should note this was back when there was nothing on Nyang Nyang, no road had disfigured the cliff, and no wrecked plane blighted the cliff-top. There’s a metaphor in that bloody plane I’m sure of it.

When we check in a staffer tells us the owner wants us to join him for dinner. They’d like to meet us, and have friends staying, so think it would be good for us all to meet and get to know one another. Drinks before sunset with dinner afterwards, we’re told.

The retaining wall protecting the manicured lawn from the surging waters of the Lombok Strait is far from an anomaly. Bali has decades of experience in losing its beaches. Candi Dasa, much of whose sand went awol after the innards of the reef were dug up to use the coral to make cement—ironically to build accommodation for tourists—is arguably the dumbest example, but it is far from the only one.

Sand way-station at Candi Dasa. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Sanur Beach relies of Japanese-funded groynes to grab and hang onto what sand it can. This one I’ve been told was caused by dredging at Serangan for an ill-considered and profoundly stupid development plan, but I’ve never found any concrete coverage of it, so file that one under “A guy in a bar told me.” Regardless of the reason, Sanur’s once glorious beaches are long gone. Resort enclave Nusa Dua also relies on groynes, and the sickness continues around the south coast of the Bukit, where uber lux resorts have crucified surf breaks in trying to protect “their” beach.

The owner’s friends are also Bali residents, living elsewhere on the island over Ketewel to Kerambas way. Both wearing weathered tans and that somewhat withered premature ageing Southeast Asia living can deliver, they’re all about the good life. Fat consulting work for enormous environmental acronyms can be funny like that. Still, they’re far from corporates, and are great for ideas on where to go, as they seem to have been everywhere. Or, as they put it, everywhere that is still worth going to.

Making the best of a bad situation at Sanur. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

We gather at a long wooden table near the pool for drinks. Over small talk, I ask about the wall, what is the story? They say the property had once been beach-fronted, but, when erosion got out of control down the beach a ways, the powers that be said a wall needed to go in. The owner though, not liking how they’d done it down the beach, paid for the wall out of their own pocket. They wanted it “done right,” with its curving structure better withstanding the waves—in theory. Their main gripe is even with their fancy wall, the surfing suffered. Thank god for consulting gigs I guess.

The thing with retaining walls is while they may “fix” the problem out front, they tend to also shift it elsewhere. Sand has a habit of moving up and down the beach, and interrupt the natural process at your peril. Around Bali, more and more retaining walls are appearing, each with its own flow-on impact. As an example, I’m writing this from my beach shack in West Bali, and it forms a handy microcosm. My land certificate includes a metre and a half of land that no longer exists. Farmers tell me that decades ago, when the tide was out you could walk “forever” before reaching the water. Today, not so much.

Back in the day, doggo would have had far more real estate to run on. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

A river empties out about a kilometre to the west of me, and its banks inland were corralled by stone years ago. This protects the village from houses falling into the river I guess, but now when the rain comes, it overflows the walls instead, submerging whatever lies on the other side. Last year I was cut off from the highway for a day, as the road was so deep in floodwaters even I wouldn’t ride through it. Village residents having a choice between their houses being washed away or submerged seems like a rough deal. The river’s walls curve around onto the beach, but that section collapsed—perhaps our host building his own wall wasn’t so decadent after all.

Drinks and retaining walls done, with dinner being laid out we wander over to the table. As we sit, one of the owner’s friends raises his hands, asks for a pause, and gestures for us all to hold hands. I remember thinking oh no, are we praying? Jeez please God don’t ask me to say Grace.

Back at my shack out west, nearly all the land around it is farm land. The farmers rotate through rice, watermelon, corn, then give the land a rest before rinsing and repeating. The farmers want the wall at the river head fixed then extended all the way along the beach. Why? With a king tide, the Indian Ocean is sloshing about five metres from their fields, and they know that once salt water gets into those fields they’ll have a whole new world of problems they don’t need.

Arms stretched—the table is far bigger than our group—we all hold hands. When everyone else closes their eyes and dips their head, I do the same. I can’t hear anyone speaking, so not wanting to be the twit sitting there with head dipped and still holding hands long after everyone else has stopped, I concentrate on my hands. I figure, when I feel the grip loosen, it will all be over and I can start eating.

Years earlier, when I was living in Bangkok, a Thai friend dragged me along to see an “eastern man with electric hands.” Me, willing to try anything, went along. Sure enough, after much hocus-pocus—and a thousand baht—the man touched me, and he did have electricity running through his veins. My arm and leg kicked out involuntarily at his touch—and I left a convert. That was until a few months later, when the local press ran a story about the police chasing down an “electric monk.” It turned out he’d somehow connected himself to a car battery.

Eyes closed, the roar rattle, roar rattle, roar rattle comes back to the foreground of my mind. It’s amazing how much your other senses turn on when you turn one off. I listen to the percussion, I smell the food and the wine, I feel the sea breeze.

But then I feel something else. It’s like a tingling in my finger tips, and then, almost mad-monk-style, there is a clear and unmistakeable strong pulse of energy. It takes me so much by surprise that I open my eyes, but everyone’s hands are already falling as their heads rise. There’s a smile, nothing said, and we start to eat.

These won’t keep the sea at bay either. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

It is ... odd—and, need I say, there isn’t a car battery in sight. As nobody mentions what just happened, I don’t say anything either. The next day though, I see the owner, and I ask perhaps I was imagining things, but what was that last night?

The friend, they tell me, has a special energy they like to share.

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A couple of times a week my son has archery class over in Pererenan, a “village” a little to the west of central Canggu. Taking him there by motorbike grates—in part for the abysmal traffic but also because I loathe Canggu. Tourists riding sans-helmet has always annoyed me—despite it being a footnote as far as tourist idiocies here are concerned. There’s no shortage of such fools in Canggu, but the prevalence of “road is softer in Bali-ites” doesn’t explain why I dislike Canggu.

Where better to prepare for the apocalypse than near Canggu? Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Then the other day, I read the following:

“Having a lot of tourists around can be a nuisance for other place users, but the real challenges emerge when local shops are replaced by tourist outlets selling waffles and Nutella, when the prices of accommodation drive local residents out of city centres and when local culture is replaced by a caricature of itself. This is not just the fault of the tourists, but also depends on the functioning of property markets, local businesses and (the lack of) effective regulation. It is also important to realise that many of the processes linked to tourist gentrification can also operate in the absence of tourism. In many areas increasing property prices and local displacement preceded the arrival of tourists. Tourism has simply enhanced and intensified the process by bringing in more external capital.”

It’s from a far longer—and very interesting—interview with tourism academic Greg Richards over on Tourism’s Horizons. Go read it, I’ll wait.

Incessant development and loons on motorbikes aside, what Richards describes is what bugs me about Canggu. What in particular jumped out at me was this bit:

“...but the real challenges emerge when local shops are replaced by tourist outlets selling waffles and Nutella...”

What is local?

Not before time, there’s been a rash of advisory stories of late, all trying to help travellers spot greenwashing. Right across the travel industry this is a massive issue, and it is great that more awareness raising is underway. These are though, concentrating on only one aspect of the problem—the environmental. What about localwashing?

I have no Canggu short-cut pics hand, but rest assured it is far worse than this (also near Canggu). Photo: Lyla McDonald.

