Episodios
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A quick word of introduction. My name is Stuart McDonald and this is Couchfish—the perfect tub of ice-cream for the traveller stranded on the couch. The newsletter has both a paid edition which traces a fantasy itinerary through Southeast Asia, and a free one that covers, well, everything else. If you’d like to support me finding more tourism stuff to moan about, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you.
My piece on finding a beach house thanks to my dog wasn’t so much a humble brag, and today’s post explains why. Much as I wrote, our little garden was a (very messy) canvas for the landscaper, and the beach house would be a canvas of my own. One not so much to try my hand at art—think yourself lucky—but rather a sustainability one. I’ve been writing for years on sustainable tourism, and here was an opportunity to put my words into action. Grand plans and all that.
In case you’re new to the couch, sustainable tourism (in theory) rests on three foundations—the environment, the economy, and the social. While I have no intentions in turning the beach shack into a rental, how can I de-shackify it with these principles in mind? As it turns out, few things come easy.
Inventiveness through necessity. The builders’ entire tool set. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
As with the foundations of a real house, sustainable tourism’s three bases intertwine and rely upon one another. Viewed in a holistic manner, it’s all well and good to source local labour, but if they’re building eleventy million private pool villas in a water-stressed locale, the end result is not ideal.
In my case, there is much to do. The house has a bathroom my kids won’t touch with a bargepole, the “garden” is like a set out of Apocalypse Now, and the electrics, well, as an Australian electrician once said of our flat in Bangkok, “it’s a death trap.”
I’m a travel writer—not an architect. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
With Agung’s help—and at my instruction—we source a local building team. From two villages very close at hand, these guys know how to mix concrete, and at that they excel. While I need that talent, I also want a staggered and curving bamboo wall for a far larger bathroom. One of the team has worked with bamboo before, though never a curving, multi-section wall. He reckons it won’t be too much more complicated and I agree. We are both wrong.
While Agung “searches in the jungle for bamboo he likes,” the team busy themselves on the wall base and piping. I want to move the toilet and have two showers, one at either end. At the prompt of another, I asked after P-traps. P whats you ask? Yeah, same—it is to be one of many terms I learn that I wish I never needed to. After I sketch one out (thanks Google) the builders confess to having no idea, nor any idea where to buy them. Not for the last time, they improvise, building them out of pipe joins to make the same. Over and over their inventiveness impresses—as does their willingness to do things over as needed. In general, three times is a charm.
Is this the second or third try? I forget. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
In the end though, we get there. It takes twice as long, and my costs blow out a little—thanks in part to someone helping themselves to some bamboo—but the end product is great. The tub, one day to be used far in the future when I have hot water, is Bali-made.
The tub is a nice pivot point to water. As with much of Bali, there’s no mains, and instead out back I have a ten-metre deep well. Back in the day they’d hoisted it by bucket, but now a pump gives a much appreciated assist. It isn’t drinking water though, which leaves me needing to buy aqua gallons. Sure they’re refillable and all, but treated water would be great. We have a filtration system at our house in the south, but that cost close to what the shack is costing me per year, so I stick with the refills.
The kids’ names, ok, but cats and the dog? Crazy bule. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
What about hot water? Youtube tells me to lay black hose all over the back off the roof, use the pump to fill it, and let the sun heat it through the day. A cheap man’s solar I guess. This seems simple and something even I could manage, only then another alerts me to the risks of Legionnaires’ disease through such an approach. The risks are, it seems, low, but given how accident-prone I tend to be, I figure this is tempting fate. I stick with cold water—perhaps one day I’ll invest in solar to warm it up.
Solar brings me to power, and researching this, I talk to a solar set-up in South Bali. They ask what fittings I have, and I say one pump, nine lightbulbs, and some plugs for my laptop. They reply saying they need the information for the whole house—not one room. When I say this is the whole house, they suggest a car battery, explaining solar will take longer than my lease to pay itself off. End result, a future discussion with Agung to extend the lease by twenty years or so. I do however, rewire the entire house—the sparky conveniently lives just up the road—and yes, I have him on speed dial.
Looks solid. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
On the social side of things, there are two strands—work and food. Aside from the builders, who could I invest in my shack? The farmer who keeps an eye on the place now continues to do so, but is paid for his efforts. I even get him to stop setting my compost on fire. Another guy from a neighbouring village drops by every Friday to take to the garden with a machete—he heads to prayers afterwards, no doubt asking for forgiveness. The farmer’s wife both washes the sheets when I’m away and comes to make the offerings at the shack temple. These are all little things, and, save the offerings, things I could do myself, but this seems the least I can do.
Food wise, as I mentioned the other day, the shack kitchen is good for nothing but boiling water for coffee. Near all my meals come from a local babi guling warung or a line of nasi warungs up at the temple. The food is, I think without exception, all sourced locally.
About as pan-Asian as my meals get. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
There’s also a side story to the warungs. One morning I’m at one, and another customer asks me where I’m staying. Before I can answer, the owner replies on my behalf, telling her “He’s Australian, but he lives in Kerobokan. He comes up here a lot, but his wife and kids don’t come much.”
This is the thing—I keep to myself. Some days I chat to the fishermen on early morning walks, farmers drop by to sit on my porch, drink my coffee, and correct my Indonesian. I don’t go to the frequent cremations, though I do make a donation whenever the temple asks. Somehow all this filters up to a warung owner a kilometre away by the temple.
No photos of the magic helicopter, so here’s a magic pineapple. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
One morning chatting, a farmer tells me the house is haunted. “Babies in the well,” they say, “bad teenagers,” says another during a different session. This is, unsettling, and I do dream unweildy dreams while there. I’d put them down to the sea breeze and the sound of the surf, but perhaps there is something more at play. There’s a huge fragipani in the back corner overhanging the temple, and every month local villagers visit to make offerings at its base. I think this is for the babies or the teens, but instead it’s for good luck in some local numbers competition.
Very pre-dawn one morning I watch a helicopter offshore in darkness. Hovering, lights ablaze, I wonder if there is a search and rescue underway, as the fishers’ boats sink with disturbing regularity. But then it simply flies off. When I later ask Agung about it, he nods pensively, saying it is the “magic helicopter.” I’m still not quite sure what to make of that.
The cover is there for a reason. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
I don’t know quite what ghost stories have to do with sustainable tourism’s social pillar, but these conversations, at least for me, are useful. They help me understand—or not—in the smallest of ways, the cycle of life the local people follow. It is a very different cycle to mine, and they’re just as curious about mine—though nothing is off limits when they’re asking me stuff!
Grievances and inter-religious resentments surface fast, as does a sometimes sense of helplessness. Farmers keep cows in simple shelters on a few spots on the beach out front, and during the foot and mouth outbreak this is a big problem. Cows are sick, and some die, and as they tell me about it, as with rice cultivation, the brutal economics behind beef surface. The government is of some help, but as indicated by the collapsed retaining wall down the beach, not always in the most appropriate manner.
Seasonal squatter. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
For the first year, a local twenty-something guy drops by most days to chat. Smart and a tourism worker in the South but now mostly jobless thanks to the pandemic, he tells me about the trade. Miserly pay rates, exploitation, long commutes, then much of the wage lost paying for accommodation and food. He left some time ago, like many offshored young Balinese as an employee in the cruise industry. I remember talking to him not long before he left, his eyes bright with the expectation of seeing the world. He queries better-travelled me endlessly on what to see where. The debrief upon his return will be interesting to say the least.
So shaking it out, I managed to hire locally and use mostly local goods. The math on power and water changes, at least for the moment, don’t add up. I eat locally and contribute where I can to local undertakings. Still it’s a superficial affair, and yet, there is a far higher impact approach I could have taken—if I’d had the money. I could have knocked down the joglo, built an inward-looking expat ice cream cake with a big wall, a pool hidden behind, and an Ubud-sourced chef and attached staff.
