Geography and Topography

Bali is the land of a thousand gods, temples and arts. Some other views are the island as the last frontier area that waiting to be discovered from its beauty. Ask around and you are almost sure to get reply, “come to Bali for its culture, its beauty”. Inside our heart, Bali is really proud of their Island splendor. Once goes to Bali for an experience, a journey of a lifetime, learning traditional customs and faith, their hopes and their eternal search for peace. A tourist heaven with splendid beaches, friendly people, a warm climate, cool mountain air, a slow pace. You get old stories, find new meaning of life. You can hike up trails, watch the birds, visit temples, and buy natural & unique souvenir, etc. You can fill your own treasure trove with memories, enlightenment recollections when you stood and faced the mountains and gazed at the natural beauty of the surrounding countryside.

Besides known as a tourism area, it’s also an agronomic area, nowadays it’s called ‘agro-tourism’. As a networking system, Bali is surrounded by river, water as the main needs of life. Whether rice is the staple food, derived from paddy which needed a plenty of water. Balinese need to devise an ingenious system of aqueducts that can be considered a miracle of engineering. Bali perhaps the last place on this earth that still conjures images of beauty mystique, peace, good will and a way of life that is unique in this modern age. Here you get a deep sense of satisfaction. The environment possibly to be the hospitality that envelops you. Moreover the amazing hues of color, sound and natural beauty.

Geography
The Island of Bali is part of the Republic of Indonesia and is located 8 to 9 degrees south of the equator between Java in the West and Lombok also the rest of the Lesser Sunda Islands (Sumbawa, Flores, Sumba and Timor) in the East. Flying time to Jakarta is about 1.5 hours, to Singapore and Perth (Australia) 2.5 ’till 3 hours, to Hong Kong about 4 hours. Bali has an area of 5620 sq. km, measures approximately 140 km by 80 km. Located only two kilometers from east of Java, Bali’s climate, flora and fauna are quite similar to its much larger neighbor. The island is famous for its beautiful landscape. A chain of six volcanoes, between 1,350 meters and 3,014 meters high, stretches from west to east. Gunung Agung known as the ‘Mother Mountain’ is over 3000 meters. There are lush tropical forests, pristine crater lakes, fast flowing rivers and deep ravines, picturesque rice terraces, and fertile vegetable and fruit gardens. The south beaches consist of white sand; other parts of the island, beach are covered with gray or black volcanic sand.

South and north of the central mountains are Bali’s fertile agricultural lands. The southern region is a wide, gently sloping area where most of Bali’s abundant rice crop is grown. The south-central area is the true rice basket of the Island. The northern coastal strip is narrower, rising more rapidly into the foothills of the central range, but the main export crops – coffee, copra and rice – are grown here. Cattle are also raised in this area.

Topography
Bali is noted for the great beauty of its landscapes, from coastal lowlands to exhilarating high mountain lakes, barren limestone plateaus to thick monsoon forests. Hills and mountains are everywhere and the surface of the island is scored by fast-flowing rivers, deep ravines, rugged saddles, and alluvial slopes covered in rich volcanic ash. Except for the coastal plains, there are few flat areas.

A west-to-east volcanic chain (an extension of Java’s central range) divides the island in half. Crater lakes are found at Batur and Bratan, Buyan and Tamblingan in the rich submontane rainforest area around Bedugul. Bali’s mountains, floating among the clouds and covered in tall forests, stand in contrast to the wild and rugged beauty of the volcanic craters, some of which are still active.

The south-central plains are intensively cultivated. Terraced rice fields dominate the landscape-myriad small rectangles of still water mirroring the clouds. As you leave the heavily farmed southern plains and head north, the landscape changes from cascades of rice fields to gardens of onions, cabbages and papayas thriving in the cooler climate. Thatched-palm huts change to sturdy cottages made of wood, tile and stone, built to withstand the heavy rains.

In the alpine highlands of Bali are mountain streams, prehistoric tree-ferns, wildflowers, creepers, orchids, leeches, butterflies, birds, and screaming monkeys, while tall pines and cypress soar high above the mountain villages of Bedugul, Kintamani and Penelokan. The island’s far western region, known as Pulaki, is an unspoiled, under populated marine and forest wilderness. Legend has it Bali’s first people had their origins here in a lost, invisible city.

In the far north there is a sharp drop from the mountains to a narrow strip of fertile coastal plain around Singaraja. The lowland coastal fringe of the north is narrow, and the absence of rivers makes the land dry and less suitable for intensive rice cultivation. In contrast to the southern coast, the water off the calm north shore is shallow for up to a kilometer out to sea. The palm savannahs, tall grasses, and clusters of pilang (Acacia leucophloea) trees give the Prapat Agung Peninsula of the far northwest a distinctly African appearance.

The length of Bali’s coastline is 460 km. Only about eight percent of the beaches consist of white sand, and they are found mostly in the famed resorts of Sanur, Kuta, Uluwatu, Nusa Dua and Tanjung. The remainder of the beaches, such as a magnificent 30-kilometer-long stretch in Tabanan Regency, feature gray-black volcanic couscous-like sand and are almost deserted-like being on another planet.

The coast from Sanur extending down through Benoa Bay is long and sheltered, lined with 1,400 hectares of natural mangrove forests and mudflats. Because so many of the original mangrove stands suffered from the effects of salt making, shrimp ponds, coral collecting, and the charcoal industry, a major reforestation project has been underway along this coastal strip since 1992.

Bali’s six volcanic peaks, all exceeding 2,000 meters, trap rain clouds that swell the rivers rushing down from the highlands through deep, narrow gorges overgrown with lush tropical vegetation. Running parallel to each other north to south, irrigating the rice fields on the lower slopes, are Bali’s two major rivers, the Pakrisan (“Kris River”) and the Petanu (“Cursed River”), their history steeped in myths and legends. Both are regarded as holy; it is on their banks where most of the archaeological remains of Bali’s ancient kingdoms have been found.

The astonishingly rich coastal plains of the south have given rise to Bali’s unique civilization. Until recent times, the entire southern drainage of the island has been politically divided into eight small but powerful rajadoms. These partitioned, pie-shaped realms of south Bali were always aligned north to south along the ravines rather than east to west-travel on Bali has always been hampered by deeply cut longitudinal ravines. Even today, because of the island’s difficult topography, most highways carry traffic north and south.

