Category: Hector’s Diary

Turd World Walking out of a restaurant without paying the RP3 million you owe is against the law anywhere. It’s foolish, among other things including selfish, dismissive of others’ rights, and a low act that reflects very poorly on the perpetrators. Mostly those who commit such acts are immune to conscience. They are citizens of […]

Living with Vulcan Once upon a time, the activity of a volcano in a distant domestic backyard from which one is temporarily absent would have been something relayed at intervals by news reports, or not at all. Its inactivity ahead of anticipated action would have been even harder to detect through the prism of news […]

Wingnuts Away! When this diary was written, we were supposed to be in Provence, France. Specifically, we were supposed to be in the lovely lower Rhone Valley, at L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. “We,” in this instance, means The Diary and the Distaff. That’s for any quibblers out there. We had one recently. He seemed to think its use […]

Just Cruising The cruise market is big and likely to grow further, so it makes sense for Bali to have the capacity to effectively service this element of the tourism trade. The port of Benoa is the logical place to site the infrastructure required, and it seems that moves to do this are under way. […]

Who Let the Dogs Out? Eating dog is something we would never do. It disgusts us, for all sorts of reasons. We also understand that this is largely a cultural issue. Eating man’s best friend is not generally a practice of people whose conditioning originates from what is now Europe. The issue has surfaced again […]

Hit Parade It’s always good fun to read the local Bahasa language press, as well as informative. Some people like to criticise the media – well, no, everyone likes to do that – and that’s no less common in Indonesia than anywhere. One of the things about critics is that they always know how it […]

February 04 2015A Tale of Two Statues The new style of Balirsquos fixation with monumental ornamentation as seen in the grossly huge and garishly illuminated nightly by circusstyle flashing lights ldquomonkey mountainrdquo that has been erected at the junction of Prof Ida Bagus Mantra Bypass and I Gusti Ngurah Rai Bypass just south of Tohpati is certainly a distraction to drivers Thatrsquos about the kindest thing you could say about it Itrsquos true that after a while it fails to totally shock ndash the brain is adept at repressing all manners of vast unpleasantness ndash but we can personally attest that for the first several times this visionary excrescence comes suddenly into view one is autoprompted to utter loudly a crudely pejorative fourletter word before asking audibly or otherwise and rhetorically of course ldquoWhat on earth is thatrdquo Fortunately the future of worldclass Balinese stone craftsmanship is in safe h

January 21 2015Guys Get Serious A photo taken on Dec 21 and displayed on Facebook this month of a 500metre wide by unknown kilometres long stretch of garbage floating offshore from around Tanah Lot itrsquos an important temple might that resonate with any of the stumblebums officially responsible for the islandrsquos environment lays bare the filthy joke that is Balirsquos official nonposition on waste management We all know here that garbage immediately becomes something that is not your problem if you throw it over the wall or dump it in the bush or a dry watercourse The wellmeaning assert that this is because the population needs to be educated and companies that produce masses of plastic prewaste packaged food producers largely ndash need to be forced to comply with the law The realists among us wellmeaning or otherwise would suggest that since ever increasing amounts of nondegradable rubbish have been a feature of Bali

January 7 2015BAWA with a Bang BAWA the preeminent animal welfare organization on the island because of focused effort and the seminal role played by founder Janice Girardi in dealing with rabies when it broke out in Bali in 2008 ndash the disease is now endemic but thatrsquos Indonesian bureaucracy for you ndash ended 2014 with a bang though not one that would frighten the doggies It held a Bridge to New Year fundraising dinner on Dec 29 at Ubudrsquos Taksu Restaurant an event at which the organization was able to brief guests on its plans for 2015 and beyond It came complete with musical entertainment provided by BAWA staff members who when theyrsquore not doing their day jobs sing and strum a guitar with enthusiastic aplomb Earlier in December BAWA announced a real coup Ubud prince Cok De Piko Tjokorda Gde Dharma Putra Sukawati has become a BAWA ambassador and because of his enduring love for dogs and particularly the very spec

December 24 2014Art with a Frisson Two books recently given an Australian launch ndash at the University of Sydney ndash provide a more profound focus on the real Bali than any number of touristoriented creations The real Bali is of course not found in performances of the Kecap Dance and other wonderful expressions of the live art presented for gawkers moneyed or not but in the heritage and stillpractised and continuously renewed culture and lifestyle of the Balinese themselves These are not seen in the KLS triangle KutaLegianSeminyak or in multistar international hotels where tourists spend the money that fuels Balis economy They are found in the villages and are revealed to the fully interested and sentient through electivelysourced media principally books Adrian Vickers whose research at the University of Sydney itself constitutes an important body of work in Asian studies generally and from our perspective Bali in partic