You can’t throw a satay stick without hitting some—often foreign owned—travel startup that is using some take on local as a part of their Unique Selling Point. You can travel with/like/by/through locals, you can eat with/like/by/through locals, you can do a tour with/like/by/through locals. The list is about as long as the—rapidly diminishing—availability of domain names. But what do they mean by local? Good question.

As I wrote a while back, when I questioned G Adventures on their dubious take on “local”, they never bothered to answer. More recently I asked travel planning start-up Elsewhere about what they meant by “local” with the following:

“Let’s call this system what it is - totally unfair. Our direct-to-local model allows 87% of your trip dollars to stay in the destination, empowering its communities with long-term, locally based income.”

For my efforts I got the KLM support treatment, so I have no idea what they do actually mean by this. (If you don’t know why I’m on about KLM, they’re notorious for dealing with legitimate gripes which could be dealt with publicly by diverting them to private messaging, often via Twitter DMs, where they then ignore you forever.)

“Please contact us via DM so we can ignore you forever there.” Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Does it matter?

Once companies are making “local” a centrepiece of their marketing, it absolutely does. So, just as a company should be challenged for claiming their tours are “planet friendly,” likewise on any company running tours (or whatever) being “good for locals”.

But who is a local? What is a locally-owned business. In my personal opinion a local is a citizen of the country. A locally-owned business is one that is majority-owned by said locals. Others disagree, arguing any foreigner resident in the country could be seen as a local. To this I’d ask, well how long need they be a resident? How should “resident” be defined? Should residency be dictated by visa, marital status, or some other benchmark?

It gets messy, fast.

Signage at a Medewi restaurant in West Bali. 10,000% this. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Circling back even to Richards’ statement above and it isn’t all that clear. Does he mean shops owned by locals, or shops selling local goods? If a Swedish dude opened a babi guling joint on the Canggu shortcut—something sorely needed to pass the time while the traffic ebbs—would that be less bad than if he was flogging meatballs?

Just to be clear, I’m not railing here against all foreign businesses. While I agree with the issues Richards’ raises, what concerns me more, and what can be directly tied to tourism, is the blurring by travel companies of what local is. This is the whole “embrace, extend, extinguish” mentality at work, where terms that once held meaning are stripped of it. We’ve seen this happen for decades in tourism, more so now than ever. Who’s up for a responsible cruise holiday to Antartica?

“Sustainability” super-sized. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

As regular readers will know, tourism and sustainability rests on three pillars—economic, environmental, and social. When travellers take their business to locals, you can argue they’re supporting at least two of these pillars. This is why this stuff matters.

Big business however turns this on its head. Consider an example of a foreign tour company that majority-owns the in-country DMC they use. Customers think that they’re supporting local businesses, and in front of the veil, they are. Lift the veil though, and a sometimes significant portion of their money—which they think is staying in local hands—is getting siphoned off to the mother ship. That would be, more often than you might think, a mother ship anchored somewhere warm and tropical—and far away from Southeast Asia.

What’s today’s tax jurisdiction again? Photo: Emma Davidson.

Foreign-owned companies can bring with them all sorts of good. They can bring dosh, talent, connections, and experience by the bucketload—and these all can be agents for good.

The problem is when they start pretending they are what they are not. That’s a bad deal for everyone—except them. Question everything—and skip the Nutella waffles.

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We’ve been sipping and sitting for a while before homestay-owner Sudi mentions the energy. His little garden, with its low-slung car tire seats, chirping birds overhead, and, in the distance, a squealing pig, doesn’t strike me as a high energy affair.

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My daughter Lyla and I are his sole guests, and it seems the homestay moves more to our rhythms than anything else. I imagine that once we leave to go diving everyone will go back to sleep, but, as the dive boat isn’t leaving for another hour, Sudi and I still have plenty of island time on our hands.

Where the mountains meet the sea. Photo: Adam Poskitt.

As I mentioned the other day, Pemuteran is set in far western Bali, strung out along a long shallow bay. About thirty minutes to the west lies Menjangan Island, where Lyla and I have been busy diving, and, for us, that is the main attraction of this particular trip. For others though, the real magic lies elsewhere—above rather than below the depths.

When people talk about Bali and mountains, they’re all about the volcanos and craters. There’s good reason for this of course, not least that near every household on the island contains a shrine pointing to Mount Agung. The peaks are also spectacular and trying to find a spot with a view that doesn’t include a volcano is more of a challenge than you might think. Working west though, with the enormous peaks of East Java looming in the distance, another mountain range runs much of Bali’s western length. Dividing the north and south, it taps out right before the island’s Java-facing extremity at Gilimanuk.

A good spot to soak up some island time. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Gilimanuk is but a curving stone’s throw from Pemuteran, and floating offshore about to go under for another spot of underwater-time, I realise the mountain range behind the town is far more pronounced than landlubbers might expect. Like most, it’s more than a huge pile of stone and dirt, with complicated ravines and ridges, tumbling down towards the sea and the sugar palms that line it. Think striking rather than beautiful.

Sitting there I gaze at the northern flank, its dry season scrub blistered, sand-papered into shades of tan and brown, parched while waiting for rain. A few days later, while riding home, I pop over to the south-facing side of the same ridge, there it’s year-round lush and green, thick mists, moody clouds, all lapping up the wetter climate the south feeds off. On the south side, the subak flows long after the north coast has run dry.

Meanwhile on the south side. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

This meeting of the mountains and the sea carries more meaning than a weather vane though, and to try to explain the how, I’ll need to delve a little bit into the stuff they don’t teach in science class.

For many Balinese, mountains—thanks to their lofty peaks—are where the gods hang out and so they hold the highest spiritual value. At the other end of the spectrum, the ocean doubles as the abyss, home to the spirits of the underworld. The in-betweens are the lowlands, where people go about their business without straying too much. Legends take these beliefs a bit further, seeing Bali as an entire universe, floating atop a carapace of a giant turtle, but I’m not going to get into that today.

Talking about turtles … here’s a Menjangan one we spotted. Photo: Chris Mitchell.

The important thing, is that generally on Bali you get a lot of mountain, then a lot of lowland, then a lot of ocean. Spread out with plenty of space to spare, there’s enough grounds for the good, the bad and the in between to just get on with things. In Pemuteran however, this isn’t the case. In Pemuteran the main mountain range runs almost to the sea—well sort of, you do need to take a bit of a leap of faith here. This proximity, with the peaks, abyss and lowlands almost intermingled, makes for a bit of a mother lode on the energy front. While Sudi didn’t give me the whole spiel on mountains and abysses, this is the energy he was referring to, and Bali being Bali, what do you do when there’s energy on tap? You build temples ... and, it seems ... yoga studios.

If, like Lyla and I, you’ve spent most of your Pemuteran-time down in the abyss, you may well feel a need to atone, in which case you should read on. Towards the eastern extreme of town lie three Balinese Hindu temples. Pura Pulaki and Pabean sit right beside the shore, while a little up towards the gods, you’ll find Pura Melanting. Each has their own appeal, and make for a good way to fill in a non-diving day.

Waiting for Niratha’s return. Photo: Sally Arnold.

