Journey Through Bali & Lombok

PART ONE INTRODUCING BALI

The clifftop temple at Ulu Watu on Bali’s southwesternmost tip is one of the six most sacred spots on the island.

INTRODUCTION

UNDER THE VOLCANO

It’s difficult to imagine an island with so much to offer. Whether it’s just sun, surf or shopping, or the exceptional culture, lifestyle and landscapes, Bali is justifiably popular. But most tourists just rush through and don’t allow enough time to linger and relish the uniqueness of the island.

Towering above numerous other volcanoes stretched across Bali, Mount Agung is the most feared and revered, and erupted with devastation in 1963.

One of 17,500 islands strung out across the Indonesian archipelago, Bali is dominated and inextricably influenced by a series of volcanoes, six of them over 2,000 meters. The highest, most volatile and, therefore, most revered is Gunung Agung (3,031 m). Only 8 degrees below the equator, and stretching 144 km across and 90 km north to south, the rest of the island is dotted with gorges, rivers and forests, while a nation10xal park in the west preserves scarce rainforest, a pristine coastal environment and vestiges of wildlife.

The initial wave of ‘visitors’ were probably Austronesians from a region that spreads from modern-day China to the Philippines. They inhabited Bali some 4,000 years ago, and by 300 BC communities had evolved and rice cultivation developed. Subsequent settlers brought Buddhism, which thrived for several centuries before Javanese influence became inescapable during the 10th century. The formidable Hindu Majapahit Empire ruled from Java for most of the 14th and 15th centuries before rulers, priests and academics fled to Bali to escape Islam, developing the unique culture, religion and arts apparent today. As the Majapahit Empire declined, Balinese kingdoms flourished and their sovereignty spread to eastern Java and neighboring Lombok.

The first colonialists were the Dutch who arrived in the late 16th century, but waited until the mid-19th century before fully colonizing Bali. The populace fought relentlessly against the merciless Dutch for about 60 years until the entire island fell, only for the Dutch to lose control during (and after) World War II.

Methods used by the Balinese, such as sculptured terraces along volcanic slopes and the ingenious irrigation system, have not changed for centuries.

The Subak System

According to awig-awig traditional law, every Balinese who owns a sawah rice field must become a member of a subak association. This ensures that rice farmers along the coast, up to 20 km from a water source, have as much access to irrigation as those located high on the more fertile slopes. The millennium-old subak system reflects the Balinese Hindu philosophy of Tri Hita Karana, which unifies the realms of humans, nature and the spirits in harmony and ensures maximum production of the most essential ingredient of the Balinese meal. From springs, rivers and lakes, water rushes downhill through canals, sometimes cutting through caves and mountains, and along cement aqueducts and bamboo poles raised across roads and gorges. Sluice gates regulate the water flow so that limited amounts flood individual rice fields, while the remainder gushes past and is shared elsewhere. When farmers do not need irrigation for the fields, such as just before harvesting so that the soil is dry for workers, they simply seal the tiny openings along the reinforced mud walls that indicate the boundaries of individual sawah. The 1,000 or more democratically operated subak associations across Bali also repair canals, tunnels and dikes, advise about seeds and planting and organize ceremonies and offerings to ensure abundant harvests.

Other settlers have included Javanese from the Majapahit era, and others who later served Balinese kings, fishermen, particularly Buginese from Sulawesi, and, more recently, tourist workers from across the archipelago. Although a large percentage of the permanent population of about four million reside in the capital Denpasar, the second largest city, Singaraja, and around the southern tourist areas, most Balinese of all religions still follow a lifestyle dominated by village concepts of communal sharing and order. This is most apparent in the subak system of shared irrigation for rice fields and the banjar village association, mostly composed of married men, that makes societal decisions.