Bali lies over two major tectonic plates-the rigid Sunda plate to the north and the Indo – Australian plate to the south – that grind over one another, producing frequent geologic instability. One of the worst natural catastrophes of this century was the 1917 earthquake in which a series of tremors devastated the eastern and southern regions of the island, followed by a major eruption of Gunung Batur. When the tremors came to an end, 1,500 people had died and 2,431 temples and 64,000 homes had been destroyed.

Another extremely destructive eruption of 1,717-meter-high Batur occurred in 1963. In August 1994, after lying dormant for 20 years, the volcano began to erupt again, venting more than 600 times a day and shooting hot ashes and smoke into the sky for months. Bali’s highest and most revered mountain, Gunung Agung, which also erupted in 1963, destroying villages and covering fertile rice fields with rivers of lava and showers of ash and debris.

Periphery
The climate and landforms on the island’s fringes and Bali’s offshore islands differ drastically from the lush lowland plains. The far eastern peninsula of Karangasem, surrounding Gunung Seraya, is arid and hot, the land difficult to cultivate. In the far south, the tableland of the Bukit Peninsula, with its scarce water and bushy thickets, is Mediterranean in appearance. The western and southern shores of this barren plateau are lined with rugged, 150-meter-high limestone cliffs and deep caves.

The islands of Nusa Lembongan, Nusa Ceningan and Nusa Penida in the deep strait between Bali and Lombok are as dry and inhospitable as the Bukit. On these austere islands of limestone hills, poor rocky soil, scrubby vegetation and open grassland, the inhabitants live in coral-walled villages and eke out a subsistence living growing maize, beans, and cassava. The reefs and clear waters of these sister islands make for spectacular diving.

Flora

Many plants we assiduously and lovingly cultivate as pot plants in the West-poinsettia, dracaena, coleus, begonias-grow in riotous profusion along the roadsides of Bali and have to be hacked back with machetes. Due to difference in altitude, rainfall, temperatures, and humidity, there’s a wide variation in the types of plants in bloom from month to month on Bali.

Along Bali’s roads and crowding its markets are stands selling all manner of fruits of strange colors, shapes, and sizes. All the usual varieties known in tropical Asia are grown on Bali, plus about 20 or so grown nowhere else, such as the enormous grapefruit-like ‘pomelo’ (jeruk Bali). For a description of Bali’s fruits, instructions on how to eat them, their Balinese names, and when they come into season, see “Fruits” under “Food and Entertainment” in the On the Road chapter.

Flowers
Flower fragrances are especially adored by the Balinese and their gods. Fresh flowers are required offerings in almost all temple rituals and ceremonies, a way of providing a pleasing environment for spirits and ancestors during their frequent visits to Earth. The Balinese also use flowers to decorate themselves; statues of gods and goddesses are adorned with flowers; legong dancers wear crowns of blossoms; each time a Balinese prays s/he holds a flower between the fingers. Before a ‘bemo’ driver sets out for the day his wife or daughter prepares for him a floral offering, or ‘canang’. Indeed, flowers are so much in demand here that it’s rare to see flowering trees in full bloom.

The majority of the delightful flowers you see are not native to Bali but have been introduced from around the world, either imported in recent years or centuries ago by Indian or Arab traders. With the Chinese grafting everything and people bringing plants back and forth from Hawaii, it’s difficult to tell anymore what’s native to Bali and what’s not.

The variety is astounding: the hardy, colorful bougainvillea (bunga kertas), climbing over walls and balconies; the common gardenia (jempiring) and hydrangea (pacah seribu); poinsettias; the rose (maya); the spiked ‘tumbak raja’; the star-shaped, lavender ‘manori’; the jasmine (menuh), a symbol of holiness; the common marigold (mitir). The ‘malu-malu’, a sort of creeping mimosa, is known as the “sensitive plant” because its leaves fold compactly at the slightest touch-thus its Balinese name, meaning “shy.”

The trumpet-shaped red or orange hibiscus (pucuk), which adorns the ears of temple statues, comes in all shapes and sizes. The large-leafed, floating water lily or lotus (Nelubium nelumbo) can be detected from a distance because of its fragrant smell and beautiful colors. The Balinese believe it to be the flower of the goddesses in heaven; this aqueous plant has a high religious value on Bali and is also used as a traditional medicine.

There’s a great variety of flowering trees and shrubs: the acacia; ornamental ‘kenyeri’ (oleanders); the bright orange African tulip trees; the spectacular flame tree ‘merak’; the pure white ‘cempaka’, a large type of magnolia, with a strong long-lasting delicious fragrance; clusters of sweet-smelling white, pink, and red frangipani (bangan jepun) blossoms; the stunning flamboyant (flamboyan); the Singapore rhododendron; the bright orange ‘didap’, used in cremation processions; the ‘datura’ or “Handkerchief Tree” with its drooping white or pink flowers; the firecracker hibiscus; the ‘kecubung’, ‘kedukduk’, ‘sabita’ – the list goes on.

The best place to see flowers is in the front yards and living fences of private homes; ask the proprietor or concierge to take you on a botanical tour of your hotel or homestay garden. The Nusa Dua hotels and Hotel Tanjung Sari and the Bali Hyatt in Sanur are famous for their brilliant year-round floral displays. Village markets all have flower stalls that sell flowers for offerings. Also visit the big nurseries of Niti Mandala, near Renon, in East Denpasar.

The Lila Graha Botanical Gardens in Candikuning offers a well-presented collection of orchids and exotics. Behind the Candikuning market are dozens of stalls selling such dazzling flowers as gardenias, roses, canna lilies, heliconia, marigolds, and cock’s combs at very good prices. The grounds of the Bali Handara Country Club, also in the Bedugul area, are definitely worth visiting. By the side of the road from Mengwi up to Candikuning flowers grow everywhere. Also visit the orchid nursery near Blahbatuh in Gianyar Regency; commercial orchid nurseries are also found on the road from Denpasar to Sanur.