As with much of the Balinese temple writing here on Couchfish, matters start with the epic wanderer Niratha. The story goes that some time in the 16th century a troupe of monkeys led him to the spot where Pura Pulaki now sits, and while the man headed off to another plane from Pura Uluwatu, the monkeys remain. Think four centuries of crab eating macaques breeding, and you’ll probably come up with a number roughly half the size of the population here. Perhaps in acknowledgement of the vast oversupply of the crafty critters—or simply because it is more convenient—there’s a drive-by shrine where you can honk and grab your holy water blessing without even getting out of your car—or dealing with the beasts.

Not far away—and certainly not far enough away for the macaque population to disipate—Pura Pabean has a different heritage. Back in the day, when Chinese traders made land here, their first stop was this temple to give thanks for a safe journey. While the traders are far more likely to fly in to Denpasar today, Bali’s other resident seafarers—the offshore fishers—have taken up the slack. They’ll cover their bases and drop by before and after the journey, beating off the macaques while making their offerings.

Pura Melanting—and not an influencer in sight. Photo: Sally Arnold.

Heading away from the abyss, and, at least compared to the other two temples, away from the motley simians, Pura Melanting sits among forested foothills a couple of kilometres inland. The temple verges on gaudy in places—think accidentally designed for Instagram—but it is a beautiful and serene spot. Where Pabean caters to fishers, Melanting is where one comes to hone their business acumen and or fortune, and it’s a hit with traders and other business people. Which is to say, if you’re after a discount on your dive course—or just want to soak up some of Pemuteran’s special energy—this is the place for you.

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I’m just back from a terrific four-day diving trip to Pemuteran in West Bali, and while there’ll be an upbeat post on that tomorrow, today I’m having a bit of a rant.

Pemuteran is a long thin town, strung out shoelace-style along the far western north coast of Bali. It isn’t, at first glance, the most endearing of spots, but thanks to its proximity to Menjangan Island, with its bountiful diving and snorkelling, it’s long had a stumbling-along “tourism scene.” The main—and only—road runs right through the centre of town, and for a couple of kilometres resorts and small homestays line its journey.

The reefs are prettier than town to be honest. Photo: Chris Mitchell.

Most of the fancier—I’m being generous here—places are on the beach side of the road, while the off-beach side hosts a gaggle of small, family-run homestays. My daughter Lyla and I opted for the latter, choosing a small, five room place down a dusty dirt road more of less in the centre of things.

As with the rest of Bali, during the pandemic, tourism withered on the vine. Homestays, hotels, restaurants, cafes, dive shops, and many more closed down—some never to re-open. For those who survived, Bali’s reopening brought with it the promise of brighter days—even to far-flung destinations like Pemuteran. With the brighter days though, came something else.

Killing non-diving time, I spent an hour chatting with a couple of homestay owners over coffee. For both of them the pandemic had been brutal. Small homestays are rarely used to underwrite a luxury yacht or shopping trips to Hong Kong, instead they more often than not form but one part of the family’s means of living, leaving little for savings. The husband might be hands-on with the business, while the wife works both at the homestay and outside. Atop the room revenue, owners might offer tours, food, or some other service to supplant the base earnings.

Pemuteran’s beach isn’t one of Bali’s best, but the water is wet and there is sand. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Where we were staying, a room cost around 160,000 rupiah (about US$11), giving them, with five rooms, an earning capacity of under US$60 a day before any add-ons. This is before the costs of course—the often leased land, the support staff, be they cooks, cleaners or whatever. During the pandemic, the latter were let go, while the former, well, there’s no stopping the clock on leased land.

The two owners told me it was before even the first wave of Bali’s returning tourism had ebbed that the emails started coming in, one owner saying:

“At first, very early, it was only one or two, but by high season, many many.”

The emails, from “travel influencers,” were cold-calling, looking to promote the homestay. According to the owners, the emails were similar, with little changed between homestays other than the property name. The influencers would offer to write about the business, to help them recover, to help them find more guests.

The sunsets on the other hand… Photo: Stuart McDonald.

But there was a catch—this wasn’t a free service. Most asked for in the least a complimentary room, sometimes for long periods of stay. For others though, this wasn’t enough, this was a fee-for-service deal. In one case the owner recounted an influencer asking for US$500—and a free stay of a few nights—in return for writing about the property on their blog. The owner shook his head saying that represented weeks of income for him—and for what?

For what indeed?

While it tends to be most prevalent at the fancier end of the stick, complimentary stays and pay-for-play have long been an unsavoury part of the travel industry—and something I’m proud to say Travelfish has never partaken in. We are though, it seems by what the owners were telling me, the exception to the rule. While I don’t agree with the practice of comped stays and so on, I do understand the math behind it. Taking advantage of a pandemic though, to grind free stays and money out of people who could not afford it seemed to plunge new depths of icky.

“If you give me some free salt I’ll write about it.” Urrggh. Photo: Sally Arnold.

Overall, these approaches struck me as nothing more than rent seeking. The economic imbalance between the influencers and the business owners was staggering. If travellers want to help businesses recover from what has been an unprecedented upheaval in the industry, by all means do so, but motivations need to be in line. Cold-calling some small family-owned business, one that has barely survived the pandemic, and hitting them up for a free slot of nights with a cash chaser is parasitical in the extreme.

My advice to the guesthouse owners was clear. No, no, no, always say no. Concentrate on your real guests. Keep them happy, look after them and welcome them with the hospitality Bali is famous for. I want to say this is effortless, but it isn’t—doing this stuff right is a tremendous amount of work, and yet great homestays do make it seem effortless. By all means encourage guests to write reviews, or post photos, or whatever on social media, but more than anything else, encourage them to tell their friends.

Who do you want to carry water for you? At Banyu Wedang Hot Springs. Photo: Sally Arnold.

I say this because nothing beats word of mouth, nothing. It isn’t something one can buy, rather, true word of mouth is something that is earned. There’s also an important difference when it comes to word of mouth—it informs rather than influences. As my travel writer friend Joshua Zukas wrote to me regarding this:

“Who on earth wants to be influenced anyway? Wouldn’t one rather be informed?”

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If you draw a line along Bali’s chicken belly starting at Kuta and finishing near the beak at Negara, about half way along you’ll see Balian. Depending on the map, you might see it marked at Lalanglinggah, but regardless of the name, it sits on the western bank of the Balian River.

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By Balinese standards it is a good sized river—fast flowing in wet season and easy to walk across in the dry. Its waters tumble over shiny and smooth black pebbles then into the Indian Ocean after a long and straight run to the coast. Through the centuries, this flow has carved a channel offshore that funnels and amplifies the rolling swell. The result? One of Bali’s more consistent waves, with both left and rights catering to a range of surfer talents. Even if you don’t surf, on a glassy morning, with the swell pumping in, it’s a beautiful sight.

Bull sharks out of shot. Photo: Samantha Brown.

It was the fast-flowing water of this river that Shiva Buddhist high priest Niratha plunged has walking staff into, giving it healing properties. While I can’t comment on these properties myself, the local bull sharks are fans. They swim upriver to rid themselves of parasites, and more than occasionally give a surfer a nasty mauling on the way back out to sea. Paddle with caution.

