We’ve crossed the Equator! Our next stop, and the last refueling before entering Australia, is Denpasar (DPS), the Capital of Bali.
Elder G and I were quite surprised to see a line demarcating the northern and southern hemispheres, just like on the maps!
A Bit About Bali
Bali is an Indonesian island and province and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller offshore islands. The provincial capital, Denpasar, is the most populous city in the Lesser Sunda Islands and the second-largest, after Makassar, in Eastern Indonesia. The Denpasar metropolitan area is the extended metropolitan area around Denpasar. The upland town of Ubud in Greater Denpasar is considered as Bali’s cultural centre. The province is Indonesia’s main tourist destination, with a significant rise in tourism since the 1980s, and has become the country’s area of overtourism. Tourism-related business makes up 80% of the Bali economy.
Bali is the only Hindu-majority province in Indonesia, with 86.40% of the population adhering to Balinese Hinduism. It is renowned for its highly developed arts, including traditional and modern dance, sculpture, painting, leather, metalworking, and music.
Denpasar is the capital and the largest city of the province of Bali, Indonesia. Denpasar is the largest city in the Lesser Sunda Islands and the second largest city in Eastern Indonesia after Makassar. It is bordered by Badung Regency to its west, Gianyar Regency to its east, and the Indian Ocean and the Badung Strait to its south. The growth of the tourism industry on the island of Bali has pushed the city of Denpasar to become a center of business activities, and has positioned the city as an area with high per capita income and growth in Bali.
With the rapid growth of the tourism industry in Bali, Denpasar has encouraged and promoted business activities and ventures, contributing to it having the highest growth rate in Bali Province. The population of Denpasar was 725,314 at the 2020 Census.
We had a few minutes to explore, so Elder G suggested we get a strong cup of coffee and something fried. I asked her/him, why fried? His/her answer? “No existential questions, just crunch and relief.”
I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport (DPS)
I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport (IATA: DPS, ICAO: WADD), also known as Denpasar International Airport and Bali Airport, is the main international airport of Bali, Indonesia. Located 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) from Downtown Denpasar, it serves the Denpasar metropolitan area and the whole island of Bali. Ngurah Rai is the second busiest airport in Indonesia after Soekarno-Hatta. Ngurah Rai is one of the most popular island destinations hubs in Asia.
The airport is named after I Gusti Ngurah Rai, a Balinese hero who died on 20 November 1946 in a puputan (fight to the death) against the Dutch at Marga in Tabanan, where the Dutch defeated his company with air support, killing Ngurah Rai and 95 others during the Indonesian National Revolution in 1946.
In 2000, the airport recorded 43,797 domestic and international flights, carrying 4,443,856 passengers. By the end of April 2011, the airport’s terminals handled 11.1 million passengers a year, exceeding its capacity of 8 million.
Modern, green with a touch of Balinese accent Modern By BxHxTxCx (using album) – A best architectural mix, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72899635
Mount Agung (‘The Great Mountain’) is an active volcano in Karangasem Regency, Bali, Indonesia. It is located southeast of Mount Batur volcano, also in Bali. It is the highest point on Bali [3,031 m (9,944 ft)], and dominates the surrounding area, influencing the climate, especially rainfall patterns. From a distance, the mountain appears to be perfectly conical. From the peak of the mountain, it is possible to see the peak of Mount Rinjani on the nearby island of Lombok, to the east, although both mountains are frequently covered in clouds. Agung is a stratovolcano, with a large and deep crater. Its most recent eruptions occurred from 2017–2019.
The lava flows [1963–64 eruption] missed, sometimes by mere meters, the Mother Temple of Besakih. The saving of the temple is regarded by Balinese as miraculous and a signal from the gods that they wished to demonstrate their power but not destroy the monument that the Balinese had erected.
[ed. note: visualization by Elder G, not part of the Wikipedia article]
Religious beliefs Balinese people believe that Mt Agung is a replica of Mt Meru, the central axis of the universe. The most important temple on Bali, Pura Besakih, is high on the slopes of Gunung Agung.
Mount Agung is at the left; Mount Batur, or what remains of it, is to the right of center; on the far right is Mount Bratan. This view is looking to the south west.
By Tiket2 – https://www.flickr.com/photos/tiket2/49337655467/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85714721
Mount Agung erupting on 27 November 2017 By Michael W. Ishak (www.myreefsdiary.com) – Original work provided by Michael W. Ishak to Delphine Ménard (uploader), CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64395510
There is so much wrongness packed into this Wikipedia article about Bali:
In the 1930s, anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, artists Miguel Covarrubias and Walter Spies, and musicologist Colin McPhee all spent time here. Their accounts of the island and its peoples created a Western image of Bali as “an enchanted land of aesthetes at peace with themselves and nature”. Soon after, Western tourists began to visit the island. The sensuous image of Bali was enhanced in the West by a quasi-pornographic 1932 documentary, Virgins of Bali, about a day in the lives of two teenage Balinese girls, who the film’s narrator Deane Dickason notes in the first scene “bathe their shamelessly nude bronze bodies.” Under the looser version of the Hays code that existed up to 1934, nudity involving “civilised” (i.e., white) women was banned, but permitted with “uncivilised” (i.e., all non-white women), a loophole that was exploited by the producers of Virgins of Bali. The film, which mostly consisted of scenes of topless Balinese women, was a great success in 1932, and was perhaps the main catalyst for the popularity of Bali among tourists.
“Bali Ha’i“, also spelled “Bali Hai”, is a show tune from the 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific. The name refers to a mystical island, visible on the horizon but not reachable, and was originally inspired by the sight of Ambae island from neighboring Espiritu Santo in Vanuatu, where author James Michener was stationed in World War II.
In South Pacific In the musical, Bali Ha’i is a volcanic island within sight of the island on which most of the action takes place. The troops think of Bali Ha’i as an exotic paradise, but it is off-limits—except to officers. Bali Ha’i’s matriarch, Bloody Mary[1], conducts much business with the troops, and she meets Lt. Joseph Cable soon after he arrives. She sings to him her mysterious song “Bali Ha’i”, with its haunting orchestral accompaniment, because she wants to entice him to visit her island. She doesn’t tell him that she wants him to meet, and fall in love with, her young daughter Liat.
From left: Logan, Rodgers, Hammerstein, Martin and Michener
Billis (Myron McCormick) and Bloody Mary (Juanita Hall) haggle over grass skirts as Bali Ha’i looms in the background
Mary Martin Juanita Hall as Bloody Mary
Mary Martin washed her hair onstage eight times a week.
[1] A 2001 article in Islands Magazine states that Michener renamed Aoba Island Bali-ha’i. The author interviewed the proprietor of a resort on Espiritu Santo, who claimed the “real Bloody Mary” lived on Espiritu Santo for many years after the war and lived to the age of 102.
