Bali

Going from western Tokyo to Narita International Airport at 7:00 a.m. on a Thursday morning can be interesting. The train, as is typically the case when traveling toward downtown Tokyo, was full and nearly audible groans greet travelers with anything more than a daypack or briefcase. Crammed into the morning rush of suited businesspeople and office workers the thought of the beach you will soon be on is enough to forget that elbow jammed into your kidney.

The flight on Garuda Indonesia (named for the mythical bird that spirited kings and warriors around the archipelago) was pleasant, a fact at least partially attributed to being bumped to business class. The plane touched down seven and a half hours later, just in time to reach the hotel before sunset.

The best dinners can be taken in small open-air restaurants along any of the numerous side streets. All told a dinner for two with beers, curries, rice, sate (grilled meat on a stick served with peanut sauce) runs no more than US$10, and sometimes less. Strolling through the streets after dinner, offers of a number of things were made by the lounging taxi drivers: You want marijuana? cocaine? ecstasy? woman? man? (and as though it were an afterthought) transportation?

In the heart of what used to be Bali’s nightlife scene stands a memorial wall to those that lost their lives in the dual bombings on October 12, 2002. The memorial stands with its back to what was once the wall of the Sari club, where the second, more powerful and deadly explosion occurred. Flanking the sides of the white marble wall are flagpoles, enough to represent each country whose citizens were lost. Short sets of stairs lead up to the base of the stone wall etched with the names of the deceased, divided by country of origin. Australia’s list extends for two columns and a half, Indonesia’s, the second longest, rounds out the final column. A handful of tourists and a couple of locals scan the face of the memorial, perhaps recognizing names, perhaps simply paying respect to fellow travelers and lives lost.

A hundred meters on from the memorial, just across the road from the bar targeted in the first bombing, shines a large open-air club, full of western tourists drinking and dancing the night away. Security around the island increased in the wake of the bombings, but is really only most evident at the larger, more expensive hotels. At the club the security was limited to a couple of bouncers at the gate with hand-held metal detectors, who checked only the Indonesians who wished to gain entry.

Further down a darkened alley sits another large open-air club, built to look like a pirate’s ship, the deck open for dancing and a fishpond circling the bottom. A few more bars line the street, but it is obvious that much of the nightlife has left this area, moved on to the next big area a few minutes away, where the recent past is less visible and the way things used to be still reigns.

The Seminyak area, and in particular Jalan Abimanyu, is now the home of Bali’s night. The street is lined with bars and clubs of every imaginable variety – bars that would look more appropriate in New York City than a beach town, with leather seats and modern décor, open-air bars with live bands playing classic rock at one place and Latin-American ballads in another, a bar named for, and serving almost exclusively, Absolute vodka. As the night begins to wane, the party moves toward the beach.

Along most of the beach in Kuta and Legian four and five-star resorts dominate the land, but a bit further up a couple of clubs hold their own. The newly opened Amnesia is a large multi-tiered, open-faced building looking out over the beach. Its opening night party was still going strong at 4:00 a.m., but was not what could be called a grand event. The bars were nearly devoid of bottles, the bartenders completely overwhelmed by the crowd and beers that one suspects had never, since their inception, been near a cooling device. The crowd was up nonetheless, and one might suspect that was a result of the whispered offer of ‘marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy’ by the guys standing by the bar.

Next-door is one of Bali’s better-known institutions, Double 6. Open and facing the beach, the club doesn’t start happening until two or three o’clock and rocks on until dawn. Incorporated into one side of the club grounds is a pool overlooked by a forty-five foot bungee tower for those who need a little adrenaline rush and a video to prove it.

Bali has long been known as a surfers’ paradise, a place of big waves, long beaches. The beaches are clean, the water warm and people trying to sell you something, anything, everything, are an omnipresent force. Lounging under a rented umbrella, on rented beach chairs there is a constant parade of hawkers and the persistent buzz of their pitches. Perhaps, as the hawkers often lament, it is harder for them to make a living now that many tourists have been scared away from Indonesia. They are an aggressive breed of beach vender and will reduce to near begging, or a form of bribery, or try to instill and then prey upon a guilty conscience of the rich, generous tourist.

They will begin subtly, offering a kind ‘hello’ and displaying their wares – fake tattoos, cheap bracelets, necklaces, sarongs, paintings, fruit, offers to drive you to a seafood restaurant down the beach, massages, pedicures, manicures. To ask how much the good or service costs is to enter into negotiation, and eventual purchase. They are skilled bargainers and know the tricks of selling well. They will befriend you, chat with you, and seemingly accept rejection at first, but they will be back. Each time they return a little more persistent, a little more aggressive. And to purchase from one is to purchase from them all. That is to say, you had better purchase from them all or you will be left with the oft repeated phrase ringing in your ears: Remember I talked to you first, you said later, why don’t you like me now? Why you don’t give me good luck? OK, you buy little one from me and I’ll go away.

Eventually the sun sets, the beach clears and becomes peaceful and the tourists head back to their hotels for a shower before the nightlife begins.