If you can find it in a hotel or supermarket bookstore, get a copy of Fred and Margaret Eiseman’s well-researched Flowers of Bali containing 35 color photos of Bali’s native flowers. In 1995, Thames and Hudson published Balinese Gardens, written by William Warren, Adrian Vickers, and Anthony Whitten, with photographs by Luca Invernezzi Tettoni, which beautifully illustrates numerous examples of contemporary and traditional Bali gardens.

Trees
Offerings are frequently made to trees, especially in southern Bali. Selected, representative trees are adorned with ceremonial parasols and dressed in traditional black-and-white checkered cloth (kain poleng), scarf (saput), and headband (udeng) – the same dress Balinese men wear to temple. The Balinese believe that in large trees dwell a host of spirits and demons; one often sees offerings placed on the ground before them, shrines constructed in their branches high above the ground. Legend has it that temples have even been founded next to important, spiritually charged trees. There are small, sacred reserves of trees all over the island, such as the Monkey Forest of Ubud and the majestic grove of dipterocarps at Sangeh.

Myriad uses are found for trees. Tree-trunk hollows are used as signal logs to call people to prayer, much like church bells in the West. The sacred milkwood (pule), sought after by woodworkers, is used to make the fearsome Rangda masks. In October, acacia trees, with huge clusters of bright yellow flowers, beautify the main road between Sanur and Tanjung Bungkak. Venerable tamarind trees line kilometer after kilometer of roads in northern Bali east of Singaraja; you can also see these huge shade trees on Jl. Suropati alongside Puputan Square in Denpasar.

Plantations of clove (cengkeh) trees grace the highland road from Penulisan, winding down the mountains to the northern coast. Acacia trees and other members of the mimosa family line long stretches of the Bypass Highway; planters are also reforesting the ocean side of this highway with five species of mangrove. In southern Bali, thick tangles of mangrove turn shallow tidal flats into valuable solid ground.

The stately, solitary ‘kepuh’ tree, a member of the kapok family, populates Balinese cemeteries. It’s believed that on moonlit nights its eerie-looking branches are infested with evil birds and demons, its branches festooned with the entrails of the dead, its roots winding in and out of skulls and bones. The ‘kepuh’ is sacred to Durga, Goddess of Death.

Leaves from the ‘dadap’ tree are used for ‘ngotonin’, the birthday celebration for children, and in the ‘beakawonan’ wedding ceremony. Tiger’s claws (tjangin), a species of Erythrina, has scarlet flowers which grow in clusters, protected by “claws” or spines which cover the tree’s entire surface. These trees are planted by farmers along irrigation canals or used as fences to keep animals and humans out of ‘sawah’. To be pricked by its thorns is excruciatingly painful; the thorns are capable of penetrating rubber thongs.

Bali’s most famous trees are the massive banyans (beringin) which hang over roads and temple gates, spreading their feathery branches and hundreds of vine-like trailers. Left unchecked, these creepers will take root and spread a canopy over an entire hectare. When the aerial roots of this sacred tree are cut to make room for a road, the workers need to be protected by prayers invoked by a priest. Considered holy and immortal, this member of the fig family is most often found inside temples or near the main ‘puri’ of a village. There’s a special atmosphere under the shady pillars of a gnarled old banyan, where often a small shrine is placed in the gloom. The largest blooming banyan in the world-virtually a forest-is found in Bongkasa, a few kilometers west of Ubud.

The Palms
Twelve varieties of the coconut palm (nyuh) exist on Bali. The palm provides tools, food, drink, and habitation; every part of the tree is used by the Balinese. So essential is the coconut tree in everyday life that the Balinese make special offerings to it once a year. The farmer knocks the tree three times to waken it, prayers for a plentiful harvest are said, then the tree and offerings are sprinkled with holy water. Coconut palms are individually owned, often by a different person than the owner of the land. The coconuts on the tree are the property of the tree’s owner, but a coconut that falls belongs to the person who picks it up. A good tree produces about 50-100 mature nuts per year for 50 years.

One of the world’s biggest seeds, the coconut provides copra, and its milk and grated meat are important ingredients in many Balinese dishes. Young coconuts, always available on request, make a sweet and refreshing drink, and their soft jelly-like meat is a real treat. White coconut oil is the only oil used for cooking on Bali. Frothy palm beer, ‘tuak’, is also derived from this tree.

The strong, hard, pest-resistant wood of the tree makes outstanding building timber. The woody husk is excellent fuel for cooking fires, the black husk fiber (duk) is utilized as an abrasive dish cleaner, and for brushes, rope, brooms, and as a roofing material. The Balinese use the small leaves of the central branch to fashion containers.

Whole coconut leaves (don nyuh) are the primary materials in woven mats (tikar) used for sitting or as temporary walls or roofing. Any Balinese can fashion a coconut leaf into a small ‘tikar’ in 15 minutes. Many of the intricate and beautiful offerings made by Balinese women are fashioned from the young leaves of this useful palm. The yellow coconuts of the dwarf coconut tree provide a receptacle for holy water.

Other indispensable palms are the sugar, sago and ‘lontar’. The Balinese use the toffee-like leaves of the sugar palm to make offerings, particularly the magnificent ‘lamak’ banners that adorn gateways during the twice-yearly Galungan celebration. From the sago, with its huge dark green fronds, is extracted ‘ijuk’, the black thatching fiber. The palm also provides the Balinese with a handsome dark-grained wood, ‘jakuh’, utilized for making tool handles. As elsewhere in eastern Indonesia, the pith of the tree is processed into sago flour.

The ‘lontar’ provides the raw materials for making many everyday articles. ‘Lontar’ leaves, after being dried and pressed, are bound into book pages and inscribed with elegant Sanskrit-like Balinese characters (tulisan Bali). Bali’s most important historical chronicles have been written on ‘lontar’ leaves.

Bamboo
Thirteen species of this giant grass grow on Bali. Bamboo (tiing) has countless uses: it can be eaten, fed to cattle, made into paper, rice steamers, clothespins, crab traps, boxes, flutes, ladders, firecrackers, fishing poles, and unbelievably strong twine. Lengths of bamboo tubing are used as haunting resonators in xylophonic instruments, and sometimes whole orchestras consist of bamboo key instruments, which produce a unique, mellow, liquid sound.