The first of many visitors, though I didn’t mention the ghost helicopter. Photo: Putu.
I don’t want any of these things though, and truth be told, while I haven’t specifically asked them, I get the feeling the local people don’t either. To them, I think I’m a bit of a curiosity, the bule who listens to Led Zeppelin, who sweeps the leaves in a sarong every morning, and who pointlessly moves piles of dirt around.
Most importantly though, we all know I’m a guest.
Couchfish is 100 per cent independent and reader-supported. If you’re not already a subscriber, and you’d like to show your support, become a paying subscriber today for just US$7 per month—you can find out more about Couchfish here—or simply share this story with a friend.
Don’t forget, you can find the free podcasts on Apple, Pocket Casts and Spotify as well as right here on Couchfish.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit couchfish.substack.com -
A quick word of introduction. My name is Stuart McDonald and this is Couchfish—the perfect tub of ice-cream for the traveller stranded on the couch. The newsletter has both a paid edition which traces a fantasy itinerary through Southeast Asia, and a free one that covers, well, everything else. If you’d like to support me finding more tourism stuff to moan about, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you.
I’ve always wanted a beach house, but little did I know my route to one would be a puppy. A few years ago I got one of the latter, an accidental one. Fostered upon us by a pair of Sam’s yoga students who’d rescued her abandoned on a Bali building site, she was a family dog, but in no short time she became mine—or me hers, or whatever. Today, we’re pretty much inseparable. Her name is Skye Govinda—no, don’t ask.
Where we live in South Bali, we have a small garden area beside the pool. It is one of those super compact gardens, but the soil is so fertile even a gardener as inept as me can develop a thriving jungle. Controlling it, well that’s another question, and when Skye arrives, she sees the muddy mess as a perfect canvas to build her scale model of the Somme. Long story short, we get a landscaper in to swap out the Somme for a Batuan.
Not quite a Batuan, but it will do. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
The landscaper’s name is Agung. He’s Balinese, and midway through the de-Somming of the garden, we’re chatting, and Medewi in West Bali comes up. Best known for its surfing, it’s roughly halfway between our house and Bali’s western ferry port at Gilimanuk.
Chatting with Agung about the area, he mentions he has a beach house there, “oh that must be nice,” I say. A moment later he asks if I’d like to buy it. I laugh, do I look like I could afford a beach house? He grabs his phone, and after flicking through a bazillion plant snaps, hands it to me.
Garden needs work. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
The house is a joglo, a Javanese wooden house which he purchased in Java, dismantled, and shipped to Bali. He plonked it on some of his land and listed it on Airbnb, expecting to hit paydirt. Things didn’t quite work out, and in the two years since, he’s had one guest. He’s keen to offload it.
Joglos come in all shapes and sizes. Traditionally they’re associated with Java’s aristocratic class, but they need not be so grand. Boiled down they’re a square house with four inner columns holding up the roof with everything else hanging off it. For years they’ve been popularised as an “authentic” slice of holidaying, much like what you see with the wooden houses in Cambodia and Thailand.
Plenty of rice out back. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
On the fancy to not-grand-at-all time-space-continuum, Agung’s joglo falls off the end of the not-grand-at-all side of things. Think barn. The photos though, don’t illustrate how close to the beach it actually is. For that, he has a brief and bouncy walk-through video. It seems like the beach is right out front, and by that I mean Right Out Front—it is an absolute beachfront house. Despite this, he’s had one live body in it. What’s the catch? An abattoir or sheet metal factory next door? I ask more questions.
I ask where exactly the house is. He’s vague, but confirms he has a clear title for the land. I pour over Google Maps and find somewhere that may be it, the beach out front, farmland for hundreds of metres on the other sides. I ask if this is it, but he’s unsure, the satellite view confuses him. He rattles off directions related to a temple and some warungs, but this doesn’t make much sense to me. He’s talking about a location further west of Medewi than I expect and I’m unfamiliar with the area.
Like the garden, the bathroom needed some work. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
We give up on maps and Agung shows me the listing on Airbnb. To be fair, the photos do not show it in its best light. The solitary guest has given Agung a long letter of recommendation, so I read it. She pulls her punches a bit, noting that the house is “still being built,” but later mentions how quiet it is, that during her month-long stay (she’s a writer apparently), she never sees another foreigner on the beach. The locals in the closest village stare a lot, she writes, but are friendly. Starry nights and blissful silence—save the surf, get a mention.
Yes, the shack is a shack, but putting aside its absolute shackery, everything else sounds perfect. I’m one of simple pleasures—and I know shacks can be unshacked. I love it and, as I wrote up top, have always wanted a beach house, but again I tell Agung I’ve not the means to buy one. This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been down the track towards beach house living—first in Thailand, and then Cambodia—is this to be a case of third time lucky?
The tub in the new bathroom will be more useful once I get hot water. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
“Just lease it then,” he says, “one year, two years, twenty, I don’t care, up to you.”
I’ve not even considered this option, and as soon as I ask for a number, his eyes glint, he knows he has me. He throws out an opening gambit, “nego of course,” he laughs. We agree to meet up at the house the next day.
Not 24 hours later we’re sitting on the back steps, looking over rice fields that run out for miles towards the western tail of Bali’s mountains. Behind us, thirty footsteps from the front stairs, the surf crashes in. The gardens are wild and overgrown, with bougainvillea covering much of the front of the house and ready to leap onto the roof. It’s hard to tell how big the block is for the garden.
Dawn, with Mount Batukaru in the distance. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Agung introduces me to a local farmer who keeps an eye on the place for him. Then comes his offsider, and the offsider’s offsider. We drink coffee and eat watermelon. There’s chit chat, but also a lot of just sitting. For me I’m soaking it up, but for the locals, they live it, and they’re baffled why I’m even interested. There’s no air-con nor fan, no hot water, and just a few light bulbs. One asks, why would you want to live in this? I want to tell him it’s my antidote to the south—an area of the island I’ve drown to dislike with a passion—but I don’t know the Indonesian word for antidote. Instead I tell them I like simple stuff. They nod, but they clearly think I’m mad.
To a point they’re on the money as the shack is in a right state. The bamboo bathroom walls have collapsed, replaced by a wall of ferns and palms. The roof has some leaks. The water pump looks like it came from the Titanic. The “kitchen” is anything but. You get the idea, but it is obvious the bones are solid—at least to my utterly un-expert eyes.
Skye gets her reward every afternoon as well. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
The others drift off and Agung and I haggle a little bit over the price, but not much to be honest. He tells me I can stay there for a month for free to decide, but we both know I’ve already made my mind up.
It takes me a month to hack back the boggainvillea—and I’ve got ten years to clean up the rest. Third time lucky indeed.
Couchfish is 100 per cent independent and reader-supported. If you’re not already a subscriber, and you’d like to show your support, become a paying subscriber today for just US$7 per month—you can find out more about Couchfish here—or simply share this story with a friend.
Don’t forget, you can find the free podcasts on Apple, Pocket Casts and Spotify as well as right here on Couchfish.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit couchfish.substack.com -
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A quick word of introduction. My name is Stuart McDonald and this is Couchfish—the perfect tub of ice-cream for the traveller stranded on the couch. The newsletter has both a paid edition which traces a fantasy itinerary through Southeast Asia, and a free one that covers, well, everything else. If you’d like to support me finding more tourism stuff to moan about, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you.
By the time the earliest hint of first light appears overhead, I’ve been swinging in my hammock at the Sun & Surf Stay for an hour or so. The stillness and silence of pre-dawn is a welcome reward for my insomnia, even if with the steady rumble of Bingin’s break, it isn’t silent at all. In the distance, a fat moon sinks towards Java, edging golden as somewhere behind me, the sun breaks the horizon.