We first found ourselves in Balian by chance. Living in Jakarta at the time, we’d had a few stints in the south, around first Sanur, then Ubud, and finally Seminyak, and to be honest, were baffled by Bali’s appeal. I mean, it was a nice change from Jakarta, but, well, that wasn’t saying much. The beaches were ordinary and/or dirty, Ubud was a tourist trap, Seminyak just a tired dump, their glowing write-ups seemingly by those who’d never been to Asia before. At our second or third attempt to discover the undiscoverable charms of Seminyak, we were at wits end. Leafing through my 7th edition Lonely Planet Indonesia I found the following:

“Lalang-Linggah & Pantai Soka

Below Lalang-Linggah village, Balian Beach is a popular surfing spot, good for beginners, with left and right breaks at a river mouth. If Kuta is having a 1m or 2m swell, Balian is usually 3m or 4m, and Medewi won’t be working.”

That was it. There were three accommodation options listed, none of which sounded any good—or in our budget—but I didn’t care. We found a place in another guidebook and gave them a call. Could they pick us up tomorrow?

Balian’s main break. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

It was early afternoon the next day when we reached Balian. As we left the highway behind, the couple of hours—and one breakdown—faded as we followed the narrow road towards the sea. After a clutch of accommodation signs we veered left and rolled down the hill. To our right, cows grazed on vacant land, beyond it a cliff fell away and the ocean went and went some more. At the centre of the sea, the waves rolled in like clockwork mollasses.

The guesthouse owners were an Australian-Indonesian couple, hospitable and chatty in an old school kind of a way. They had two locations—at the main guesthouse by the cliff-side road, you could see how it had slowly grown higgledy-piggledy, but we’d opted for a family room down by the river. It was newer, and was a two storey wood and thatch affair with a veranda to take in the surrounds. It was simple, but comfortable—and all we needed.

Love me an afternoon rain shower. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

At the time our daughter Lyla was all of four months old, and while a walk and explore would have been good, it was time for feet up. As we sat on the deck the weather blew in some afternoon rain and we breathed in then out. Later, rested, we walked down by the river to the beach. Fishermen collected their nets in the late light as surfers rode the waves. We’d made a good call. That night, we had bebek betutu for dinner—and we were sold.

The next day we walked the back beach—a long stretch of squid-ink black sand that runs off to the west—and which remains one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve seen here. I’ve walked it many times since—and have neither reached the end of it, nor seen anything tourist-facing on it. Instead all I see is rice backing onto palms and sand, a fishers’ shack here and there, buffalo, and a few line-fishers staring out to sea. The last time I walked it was with Lyla in the midst of the pandemic—fifteen years between walks and all that.

Masks on! Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Over the years, we dropped in at Balian I don’t know how many times, more often than not staying at the same place. Sometimes by the river, other times up top. On each visit there were more places to stay—and more private residences. White concrete blocks with sharp lines abutted the dense foliage that surrounded them, rustling in the air-con breeze. Still, the back-to-basics warung, gripping the cliff-edge tight and offering the best break views of the lot, hung on.

On one visit, we caught up with a journalist colleague who’d taken a large parcel inland and was building. The site, while not finished when we visited, was beautiful and encompassed two rolling hills and the valley between. As he walked the vast block with us, he pointed to the left and right explaining what was planned. Bali’s land fervour was on the cusp of exploding and he told us with that developer glint in his eye that we should get in on it early to ride the wave.

Pave it all over. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

At his suggestion we spent a day with some land touts touring block after block. Gorgeous unfettered hills of rice terraces as far as the eye could see. It was a lark to an extent, we didn’t have the money—nor, to be honest, the desire—but it was easy to see how one could get caught up with the smooth talking guys. I remember standing atop the small hill that formed one block, with terraces in every direction, and to the south, incredible views out to sea. The tout stood beside me, telling me to put the pool here and the bedroom there, not to worry about land title issues, he could fix everything, he knew people.

This transition has played out across the island. Some areas, particularly the south, have seen incredible change in what is, in the scheme of things, a short period of time. In Indonesia, foreigners cannot buy land—there’s shonky ways around this of course—but the less shonky take long leases instead. I’d long been ambivalent about this sort of stuff, but the transition I’ve seen in Bali convinced me that leasing is a far more equitable affair. The way I see it, the foreigner gets what they want for a spell, but, at the end of the day, the land reverts to the Balinese owners. More often than not one might lease off the father and, thirty years later one of his kids receives something far more valuable. The lessee is just minding a slice of Bali for the family.

Hmmm that wasn’t there last time. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

A few years ago we passed through Balian again, and I learned that the Australian who I gossiped with over the years had passed away earlier that year. The end of the couple’s lease on the land was nearing, and it felt like the place’s salad days were slipping away. A gully back off the beach had filled with more white concrete blocks, there was a sushi restaurant, and yoga retreats. All the while, improved roads were delivering more day-surfers from the south.

Despite the changes, the back beach remains deserted, the sand is still that incredible jet black. The fishers continue to cast their lines as the weather blows in hard, most of the rice terraces, for now, remain rice terraces. The cliff warung’s coffee remains ghastly.

Wandering the back beach. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

The river still flows, but perhaps, if Niratha was on the money, its waters needs to be diverted to wash over Bali’s south. Meanwhile out to sea, the molasses waves roll in, swirling and sucking up the river’s healing waters, while underneath the bull sharks circle.

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Uma Agung Sidemen is a small guesthouse set off a narrow road in what passes for the centre of Sidemen’s “tourist strip” in East Bali. It’s one of those places that doesn’t look like much from the road, but as you wander in past reception, a gaggle of comfy rooms reveal. Its sweet spot though, is a cute free-form pool that offers up terrific morning views of Mount Agung.

Sidemen is pretty fertile grounds for a wander. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Like many of Sidemen’s digs, at Uma Agung Sidemen, business never seems to be going at full tilt. At one time they worked with a couple of inbound tour companies, so if you were out of luck, the place would be humming, but when in luck, you’d have the run of it. As one of the primary attractions of Sidemen is doing as little as possible, a “no tour group” visit was the best kind of visit.

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On one such visit, many years ago, when the kids were still munchkins, I wandered by the lobby and a staffer asked me what I was up to. I was up to nothing much, a morning wander tracing one of the subak canals about as busy a day as I had planned, then he asked if I was going to the cockfight?

Where getting lost is the goal. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

The American anthropologist Clifford Geertz spent a significant amount of time in Indonesia’s Sumatra, Java and Bali in the middle of the 1900s. In 1958, while residing in a Balinese village, with his then wife (also an anthropologist), they attended a cockfight. Out of this—and other cockfight experiences—came his essay “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.” While he’s writing around sixty years ago, he could have been beside me outside Uma Agung Sidemen a few years ago. He writes:

“Whenever you see a group of Balinese men squatting idly in the council shed or along the road in their hips down, shoulders forward, knees up fashion, half or more of them will have a rooster in their hands, holding it between his thighs, bouncing it gently up and down to strengthen its legs, ruffling its feathers with abstract sensuality, pushing it out against a neighbour’s rooster to rouse its spirit, withdrawing it towards his loins to calm it again.”

By the book, cockfights in Bali are illegal. They’re permitted on temple days, and other special occasions, but by and by, they’re not allowed. Like many regulations however, this is taken more in an advisory capacity—at least going by the number of roosters I see preening in their upturned rattan baskets as soon as I step outside today. Bali may well have a lot of ceremony days—but it doesn’t have that many. The practice is banned, writes Geertz in part, because it’s barbaric, because powers see the fights as primitive, and, as much money is lost gambling on the practice, it’s seen as contributing to the poverty of the “ignorant peasant.”