Sections of tubing make a perfect cup for imbibing ‘tuak’. Long, flat strips of bamboo tubing are fashioned into mats, baskets, and walls. Tables, chairs, and other furniture are made of attractive spotted bamboo (tiing tutul). Bamboo irrigation water pipes, often several kilometers long, arc over Balinese roads. Halved bamboo stalks are used as clappers in the rice fields to scare away birds. Ingenious and melodious musical windmills are also made of bamboo.

The Environmental Bamboo Foundation, Box 196, Ubud 80571, tel. 62361-974.027, fax 974.029, based in an experimental community in Nyuhkuning three kilometers south of Ubud, is promoting this remarkable and ancient plant-one of the fastest growing on earth-as a viable replacement for deforested or ecologically blighted lands.

Fauna

Bali is home to 32 species of mammals, including a wildcat, two species each of civet (the ‘musang’ or palm civet, which resembles a mongoose), two species of monkey, ‘sambar’, barking deer, mouse deer, wild ox (banteng), and a miniature squirrel.

In the early 1900s, a writer reported that his camp in west Bali was trampled by a herd of feral elephants, but by the 1920s it was difficult to meet anyone who’d ever seen an elephant on the island. By that time the Balinese tiger, the smallest of eight subspecies of tiger, was very rarely sighted, and the last known animal was shot in 1937. Today only five sad stuffed specimens are left behind.

A visit to the 76,000-hectare Bali Barat National Park (BBNP), covering most of the heavily forested interior of western Bali, is obligatory for animal and bird lovers. The park is effectively protected against exploitation and development and is well-patrolled by rangers based at the park headquarters of Cekik and Labuhan Lalang. Here you can see ‘rusa’ deer, wild boar, and fairly tame long-tailed macaques and leaf monkeys sitting high in the trees chewing on leaves. The 165-hectare offshore island of Menjangan has a population of around 50 barking deer.

The Wallace Line
Bali is the physical end of what was once mainland Asia. Observing that a great contrast exists between the animal life of Bali and that of the islands to the east, the great 19th century English naturalist Sir Alfred Russel Wallace suggested that the treacherous, 24-km-wide strait separating Bali from the neighboring island of Lombok is an important divide, a biologically impassable line cleaving Asia from Australia. “In just two hours,” he suggested, “you can pass from one great division of the earth to the other, differing as essentially in their animal life as Europe does from America.”

During the last ice age, Wallace theorized, the sea level around the Greater Sundas fell enough to enable animals to travel overland from the Asian mainland, fanning out through the archipelago until they reached the deep trench of the Lombok Strait and could go no farther. While the Selat Bali (“Bali Strait”) separating Bali from Java has a maximum depth of 60 meters, the ocean depths between Bali and Lombok exceed 1,300 meters.

Wallace’s book, The Malay Archipelago, published in 1869 contemporary and parallel with Charles Darwin’s work, advanced a theory of evolution based on Wallace’s examination of the flora and fauna of the region. His imagined line dividing the Asian and Australian regions on either side of the Lombok Strait has since become known as the Wallace Line.

The differences between Bali and Lombok are obvious. Bali is lush, equatorial, smothered in the luxuriant vegetation of tropical Asia, while Lombok is wind-blown and dry like the Australian plains. Bali, Java, and islands west are characterized by the monkeys, squirrels, rabbits, tigers, elephants, bears, sheep, oxen, horses, orangutans, and pythons found in the dense tropical forests and jungles of Asia. On the islands east of Bali begin the parrots and other peculiar bird species, marsupials like wombats and kangaroos, the platypus, and giant lizards of the Australian region. Some “leakage” occurs, i.e., monkeys are found in Sumba.

Hanging Out with the Monkey
Monkeys, considered descendents of General Hanuman in Hindu mythology, occupy a semi-divine status on Bali and are allowed to proliferate around some of Bali’s most sacred temples. The best places to watch monkeys (and people) are the monkey forests of Ubud and Sangeh. Feeding time brings the monkeys down out of the trees around 1000 and 1600 when they are fed potatoes. Talk to one of the feeders-some have been caring for monkeys for the past 15 years. They have given the monkeys names and know the quirks of most individuals in the troop.

Even though signs often say, “Don’t Feed The Monkeys”, vendors sell peanuts and bananas at the gates. Gate price for peanuts is Rpl000, ‘warung’ price is Rpl00. It’s the same story for bananas. The secret for enjoying the monkeys without getting hurt or robbed is to sit very quietly and let them come to you. Before you arrive, put away all extra food, zip purses shut, and lock down cameras. The monkeys will search you. Take off any jewelry and paraphernalia that you don’t need-they’ll gladly take possession of earrings, necklaces, watches, and even hearing aids. Then either hand the food to them or simply lay it in the palm of your hand. Always look out for the dominant male; he should be given food first to avoid fighting. Don’t feed the sub-adults or you may get bitten by their mother. Never show your teeth when smiling at the animals as it’s regarded as an aggressive gesture.

If you take these precautions, you can spend long stretches with the monkeys. They’ll perch on your lap, drape a warm furry arm on your shoulder while they munch, and watch everything. They don’t care to be petted at all. Unwary tourists can get scratched or bitten by treating these creatures as pets, which is easy to do because they appear friendly. They are wild animals with all the dignity, free will, and unpredictability that implies.

Whatever you do, don’t leave a pet monkey behind as a burden to a Balinese family who of course can’t say no. The mothers are killed in order to get the babies to sell. The animals are kept on a short chain out in the weather with no protection, given no water, and teased until they become mean. The creatures will eventually die, sick from the cold. Only one out of 10 survive.

Domestic Animals
A cousin to the wild boar, Bali’s famous pigs are weighted to collapse with their loads of pork, their backbones sagging as if broken and their enormously heavy pink bellies dragging through the dust. Pigs are the property of the woman of the house and any money she earns from them belongs to her. A great Balinese delicacy not to be missed is suckling pig (‘be guling’ in Balinese, ‘babi guling’ in Indonesian) roasted on a spit.

