Lat 8`44.5S Long 115`12.7E
It is certain that Bali has been populated since pre-historic times. The oldest artifacts found are 3,000 years old. The earliest written records date back to the 9th century, well after the Indians had brought Hinduism to the archipelago. At the time, the Balinese were technically Hindu, but had incorporated in many of their animist beliefs (religion practiced prior to the arrival of Hinduism), creating a branch of Hinduism quite different from that practiced in India. By that time they already had a complex irrigation system used for growing rice.

In 1284 Bali was first conquered by its neighbor to the west, Java. This lead to two centuries of struggle for independence, with Bali winning for many years, then losing for as many, etc. In the 1400’s, Java’s empire fell apart and many intellectuals, artists, dancers, musicians and actors fled from Java to Bali. With so many artists, Bali flourished as an artistic center. In the 16th and 17th centuries, neighbor Java, as well as many other islands in the archipelago converted to Islam, but Bali held onto its unique Hindu belief system and corresponding artistic culture.

By the time the Dutch arrived, Bali had conquered its neighbor to the east, Lombok. In 1846, the Dutch began moving in and conquering sections of Bali. The Dutch also supported a Lombok rebellion, so the Balinese were simultaneously fighting the people of Lombok as well as the Dutch. By 1906 all of Bali was under Dutch control.

In the 1970’s, the tourism boom began, bringing with it better roads, communication, education and health. Bali is the largest tourist destination in Indonesia. For those of you who are wondering what happened between 1906 and the 70’s, that is covered in Welcome to Kupang (LINK).

The northwest tip of Bali was in sight as the sun came up. So were dozens of tiny little canoes with an outrigger on each side that made them look like funky little spiders on the water. A few had small sails, too. At first we weaved our way around the army of tiny fishing boats, but the closer we got, the more boats appeared on our horizon. Soon there were literally 400 of these little boats all around us. The radar went berserk. Maneuvering around them was impossible since they were everywhere. The current was really strong and we were flying along at 10 knots. We crossed our fingers the little boats would get out of our way. Fortunately, they did.

We have never seen so many boats before. It looked surreal to see them all. We later found out that the ideal time to catch squid is during the new moon at the time of day with the strongest current, and all the boats were out on the squid hunt.

As we made our way down the east coast of Bali Island, the fishing boats thinned out and eventually were all gone. We headed into Benoa Harbor, located on the south east side of the island. There was a boat idling up ahead. We decided to veer to our port (left) to go around it. Suddenly, we realized we were very close to a shallow spot. Talk about a heart stopper. Eric threw Kosmos in reverse and turned around, going around the other side of the boat. It turns out it is a dredging boat and the boat was completely blocking the marker indicating the shallow area.

We pulled into the marina with no further incident. We were assigned a slip and tied up. The marina is small. It is located in a section of town called Benoa Harbor, on a strip of reclaimed land (man made land made from dredging) kind of sticking out in the middle of the Benoa Harbor body of water. The building is a barn style ceiling that has walls on three sides and one side completely open. It is tactfully decorated with nautical décor. We handed our paperwork over to one of the people who runs the marina so they could take care of all the government formalities for us. Then we proceeded to have a celebratory lunch in the marina restaurant.

During lunch we came up with a crazy plan to try to sneak into the UN Climate Change Conference going on right now in Bali. It was taking place literally a couple miles south of us as the bird flies in a part of town called Nusa Dua, which is a fancy resort area just like the one in Denaru, Fiji. There are 190 countries participating in the conference and there are an estimated 11,000 15,000 people there now that are affiliated with the conference, including security, reporters, and so forth. Most of the countries involved sent some of their highest ranking officials, and many, such as Australia and Indonesia, sent their very top dog. Al Gore was there, too, arriving a couple days late because he was busy picking up his Nobel Peace Prize.

After lunch we made arrangements to get fuel, got Kosmos situated, checked email and the news, then got ready to go. We put on clothing that we felt was presentable enough to get us through the door, trying to look like business people, not boaters. We hopped in a taxi and told the driver to take us to the Westin, the conference center and hotel where the big event was taking place. We had read in the news that several environmentalists had tried to sneak in to have a say and were caught and thrown out. We didn’t expect to get in, but we figured we would scope it out and try again to get in the next day when we had a better feel for the lay of the land and how to sneak in.

While a short way as the bird flies, it was actually a relatively long drive because we had to literally go from the north tip of Benoa Bay all the way around to the south tip. On the road, it was clear that Bali is much nicer than Kupang. There are no shacks that look like they will fall over. Some buildings were in need of repair, instead of most. There were many very nice buildings. There is an odd mix of mom and pop storefronts, like we have seen in the other cities in Indonesia, and western style shopping centers. The architectural style is a mix of modern, Balinese, and the unattractive boxy squares we had seen in the other Indonesian cities. The streets are narrow and jam packed with taxis, some bemos, tons of scooters and lots of private cars. There is little trash about, unlike the other cities that had trash strewn everywhere. Most of the signs are in English, whereas in the other cities none of the signs were in English.

To be continued”¦.