Views from the hammock are better. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
On the sand below me, two of the first of the day’s surfers are prepping. Boards on the sand, they limber up, rub down their boards, then attach leg ropes. They cast their boards over a shore wave washing in, and never letting go, they’re paddling as they hit the water. By the time the wave sucks back they’re already a half dozen metres behind it—with plenty of paddling to go.
It’s a couple of hundred metres out to the back, and this time of day, with no breeze at all, inside the reef is as smooth as glass. The two surfers break the smooth, left right left right they paddle without pause, two trails in the glass behind them. They’re headed to Bingin’s famous left hander—a near perfect barrel that runs 24/7 and that wouldn’t look out of place in a wave pool. The perfection comes thanks to the volcanic reef below which shapes each and every swell into a work of art—one painted to be carved.
Pain me a picture. Photo: Sally Arnold.
With dawn now on the scene, I can make out a couple of even keener surfers who must have paddled out in the darkness. For their early morning efforts they have Bingin’s wave pool to themselves. I watch one after the other effortlessly launch onto a wave, plummeting down its drop, bottoming out in a long arc then launching themselves at the lip. At the summit, they snap back, spray launching into the sky, then race down and across the face, as the wave curls over and above, closing into the barrel the break is famous for. If they pull it off, seconds later they shoot out of the barrel’s end, careening along the unbroken remainder of the wave. It’s at this moment they ease, standing taller, looking back along the wave, before rolling over the rim, and falling back on to the board. It’s over, and the paddling begins again. Rinse and repeat.
Like many sports, those who are apt at it make it look effortless. Having been out there myself ... once ... it is far from it. Knowing this though, makes it all the more pleasurable to watch from my hammock.
Just keep walking. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
By breakfast there’s a dozen or so out there, a number that will double, then perhaps triple through the morning—depending on conditions. The beach itself though doesn’t pick up with day-trippers till a little later, so once caffeinated, I get my morning walk in before they arrive.
My mornings are always west (right when facing the ocean), and when the tide is out I can get almost to the base of clifftop El Kabron before it gets too tricky. It’s a pretty stretch, swinging between narrow and non-existent stretches of sand—depending on the tide. Along the way I can see the mess of the next beach along—one you’ll never read about on Travelfish—and after that the golf course headland before Balangan, another of my favourite Bukit beaches. A low tide walk there and back, allowing for fossicking and faffing around, easily eats up a few hours.
Long shadows at Lucky Fish. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
By the time I’m back, the sun is right overhead and I decamp to one of the many beach cafes built into Bingin’s cliff. Lucky Fish is my preferred option thanks to the long deck and great staff. If the deck is full though, nearby Bingin Ombak is my close second, with the trendier Kelly’s a distant third. Regardless of where I put my feet up, there’s a solid few hours to lose before getting them sandy again.
If the skies are clear, it is time to start wandering again around four in the afternoon. It’s that magic light time of the day, when the touch of the sun’s rays feels more like a warm massage than an angle grinder. Walking east (left when facing the ocean), the sand vanishes quick smart and you’re left to rock hop and cliff lip dodge—do watch your head. Also, keep an eye out for the famous Instagram spot near the start of the walk—you’ll know it when you see it.
East is best. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
If the tide is out, this is a magnificent wander and you can get all the way to Padang Padang and beyond. You’re walking atop the same formation that builds the surf, and when the tide is really low you can get a long way out towards the surfers. Do watch the tide though, as it comes in fast over the platform and walking back with the tide rushing in is not fun.
This is a longer walk than the morning one, but with a few hours there’s time to get back to Lucky Fish for sunset. If I’m feeling energetic, it’s a breathless five minutes or so back to the top of the cliff for sunset cocktails at Temple Lodge or perhaps Mû.
Sunsets are ok. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Light show over, back down to the sand for a beachside seafood barbecue. Perhaps a couple of iced drinks afterwards to round out yet another day on Bingin Time.
Couchfish is 100 per cent independent and reader-supported. If you’re not already a subscriber, and you’d like to show your support, become a paying subscriber today for just US$7 per month—you can find out more about Couchfish here—or simply share this story with a friend.
Don’t forget, you can find the free podcasts on Apple, Pocket Casts and Spotify as well as right here on Couchfish.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit couchfish.substack.com -
A quick word of introduction. My name is Stuart McDonald and this is Couchfish—the perfect tub of ice-cream for the traveller stranded on the couch. The newsletter has both a paid edition which traces a fantasy itinerary through Southeast Asia, and a free one that covers, well, everything else. If you’d like to support me finding more tourism stuff to moan about, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you.
After spending New Years of 1941 in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, 75 crew boarded the Kaidai-class cruiser submarine I-66 and left port. Along with the crew, were six torpedo tubes, a deck gun, and an anti-aircraft gun. On her second war patrol of World War Two, she was bound for the Bay of Bengal via the Lombok Strait and the Andaman Sea.
As the I-66 made her way southeast, through the South China Sea, the USAT Liberty, a US-flagged freighter, was heading north. Laden with rubber and railway parts—or explosives, depending on the source—the Liberty was enroute from Australia to the Philippines—or Batavia (Jakarta), again depending on the source. With a displacement of over 13,000 tons and 70 crew, the vessel had but two small deck guns.
The I-65, the same class of submarine as the I-66. Photo: 日本海軍艦艇写真集 潜水艦・潜水母艦p70, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
You know where this is going right?
Before dawn on her sixth day at sea, around 15 km due south of Nusa Penida’s Kelingking Beach, the I-66 sighted the Liberty. She torpedoed it at 04:15, leaving the Liberty dead in the water, then made her escape. Two Allied destroyers—the USS Paul Jones and the Dutch Van Ghent—took the Liberty under tow and steamed for Singaraja on Bali’s northern coast—the primary port of the Dutch colonialists.
With the Liberty crippled, even after they’d cleared the fast moving waters of the Lombok Strait, she continued to take on water—Singaraja was to be a nautical mile too far. Deciding to cut their losses, and hoping to salvage as much of the cargo as possible, they beached the Liberty, and she capsized on Tulamben’s pebble beach on January 14. For the Liberty, the war was over, and once relieved of her cargo, she became yet another coastal rusting skeleton.
The USAT Liberty in better days. Photo: U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Some twenty and a bit years later, in 1963, Bali’s Mount Agung erupted. Windsor P. Booth of National Geographic was on Bali enroute to Sangeh Forest at the time, and later wrote in the September 1963 edition:
“There was a gentle tapping, as of rain, on the roof of our car. Oddly, no drops appeared on the windshield. Then the sky suddenly darkened.
I stepped out of the car to find that the “rain” was volcanic ash mixed with cinders.
No longer was the landscape a joyous rhapsody in green. Now all was bathed in an unearthly saffron light, because ash and clouds had blotted out the sun. Familiar objects, like trees and houses, took on grotesque shapes.”
When colleagues returned two weeks later, they wrote of the devastation, noting:
“By far the worst havoc struck a group of villages due east of Besakih. So sudden and complete was their destruction that even two weeks later officials could not be sure what happened. Many places, cut off by avalanches and lahar flows, were still too hot to be entered. Bodies were buried—or eaten by dogs—where they fell.”
The eruption took place around the greatest of all Balinese rituals, the Ekadasa Rudra. In the very readable Bali A Paradise Created, Adrian Vickers describes it as “the centennial rite of exorcism of the eleven forms of the terrible god.” An exorcism the eruption was, with thousands of lives lost, and vast tracts of land reduced to stony moonscapes.
“Acrid muck, 30 feet deep in spots, buried much of nearby Selat.” Photo: Robert F. Sisson, National Geographic.