The ducks of Bali, kept as family pets, rank among the island’s most prominent citizens. Squads of them are taken from the family ‘kampung’ by the herders each day to feed in the rice fields, marching in formation under flags on long poles from which they never stray. In the irrigation channels between the rows of plants these comics act like up-tailed, web-footed vacuum cleaners, loosening old roots, nosing through the mud grubbing for worms, snails, frogs, insect pests, and leftover grains of rice. At day’s end, the chattering flock gathers around the duck herder’s pole to be taken home again. Ducks are much better behaved and more complacent than bothersome chickens, well-suited for the communal living of the Balinese domestic compounds. Duck meat, as in the strongly spiced dish ‘bebek betutu’, makes for some of the finest eating on the island.

The Balinese goose-swan, the nearest thing on the island to a true swan, is the sacred mount of Dewi Saraswati, the goddess of learning and the arts. They make excellent watch geese. Fighting cocks can be seen preening in bamboo cages on the sides of Bali’s roads. Compared to their Western cousins, these birds are wild and supernatural, able to fly up to and perch on rooftops. The flesh of pugilist rooster tastes and has the texture of lizard hide. Loops of sound seem to follow flocks of pigeons circling the sky; each is hung with small bells on its feet and bamboo whistles on its tail feathers. Turtle doves and other pet birds are hoisted in their cages high on bamboo poles to enjoy the view and provide fluting and cooing music for the villagers below.

Cattle, hung with sweet melodic wooden bells, leap from banks with the lithe grace of an antelope. These amiable, beautiful creatures with long eyelashes, delicate features, dew eyes, manicured velvet coats, slender necks, trim bodies, slim legs, and short tails look more like fawns than cattle. Like most cows in the tropics, they give no milk. Unlike the Hindus of India the Balinese don’t consider cattle as sacred; they are bred for their meat and exported to other islands. Nevertheless, cows live a privileged life on Bali, lovingly bathed in village streams, billeted in cozy hay-strewn mangers, let loose on village lawns to feed.

The largest cattle markets in Bali are in Beringkit, 20 kilometers south of Mengwi, and in Bebandem (Karangasem), and a scene out of medieval Bali.

Domesticated water buffalo (kerbau) with thick curving horns are used for plowing the rice fields. A special event in Jembrana Regency is the Makepung buffalo races in which two ‘kerbau’ pull a jockey in a wheeled carriage. The animals are specially bred and trained, a process that has produced a healthier strain of cattle more resistant to the diseases prevalent in other Balinese cattle. The same district has developed Magembeng, in which cows carry big wooden musical bells (gembeng) around their necks. As they walk, their slow and graceful swaying causes the instruments to sound and form haunting music. The cows take part in competitions in which posture, beauty in the head and tail, and the precision and softness of their music is fastidiously evaluated.

Balinese cats are scrawny, unbelievably loud and raucous creatures with truncated tails and unpleasant dispositions. Scavengers like dogs, they are omnivorous and eat among other things ants and mangoes. Bali’s miserable ‘anjing’ (dogs) abound-mangy, flea-bitten bags of skin, bones, and open sores. There are an estimated 600,000 on the island. The mongrelized Balinese dog has a short pointed muzzle, a piggy tail, weighs about 30 pounds, births one litter per year, and is an expert at survival. Colin McPhee, in his A House in Bali, wrote of Bali’s infamous dogs, “gray, starved and tottering, on walls, in doorways, the dogs infested the villages. They were so anemic they could hardly drag themselves off the road. We drove along, knocking them to one side with a thud.”

Little has changed since those words were written in 1945. In the West dogs bark too, but somehow their barking isn’t as stubborn or as irritating as that of the dogs of Bali. Most dogs are ill-kept pets; the tens of thousands of strays who roam the island are not destroyed because of the Hindu/Buddhist taboo against killing living things.

The traditional island belief is that dogs contain the souls of reincarnated thieves. They do serve a useful purpose by scaring away both corporeal intruders and the evil spirits which haunt the Balinese. They provide a free morning wakeup call. They clean up the trash, and seldom actually bite anyone. Though few are rabid, none are wo/man’s best friend. Look upon them as rats, or pigeons with teeth, and you’ll have no problem with them.

Birds
There’s been a dramatic drop in the local bird population over the last 20 years. Although many of the more obvious and colorful species, particularly birds of prey, have been all but eliminated, species still number about three hundred. These include beautiful wild fowl; an iridescent blue kingfisher; the dollar-bird of western Bali’s open woodlands; the acrobatic ash-colored ‘drongo’; the olive-beaked sunbird, which feeds on flowers; the black-napped oriole, with its completely black abdomen; the white-breasted wood swallow with triangular wings; and the streaked weaver, which builds delicate nests in colonies in the long grass of open country.

Specialized seabirds inhabit Bali’s south coast. The white-bellied sea eagle and white-tailed tropic bird nest and breed in the stunning vertical limestone cliffs and offshore islets of the Bukit Peninsula and Nusa Penida. At low tide, a prime viewing area for waterbirds is the long, sheltered coast of mudflats and mangrove swamp from Sanur to Benoa Bay. Here you’ll find large flocks of plovers, sandpipers, and other wading birds feeding on the mudflats at low tide. Along the shores of the Bay of Gilimanuk on Bali’s western tip are the large brown and white brown booby, the great crested tern, and the common tern.

Inland, around the canals and ponds, are congregations of stately Java pond herons and white egrets. North of Ubud in Petulu, between 1600 to 1800 in the afternoon, you can see thousands of short-billed egrets, cattle egrets, and snow-white little egrets arriving to roost for the night in the palms. In the main rice-growing country of central Bali keep a lookout for grain-feeding ‘munias’, sparrows, and white-bellied swiftlets. During the breeding season these tireless little birds build intricately woven nests in the tall grass and bushes. Farther north, around the volcanic lakes of Bratan, Buyan, and Tamblingan, are trails leading into dense sub-mountain rainforests where you can view forest birds like cuckoos, barbets, and babblers. Australian brown honeyeaters are also found in this terrain, flitting about in low bushes and feeding on flowers. Only one species of honeyeaters crossed the Wallace Line, the sole exception to the rule.