At cockfights it is generally standing room only. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Back to Geertz:

“A match made, the other hopefuls retire with the same deliberate indifference, and the selected cocks have their spurs (tadji) affixed—razor-sharp, pointed steel swords, four or five inches long. This is a delicate job which only a small proportion of men, a half-dozen or so in most villages, know how to do properly.

...

The lore about spurs is extensive—they are sharpened only at eclipses and the dark of the moon, should be kept out of the sight of women, and so forth. And they are handled, both in use and out, with the same curious combination of fussiness and sensuality the Balinese direct toward ritual objects generally.”

Bali’s southern extremity is formed by the Bukit Peninsula—an enormous limestone plateau rung by sheer cliffs and incredible surf. At its westernmost point, on a cliff projection believed by some to be the ship—turned to stone—of the Goddess of Waters Dewi Danu, lies Pura Luhur Uluwatu. It was here that one of Bali’s original wanderers, the Shiva-Buddhist high priest Niratha attained moshka, freeing himself from the shackles of reincarnation. The temple’s full name Pura (temple) Luhur (go up/rise/above) Ulu (end) watu (stone) sum it up nicely.

Life saver at Uluwatu—on look-out for the wrong thing? Photo: Stuart McDonald.

The Bukit is an arid rock, with little in the way of accessible fresh water reserves. For over a century—worshippers aside—it was first and foremost somewhere to graze one’s cattle. It leapt into an international conscience though, with the 1970s release of The Morning Of The Earth, a seminal surf flick by Albert Falzon. While I can’t find the book I got this quote from, Falzon wrote of the time, surfing at Ulus:

"We surfed and filmed there all day much to the amazement and amusement of the locals who had never seen surfing before and spent the night against the cliff on the small beach next to the cave. It was a full moon and with Rusty playing his guitar, a few Balinese fisherman perched on the rocks against the cliff face and an exploding sea not far in front of us it was a pretty memorable experience."

Photos from that period show dirt tracks and no tourist-facing development to speak of. Instead there’s cliffs, surf, and some crusty looking surfers and fishers. There wasn’t, need it be said, a private pool villa in sight.

Take my word for it, it was an even worse result for the rooster. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Back to Geertz and his cocks, now at the business end of the affair:

“Most of the time, in any case, the cocks fly almost immediately at one another in a wing-beating, head-thrusting, leg-kicking explosion of animal fury so pure, so absolute, and in its own way so beautiful, as to be almost abstract, a Platonic concept of hate.

...

Surrounding all this melodrama—which the crowd packed tight around the ring follows in near silence, moving their bodies in kinesthetic sympathy with the movement of the animals, cheering their champion on with wordless hand motions, shifting to the shoulders, turnings of the head, falling back en masse as the cock with the murderous spurs careens toward one side of the ring ... surging forward again as they glance off toward another—is a vast body of extraordinarily elaborate and precisely detailed rules.”

Today, the Bukit is home to some of the most exclusive and expensive resorts on the island—if not in Indonesia. Over the last couple of decades, one scar after the other has been hewn into its white limestone base. From brush suitable for little more than grazing cattle, the transition repeats over and over, first to bare earth, then to fenced off lush luxury. In some cases alongside this “development” small family-run warungs, those who took to supplying Falzon’s ilk with simple fare and iced Bintang between waves, were “moved on,” often in far from acceptable manners.

Following in Falzon’s footsteps. Photo: Sally Arnold.

In the process, vast tracts have become increasingly difficult for non-guests to access what is, by law, public beach. Meanwhile, the dirt tracks and goat paths Falzon and friends used have become paved, radiating across the peninsula. The improved access, would be a boon for cattle grazers, were it not for the perennial convoys of trucks carting water to top-up the hundreds of private pool villas the smudges of luxury boast. The gridlock I should note, doesn’t interfere with the best-heeled of guests—they shuttle from Bali’s airport by helicopter.

Battle done, the money having changed hands, Geertz writes:

“Every people, the proverb has it, loves its own form of violence. The cockfight is the Balinese reflection on theirs: on its look, its uses, its force, its fascination. Drawing on almost every level of Balinese experience, it brings together themes—animal savagery, male narcissism, opponent gambling, status rivalry, mass excitement, blood sacrifice—whose main connection is their involvement with rage and the fear of the rage, and, binding them into a set of rules which at once contains them and allows them play, builds a symbolic structure in which, over and over again, the reality of their inner affliction can be intelligently felt.”

My question I guess, is what happen when the rules don’t hold anymore?

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Earlier this week, The Guardian ran a story about a UK traveller who was badly injured while riding an elephant in Thailand. The accident happened over twenty years ago (in 2002), and the story focuses on the tourist’s experience and subsequent recovery. Thinking back to when she got onto the elephant, the tourist says:

“I remember climbing on and thinking: ‘I don’t know about this’.”

On one hand, it’s a feel-good story—tourist overcomes adversity and all that. Less so though if you’re the elephant concerned, the story suggests the elephant may have been euthanised after the incident—something that I struggle to believe—but at the end of the day, nobody seems to be sure. What matters, at least as far as the story is concerned, is that the tourist survived and moved on with their life.

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To be fair, twenty years is a long time, and back in 2002 calls for the banning of elephant riding were far from the mainstream calls they are today. Indeed, it would be another eight years before the Intrepid Foundation would underwrite a report by World Animal Protection titled Wildlife on a Tightrope. The report served as a watershed moment in the better protection of wildlife—including elephants—in Thailand and elsewhere.

Totally natural. Chained elephant awaiting passengers in Luang Prabang, Laos. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

With this in mind I think it is a bit unfair to give the tourist concerned a hard time about getting on an elephant in the first place. The journalist, not so much. It seems, if nothing else, a missed opportunity to better highlight the elephant abuse which continues to this day in Thailand—solely to feed the desires of tourists.

The problem is far more widespread than Thailand, and affects wildlife for more varied than elephants. From patting drugged tigers in zoos, to swimming with captured dolphins in chlorinated pools, attractions where the abuse of animals is central to the “tourist experience” remain common right across the region. Indeed a few years ago when I was in Lamalera in eastern Indonesia, I discovered one can pay 200,000 rupiah to go out on a boat to spear a dolphin.

What?

Whale shark awaiting butchering at Lamalera, Indonesia. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Unlike the above elephant-rider twenty years ago, travelling in Southeast Asia today and saying “Oh I didn’t know better” is a pretty hard call. And yet, take a quick look at on- and offline tour providers and it would seem plenty still have their head in a hole. Travel review garbage fire TripAdvisor, has for years claimed to not monetise “animal attractions,” and yet if I look at their page on Oslob, the top four recommended activities involve whale sharks. For each, TripAdvisor lists—on a commission basis—paid tours. Need I say it again, the people who run TripAdvisor are utter reprobates. Do not use that website.

Hang on, how did I get from Thailand and elephants to some joint called Oslob and whale sharks? Let me explain.

Oslob sits on the southeast coast of the island of Cebu in the Philippines. At first glance there may be nothing to distinguish it from other seaside spots, but right offshore, whale sharks swim. The Philippines claims almost 2,000 whale sharks—the second largest population on the planet. While hunted for generations, Filipino law protected the species in 1993 and today they feature on the 100 peso note rather than the wet market floor. In theory anyway.