While the Nat Geo correspondents kicked around Bali’s south and east, to the lesser-populated reaches along the island’s northeast coast, torrential rain and lava flowed. From Agung’s northern lip a blanket of lava gushed down to the sea, destroying all in its path. At the coast it tumbled over the black round pebbles that give Tulamben its name, and there, with an assist from earthquakes, it cradled the long-forgotten Liberty, and pushed it back out and into the depths one last time.
The wreck lay there, only a couple of dozen metres from the shore, out of sight and out of mind for another fifteen years. Through these years, Bali’s tourism scene grew, and while diving was a thing, its focus was the east coast out from Candi Dasa. It wasn’t till 1978 that an enterprising tourist agent in Denpasar started offering dive packages to visit the wreck. It would be another eight years before a dive centre opened in Tulamben—at the Paradise Hotel.
Baskets before bottles. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
By 2005, Tulamben was on the map, but while attracting almost 8,500 foreign visitors and over 2,000 locals wasn’t nothing, it wasn’t a lot—for Bali. Fast forward another decade though, and the numbers increased to over 65,000 and 7,000 foreigners and locals respectively.
As tourist numbers—and revenue—exploded, tensions rose, but community leaders enacted a customary law that decreed that “every person will have an equal chance to serve visitors.” Through working with and empowering the local community, local people became well-represented in the trade. Training programmes were enacted, and all manner of tasks, wherever possible, drew from local labour sources.
Me and some chunk of the Liberty. Photo: Intrinity Divers.
Unlike some other areas of Bali where foreign divemasters are common, not so much in Tulamben. Indeed some locals, such as the women who carry the oxygen tanks on their head to the dive entry point, became almost an attraction in their own right.
Alongside this, steps were taken to protect the viability of the wreck—essential if divers were to continue to visit—and the undersea environment has thrived. Aside from the wreck itself, artificial reefs have been set up and coral restoration work continues both in and around Tulamben and elsewhere along the coast.
It isn’t perfect by any measure—in season there are too many divers—and too many do touch and damage the coral, but compared to some other diving spots, Tulamben is quite well run. Most importantly, the community management of the site has strengthened the sense of both pride and ownership, and those vested in it understand the potential it holds for future generations.
Nat Geo’s 1963 spread.
Back to the eruption for a moment, Vickers suggests the eruption may have marked the success of the ritual, noting:
“Great state rituals such as this are meant to bring about an age of harmony in the world, but the way they can bring it about is by harnessing and even accelerating the forces of chaos and destruction which precede the renewal of a golden age. In the eyes of many Balinese, the eruption was a manifestation of great change which could bring good results as well as bad.”
It might be a bit of silver linings and all that, but I don’t think Tulamben would be the place it is today, lives changes and all, if the wrecked carcass of the Liberty was still laying on the pebbles.
Couchfish is 100 per cent independent and reader-supported. If you’re not already a subscriber, and you’d like to show your support, become a paying subscriber today for just US$7 per month—you can find out more about Couchfish here—or simply share this story with a friend.
Don’t forget, you can find the free podcasts on Apple, Pocket Casts and Spotify as well as right here on Couchfish.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit couchfish.substack.com -
A quick word of introduction. My name is Stuart McDonald and this is Couchfish—the perfect tub of ice-cream for the traveller stranded on the couch. The newsletter has both a paid edition which traces a fantasy itinerary through Southeast Asia, and a free one that covers, well, everything else. If you’d like to support me finding more tourism stuff to moan about, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you.
While it has resort in its name, the place we are staying at is more a private property with a couple of extra houses than a resort. Set right by the sea in a secluded area of Bali, down an un-signposted dirt trail, behind an un-signposted front gate, the effort involved in finding it makes it feel like a worthy prize.
Our accommodation comes in the form of a large two-floor wooden house. Airy bedrooms and cool-on-the-feet wooden floors are upstairs, while below, lazy chairs and fresh air beckon. Bags dropped, the kids make a beeline for the freeform pool by the sea, while we put our feet up. A grassy expanse runs almost to the ocean, where fast waves peel in, their foam rolling up onto a loose black pebble base. Roar rattle, roar rattle, roar rattle—the noise reverberates like a sack of marbles in my head, massaging by brain.
Time for a brain massage. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Between the grass and the wave orchestra, pavers trace a curve around the property’s extremity, a small promontory of sorts. Beyond the pavers, enormous charcoal-coloured smooth boulders slope down to the water. With the afternoon sea breeze and a high tide, the spray rains into the pool—delighting the kids. The landscaper—not so much. When the waves later withdraw on the falling tide, I can see the bed of black sand the pebbles rattle over. The remnants of the original beach.
Bali is famous for its beaches, but like many things here, you need to work a bit to find the good ones. On our first few visits, hanging out in Seminyak and Sanur, we couldn’t understand what the big deal was. Sure there’s surf—a nice change from most of mainland Southeast Asia—but the strips of sand themselves, not so much.
Oh Nyang Nyang. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
It wasn’t until we got off our backsides and headed west—for the squid-ink black beaches that seem to stretch forever—or south to the Bukit, that we understood. The first time I saw Nyang Nyang from a Bukit cliff top I thought “holy crap, now that is a beach I could happily die on.” I should note this was back when there was nothing on Nyang Nyang, no road had disfigured the cliff, and no wrecked plane blighted the cliff-top. There’s a metaphor in that bloody plane I’m sure of it.
When we check in a staffer tells us the owner wants us to join him for dinner. They’d like to meet us, and have friends staying, so think it would be good for us all to meet and get to know one another. Drinks before sunset with dinner afterwards, we’re told.
The retaining wall protecting the manicured lawn from the surging waters of the Lombok Strait is far from an anomaly. Bali has decades of experience in losing its beaches. Candi Dasa, much of whose sand went awol after the innards of the reef were dug up to use the coral to make cement—ironically to build accommodation for tourists—is arguably the dumbest example, but it is far from the only one.
Sand way-station at Candi Dasa. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Sanur Beach relies of Japanese-funded groynes to grab and hang onto what sand it can. This one I’ve been told was caused by dredging at Serangan for an ill-considered and profoundly stupid development plan, but I’ve never found any concrete coverage of it, so file that one under “A guy in a bar told me.” Regardless of the reason, Sanur’s once glorious beaches are long gone. Resort enclave Nusa Dua also relies on groynes, and the sickness continues around the south coast of the Bukit, where uber lux resorts have crucified surf breaks in trying to protect “their” beach.
The owner’s friends are also Bali residents, living elsewhere on the island over Ketewel to Kerambas way. Both wearing weathered tans and that somewhat withered premature ageing Southeast Asia living can deliver, they’re all about the good life. Fat consulting work for enormous environmental acronyms can be funny like that. Still, they’re far from corporates, and are great for ideas on where to go, as they seem to have been everywhere. Or, as they put it, everywhere that is still worth going to.
Making the best of a bad situation at Sanur. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
We gather at a long wooden table near the pool for drinks. Over small talk, I ask about the wall, what is the story? They say the property had once been beach-fronted, but, when erosion got out of control down the beach a ways, the powers that be said a wall needed to go in. The owner though, not liking how they’d done it down the beach, paid for the wall out of their own pocket. They wanted it “done right,” with its curving structure better withstanding the waves—in theory. Their main gripe is even with their fancy wall, the surfing suffered. Thank god for consulting gigs I guess.
The thing with retaining walls is while they may “fix” the problem out front, they tend to also shift it elsewhere. Sand has a habit of moving up and down the beach, and interrupt the natural process at your peril. Around Bali, more and more retaining walls are appearing, each with its own flow-on impact. As an example, I’m writing this from my beach shack in West Bali, and it forms a handy microcosm. My land certificate includes a metre and a half of land that no longer exists. Farmers tell me that decades ago, when the tide was out you could walk “forever” before reaching the water. Today, not so much.