The extremely rare Bali starling, or Rothschild’s or Bali mynah (Leocopsar rothchildi), is the only vertebrate animal indigenous to Bali. The bird is snow-white, with black on its tail and the tips of its wings and a bright blue patch around its eyes. Don’t confuse it with the black-winged starling, which has a yellow skin patch around its eyes. When the bird’s population plummeted due to loss of habitat, a group of U.S. zoos saved the starling by shipping individuals to the Surabaya Zoo; they were then reintroduced into the island’s northwest corner. The ‘jalak’ Bali has been recorded along 85 kilometers of coastline from Singaraja to Gilimanuk. The best watching post is at Teluk Kelor on the north coast of the Prapat Agung Peninsula where a handful of starlings come down from the hills to roost near the beach. There’s a Bali Starling Project Research Station two kilometers north of the guardpost at Sumber Klampok.

Reptiles, Amphibians, Insects
The island is home to the rarely spotted lethal, luminous green viper (lelipis gedong) identified by the red in its tail. Bali’s other snake, the ‘ular sawah’, is brown and nonpoisonous.

There are also crooning frogs, lucinea spiders which build their webs along paths (if they bite you, your head aches for three days), fireflies, butterflies, crickets, poisonous scorpions (rare), and huge black, harmless beetles that thud off your hotel walls trying to find a way out. Children catch dragonflies on long, glue-tipped bamboo poles, then thread them like sate on strings to take home and deep-fry in oil for a crispy, protein-rich delicacy. Cicadas are the multitudinous unseen chorus to all Balinese nights. Bats can be seen at Goa Lawah cave east of Klungkung; they also emerge all over Bali at dusk to feed.

What do you call an Indonesian lizard with a loud voice? A gecko blaster. The lovable gecko-’cicak’ in Indonesian-is about 15 cm long, has a scaleless alabaster body and beady eyes, screeches “tsk-tsk,” and scampers upside down on any surface with the use of vibrations from its pudgy toes. The bottoms of their feet resemble the gills of fish. It’s believed that if a gecko chirps while someone is talking it means that person is telling the truth. Geckos make cheap pets because you don’t have to feed them-they eat each other.

A nontoxic lizard called ‘alu-alu’, reaching one meter in length, waits on riverbanks to snatch passing ducks. To “witness man’s bravery with live crocodiles and snakes” pay a visit to the Ayung Reptile Park near Sanur. Performances given twice daily (0900 and 1700), plus there’s a collection of reptiles from all over the Indonesian archipelago.

The ‘tokay’ lizard, often heard but rarely seen, emits a wonderfully ear-curling, indescribable ratchet windup sound followed by a series of “BO” croaks never forgotten once heard. Each time the ‘tokay’ croaks, the sound gets a little softer, deeper, and slower, as his wind runs out. The Balinese believe that anyone who hears a lizard moan nine times will receive good luck. They can croak up to 30 times-at the drop of a hat gamblers will bet on how many. Up to 45 cm long, with deep orange spots, they can eat mice and baby birds. ‘Tokays’ defecate black cigar-shaped droppings from the same spot on the ceiling everyday and can only be discouraged by attaching or hoisting mothballs up to the spot.

Sealifes
Hire boats at Labuhan Lalang for snorkeling and diving in the marine reserve of Bali Barat National Park in the northwest. The wonderful sealife of the coral reefs off Menjangan Island is one of Bali’s premier dive sites. A unique species of lobster is caught in these waters, as well as a wide range of colorful coral fish, including parrot fish, damsels, angels, wrasses, butterfly fish, puffer fish, groupers, and moray eels.

To the east, about 10 kilometers before Singaraja, is the coastal resort of Lovina Beach, where dozens of motorized ‘perahu’ go out to view schools of dolphins in their feeding grounds. These shallow, calm waters teem with a wide variety of small reef fish, crustaceans, sponges, and hard coral. In deeper waters are plankton-eating whale sharks. Two other popular, dolphin-viewing and dive locales are Candidasa and Padangbai in Karangasem. An indispensable reference for marine study is Kal Muller’s Underwater Indonesia: A Guide to the World’s Greatest Diving.

Endangered Species
It’s a common sight to see men and boys walking the back roads of Bali carrying small caliber rifles and air guns for the purpose of shooting birds for food or sport. Because it’s illegal to shoot birds without a license, if you see this say “Jangan membawa senapan tanpa ijin!” (“Don’t carry a gun without a license!”).

Among Indonesia’s endangered wild creatures are its sea turtles. The much-publicized turtle-breeding ground off the island of Serangan in southeastern Bali is a cover-up; at least 25,000 turtles per year are caught in Indonesia’s seas and slaughtered for Bali’s major festivals, in which turtle meat and turtle soup are entrenched ceremonial requirements. Really big festivals require the consumption of as many as 50 of these magnificent wild creatures.

This is an issue, which has the international conservation community incensed. To appreciate the magnitude of the problem, visit Pegok village in the eastern suburbs of Denpasar, where you can see the sad spectacle of dozens of turtles lined up for butchering, immobilized with their front flippers tied together in front of their beaks. Before you buy turtle products or order turtle sate at one of Bali’s restaurants, remember that sight. One good sign is that the number of tourist shops in south Bali selling stuffed sea turtles and turtle-shell products has dwindled considerably.

Environment Damage

Bali has big ecological problems, its extraordinary culture and unparalleled natural environment coming under increasing stress.

As far back as the 1930s the filmmaker Andreas Roosevelt suggested the island be turned into a sort of Hindu theme park, insulated from contamination by the modern world. He wanted Bali maintained as a living cultural museum to remind the rest of us what we had lost. Roosevelt’s well-meaning but absurd proposal obviously never was taken seriously.

The devastation of the Balinese environment over the last 20 years is shocking. With virtually no enforceable environmental protection laws, no environmental monitoring, few waste disposal programs or facilities, and great social inequality in the face of undisciplined growth and development; Bali desperately needs a master plan for sustainable long-range development. The present situation poses an extreme danger for the present inhabitants as well as for generations to come.

The lack of planning and ineffective environmental regulations are a far greater threat than any cultural influences from abroad. Motivated solely by economics, the Balinese are doing it to themselves at least as much as we’re doing it to them. Although you do see occasional signs of a new environmental consciousness, restaurants still throw their waste into roadside drains, households dispose of garbage in irrigation canals and rubbish piles spill down into streams where people bathe.

