A Bit of Bali

December 1999 - January 2000

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.

by Howard Stiff

The legendary island of Bali in Indonesia

There should be a lot more sea kayaking here,' I think to myself, as I peer over the edge of the quirky sit-on-top into the aqua blue water of the Bali Sea. Geometric light patterns pulse across the sandy bottom two meters below. The equatorial sun has burned away the nebulous morning clouds and is rising swiftly due east. A light surf rolls beachward where colourful prahus outrigger sailing canoes perch on the black sands after returning from the morning fishing grounds. Above the prahus, fronds of the coconut palm sway like green topsails in the ever-present breeze.

I dip my paddle again and push on towards a nearby headland where the dense coral beds cover the bottom and exotic fish flash by my blade in streaks of luminescent blue and green and yellow. Much more to see below the surface of course, so before long I return to the reef via snorkel, mask and flippers. Suspended there above the living rock, vision is filled with moving colour. Under the surface, a shimmering school of inch-long fish surrounds me in silver slivers of light. The slivers dissolve, revealing a school of gray squid, like yellow-eyed torpedoes, cruising by in formation. Thimble-shaped jellyfish pulse and revolve like submarine space stations, while their comb-jelly cousins, ridged in luminous blue, spiral by like corkscrews. Below, in an intertidal garden of unearthly coral flowers, frilly fingers and purple protuberances wave in the surge amid boulderlike formations sprouting tiny hair-like polyps. Burgundy sea fans filter the current for invisible food particles. Streamlined fish, like yellow submarines with sky blue pinstripes chase each other round convoluted brain corals. Big-lipped parrotfish pluck voraciously at mushroom-shaped masses of calcareous coral. Tiny neons glint blue and red as they dart between plate-like fans of deepest black, fringed with iridescent blue edges. Comical triggerfish with neanderthal faces and paint palette bodies wander through the coral canyons while blue angelfish haloed in white sail majestically past the islands of living rock.

I dive down to a colony of soft bulb-like protuberances waving dark nipples in the sea surge. Colours dart away in all directions as the fish scoot for cover within coral crevasses, except one, a finger-sized clown fish in broad vertical stripes of orange, black and white, who confronts my mask fiercely till I blow it some bubbles, and it dashes away into the white waving bulbs for protection.

This is Amed, on the northeast point of Bali. Here, in the rain shadow of Gunung Agung, Bali's highest volcano (which exploded with devastating force in 1963, destroying farms and towns for miles around and spewing enough ash to blacken Bali's northern beaches to this day), the land is dry and hot, and the people either fish or pan salt from the seawater, or harvest peanuts on the dry boulder-strewn slopes. The northern coastline, dotted with simple beaches and fringed with coral reefs, stretches 150 km from Amed to Gilimanuk village in the west, and although largely unprotected by offshore islands, is not noted for big surf as in the south of Bali, where strong southerly winds bring the surfboards out at Kuta, Uluwatu, and Lembongan Island. Not that one would classify this stretch of coastline as wilderness paddling, exactly, given the number of villages that dot the map along the coastal road, but, with the possible exception of famous Lovina Beach near Singaraja, it's certainly off the beaten track. 'Yes,' I fantasize to myself, once again bouncing around above the reef in a hotel-supplied plastic tub, 'next time bring a folding kayak.'

A week later, back in the city of Ubud, I contact Sobek Adventure Tours who operate rafting, trekking and kayak excursions, and sign up for the Lake Tamblingan day tour. Franny, the friendly voice at the Sobek office, outlines in perfect English the trip details. We will be picked up at our hotel at 8 a.m. and driven to the destination, where kayak operation and safety instruction will be followed by a leisurely paddle round a 110 hectare mountain lake, with sumptuous lunch. But no, I am told, Sobek does not offer kayaking tours in the ocean, since they cater largely to beginners, nor do they provide boat rentals for those who would like to do so. Darn, or, as they say in Bali, adu.

The drive up into the mountains takes us through terraced rice paddies and plantations of corn mixed with low peanut shrubs. We pass several villages in which colourful festival celebrations are being prepared. The air becomes cooler as we climb, and in some places, misty with cloud. We pass Lake Bratan, a crater lake, then Lake Buyan and its strawberry farms, before arriving at Tamblingan, a lakeside village of about 5 or 6 families. Our Balinese tour guides prepare the kayaks at the lake's edge, alongside a handful of dugout canoes used by fishermen to pole their way around the reedy lake shallows to examine their bamboo fish weirs wherein they cultivate carp into goldfish. Beyond the village, the shoreline perimeter is an unbroken mass of vegetation, except at one point where a line of steps leads up to a meru, a tiered pagoda shrine thatched with black sugar palm rooves, perched like a chess-piece on a high point overlooking the lake.

The author on a paddle board at Ahmed Photo courtesy of Brenda Gaertner

As the Sobek guides gently and cheerfully usher the novices of the group through the practical considerations of paddling a kayak (in English, Japanese or German), I float just offshore, my hands idly languishing in the temperate water, the musical buzz of giant cicadas rising over the marsh, and it occurs to me that this must be a magical way to be introduced to the world of paddling.

Soon we are underway, a motley crew of multinationals, most too busy trying to master the basic paddle strokes and rudder manoeuvers to actually avoid physically bumping into each other at first. Bursts of laughter before imminent collision, followed by a round of scolding by a sky blue tengkek the Bali version of the crested kingfisher. Voices drop, however, as we fall in line along the shoreline, drifting under the hanging branches of flowering trees, or craning our necks up to view fern fronds six meters high. Somewhere above us in the branches of a banyan tree, a macaque monkey startles and springs to another tree with a hoot. Broad, bright red leaves of the blantih tree cascade to the water around us like plate-sized confetti.

Near the end of the lake, we are overtaken by a pair of dugout canoes from the village, loaded with offerings of rice and flowers on banana leaf mats. The canoes nose into an indentation in the shoreline ahead of us, where a cave-like depression in the overhanging cliff provides for a natural shrine. Here the villagers disembark and gather at least once a day to offer their thanks to the lake which feeds them. One of our guides adds something to the offering, and we paddle slowly on round the blessed lake, accompanied by a faint wisp of incense.

Sobek has been operating adventure tours including sea kayaking in Bali since 1992 and is rated as one of the top 10 businesses in Indonesia. Contact Sobek Bali: Tel 62-361-287059. Fax 62-361-289448.
Email sobek@denpasar.wasantara.net.id. Or visit the Sobek web site at www.mtsobek.com.
Many thanks to our fearless and knowledgeable tour guides: Wayan, Nyoman, Carmen and Putu Suridi.