Back in the day, doggo would have had far more real estate to run on. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
A river empties out about a kilometre to the west of me, and its banks inland were corralled by stone years ago. This protects the village from houses falling into the river I guess, but now when the rain comes, it overflows the walls instead, submerging whatever lies on the other side. Last year I was cut off from the highway for a day, as the road was so deep in floodwaters even I wouldn’t ride through it. Village residents having a choice between their houses being washed away or submerged seems like a rough deal. The river’s walls curve around onto the beach, but that section collapsed—perhaps our host building his own wall wasn’t so decadent after all.
Drinks and retaining walls done, with dinner being laid out we wander over to the table. As we sit, one of the owner’s friends raises his hands, asks for a pause, and gestures for us all to hold hands. I remember thinking oh no, are we praying? Jeez please God don’t ask me to say Grace.
Back at my shack out west, nearly all the land around it is farm land. The farmers rotate through rice, watermelon, corn, then give the land a rest before rinsing and repeating. The farmers want the wall at the river head fixed then extended all the way along the beach. Why? With a king tide, the Indian Ocean is sloshing about five metres from their fields, and they know that once salt water gets into those fields they’ll have a whole new world of problems they don’t need.
Arms stretched—the table is far bigger than our group—we all hold hands. When everyone else closes their eyes and dips their head, I do the same. I can’t hear anyone speaking, so not wanting to be the twit sitting there with head dipped and still holding hands long after everyone else has stopped, I concentrate on my hands. I figure, when I feel the grip loosen, it will all be over and I can start eating.
Years earlier, when I was living in Bangkok, a Thai friend dragged me along to see an “eastern man with electric hands.” Me, willing to try anything, went along. Sure enough, after much hocus-pocus—and a thousand baht—the man touched me, and he did have electricity running through his veins. My arm and leg kicked out involuntarily at his touch—and I left a convert. That was until a few months later, when the local press ran a story about the police chasing down an “electric monk.” It turned out he’d somehow connected himself to a car battery.
Eyes closed, the roar rattle, roar rattle, roar rattle comes back to the foreground of my mind. It’s amazing how much your other senses turn on when you turn one off. I listen to the percussion, I smell the food and the wine, I feel the sea breeze.
But then I feel something else. It’s like a tingling in my finger tips, and then, almost mad-monk-style, there is a clear and unmistakeable strong pulse of energy. It takes me so much by surprise that I open my eyes, but everyone’s hands are already falling as their heads rise. There’s a smile, nothing said, and we start to eat.
These won’t keep the sea at bay either. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
It is ... odd—and, need I say, there isn’t a car battery in sight. As nobody mentions what just happened, I don’t say anything either. The next day though, I see the owner, and I ask perhaps I was imagining things, but what was that last night?
The friend, they tell me, has a special energy they like to share.
Couchfish is 100 per cent independent and reader-supported. If you’re not already a subscriber, and you’d like to show your support, become a paying subscriber today for just US$7 per month—you can find out more about Couchfish here—or simply share this story with a friend.
Don’t forget, you can find the free podcasts on Apple, Pocket Casts and Spotify as well as right here on Couchfish.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit couchfish.substack.com -
A quick word of introduction. My name is Stuart McDonald and this is Couchfish—the perfect tub of ice-cream for the traveller stranded on the couch. The newsletter has both a paid edition which traces a fantasy itinerary through Southeast Asia, and a free one that covers, well, everything else. If you’d like to support me finding more tourism stuff to moan about, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you.
A couple of times a week my son has archery class over in Pererenan, a “village” a little to the west of central Canggu. Taking him there by motorbike grates—in part for the abysmal traffic but also because I loathe Canggu. Tourists riding sans-helmet has always annoyed me—despite it being a footnote as far as tourist idiocies here are concerned. There’s no shortage of such fools in Canggu, but the prevalence of “road is softer in Bali-ites” doesn’t explain why I dislike Canggu.
Where better to prepare for the apocalypse than near Canggu? Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Then the other day, I read the following:
“Having a lot of tourists around can be a nuisance for other place users, but the real challenges emerge when local shops are replaced by tourist outlets selling waffles and Nutella, when the prices of accommodation drive local residents out of city centres and when local culture is replaced by a caricature of itself. This is not just the fault of the tourists, but also depends on the functioning of property markets, local businesses and (the lack of) effective regulation. It is also important to realise that many of the processes linked to tourist gentrification can also operate in the absence of tourism. In many areas increasing property prices and local displacement preceded the arrival of tourists. Tourism has simply enhanced and intensified the process by bringing in more external capital.”
It’s from a far longer—and very interesting—interview with tourism academic Greg Richards over on Tourism’s Horizons. Go read it, I’ll wait.
Incessant development and loons on motorbikes aside, what Richards describes is what bugs me about Canggu. What in particular jumped out at me was this bit:
“...but the real challenges emerge when local shops are replaced by tourist outlets selling waffles and Nutella...”
What is local?
Not before time, there’s been a rash of advisory stories of late, all trying to help travellers spot greenwashing. Right across the travel industry this is a massive issue, and it is great that more awareness raising is underway. These are though, concentrating on only one aspect of the problem—the environmental. What about localwashing?
I have no Canggu short-cut pics hand, but rest assured it is far worse than this (also near Canggu). Photo: Lyla McDonald.
You can’t throw a satay stick without hitting some—often foreign owned—travel startup that is using some take on local as a part of their Unique Selling Point. You can travel with/like/by/through locals, you can eat with/like/by/through locals, you can do a tour with/like/by/through locals. The list is about as long as the—rapidly diminishing—availability of domain names. But what do they mean by local? Good question.
As I wrote a while back, when I questioned G Adventures on their dubious take on “local”, they never bothered to answer. More recently I asked travel planning start-up Elsewhere about what they meant by “local” with the following:
“Let’s call this system what it is - totally unfair. Our direct-to-local model allows 87% of your trip dollars to stay in the destination, empowering its communities with long-term, locally based income.”
For my efforts I got the KLM support treatment, so I have no idea what they do actually mean by this. (If you don’t know why I’m on about KLM, they’re notorious for dealing with legitimate gripes which could be dealt with publicly by diverting them to private messaging, often via Twitter DMs, where they then ignore you forever.)
“Please contact us via DM so we can ignore you forever there.” Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Does it matter?
Once companies are making “local” a centrepiece of their marketing, it absolutely does. So, just as a company should be challenged for claiming their tours are “planet friendly,” likewise on any company running tours (or whatever) being “good for locals”.
But who is a local? What is a locally-owned business. In my personal opinion a local is a citizen of the country. A locally-owned business is one that is majority-owned by said locals. Others disagree, arguing any foreigner resident in the country could be seen as a local. To this I’d ask, well how long need they be a resident? How should “resident” be defined? Should residency be dictated by visa, marital status, or some other benchmark?
It gets messy, fast.
Signage at a Medewi restaurant in West Bali. 10,000% this. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Circling back even to Richards’ statement above and it isn’t all that clear. Does he mean shops owned by locals, or shops selling local goods? If a Swedish dude opened a babi guling joint on the Canggu shortcut—something sorely needed to pass the time while the traffic ebbs—would that be less bad than if he was flogging meatballs?
Just to be clear, I’m not railing here against all foreign businesses. While I agree with the issues Richards’ raises, what concerns me more, and what can be directly tied to tourism, is the blurring by travel companies of what local is. This is the whole “embrace, extend, extinguish” mentality at work, where terms that once held meaning are stripped of it. We’ve seen this happen for decades in tourism, more so now than ever. Who’s up for a responsible cruise holiday to Antartica?
“Sustainability” super-sized. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
As regular readers will know, tourism and sustainability rests on three pillars—economic, environmental, and social. When travellers take their business to locals, you can argue they’re supporting at least two of these pillars. This is why this stuff matters.