A walk down Kuta Beach reveals sand full of bottle caps, cigarette butts and plastic wrappers. No attention is given to preventing leakage of toxic liquids from rubbish dumps. Fishermen plunder the coastal waters of coral, fish and shells. Small plastic bags of tropical fish are sold to dealers, who in turn sell the fish to buyers in the cities. The same fishermen could rent out their boats to tourists who come to view the island’s beautiful tropical fish.

Deforestation, Erosion, Water Depletion
Because of Bali’s dense population and high carrying capacity, the destruction wrought by deforestation is not surprising. Today about 19% of Bali consists of forests, and efforts are underway to reforest (reboisasi) 39,000 hectares to bring that percentage up to the perceived ideal of 30%.

Commercial tree plantations-coconut palms, eucalyptus, teak-are found only in the 77,000-hectare Bali Barat National Park, the one area that Bali’s original flora has been left intact and secure. Buffer areas around the park have been established by the government to protect it from exploitation by firewood cutters.

The problem of erosion was recognized as far back as the 1930s, when the Dutch observed that growing population pressure had shrunk the island’s forest cover to 13% of its previous total area and that the spread of ravines from runoff threatened cultivated land. In 1934 the Dutch prohibited any further clearing of riverbanks and encouraged the cultivation of bamboo thickets, aren sugar palms and other perennials.

Under the weight of its population, Bali’s infrastructure is strained to the breaking point. To satisfy the requirements of the populous Badung Regency, water from the Ayung River is being taken from Peraupan with the result that farmers in the Krobokan area are forced to wait much longer to get water to their fields. A study commissioned by Gajah Mada University predicted that by the year 2000 the average water needs of Bali will reach 73% of the total water supply.

Tourism
Although tourism increases employment, raises incomes, brings valuable foreign exchange to the island and has helped improve the standard of living of vast numbers of Balinese, it’s also a big part of the environmental problem. This is especially true now that, due to the unregulated spread of alcohol licenses and discos, “beach” tourism has become dominant over “cultural” tourism.

In the 1990s the illegal mining of building materials-limestone, sand, rock-for hotel construction and airport extensions is out of hand, particularly in the Badung area. Typically, small violators are punished while the major criminals are left alone to go on wreaking havoc. Because of the extensive harvesting of coral for the tourist industry, many reefs around Bali have been totally destroyed. To prevent further erosion of beachfront, long, ugly concrete jetties have been built in Nusa Dua and Candidasa.

The construction of a monumental gold statue of Garuda on the Nusa Dua Peninsula, an Rp80 million monstrosity rivaling the Statue of Liberty, is underway. Other depredations include a gigantic statue of Garuda in the main Tuban intersection and the huge Nirwana Hotel Resort in Tabanan Regency. The cause of reigning in unchecked tourism development is not helped by Bali’s present governor, Ida Bagus Oka, who seems to have the tendency to blithely rubber-stamp any project that originates in Jakarta.

Tanah Lot – R.I.P
Although a prosperous agricultural region, Tabanan has always cast an envious eye on Kuta and Ubud and since the mid-80s has sought to increase its earnings from tourism. Toward this end, in 1992 the district head made a secret deal with giant, Jakarta-based business conglomerate BAKRI to build a mammoth hotelpolis overlooking the world-famous seaside temple of Tanah Lot. The temple is considered one of the six most important religious sites in all of Bali because of its charisma and unreal location on a small island offshore.

The 121 -hectare estate will eventually contain luxury villas, a five-star hotel, resort condominiums, 18-hole golf course, sports center, and private beachfront. Permits were issued and by 1993 the project started without the environmental impact report (AMDAL) required by law. When news of the private deal surfaced, there was a major uproar. Even the usually circumspect Bali Post diligently published excerpts from the public debates stirred by the project before its supporters were intimidated and backed off.

The overwhelming majority of Balinese favored canceling the project, though it enjoyed the support of Bali’s Jakarta-appointed governor, Ida Bagus Oka. In a biting editorial, the governor paternalistically chastised the critics and urged everyone to accept the inevitable march of modernization. This resulted in an even larger and more vociferous demonstration in which participants demanded his resignation. But ground was broken in March of 1994 and the resort was opened in August of 1995. You can see advertisements regularly appearing in Asian in-flight magazines. Tourism has arrived in Tabanan Regency.

The Scourge of Plastic
Plastic is a big problem. In Old Bali scavenging dogs controlled the buildup of organic garbage, but starting with the widespread use of plastics in the 1960s you saw for the first time in Bali’s history rubbish piles (banana leaves degrade, plastic doesn’t). Today, plastics are everywhere. Even homestays serve water in plastic cups and bottles. After a storm the beaches of Bali are full of plastic litter; plastic clogs rice field irrigation canals. Plastic refuse in drains is a haven for mosquitoes and their noxious diseases.

The population practices a mixed bag of waste disposal – it’s either buried, burned, or recycled. Javanese collectors pick up plastic and sell it to recyclers who truck it to Surabaya. Governor Oka’s wife has publicly encouraged people to burn their plastic rather than recycle it, and Indonesia’s environmental minister’s wife has urged that every woman take to market cloth bags rather than depend on plastic sacks.

What’s to Be Done
There is a nascent environmental movement on the island. The menu at Ubud’s Mumbul Restaurant states “Save Bali! Don’t use plastic bottles!” Restaurants are starting to serve beverages in glass bottles only. Water purifiers are becoming popular. To their credit, about 25% of Bali’s forest is protected in four nature reserves, the largest of which is 196-square-kilometer Bali Barat National Park

A number of emerging environmental groups are determined to save the island from further pollution. The Wisnu Foundation, a nonprofit Indonesia-based organization founded on Bali in 1993, has begun an integrated waste management pilot program in Pupuan, involving a composting project to deal with wet garbage from hotels. The foundation sells organic compost-no rocks, no weeds, no smell-at Rp400 per kilo. All proceeds are reinvested into current and planned recycling projects. Another group, the Bali Sustainable Development Project, has exerted pressure on the restaurants of Ubud to use recyclable bottles rather than plastic water bottles.

