We watch a documentary called 'Done Bali'. Technically we watched it on Wednesday, but it has stayed with me ever since. Aside from the odd horror film, which has kept me awake for nights following, I have never wished to 'unwatch' something more.
The documentary tells us, rather unsurprisingly, that the sudden growth in tourism to Bali has begun to ruin it. Footage of Kuta is predictably seedy, full of neon and cheap shots, but the abundance of craft shops and traffic in Ubud has gradually driven out its local inhabitants, who now travel in to service the tourist trade. Also unsurprising and a similar story to many places, especially in South East Asia.
What really shakes me, though, is the suggestion that nothing much is actually real anymore. In the early twentieth century, it seems, a western ex pat living on Bali began to circulate tales of a 'paradise, where every farmer is an artist and every child a dancer'. This may have been true to some extent back then, but a while later, when more and more of the richer westerners began to travel here, the Balinese 'simple' way of life, so eulogised about by disillusioned westerners, masked great poverty. Tourists were photographing Balinese children or field workers not realising that they were actually starving. The idea that the Balinese had some sort of deep wisdom, choosing to live their lives so basically, so entwined with the earth, was fabricated by idealists. A lot of it was because they didn't have any choice. Later still, when some of the more modern inventions finally became accessible to a, now more prosperous, Balinese, the ex pat westerners begged them not to get electricity.
"You'll spoil it, we said" recalls one such westerner, "all that candle light and lanterns will be gone."
All that candle light. All that fire risk. All those strained retinas trying to weave cloth and carve wood by it. We simply do not have the right to choose for others a tough, hard fought existence because we think it looks pretty.
"Don't get TV" the ex pats counselled, "your children will watch it instead of playing games."
They got TV anyway. Why not? We did.
I am reminded of my own aversion to traffic. Do I want women walking down the street carrying pots on their heads? Horses and carts? But I've said myself - it's a big island. If I want to see a reasonable quantity of it I am not going to manage it in horses and carts. If we drive locals, however unwittingly, out of their home towns, it's the least we can do to allow them a moped.
By far what unsettles me the most, though, is the idea that, over the years Balinese have learned to play up to the tourists.
"Some of them," says a woman whose smiling yet absolute cynicism haunts me still, "are very good at 'being Balinese'. They bring tourists to ceremonies and their friends are laughing and talking about them in Balinese, commenting on how fat they are, saying 'why did you bring such a porker to that ceremony - she looks ridiculous in those clothes'. And the tourist doesn't understand any of this. They just" she smiles goofily and cups her hands under her chin, affecting an attitude of happy wonder, "they just think its all so wonderful. This amazing ceremony. So much culture."
I have taken a great dislike to this woman, largely because in her impression of an idealistic, star struck traveller, she has got me down to the proverbial 't'.
"What do you want then?" I ask her, sulkily, "shall I just be really cynical and resolve to hate everything?"
Frankly that attitude has happened, though admittedly to a lesser extent, quite naturally recently, and do you know what? That woman doesn't feel sorry about it. She doesn't even know.
As the documentary closes, juxtaposing a song composed by a Balinese woman in which she notes that 'we are constantly acting,' and asks 'why can't we move on and be something else?' with a western song called 'Bali you are calling' which eulogises about paradise (it's really quite a good documentary) we sit, silently, and look at each other.
"Should we just go?" suggests M.
I know what he means. I don't want to contribute to the 'Kuta-isation' of hitherto beautiful places, neither do I want to force an ideal on a country when I am not willing to live it myself. I am worried that when I venture into the untouched countryside I am either eroding it or witnessing a facade put on for my benefit. And is it possible to travel without changing a place by your presence?
On the other hand, the development of a country, including things like work saving technology and healthcare, is often helped hugely by tourist income. Countries like Cambodia court tourism because it will bring in much needed funds. But I am not going to kid myself that I am doing a country a favour by being good enough to buy a drink there.
Middle class angst? Yep. But it's well meaning. And how far does that go? M and I think about where we go, what we do and how ethically we spend our money. We don't drop litter or bargain people down to well below a reasonable price. And what more can we do? Bar not travelling at all?
It's a conundrum. What you need is 'invisible travel'. A way of seeing and appreciating a place without leaving a mark, without affecting the behaviour of the locals around you. How would you do that? Learn the language before arrival? Dress in local styles and fabrics? Research it so thoroughly you don't need to ask advice or book tours or let on there's a market? Invisible travel would be harder than it initially sounds.
"I don't know how to end this blog entry" I tell M, "I haven't come to a conclusion. I've ranted a bit but I don't know what the answer is."
"Just put 'so there'" suggests M.
It's not such a bad idea.
What's really got to me, of course, is the idea that, having come to Bali and been disappointed by its commercialisation, I am now contributing to further commercialisation and, even worse, that the 'authentic' places I do find, may not actually be authentic. That and the possibility that somebody, somewhere might be saying I'm fat.
But we are, we really, really are doing our very best not to damage anything.
And the fact is, as I've written before in this blog, there is no such thing as 'authentic Bali', 'authentic Malaysia' or, for that matter, 'authentic Britain'. Not only is each geographical area, each town, each estate of each town different, but each person is. In Vietnam we had an authentic experience if somebody if our host's social class and personality. In Thailand we experienced reasonably wealthy fishermen. In Dalat we stayed in the house of a poor family who had been quite destitute in the past. And in Langkawi we stayed with Gemmy. Who was in a class of his own and doggedly untypical.
So maybe everything is authentic. If it's built up and busy, it's authentically so. If it's rural and hard working, it's authentically that. And if it's all an act and the farmers will roll out their combines as soon as we're out of sight, it's authentically that. It's still a slice of life.
And if somebody welcomes me to a ceremony and then hurls insults at me to their mates in their language. Well fine. They're authentically mean and two faced.
So there.
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