In Reply to: When was your first time? posted by Nose Hair Doug on Friday, 11. March 2016 at 14:17 Bali Time:
I passed through Bali first in September 1967. A trade embargo had existed with Indonesia since 1963, a semi-war was being fought with Malaysia/Britain/Australia and Borneo till 1966 when President Sukharno was overthrown in a military coup. This opened up the way for normal relations. At that time I found myself in Singapore in tight financial circumstances when I met 4 young Aussie blokes who had made it through island hoping from Portuguese Timor. They told wondrous tales such that with 3 others I resolved to do that trip in reverse. Thus we found ourselves in Bali; a place I had never heard of. At that time there were on maps, no travel guides, nobody who spoke English, almost no transport of any kind and no accommodation. ...but it was great. Pretty much all of east Bali was under a black lave flow from Gunung Agung and crossing it on foot was painful, hot and slow.
2nd trip; August 1968. The first place had opened in Denpasar; The Adiyasa. Adi was a really great guy but no businessman and was constantly broke through gambling on his cocks... but he had great tales to tell. A regional bemo network had started out of Denpasar so I was able to visit Sanur, and Kuta on day trips. Neither had anywhere to stay though the Bali Beach Hotel in Sanur was pretty much completed though had no customers. People considered the hotel together with the airport still way off completion, as being Sukarno's ‘white elephants'. It seems Sukarno (his mum was Balinese) had invested the last of his Japanese reparation funds in these two convinced it was the way out of Indonesia's financial woes. In Kuta there was nothing; I was told that foreigners had had a guest house long before but nothing remained of the building where I was pointed. The main industry there seemed to be gathering dead coral to convert into cement in small backyard kilns. To the left, the airport runway was still under construction
3rd Trip; December 1971: Adi had reportedly absconded from his family with a young American Chick and hadn't been heard of again. The first losmen was opened at Kuta. Half way down Jl Pantai Kuta it consisted of a strip of about 6 rooms on the left with the café and a couple more rooms on the right... can't remember the name. Anyone? Probably there were a dozen of us there at any time. Nowhere to eat much at night so it was trips to Denpasar's pasar malam fraught with the danger of having a long dark walk if you missed the last bemo. A number of other tourist buildings were under construction of the bamboo/palm pondok style.
Passed through again on 4th, 5th and 6th trips up to 1974. That was it for me for a long time. Kuta was getting too much so moved into the first Legian place in 1973. By 1974 walking anywhere in Bali was no longer giving us much pleasure so we had to give it up.
Further short trips in the ‘80s and '90s and so on. These days We call in for a couple of days pretty much every year on our way somewhere else and generally that's great....but the sawah destruction I find just so horrendous... and we're not ready for the beach lounge and bar life yet....maybe in a few more years...