All good then. Photo: Pinoy Numismatist Network and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas., Fair use.

Tourists visit Oslob to swim, dive, and snorkel with whale sharks—filling Instagram with their stunning whalies. The industry however is widely considered to be a sustainability train wreck. Every dive shop I spoke to in Moalboal (a southern Cebu dive centre I spent a week in—I didn’t visit Oslob) emphatically said not to go and suggested other destinations where whale sharks could be observed with a modicum of sustainability in mind. If you don’t want to listen to me and my dive shop vox pop, how about the Large Marine Vertebrates Research Institute Philippines? They pull no punches in their appraisal of the place. They write—sorry for the long quote, but it all matters:

“Oslob, Cebu is home to the largest non-captive provisioned whale shark tourism interaction in the world. The town gained international publicity after the local government approved the feeding of whale sharks in the fishing Barangay of Tan-awan in 2012. What began as a small tourist operation has since exploded into a rapidly growing and mostly unregulated industry.   

The whale shark feeding activities in Oslob have resulted in a boom in the local economy. This has come with a significant impact on the natural behavior of the whale shark, affecting its movement, residency, and local marine habitat. These effects have raised serious concerns over the sustainability of the operation. 

LAMAVE in-water researchers collected daily data on the whale sharks of Oslob from March 2012 to January 2020. These eight years of work also included stakeholders’ meetings, local, regional, and national level training and workshops, and internationally published scientific studies.

Despite our best efforts, there was a perpetual unwillingness among local and regional stakeholders to shift away from unsustainable tourism and management practices. Due to this, LAMAVE decided to place our work in Oslob on hold. We will only resume this project if substantial improvement in the management of the activities is implemented.”

The above mob isn’t the only one saying stuff like this, National Geographic and WWF are on record with their concerns. Others disagree—including a legion of travel bloggers on comped trips—and this frontend piece to an academic paper which sees Oslob as a win for whale sharks. Others, who should do better, are more circumspect. Consider this from Lonely Planet in their 2018 Philippines guidebook:

“Regardless of how you feel about the ethics of feeding wild animals, you may or may not be impressed with the Oslob whale-shark interactions. While carefully composed photos may appear to show your friends swimming alone with these leviathans in the big blue, the reality is different. There are hundreds of people in the water at any one time, most of them watching up to a half-dozen or so whale sharks hover near the surface begging for food.

…

If you prefer a more natural experience, you’ll likely find the whale-shark interactions programs in Donsol and Pintuyan (Southern Leyte) more to your liking.”

I’m not sure what to make of that, other than to wonder why it is so hard for Lonely Planet to simply say “Do Not Go.” Also their using “whale-shark” and “whale shark” in the text is them not me.

A Moalboal guesthouse explains to guests why they do not support whale shark tours. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Below the above-mentioned LAMAVE text, they go on to list a litany of research findings indicating just how problematic the scene is. One paper jumped out as me, and thinking of our elephant rider’s trepidation, it is worth a closer look.

“A guilty pleasure: Tourist perspectives on the ethics of feeding whale sharks in Oslob, Philippines” (free version of full paper here) looks at the ethics of what is going on at Oslob, with particular attention given to participants’ motivations. Both through interviews and an analysis of reviews of TripAdvisor, they found some pretty interesting stuff, including this: A significant number of tourists knew it was bad—but not only did it anyway, but recommended it to others. They write:

“TripAdvisor comments mentioning ethical issues with this activity were coded and classified. Ethical concerns were mentioned in 27.2% (N = 254) of all TripAdvisor reviews analysed. The TripAdvisor analysis identified three types of commenters concerned with the ethical nature of whale shark provisioning in Oslob. The “guilty pleasure” group was aware of the moral and ethical issues of provisioning a threatened species for tourism purposes, but still chose to do the tour and recommended it to others (i.e., a score of 4 or 5; Table 5).”

As with Thailand’s elephants, there are (mostly) financial upsides to whale shark tourism. The paper considers this, noting:

“The provisioned activities in Oslob are worth an estimated US$5 million to the local economy and have allowed for the socioeconomic development of the community. Prior to the start of these activities, many of the fishermen turned tour operators in Tanawan were living off just US$1 per day whereas now they can afford to put children and extended family through school, pay for hospital treatments for extended family, food, motorbikes and concrete homes.”

This is persuasive to a point, but perhaps an important consideration is the series of kleptocratic regimes that have run the Philippines for decades. What role did those thieving scoundrels have in a situation where a 2010 fisherman is living off of $1 a day?

It sure as hell wasn’t the whale sharks’ doing.

In summary, if what you are doing while on holiday in Southeast Asia involves touching an animal, you almost certainly should not be doing it. It is that simple.

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Those who have read my series on Java’s Mount Bromo may, upon reading the title of this piece, be thinking “Oh here we go again.” In my defence, I would like to note that the following took place before I went to Bromo, not after. Or, to put it another way, I didn’t learn from my mistakes there rather I didn’t learn anything from here.

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When people, aghast at what downtown Ubud has become, ask me for alternatives, I ask what they love in life. If they answer rice field walks, I point them to Sidemen in Bali’s east. If they are more waterfall people, I suggest Munduk, in the west. Today, I’m all about the latter.

Temperature drop. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Munduk stretches out shoelace-like along a western ridge of the greater Bedugal caldera. As you leave the rim and dogleg down, to the north there’s views to the Bali Sea and to the south, the Indian Ocean and Java beyond. Not that you get much time to gaze—the winding—and often slippery—road demands attention.

The cooler climate an altitude of around 800 metres delivered made Munduk a favourite among the colonialists. They flocked here both for something remotely closer to Dutch temperatures, but also for the fertile soil. While further afield is lashed with paddy, Munduk’s immediacy is all about cloves, coffee and other cash crops.

Do linger for a moment before rolling down the slope to Munduk. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

The Dutch left behind more than fragrant cloves and bitter coffee—a clutch of their colonial period buildings live on midway along the shoestring. Today rather than housing plantation owners they’re instead welcoming tourists. I stay elsewhere, but for those looking for a colonial keepsake, they’re worth a look.

It’s near this colonial outpost though that I receive the fateful instructions that title this piece. When asking directions to Melanting Waterfall, the first of three I plan to take in on foot, I’m told clearly and succinctly:

“Take the left and keep going.”

These things always start simple. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

It’s just after Taman Ayu Homestay I spy what must be “the left.” There’s no sign or anything, but it seems like the best of, well, no other options. It drops me down the side of the ridge in no time, Munduk’s little traffic fades behind the dogs, roosters and birdsong. Mimicking my descent, the footpath degenerates. Hardtop to dirt, dirt to mud, narrowing all the time till it’s no more than sodden grass hemmed in by bushes. The waterfall though I can hear, and so I press on.

Of course I shouldn’t have. The waterfall’s siren call beckons me and so despite understanding I’m lost, I continue. Then out of nowhere a trail appears—a good sign—and a bridge—not such a good sign. I realise I’m above the falls and turn back.

Clearly on the right track. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Not all the way back—or at least, not back to the house with the dog—but most of the way back, and I take a right. I’d reached this junction earlier, but thinking the turn was to an even rattier trail, I’d ignored it. Now however, it was clear—ratty be the way. Fifty metres or so in on Jalan Ratty, the trail splits again, I take the wrong turn and persist for a hundred metres before turning back and taking the worse trail.