Big business however turns this on its head. Consider an example of a foreign tour company that majority-owns the in-country DMC they use. Customers think that they’re supporting local businesses, and in front of the veil, they are. Lift the veil though, and a sometimes significant portion of their money—which they think is staying in local hands—is getting siphoned off to the mother ship. That would be, more often than you might think, a mother ship anchored somewhere warm and tropical—and far away from Southeast Asia.
What’s today’s tax jurisdiction again? Photo: Emma Davidson.
Foreign-owned companies can bring with them all sorts of good. They can bring dosh, talent, connections, and experience by the bucketload—and these all can be agents for good.
The problem is when they start pretending they are what they are not. That’s a bad deal for everyone—except them. Question everything—and skip the Nutella waffles.
Couchfish is 100 per cent independent and reader-supported. If you’re not already a subscriber, and you’d like to show your support, become a paying subscriber today for just US$7 per month—you can find out more about Couchfish here—or simply share this story with a friend.
Don’t forget, you can find the free podcasts on Apple, Pocket Casts and Spotify as well as right here on Couchfish.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit couchfish.substack.com -
A quick word of introduction. My name is Stuart McDonald and this is Couchfish—the perfect tub of ice-cream for the traveller stranded on the couch. The newsletter has both a paid edition which traces a fantasy itinerary through Southeast Asia, and a free one that covers, well, everything else. If you’d like to support me finding more tourism stuff to moan about, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you.
We’ve been sipping and sitting for a while before homestay-owner Sudi mentions the energy. His little garden, with its low-slung car tire seats, chirping birds overhead, and, in the distance, a squealing pig, doesn’t strike me as a high energy affair.
My daughter Lyla and I are his sole guests, and it seems the homestay moves more to our rhythms than anything else. I imagine that once we leave to go diving everyone will go back to sleep, but, as the dive boat isn’t leaving for another hour, Sudi and I still have plenty of island time on our hands.
Where the mountains meet the sea. Photo: Adam Poskitt.
As I mentioned the other day, Pemuteran is set in far western Bali, strung out along a long shallow bay. About thirty minutes to the west lies Menjangan Island, where Lyla and I have been busy diving, and, for us, that is the main attraction of this particular trip. For others though, the real magic lies elsewhere—above rather than below the depths.
When people talk about Bali and mountains, they’re all about the volcanos and craters. There’s good reason for this of course, not least that near every household on the island contains a shrine pointing to Mount Agung. The peaks are also spectacular and trying to find a spot with a view that doesn’t include a volcano is more of a challenge than you might think. Working west though, with the enormous peaks of East Java looming in the distance, another mountain range runs much of Bali’s western length. Dividing the north and south, it taps out right before the island’s Java-facing extremity at Gilimanuk.
A good spot to soak up some island time. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Gilimanuk is but a curving stone’s throw from Pemuteran, and floating offshore about to go under for another spot of underwater-time, I realise the mountain range behind the town is far more pronounced than landlubbers might expect. Like most, it’s more than a huge pile of stone and dirt, with complicated ravines and ridges, tumbling down towards the sea and the sugar palms that line it. Think striking rather than beautiful.
Sitting there I gaze at the northern flank, its dry season scrub blistered, sand-papered into shades of tan and brown, parched while waiting for rain. A few days later, while riding home, I pop over to the south-facing side of the same ridge, there it’s year-round lush and green, thick mists, moody clouds, all lapping up the wetter climate the south feeds off. On the south side, the subak flows long after the north coast has run dry.
Meanwhile on the south side. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
This meeting of the mountains and the sea carries more meaning than a weather vane though, and to try to explain the how, I’ll need to delve a little bit into the stuff they don’t teach in science class.
For many Balinese, mountains—thanks to their lofty peaks—are where the gods hang out and so they hold the highest spiritual value. At the other end of the spectrum, the ocean doubles as the abyss, home to the spirits of the underworld. The in-betweens are the lowlands, where people go about their business without straying too much. Legends take these beliefs a bit further, seeing Bali as an entire universe, floating atop a carapace of a giant turtle, but I’m not going to get into that today.
Talking about turtles … here’s a Menjangan one we spotted. Photo: Chris Mitchell.
The important thing, is that generally on Bali you get a lot of mountain, then a lot of lowland, then a lot of ocean. Spread out with plenty of space to spare, there’s enough grounds for the good, the bad and the in between to just get on with things. In Pemuteran however, this isn’t the case. In Pemuteran the main mountain range runs almost to the sea—well sort of, you do need to take a bit of a leap of faith here. This proximity, with the peaks, abyss and lowlands almost intermingled, makes for a bit of a mother lode on the energy front. While Sudi didn’t give me the whole spiel on mountains and abysses, this is the energy he was referring to, and Bali being Bali, what do you do when there’s energy on tap? You build temples ... and, it seems ... yoga studios.
If, like Lyla and I, you’ve spent most of your Pemuteran-time down in the abyss, you may well feel a need to atone, in which case you should read on. Towards the eastern extreme of town lie three Balinese Hindu temples. Pura Pulaki and Pabean sit right beside the shore, while a little up towards the gods, you’ll find Pura Melanting. Each has their own appeal, and make for a good way to fill in a non-diving day.
Waiting for Niratha’s return. Photo: Sally Arnold.
As with much of the Balinese temple writing here on Couchfish, matters start with the epic wanderer Niratha. The story goes that some time in the 16th century a troupe of monkeys led him to the spot where Pura Pulaki now sits, and while the man headed off to another plane from Pura Uluwatu, the monkeys remain. Think four centuries of crab eating macaques breeding, and you’ll probably come up with a number roughly half the size of the population here. Perhaps in acknowledgement of the vast oversupply of the crafty critters—or simply because it is more convenient—there’s a drive-by shrine where you can honk and grab your holy water blessing without even getting out of your car—or dealing with the beasts.
Not far away—and certainly not far enough away for the macaque population to disipate—Pura Pabean has a different heritage. Back in the day, when Chinese traders made land here, their first stop was this temple to give thanks for a safe journey. While the traders are far more likely to fly in to Denpasar today, Bali’s other resident seafarers—the offshore fishers—have taken up the slack. They’ll cover their bases and drop by before and after the journey, beating off the macaques while making their offerings.
Pura Melanting—and not an influencer in sight. Photo: Sally Arnold.
Heading away from the abyss, and, at least compared to the other two temples, away from the motley simians, Pura Melanting sits among forested foothills a couple of kilometres inland. The temple verges on gaudy in places—think accidentally designed for Instagram—but it is a beautiful and serene spot. Where Pabean caters to fishers, Melanting is where one comes to hone their business acumen and or fortune, and it’s a hit with traders and other business people. Which is to say, if you’re after a discount on your dive course—or just want to soak up some of Pemuteran’s special energy—this is the place for you.
Couchfish is 100 per cent independent and reader-supported. If you’re not already a subscriber, and you’d like to show your support, become a paying subscriber today for just US$7 per month—you can find out more about Couchfish here—or simply share this story with a friend.
Don’t forget, you can find the free podcasts on Apple, Pocket Casts and Spotify as well as right here on Couchfish.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit couchfish.substack.com -
A quick word of introduction. My name is Stuart McDonald and this is Couchfish—the perfect tub of ice-cream for the traveller stranded on the couch. The newsletter has both a paid edition which traces a fantasy itinerary through Southeast Asia, and a free one that covers, well, everything else. If you’d like to support me finding more tourism stuff to moan about, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you.
I’m just back from a terrific four-day diving trip to Pemuteran in West Bali, and while there’ll be an upbeat post on that tomorrow, today I’m having a bit of a rant.
Pemuteran is a long thin town, strung out shoelace-style along the far western north coast of Bali. It isn’t, at first glance, the most endearing of spots, but thanks to its proximity to Menjangan Island, with its bountiful diving and snorkelling, it’s long had a stumbling-along “tourism scene.” The main—and only—road runs right through the centre of town, and for a couple of kilometres resorts and small homestays line its journey.
