Paradise lost and found: how we broke the Bali spell
Bali’s beachside didn’t make it very easy or us to fall in love with, or at least not at first and not in the way I imagined it based on the countless “ohs” and ahs” typically associated with the paradise island. You know: butterflies, sandy beaches, baby-blue water, silence and absolute chill.
After 10 initial Bali days spent in Ubud (another post coming soon = as soon as we stop eating, praying and loving, update: it’s here) we couldn’t wait to jump in the Uber (but psssst, Uber drivers can be beaten up by taxi drivers if they are outed as such) and drive towards the beaches of southern Bali.
But soon it started to feel like a Bali spell: we had our part in in the “bali belly” experience (“was is the cream sauce? Was it the salad? Did we swallow water while brushing our teeth?”), spent some time coughing and sneezing as a result of the AC roller-coaster, ended up in a hospital with a fishbone stuck in Tiago’s throat, booked ourselves into places with “excellent” Wi-Fi just to find out it stopped working the day we arrived…but mostly it was the beach experience itself that left us with a “meh” feeling.
Let’s say it loud and clear: Indonesia has a problem with trash and if you ask me, it’s a lethal disease if they won’t start to educate people, like, now.
The famous Jimbaran beach welcomed us with with Balinese kids swimming around plastic bottles. That can’t be the right spot, we thought and tried a romantic slalom around facial cream packages. Nope, all of the beach covered in garbage. We looked further but at the very much promising Dreamland beach, in the first 5 minutes I got hit on the head by an Oreo package. Surfing learning plans went to shit that day.
There was also the claustrophobic Padang Padang with a little bit less trash but much less space and the extremely only-surfer-friendly Balangan where we really didn’t know what to do more than to order a friend banana in one of the rundown cafes. It was just not what we were looking for.
Then there was also Nusa Dua with its resort-owned private beaches where ordinary not-yet-millionaires were only allowed to stay within areas marked by dug out sand holes. We bravely walked beyond the hole limit to have a look at the lifestyle of the rich but were quickly reminded by a guard that here we “can only walk but not stop” as stopping and sitting is only reserved for the guests. Whatever, the sand was too hot anyway.
A bit desperately we started to google “bali beaches + garbage” just to find many sad reviews on how tourists behave like pigs and Indonesian people are not used to do anything else than throwing stuff in the ocean. One of the expats who has been living in Bali for couple of years told us that it’s a matter of habit — this is what the locals have just always done with their small organic offerings for the Gods or coconut shells. And it was fine cause the ocean could process natural garbage.
But with massive tourism tones of plastic came into play and the problem grew exponentially. Nobody taught the Balinese otherwise so they just keep throwing non-organic trash into water and turtles get washed out on beaches with plastic bags in their mouths.
The problem intensifies in the rainy season, we’ve been told, as the trash from Java gets washed towards Bali. It doesn’t help that hordes of Chinese, Australian and European tourist who (I would like to think) due to a lack of big garbage bins, just leave their trash on the beach like there is no tomorrow.
And just as we were: “fu* that, let’s go to Thailand already”, we gave it a last chance and Tiago found a blog with a hint on a “secret beach” Nyang Nyang with almost no people on it (read about the experience here) but a sporty hike to get there. A bit more encouraged by this spark of hope one day later we walked down another cliff to the lovely Bingin beach that took our picky European hearts by storm.
Should have seen our faces: a beach with a hippie vibe (no resorts!) but something of a kind of a small village with cute stairs built on a cliff, low-key surfer locations, indo-hipster food (let’s admit it: we love that shit!), seafood directly on the beach and really NOT MUCH TRASH.
The god old key seems to be: make it a bit less accessible for crowds and the beach will remain awesome.
By a lucky accident we found a room in an artsy loft of a guy from California. Bobby, a musician who is also publishing childrens’ books and consistently wearing only a sarong and colourful glasses, moved here for good 2,5 years ago. He bought a whole floor of an abandoned hotel and made it to his private awesome paradise.
Now we are having our granola breakfasts with a premium view on the Indian Ocean, morning yoga just 10-minute hike away, the Wi-Fi works like a dream and we don’t even wear flip-flops anymore cause who needs them when you have the ocean at the doorstep?
Bali — Bingin made you great again!
Can’t get enough? We committed to post one picture a day to Instagram:
Niedoskonała wersja polska dla rodziców.