The worse trail taps out at mossy boulders I slip and slide over. There’s spider webs aplenty, mosquitos the size of crows with panther-sized teeth. I can hear the falls, I must be close, I must continue.

I reach a cutting in the middle of nowhere with a fall-down woodshed guarded by an upright dog. I take my leave, scattering back into the woods. There’s a trail of sorts and it’s heading in the right direction—down ... and away from the dog.

Almost there. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Down, down, down. I stumble upon another trail, remnants of stone steps, everything is wet, slippery as hell—I’m so glad I’m wearing flip flops. I’m beside a river now and I convince myself I’m below the falls—I have to be. I stick to the trail, switching to walking in the river where the trail has collapsed. I haven’t seen another person the entire time.

The trail veers to the right, and there, right in front of me, is a set of perfectly manicured—and clearly well-used—stairs. No doubt leading down from the “other left.” There’s no point in swearing though as nobody would hear me—at this point the falls are deafening. I push on and finally glimpse them.

Achievement unlocked. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Despite my poor planning, I’ve somehow timed my arrival perfectly, with the sun sitting immediately behind the mouth of the falls. Melanting is at full tilt and pouring into a tightly enclosed, forest-wrapped cup. The air is sodden, rushing out and past me aboard the frosty wind the falls whip up.

There’s not a soul here, and I sit, soaked to the skin, breathing in the mist, eardrums reverberating with the fall’s boom. Birds carve through the soaked sunlight above and the ground and trees are crawling with critters. There’s a rhythm to it all, hypnotising even, then my meditation shatters.

On another visit, with the kids, we used the stairs. As you can see by my hunched over son, they loved it. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

A good-sized log, at least a couple of metres, clutters over the falls and bangs down the waterfall’s sides, crashing into the base. Through some weird acoustic quirk, it sounds exactly like a smashing glass bottle, and the birds scream, lifting aloft as one.

It’s time to go—I’ve got two waterfalls to go—but I’ll be taking the stairs out.

How long to stay in Munduk

I’ve been to Munduk a bunch of times and reckon it is worth a minimum of two nights. There’s the waterfalls for starters—while I only stumble to one in the above, I did manage to get to three on this wander and there are more.

Another day, another waterfall. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

The popular and most accessible waterfalls are on the north side of the ridge, while on the south site there is a broad valley perfect for aimless wandering. Instead of rice it is filled with mostly cash crops, with plenty of cloves, fruit and coffee. You don’t really need a guide for any of this, but if you want to use a guide, your accommodation should be able to sort you out.

Further afield, there’s Tamlingan Lake and its attached reserve. Most only stop on the rim, from where there are terrific views—and a few cafes to enjoy said views from—but there’s also decent trekking—and camping—possibilities lakeside.

Some good spots to stay in Munduk

Most of Munduk’s accommodation is clustered along the ridge road. Options vary from affordable homestays through to quite smart freestanding bungalows. You’re unlikely to need to book one of the cheaper places in advance, but as a few tour groups do use Munduk for an overnight stop, the pricier places do tend to fill, especially in high season.

I’ve stayed a number of times at Puri Alam and while the rooms are a bit rough and ready, their rooftop restaurant has great views, and I love their horizon pool—even if the water is freezing. Rooms start at around the 250,000 rupiah mark. For something a bit cheaper, consider Munduk Panorama.

Down time with the kids at Puri Alam. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

The colonial place I mentioned up-top is Guru Ratna, which floats around the 300,000 rupiah mark. This one does fill up fast and lacks great views—you’re paying for the colonial stuff.

For something a bit more up-market, but still central, Puri Lumbung sits on the north side of the road, a bit of a walk from the centre of things. The views are great, and the rooms can offer up plenty of (somewhat dated) character, but they are not all as well-appointed as one another. If you show up and your room feels like not the best, ask to see another. Starts at around 1,000,000 rupiah.

Meet Puri Lumbung. Photo: Sally Arnold.

If you’re after something spendier still, there are a few more luxurious options well out of town—you will though need your own transport if you plan on spending a lot of time in town. Munduk Moding Plantation (from around 2,800,000 rupiah) is a reliable option at this price point. Another that comes recommended, though which I’ve not seen for myself is Desa Eko (from around 1,200,000 rupiah).

Just a disclaimer here, Agoda is a Travelfish partner, so if you book a room through them a commission may be payable to us.

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Indonesia has no shortage of islands. Indeed, depending on what you consider to be an island, there are somewhere between around 15,000 to 17,000 of them. Through a tourism lens, Bali is arguably the best known, and at a bit over 5,000 square kilometres in size, comes in at 15th. Most visitors though—particularly first-timers—restrict themselves to a far smaller patch—the south. Depending on where you draw a line on the map, this patch measures around 450 square kilometres—less than a tenth of the joint.

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There’s exceptions to this of course. Some head north to Lovina, east to Amed, offshore to Nusa Lembongan or Penida, or elsewhere. Broad strokes though, most don’t—making it a very big small island. Do a bit of travelling around and you could easily mistake it as one island within another.

It wasn’t always this way though.

Typical coast near where Wallace would have anchored. This somewhere near Seririt. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

It took Alfred Russel Wallace’s vessel some twenty days at sea from Singapore to hit Bali’s northern shores, and this Bali landing, on the 13th of June 1856, was in a way an inconvenience. Makassar was Wallace’s target but he’d been unable to find direct passage and so had a couple of days on the north coast. He was never to return, and reading The Malay Archipelago, his regret at this is obvious.

As was his way, he availed himself to the local hospitality then got busy shooting birds, hoovering up butterflies, and admiring the scenery. Within 48 hours he was gone—a mere drop of time in what was an expansive trip across much of the archipelago—and yet he writes:

“The islands of Bali and Lombok, situated at the east end of Java, are particularly interesting. ... Had I been able to obtain a passage direct to that place [Makassar] from Singapore, I should probably never have gone near them, and should have missed some of the most important discoveries of my whole expedition to the East.”

Even with so little time, what struck him then, has carried forward to today. On visiting a village and its residents, he continues:

“It was a very dull and dreary place; a collection of narrow lanes bounded by high mud walls, enclosing bamboo houses, into some of which we entered and were very kindly received.”

Sound familiar? Then of the sublime beauty of the island, and how the Balinese work it, Wallace writes:

“... I had never beheld so beautiful and well-cultivated a district out of Europe. A slightly undulating plain extends from the sea coast about ten or twelve miles inland, where it is bounded by a fine range of wooded and cultivated hills. ... Everyone of these patches can be flooded or drained at will, by means of a system of ditches and small channels, into which are diverted the whole of the streams that descend from the mountains. Every patch now bore crops in various stages of growth, some almost ready for cutting, and all in the most flourishing condition and of the most exquisite green tints.”

He’s writing of Bali’s subak of course—the irrigation system that earned the island a UNESCO heritage listing. Little was he to know the pressure tourism would place upon it, mostly through over-construction to observe its very beauty.

Wallace may have missed this one. Inland somewhere from Seririt. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Two days gone, Wallace bade the island farewell and sailed for Lombok’s Ampanan. From there he made time to wax lyrical of the sunrise and sunset views across Bali’s premiere peak Agung and Lombok’s even taller Rinjani:

“We enjoyed superb views of the twin volcanoes of Bali and Lombok, each about eight thousand feet high, which form magnificent objects at sunrise and sunset, when they rise out of the mists and clouds that surround their bases, glowing with the rich and changing tints of these the most charming moments in a tropical day.”