Bali’s population almost doubles with tourists, both foreign and Indonesian, each year. Foreigners started visiting Bali about a hundred years ago and, like the European artists who settled in Ubud during the 1930s, left their mark. But the Balinese are remarkably resistant to change and happily cherry-pick what they like and adapt it to their impenetrable mix of tradition, religion and culture. It wasn’t until surfers, mostly Australian, ‘rediscovered’ Bali in the 1960s that tourism exploded, but subsequent economic development was thwarted in the same decade by the catastrophic eruption of Gunung Agung and severe political upheavals that culminated in massacres, and later by the heartbreaking terrorism of 2002 and 2005.

The form of Hinduism that the majority of the island follows is unique and embraces every element of Balinese life, from before birth to cremation after death. Balinese religion is indistinguishable from Balinese culture. Everything, from art, architecture and dance not seen elsewhere on the planet, to innumerable shrines, expensive ceremonies and daily offerings, and so much more in family life, communal values and village regulations not apparent to tourists, has a purpose and meaning aimed at pleasing the gods and appeasing the demons to ensure a happy life, healthy family and abundant harvest. And despite encroaching modernism and tourist-fueled hedonism, the Balinese are almost completely resistant to threats against their unique faith and omnipresent culture.

The Balinese can communicate in Indonesian, the language of instruction in schools and interaction within government administration, but many also proudly speak in Bahasa Bali, a separate complex language influenced by Javanese, although the unique script is rarely used. The Balinese language and use of complete names are connected to the Hindu caste system, which is inconsequential to the majority of Balinese who don’t belong to an upper caste.

A short distance across the treacherous Lombok Strait is Bali’s sister island. Although the size and topography are almost identical, most people on Lombok follow Islam, a religion that doesn’t permeate their society with ceremonies and traditions nearly as much as Hinduism does on Bali. With a separate history, culture and language, the people are just as welcoming, however, and Lombok is an increasingly popular alternative to the utopian but congested island across the strait.

Most rice in Bali is still cultivated and transported using simple hand-made equipment, such as rattan baskets slung on a bamboo pole.

Bali’s highest peak, Gunung Agung (‘The Great Mountain’) seen from the crater of Mount Rinjani on neighboring Lombok.

THE BALINESE

VILLAGE LIFE AND FAMILY COMPOUNDS

Most Balinese are villagers at heart, even if they live in the chaotic capital of Denpasar or work in the tourist enclave of Nusa Dua. And somehow the relentless onslaught of mass tourism has barely affected ancient family traditions and rituals about birth, death, marriage and everything in between that are still decreed by village heads.

The arduous task of planting rice seeds and later harvesting and winnowing the rice is almost always undertaken by groups of women.

Despite urban development and impinging modernism, most Balinese still adhere to a desa (village) lifestyle dictated by the concepts of communal sharing and societal order. This is most evident where every person owning a rice field joins a local subak association to administer the remarkable system of shared irrigation and the banjar association, which represents up to a hundred households within a village. Joining the local banjar is compulsory upon marriage, although only men usually attend meetings, which are often announced by the specific pounding of a kul-kul drum and held in a bale banjar (meeting hall) in the village center.

While local governments provide the normal essential services under the authority of the kepala desa (village head), the banjar maintains temples, organizes ceremonies and cremations, arranges local finance, mediates in marriages (and, rarely, divorces) and funds a gamelan orchestra. It also ensures that the morals and behavior of villagers, especially youth, are maintained through a series of agreed guidelines called awig-awig.

Villages are designed according to strict religious and cultural principles. Typically, they are positioned towards kaja, which means facing the mountains, home to the gods, normally to the north, and away from kelod, which is facing the sea, normally to the south, home to demons and the source of destructive forces. These points of reference, however, are reversed along the north coast, for example, where the mountains are located to the south.

The crucial element of each village is kahyangan tiga, the three types of temples: the pura desa (village temple) or pura agung, located in the village center and dedicated to the protective spirits; the pura puseh, positioned in the north and devoted to Brahma, Creator of the Universe; and the pura dalem, situated in the south and used for cremations and burials.