Back to Bali

Vegan ice-cream in more flavours than you've had hot dinners. Certified-organic smoothie cafes. Bad urban planning. Upmarket clothing stores. Chakra unblocking retreats. Taxi mafia.

Yes I am in Ubud,Bali.
(It's basically like Kuta but without the drug dealers, prostitutes, and rampant alcohol consumption.)

I arrived in Bali as a complete greenhorn - fresh off the plane. I'm now back where i started, although this time without the rose-tinted filter of novelty.

What is Bali really like?

I'll start off blunt. Bali is the most commercialised and tourist-orientated place I have visited throughout my entire journey. The economy here has adapted itself to Western preferences to such a high degree that large swathes of the island have lost any sort of authenticity - if we are making a comparison to the island of Java next door.
Having been to parts of the country which don't cater towards the tourist market, it is easy to see what does cater to the tourist market and in Ubud it is blaringly obvious that the western gentrification has pushed all local-oriented businesses to the outskirts, beyond reasonable walking distance for those staying in the centre. I can confidently say that the the central area of Ubud is more akin to a Balinese Indonesian theme park for Westerners than an actual town.

I think this leads onto the question of what tourism itself actually is because many people can fall under the category of 'tourist' yet simultaneously hold polar opposite ideas and desires. I think one of the largest topics of contention is authenticity and more importantly, whether authenticity is even desirable.

In my experience, a lot of what is popular within the tourism industry falls within the 'pseudo-authentic'. By that, I mean things which take influence from customary practices or remnants of the past, but over represent them in a way which is highly exaggerated and commercialised, or beyond what would occur in a regular society. There is a lot of overemphasis with simultaneous watering-down of local customs which may not necessarily be present within the greater society. In a lot of cases this overemphasis can reach such a degree where it becomes caricature-like, bordering on the ironic (eg a supermarket parking warden wearing a sarong and a udeng headscarf).
To a certain degree, it can be said that the image portrayed by the pesudo-authentic is a western construct or is at least a form of international gentrification, and that without the presence of rich foreigners, the landscape as it stands currently would implode and assume a much more utilitarian form. I think that if tourism were to cease indefinitely in Bali, then the bamboo huts and restaurants where you sit on the floor would disappear pretty quickly.

I think one of the best examples of this outside of Indonesia is Hoi An,Vietnam. Hoi An was a major trading hub along the east cost of Vietnam. It's significance waned during the 18th century and since then had regressed into a backwater, leaving behind a rich architectural and urban legacy. Hoi An currently stands as an extremely popular tourist attraction, perhaps the most popular in all of Vietnam if we are talking in terms of the number of international tourists in relation to its size.
I spent a few days in Hoi An after having already visited a few cities and villages in Vietnam, and one of the first observations I made was that it felt like a Vietnamese theme park for foreigners. I said this because it seemed as if 90% of the local economy was based off tourism and that there was very little else there. There were a few 'functional' businesses around the outskirts of Hoi An, but it was very clear that the nearby city of Da Nang was where things actually happened. I stayed in Da Nang for a few days and personally I found it to be a more authentic experience than neighbouring Hoi An, I think because it wasn't trying too hard to present an 'authentic' face to international visitors. Da Nang might not look as 'exotic' or a beautiful as Hoi An but I think that in itself is an indicator of authenticity. By staying in Da Nang and visiting a few other areas in Vietnam, it was possible to see what things were like when no one was trying to fulfil some kind of expectation for the benefit of outsiders.

From time to time you come across quiet areas such as this

That said, I acknowledge that as a traveller, I inevitably rely on the tourism industry for basic necessities such as accommodation and that without a tourism industry, it becomes extremely difficult and expensive to visit a particular area. This is the double edged sword that backpackers such as myself have to constantly watch out for. The benefits of mass tourism in a particular location means that the price of visiting an area is driven down by competition, however at the same time as this is occurring you have the decline in authenticity as the hotels and tour agencies push the local residents out from the area. It's common knowledge to any traveller that tourist 'ghettos' are often rife with inflated prices, cowboy taxi drivers, and cheesy trinkets, and that in order to do something like eat dinner at a 'normal' restaurant, you actually have to leave the ghetto. Bali is no exception, and in my opinion in is an island which has massive tourist 'ghettos', (the largest I have ever encountered) and they are expanding every year.

(I just want to clarify that when I use the term 'tourist ghetto', I don't necessarily mean a run-down area but rather a particular area in which the the overwhelming majority of business within that area are reliant on tourist money. They are quite often devoid of shops selling things which normal people actually need, such as toothpaste.)

Is Bali a magnificent place? Yes I believe it is but I also think that as the development continues, the risk of becoming a caricature of itself becomes increasingly higher.  Everybody wants a piece of paradise but piece gained is also another piece lost.

Villas along the Campuhan ridge, Ubud.