The reefs are prettier than town to be honest. Photo: Chris Mitchell.
Most of the fancier—I’m being generous here—places are on the beach side of the road, while the off-beach side hosts a gaggle of small, family-run homestays. My daughter Lyla and I opted for the latter, choosing a small, five room place down a dusty dirt road more of less in the centre of things.
As with the rest of Bali, during the pandemic, tourism withered on the vine. Homestays, hotels, restaurants, cafes, dive shops, and many more closed down—some never to re-open. For those who survived, Bali’s reopening brought with it the promise of brighter days—even to far-flung destinations like Pemuteran. With the brighter days though, came something else.
Killing non-diving time, I spent an hour chatting with a couple of homestay owners over coffee. For both of them the pandemic had been brutal. Small homestays are rarely used to underwrite a luxury yacht or shopping trips to Hong Kong, instead they more often than not form but one part of the family’s means of living, leaving little for savings. The husband might be hands-on with the business, while the wife works both at the homestay and outside. Atop the room revenue, owners might offer tours, food, or some other service to supplant the base earnings.
Pemuteran’s beach isn’t one of Bali’s best, but the water is wet and there is sand. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Where we were staying, a room cost around 160,000 rupiah (about US$11), giving them, with five rooms, an earning capacity of under US$60 a day before any add-ons. This is before the costs of course—the often leased land, the support staff, be they cooks, cleaners or whatever. During the pandemic, the latter were let go, while the former, well, there’s no stopping the clock on leased land.
The two owners told me it was before even the first wave of Bali’s returning tourism had ebbed that the emails started coming in, one owner saying:
“At first, very early, it was only one or two, but by high season, many many.”
The emails, from “travel influencers,” were cold-calling, looking to promote the homestay. According to the owners, the emails were similar, with little changed between homestays other than the property name. The influencers would offer to write about the business, to help them recover, to help them find more guests.
The sunsets on the other hand… Photo: Stuart McDonald.
But there was a catch—this wasn’t a free service. Most asked for in the least a complimentary room, sometimes for long periods of stay. For others though, this wasn’t enough, this was a fee-for-service deal. In one case the owner recounted an influencer asking for US$500—and a free stay of a few nights—in return for writing about the property on their blog. The owner shook his head saying that represented weeks of income for him—and for what?
For what indeed?
While it tends to be most prevalent at the fancier end of the stick, complimentary stays and pay-for-play have long been an unsavoury part of the travel industry—and something I’m proud to say Travelfish has never partaken in. We are though, it seems by what the owners were telling me, the exception to the rule. While I don’t agree with the practice of comped stays and so on, I do understand the math behind it. Taking advantage of a pandemic though, to grind free stays and money out of people who could not afford it seemed to plunge new depths of icky.
“If you give me some free salt I’ll write about it.” Urrggh. Photo: Sally Arnold.
Overall, these approaches struck me as nothing more than rent seeking. The economic imbalance between the influencers and the business owners was staggering. If travellers want to help businesses recover from what has been an unprecedented upheaval in the industry, by all means do so, but motivations need to be in line. Cold-calling some small family-owned business, one that has barely survived the pandemic, and hitting them up for a free slot of nights with a cash chaser is parasitical in the extreme.
My advice to the guesthouse owners was clear. No, no, no, always say no. Concentrate on your real guests. Keep them happy, look after them and welcome them with the hospitality Bali is famous for. I want to say this is effortless, but it isn’t—doing this stuff right is a tremendous amount of work, and yet great homestays do make it seem effortless. By all means encourage guests to write reviews, or post photos, or whatever on social media, but more than anything else, encourage them to tell their friends.
Who do you want to carry water for you? At Banyu Wedang Hot Springs. Photo: Sally Arnold.
I say this because nothing beats word of mouth, nothing. It isn’t something one can buy, rather, true word of mouth is something that is earned. There’s also an important difference when it comes to word of mouth—it informs rather than influences. As my travel writer friend Joshua Zukas wrote to me regarding this:
“Who on earth wants to be influenced anyway? Wouldn’t one rather be informed?”
Couchfish is 100 per cent independent and reader-supported. If you’re not already a subscriber, and you’d like to show your support, become a paying subscriber today for just US$7 per month—you can find out more about Couchfish here—or simply share this story with a friend.
Don’t forget, you can find the free podcasts on Apple, Pocket Casts and Spotify as well as right here on Couchfish.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit couchfish.substack.com -
A quick word of introduction. My name is Stuart McDonald and this is Couchfish—the perfect tub of ice-cream for the traveller stranded on the couch. The newsletter has both a paid edition which traces a fantasy itinerary through Southeast Asia, and a free one that covers, well, everything else. If you’d like to support me finding more tourism stuff to moan about, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you.
If you draw a line along Bali’s chicken belly starting at Kuta and finishing near the beak at Negara, about half way along you’ll see Balian. Depending on the map, you might see it marked at Lalanglinggah, but regardless of the name, it sits on the western bank of the Balian River.
By Balinese standards it is a good sized river—fast flowing in wet season and easy to walk across in the dry. Its waters tumble over shiny and smooth black pebbles then into the Indian Ocean after a long and straight run to the coast. Through the centuries, this flow has carved a channel offshore that funnels and amplifies the rolling swell. The result? One of Bali’s more consistent waves, with both left and rights catering to a range of surfer talents. Even if you don’t surf, on a glassy morning, with the swell pumping in, it’s a beautiful sight.
Bull sharks out of shot. Photo: Samantha Brown.
It was the fast-flowing water of this river that Shiva Buddhist high priest Niratha plunged has walking staff into, giving it healing properties. While I can’t comment on these properties myself, the local bull sharks are fans. They swim upriver to rid themselves of parasites, and more than occasionally give a surfer a nasty mauling on the way back out to sea. Paddle with caution.
We first found ourselves in Balian by chance. Living in Jakarta at the time, we’d had a few stints in the south, around first Sanur, then Ubud, and finally Seminyak, and to be honest, were baffled by Bali’s appeal. I mean, it was a nice change from Jakarta, but, well, that wasn’t saying much. The beaches were ordinary and/or dirty, Ubud was a tourist trap, Seminyak just a tired dump, their glowing write-ups seemingly by those who’d never been to Asia before. At our second or third attempt to discover the undiscoverable charms of Seminyak, we were at wits end. Leafing through my 7th edition Lonely Planet Indonesia I found the following:
“Lalang-Linggah & Pantai Soka
Below Lalang-Linggah village, Balian Beach is a popular surfing spot, good for beginners, with left and right breaks at a river mouth. If Kuta is having a 1m or 2m swell, Balian is usually 3m or 4m, and Medewi won’t be working.”
That was it. There were three accommodation options listed, none of which sounded any good—or in our budget—but I didn’t care. We found a place in another guidebook and gave them a call. Could they pick us up tomorrow?
Balian’s main break. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
It was early afternoon the next day when we reached Balian. As we left the highway behind, the couple of hours—and one breakdown—faded as we followed the narrow road towards the sea. After a clutch of accommodation signs we veered left and rolled down the hill. To our right, cows grazed on vacant land, beyond it a cliff fell away and the ocean went and went some more. At the centre of the sea, the waves rolled in like clockwork mollasses.
The guesthouse owners were an Australian-Indonesian couple, hospitable and chatty in an old school kind of a way. They had two locations—at the main guesthouse by the cliff-side road, you could see how it had slowly grown higgledy-piggledy, but we’d opted for a family room down by the river. It was newer, and was a two storey wood and thatch affair with a veranda to take in the surrounds. It was simple, but comfortable—and all we needed.