The Future of the Environment

There is a strong ethic for environmental protection in the Hindu teachings, such as in the ‘Tri Hita Karana’, which teaches the need for harmony between humans, between humans and their environment, and between humans and their God. The Tat Twam Asi also teaches tolerance and universal love to all animate creatures, and the Tumpek Kandang embodies a ritual respect for animals, while the Tumpak Bubuh embodies a ritual respect for plants. As Hinduism is an agrarian religion, the Balinese people have the image of being closely connected to nature.

Tourism & the environment
Considering various incidents over the last few years, it seems that Balinese person nor the authorities have made environmental protection a priority. The simplest example is the development of Bali’s tourism policy, which always aims to increase the total number of tourists visiting the island, particularly foreign tourists.

The number of foreign tourists arriving in 1998 totalled 2.08 million, but this number was not yet considered sufficient. The overnment has made a target for 2.7 milion visitors in 2000, and in 2002 the target is 3.9 milion. If this were added to the target of tourists for the rest of the archipelago, which is targeted 1.1 milion in 2002, 5 milion tourists would visit Bali in 2002.

One predict that an interesting perspective on the potential problems associated with the unchecked increase in number of tourists. Whether Bali’s situation to that of a small ship which can easily become overloaded and sink. If Bali continues to follow a policy of ‘as many as possible’, the assumption will follow that Bali has a room crisis, and that there are insufficient hotel rooms available to accommodate the tourists that come. Hotel managements, then will compete to build as many hotels as possible.

Any other thinking, if Bali keep its policy, the ecological balance never becomes priority. People will easily bureocrats, simply think about the total profit and short term gains.

Water Concerns
The number of hotels in Bali right now is 1,022, with a total of 31,372 rooms. This number excluded 38 hotels with a total capacity of around 10,000 rooms that are still in the process of being built or renovated. For example 40,000 rooms need 340 liters of water per second. That equals the amount that is needed by 332,000 villagers, or the amount that is required for watering a field as large as 2,640 hectares.

A study points out that the ground water potential as much as 880.48 million m3. The different between the ground water supply and the actual consumption in Bali, taking into account the non-farming and non irrigation water needs in 1997, isas high as minus 1447.553 million m3. This will only get worse in 2002, when it will reach minus 1787.147 million m3.

Data shows that in 1997 the average occupancy rate for hotels was between 56.06% and 81.56%, and in 1998 the range was between 30% and 68.28%. These statistics reveal how many millions m3 water need to be supplied every year. To put it simply, Bali is facing a water and waste disposal. Kuta, for example, has not had suitable water and waste disposal systems since the 1970s, so the area regularly floods every time the rainy season comes.

Endangered Habitats
If such simple areas as these have not been adequately dealt with, how about the environmental concerns with longer term implications – such as, for instance, the existence of a golf course which threatens the turtles’ survival at a nearby beach.

There was such a disaster at the end of 1996 on a beach in northen Bali. After a massive outbreak, the actions of a combination of government officers, fishermen, and NGO members succeded in killing approximately 400,000 Acanthaster Planci. In the meantime, Acanthaster Planci succeded in destroying a significant amount of coral, so that only eight percent of the entire population now remains. Another case is that of Serangan Island. When Serangan Island was reclaimed, there was a change to the direction and movement of the ocean around it. It has been suggested that these changes were responsible for the beaching of four old melonheaded whales (Peponocephala Electra) last july. Two whales eventually died in that tragedy.

A further area of concern is with river pollution. Most of the 84 garment dying companies along the Tukad Badung, for example, do not have adequate waste management facilities. The pollutants used in dyeing process eventually reach the corals in the sea, killing the foramimifer sp., which help to smash coral to form sand. Without the production of new sand, the beaches will erode fast.

Many beaches in Bali have seriously eroded, including some of main tourist beaches such as Tanah Lot, Candi Dasa, Sanur, and Kuta. Kuta alone erodes up to four metres each years. These cases above are but a few examples of the two basic environmental probems that Bali is currently facing; the problem of limited natural resources and the threat toward the preservation of the natural environment.

To summarize the main problems of limited natural resources, Bali must first deal with he problems of water shortages, as well as the concerns associated with a decrease in farming field of around 1,000 hectares a year with a critical land area of 104, 854 hectares.

With the threats towards the natural environment, Bali must find adequate waste management systems for domestic and industry waste. Bali must also deal with the problems of pollution, erosion, and the death of native animals.

Help from the torist Industry
There is no doubt that tourism has contributed significantly to Bali’s economic development. In 1994 tourism contributed 42,2% of the total Gross Domestics regional product and absorbed 34.14% of the total working force in Bali. However, on other side, the tourism sector has also become the biggest contributor to environmental problems, through both using large amounts of natural resources and producing waste that threatens the natural environment.

Many people in the tourism industry are, however, also concerned about the environmental impact of tourism and are trying to find ways to deal with the problems. A five star resort in Jimbaran, for its role in environmental protection through the hotel’s implementation of creative solutions to help deal with environmetal concerns.

The hotell has, for example introduced a Hotel Environmental Rating System in association with Bapedal and the Wisnu Foundation. These organisations are working on such projcts as turtle protection, natural ebergy source conservation, and environmental educational programs for the broader community. Internally, there has also been a concerted effort to be environmentally friendly.

Whether organistions within the tourist industry contribute in some ways to the destruction of the local environmen or not, an whethe this problem is intentional or not, these organizations are often in a position where they can begin to make a difference, and can also contribute to the regeneration and rahabilitation of the island.

A Collective Vision
Up until now, a subtantial change in policies from the top is not yet visible, especially to deal with the ‘as many as possible’ policy that has become such a ‘holy curse’ for Balinese toruism.

Actually, without encouragment to recognise previous mistakes and correct tem, Bali could be headed towards an environmental catastrophe.

Understanding that the process of making pople aware can be the crucial element in solving the problem of environmental ‘immunity’ that is descending on many authorities and the community in general, Balinese NGOs that are concerned about the environment often concentrate their efforts on education through awareness.

The recent environmental destruction as a result of the riots has made it clear hoe extensive the problem of a lack of awareness is in Bali. There is still a long way to go before Bali can be considered as an ‘environmentally friendly’ island.

Hopefully soon the tide will turn and the message will be clear to all, while there still the opportunity.