E
veryone I knew who’d been to Bali kept
telling me how wonderful it was. ‘You’ll
love it,’ they all said. ‘You’ll never want to
leave.’ I thought it sounded dreadful, like a
New Age Disneyland. People went to Bali
to find themselves, which is why I’d never
been. I didn’t want to find myself. I just
wanted to go on holiday. Why bother flying
all that way just to meet a load of hippies?
And then I went there. And I changed my
mind.
The airport is right next to Kuta, Bali’s
biggest, brashest beach resort. Like a lot of
tourists, this was the first place I fetched up.
Kuta is the place to go for nightlife, but it all
felt pretty tawdry – crowded bars, crowded
beaches, too many sunburnt Brits. I couldn’t
wait to get away, but as I left Kuta behind
me I began to see what my friends had been
going on about. Unlike the rest of Indonesia,
which is mainly Muslim, Bali is Hindu, and
this colourful religion lights up every aspect
of daily life. There are shrines and statues
everywhere. The people are polite and
gentle. The verdant landscape is spectacular.
‘You just need to get off the tourist trail,’ said
my friend Harriet, who’d been before. But
with four million inhabitants, and three million
visitors every year, I reckoned this might be
easier said than done.
After Kuta, the place most visitors head for is
Ubud, in the lush centre of the island. I knew
it’d be overrun, but I’d heard so much about
it, it seemed daft not to drop in. Immortalised
in Eat Pray Love, that soppy film starring
Julia Roberts, based on the (much better)
book by Elizabeth Gilbert, Ubud is Bali’s
cultural capital. It’s full of palaces and
temples, where you can see some beautiful
Balinese dancing. It’s also full of wide-eyed
westerners looking for the meaning of life.
It’s an amusing combination, and not all
the New Age stuff is mumbo jumbo, but it
wasn’t for me. I wanted to find somewhere
more authentic. I had a hunch I should keep
heading east.
In Candidasa, on the east coast, I finally
found what I’d been looking for – a seaside
resort with a bit of nightlife which didn’t
feel like Spring Break. Part market town,
part fishing village, it’s not overwhelmed by
tourism – not yet. I stayed at Alila Manggis,
a sleek boutique hotel on the green edge of
town. The house style is chic but simple. It
PEOPLE’s PARADISE
BALI:
WORDS // WILLIAM COOK
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