Bali: A Travel Adventure

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Patrick R. Booz. Bali: A Travel Adventure

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Intricate, gaudy offerings called tjilis are made of moulded, fried rice flour, dyed with brilliant colors and embellished with flowers.

A kebyar duduk dancer strikes a stylized dance position. This dance was first choreographed and performed in the 1930s.

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Bali is just over 2,000 square miles (5,181 square kilometers) in area, barely one-quarter the size of Wales, and densely populated with nearly three million inhabitants. Its tropical richness and the ingenious use of terraced rice fields allow the land to support such overcrowding. Elaborate systems of irrigation bring water down from the high volcanoes to the shimmering emerald-green fields found in most corners of the island. Rice is the most important food in Bali; the crop is the source of life and wealth and is recognized as a gift from the gods. Accord-ing to legend, rice first appeared on Bali when the male God of Water raped Mother Earth to beget rice. Wet-rice farming has been practised on Bali for well over 1,000 years, and today’s amazing contoured landscape is the heritage of 50 generations of farmers.

The need to tend the rice and care for the fields led to the rise of the desa, or village, the chief social unit in Bali. It is much more than just a village, however, it is community, parish and focal point of all life for the Balinese. Cozy and safe within a lush grove, surrounded by walls and bountiful trees—coconut, banana, papaya, breadfruit—the desa functions to maintain the cosmic balance and harmony within the area of its jurisdiction, thus assuring the wellbeing of all. Every desa, and there are hundreds of them spread throughout the island, is thus seen to be fulfilling its obligation to gods and men.

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