I’ve been in Bali for about ten days now. It is actually my first time being in the country of Indonesia – before being involved with gamelan (the traditional music commonly found in Java and Bali), I had no experience with Indonesia at all. I’ve slowly been playing catch-up as a result, now being about 1.5 years into proper Indonesian language learning and attempting to learn what I can about the country through my resources at home. One person I met here, from the US, said that the film or memoir Eat Pray Love was what put Bali on the map for tourists… which I feel may be true, perhaps, for US tourists, but I think Australians have been coming to Bali for a lot longer than that book came out!

I’ve noticed there’s two main sorts of people who seem to travel to Bali from Australia: there’s a crowd of party-goers, who tend to stick to Kuta (a suburb within the capital of Denpasar), and then there’s the cultural tourists, who make it further inland to places like Ubud, which is where I’m spending the most time on this trip (about 3.5 weeks). Ubud is a town or village in the centre of Bali, and is renowned for being the cultural centre of Bali, with a variety of gamelan groups and artists living here. Music-wise, Colin McPhee, who wrote the earliest ethnomusicological study of Balinese music, lived near this town also. I do see why some people enjoy coming here for artistic reasons: some days I have sat outside my room of my homestay at the table and chairs and just written for several hours, surrounded by the family temple and garden.

I spent the first few days of my trip in Sanur, which is an eastern suburb of Denpasar (on the opposite side to Kuta). I chose Sanur because I heard that, unlike Kuta, it was a bit less developed for tourists and there were still a few places there that were at least somewhat traditional. My first few days there were just to settle after the flight and to become accustomed to things in a big city before moving to the village of Denpasar for several weeks. As it is my first time in South East Asia, I was expecting a lot of culture shock, but I have to say, there has not been as much as I was expecting. Yes, there are many, many more scooters and motorbikes on the road than in Australia. The eating culture is different, and you can tell the safety standards are different as well. At the same time, life is really not that much different here from what it is like in Australia (admittedly, I am saying this with the perspective of only having been here for one week). In Denpasar, I went to the Bajra Sandhi Monument, which is a monument and museum to the Balinese independence fighters against the Dutch (and included some cool dioramas of historical scenes!) and I also saw a recording of a friend, Oscar Smith’s, new gamelan piece, which was super cool to see.

On Monday I came up to Ubud, and I came up early as there was a large cremation ceremony happening for someone who had recently passed away within the Royal Palace here. The body was eventually transferred into the horse statue you can see below, which was then cremated. While here, I’ve been trying to see gamelan performances. There are usually three or four a night (aimed at tourists), but these have the effect of seeming like a Disneyland-style performance to me: something that is done for tourists and as a result has a feeling of not being entirely genuine. During the kecak (monkey dance) the other night, I definitely noticed a few dancers who seemed to “phoning in” the performance, and during the middle of it there was a humorous skit where one of the characters asked the audience if we wanted a taxi in the vein of the numerous taxi drivers here and elsewhere in Bali. It was admittedly a funny skit… but one that is clearly designed for tourists. As a result it felt like something you would see at a Disneyland or Epcot as a “cultural showcase”. That might sound harsh, but that was my impression of the performances so far! Having said that, the performances themselves were definitely worth going to and seeing, but I am hoping to see some gamelan music that is performed for Indonesians or musicians soon.

If you’ve been to Bali before and have any must-sees (or anywhere in western Indonesia, where I am going after this Bali trip), let me know in the comments below!