If only Instagram had existed back then, Wallace would have been a power user.

Jokes aside, here we have a guy who, by the time he penned his epic, was about as well-travelled as they grow them in Indonesia. His experience of Bali though, was but for a couple of days in Singaraja and its surrounds. Set, on the western ramp to Bali’s northern-most point, the town is best known as the educational centre for the Balinese political leaders and revolutionaries who would eventually see the colonialists off the island. Today though, it is—at first glance anyway—a hard one to fall in love with.

Sekumpul Waterfall, inland from Singaraja. Photo: Sally Arnold.

Not so with Lovina, a somewhat dated tourist beach strip west of Singaraja which is about as close to mainstream tourism as the north gets. It’s a low-key joint, lined by black sand beaches facing onto calm waters with dolphins aplenty. Up in these parts, the hospitality Wallace mentions continues to this day, as does the scenery. All in all it’s a far less adulterated area than down south.

A common approach is to cast one’s travels further afield as the hot spots ride the tourism rollercoaster to disintegration. It’s easy to view Bali through a lens like this, to write off the south as an over-developed, traffic-clogged hellhole, then to strike further afield, seeking out “the real Bali”—or I guess a real Bali that hasn’t been spoilt yet by catering to tourists.

Once a royal palace, now a family home. Wandering Puri Agung Singaraja in Singaraja. Photo: Sally Arnold.

It is through this sort of process of elimination, that some travellers find themselves in Bali’s north and west. To them, travelling outside Bali’s “inner island” may have seemed like a bit of cutting edge travel, but all they really needed was Wallace’s book—and a map. Forget about getting a new guidebook—instead grab the oldest one you can find.

With this in mind, over the next few days I’m going to be writing of a few of these off-the-inner-island destinations—none of which Wallace will tell you about.

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While the travel press prefer the (frankly offensive) tag of “resort island,” Pulau Dewata—the “Island of the Gods”—is how Indonesians know their small island of Bali.

The westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands, Bali sits midway along the archipelago. Shaped like a westward-facing chicken laying an egg (sorry Nusa Penida), the island has been on the traveller radar for over a century. Like the waves that wash upon its many beaches, its popularity has ebbed and flowed over the years, but the last couple of decades have been most certainly flow years.

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Thanks Sally Arnold for pointing it out.

Despite the deluge of both domestic and inbound tourists—and the damage they’ve wrought—the residents Pulau Dewata refers to have not moved on. When you know where to look—and what for—you’ll see that in Bali, the gods are everywhere.

As you walk away from the ferry landing at Gilimanuk you’ll no doubt see small offerings laid on the pavement. Canang Sari, these offerings are placed daily by devotees of the island’s dominant faith, Balinese Hinduism. At a glance, they seem photogenic but trifling—if a bit mysterious. Take a closer look though, and you’ll see that they’re a microcosm of an entire cosmology, one crafted with care to honour a glad-bag of deities.

Offerings come in many shapes and sizes. Note those in the foreground are offerings to me—not the gods. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

For years I wondered what they meant. I knew they were “some kind of religious thing”, but that was about it, and it wasn’t until I asked a Balinese to pull one apart and explain it to me that I got a quick lesson in the divine. Please bear in mind, canang sari come in many varieties with many different purposes, so I’m tackling the simplest of examples here.

The base is the easiest bit. The square palm leaf base symbolises the earth and the moon, and if coconut leaves are there, they’re for the stars. You need to think of this as both a representation of a realm but also a vehicle to present the essence of the offerings to the gods. The business end of the offering stick is contained within.

For Vishnu the Preserver, and the northern compass point, there’s red betel nut. White lime is for west and Shiva the Destroyer. Brahma the Creator gets the south and scores a cutting of gambier for their efforts. Atop these lies white flower petals, for the east and Iswara. The aforementioned trio also score flowers—red for Brahma, yellow for Shiva and green or blue for Vishnu. Atop these still, there might be candy, cookies or another small snack—which, alongside the time required to prepare the offering, are indicators of the selflessness of the devotee.

Pizza, ciggies—any brand will do—nobody said the gods are on a health kick. As you can see, day to day practice doesn’t always reflect the theory. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Once prepared, the offering is placed on the pavement, within a family temple, or elsewhere. Holy water is sprinkled onto the offering, then as a soft prayer is mouthed, incense is lit, and a hand is waved gently through the smoke. With the wave, the smoke carrying the meaning of the offering makes its way upwards to the gods. Even this final motion is elemental—earth, fire, water and wind coming together to deliver one’s prayers to another realm.

This process takes place every morning—in temples, households, and places of business. From the beach, up the rivers, through the forests, to the mountaintops, you’ll see canang sari. Once you know where to look—and what you’re looking at—the gods are everywhere.

Ritual on Bali permeates far deeper though. As I wrote yesterday, there’s something one needs to do before leaving Gilimanuk to delve further into the island. You’ll need to walk for almost a kilometre, but on the upside this will help to work up an appetite.

Say your prayers. Photo: Sally Arnold.

Ayam Betutu Men Tempeh sits on the north side of the road, behind a large parking area—don’t worry you can’t miss it. In business since the late 1970s, over the years entrepreneurial staff have left to start their own knock-off shops—often with confusingly similar names—but the original is easier enough to find.

The dish in question is Ayam Betutu, a rich and spicy chicken dish (though the duck version is perhaps better known), that is right up there with babi guling and lawar when you’re grasping to furnish a must-try Bali dishes listicle.

Ayam betutu is more than a meal though. Much like canang sari, this is a dish made with the gods in mind—indeed the story goes that the original recipe was handed down from the gods. Sadly as the Ibu behind Ayam Betutu Men Tempeh has passed away, this snippet can’t be verified.

A meal fit for the gods. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

Regardless of its origins, the bumbu (spice mixture) that goes into ayam betutu honours the gods. As this piece by chef Will Meyrick details, the four primary incredients are there to pay homage. There’s turmeric for Shiva, galangal for Brahma, ginger for Vishnu and kencur (a galangal varierty) for Iswara. Meyrick writes:

“In traditional Balinese kitchens, these four ingredients are measured with the length of fingers; galangal by the middle finger, turmeric the index finger, Ginger the ring finger, and kencur the pinky. Eight more spices are combined with these main ones, including shallots, garlic, shrimp paste, chilli and salt.”

While it isn’t clear from Meyrick’s write-up how much bumbu the above produces, going on the flavours at Ayam Betutu Men Tempeh, she must have had big hands. Hand size aside, the chicken is boiled in the concoction for an hour before being ladled onto plates ready to be slung. The staff—who I’ve found to be reliably terse verging on rude over the years—will grudgingly provide more spice if desired, but for many, especially those new to Bali, extra heat won’t be necessary.

Don’t forget to give Java a final wave goodbye. Photo: Adam Poskitt.

So there you go. You’re in Bali. You’ve walked by countless offerings to the gods, then you’ve eaten a meal sourced from them, and made with them in mind. And you’re not even a kilometre in yet. And you know what? You’ve not seen a single resort. It’s called Pulau Dewata for a reason.

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