Love me an afternoon rain shower. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
At the time our daughter Lyla was all of four months old, and while a walk and explore would have been good, it was time for feet up. As we sat on the deck the weather blew in some afternoon rain and we breathed in then out. Later, rested, we walked down by the river to the beach. Fishermen collected their nets in the late light as surfers rode the waves. We’d made a good call. That night, we had bebek betutu for dinner—and we were sold.
The next day we walked the back beach—a long stretch of squid-ink black sand that runs off to the west—and which remains one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve seen here. I’ve walked it many times since—and have neither reached the end of it, nor seen anything tourist-facing on it. Instead all I see is rice backing onto palms and sand, a fishers’ shack here and there, buffalo, and a few line-fishers staring out to sea. The last time I walked it was with Lyla in the midst of the pandemic—fifteen years between walks and all that.
Masks on! Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Over the years, we dropped in at Balian I don’t know how many times, more often than not staying at the same place. Sometimes by the river, other times up top. On each visit there were more places to stay—and more private residences. White concrete blocks with sharp lines abutted the dense foliage that surrounded them, rustling in the air-con breeze. Still, the back-to-basics warung, gripping the cliff-edge tight and offering the best break views of the lot, hung on.
On one visit, we caught up with a journalist colleague who’d taken a large parcel inland and was building. The site, while not finished when we visited, was beautiful and encompassed two rolling hills and the valley between. As he walked the vast block with us, he pointed to the left and right explaining what was planned. Bali’s land fervour was on the cusp of exploding and he told us with that developer glint in his eye that we should get in on it early to ride the wave.
Pave it all over. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
At his suggestion we spent a day with some land touts touring block after block. Gorgeous unfettered hills of rice terraces as far as the eye could see. It was a lark to an extent, we didn’t have the money—nor, to be honest, the desire—but it was easy to see how one could get caught up with the smooth talking guys. I remember standing atop the small hill that formed one block, with terraces in every direction, and to the south, incredible views out to sea. The tout stood beside me, telling me to put the pool here and the bedroom there, not to worry about land title issues, he could fix everything, he knew people.
This transition has played out across the island. Some areas, particularly the south, have seen incredible change in what is, in the scheme of things, a short period of time. In Indonesia, foreigners cannot buy land—there’s shonky ways around this of course—but the less shonky take long leases instead. I’d long been ambivalent about this sort of stuff, but the transition I’ve seen in Bali convinced me that leasing is a far more equitable affair. The way I see it, the foreigner gets what they want for a spell, but, at the end of the day, the land reverts to the Balinese owners. More often than not one might lease off the father and, thirty years later one of his kids receives something far more valuable. The lessee is just minding a slice of Bali for the family.
Hmmm that wasn’t there last time. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
A few years ago we passed through Balian again, and I learned that the Australian who I gossiped with over the years had passed away earlier that year. The end of the couple’s lease on the land was nearing, and it felt like the place’s salad days were slipping away. A gully back off the beach had filled with more white concrete blocks, there was a sushi restaurant, and yoga retreats. All the while, improved roads were delivering more day-surfers from the south.
Despite the changes, the back beach remains deserted, the sand is still that incredible jet black. The fishers continue to cast their lines as the weather blows in hard, most of the rice terraces, for now, remain rice terraces. The cliff warung’s coffee remains ghastly.
Wandering the back beach. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
The river still flows, but perhaps, if Niratha was on the money, its waters needs to be diverted to wash over Bali’s south. Meanwhile out to sea, the molasses waves roll in, swirling and sucking up the river’s healing waters, while underneath the bull sharks circle.
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A quick word of introduction. My name is Stuart McDonald and this is Couchfish—the perfect tub of ice-cream for the traveller stranded on the couch. The newsletter has both a paid edition which traces a fantasy itinerary through Southeast Asia, and a free one that covers, well, everything else. If you’d like to support me finding more tourism stuff to moan about, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you.
Uma Agung Sidemen is a small guesthouse set off a narrow road in what passes for the centre of Sidemen’s “tourist strip” in East Bali. It’s one of those places that doesn’t look like much from the road, but as you wander in past reception, a gaggle of comfy rooms reveal. Its sweet spot though, is a cute free-form pool that offers up terrific morning views of Mount Agung.
Sidemen is pretty fertile grounds for a wander. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Like many of Sidemen’s digs, at Uma Agung Sidemen, business never seems to be going at full tilt. At one time they worked with a couple of inbound tour companies, so if you were out of luck, the place would be humming, but when in luck, you’d have the run of it. As one of the primary attractions of Sidemen is doing as little as possible, a “no tour group” visit was the best kind of visit.
On one such visit, many years ago, when the kids were still munchkins, I wandered by the lobby and a staffer asked me what I was up to. I was up to nothing much, a morning wander tracing one of the subak canals about as busy a day as I had planned, then he asked if I was going to the cockfight?
Where getting lost is the goal. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
The American anthropologist Clifford Geertz spent a significant amount of time in Indonesia’s Sumatra, Java and Bali in the middle of the 1900s. In 1958, while residing in a Balinese village, with his then wife (also an anthropologist), they attended a cockfight. Out of this—and other cockfight experiences—came his essay “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.” While he’s writing around sixty years ago, he could have been beside me outside Uma Agung Sidemen a few years ago. He writes:
“Whenever you see a group of Balinese men squatting idly in the council shed or along the road in their hips down, shoulders forward, knees up fashion, half or more of them will have a rooster in their hands, holding it between his thighs, bouncing it gently up and down to strengthen its legs, ruffling its feathers with abstract sensuality, pushing it out against a neighbour’s rooster to rouse its spirit, withdrawing it towards his loins to calm it again.”
By the book, cockfights in Bali are illegal. They’re permitted on temple days, and other special occasions, but by and by, they’re not allowed. Like many regulations however, this is taken more in an advisory capacity—at least going by the number of roosters I see preening in their upturned rattan baskets as soon as I step outside today. Bali may well have a lot of ceremony days—but it doesn’t have that many. The practice is banned, writes Geertz in part, because it’s barbaric, because powers see the fights as primitive, and, as much money is lost gambling on the practice, it’s seen as contributing to the poverty of the “ignorant peasant.”
At cockfights it is generally standing room only. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Back to Geertz:
“A match made, the other hopefuls retire with the same deliberate indifference, and the selected cocks have their spurs (tadji) affixed—razor-sharp, pointed steel swords, four or five inches long. This is a delicate job which only a small proportion of men, a half-dozen or so in most villages, know how to do properly.
...
The lore about spurs is extensive—they are sharpened only at eclipses and the dark of the moon, should be kept out of the sight of women, and so forth. And they are handled, both in use and out, with the same curious combination of fussiness and sensuality the Balinese direct toward ritual objects generally.”
Bali’s southern extremity is formed by the Bukit Peninsula—an enormous limestone plateau rung by sheer cliffs and incredible surf. At its westernmost point, on a cliff projection believed by some to be the ship—turned to stone—of the Goddess of Waters Dewi Danu, lies Pura Luhur Uluwatu. It was here that one of Bali’s original wanderers, the Shiva-Buddhist high priest Niratha attained moshka, freeing himself from the shackles of reincarnation. The temple’s full name Pura (temple) Luhur (go up/rise/above) Ulu (end) watu (stone) sum it up nicely.
Life saver at Uluwatu—on look-out for the wrong thing? Photo: Stuart McDonald.
The Bukit is an arid rock, with little in the way of accessible fresh water reserves. For over a century—worshippers aside—it was first and foremost somewhere to graze one’s cattle. It leapt into an international conscience though, with the 1970s release of The Morning Of The Earth, a seminal surf flick by Albert Falzon. While I can’t find the book I got this quote from, Falzon wrote of the time, surfing at Ulus:
"We surfed and filmed there all day much to the amazement and amusement of the locals who had never seen surfing before and spent the night against the cliff on the small beach next to the cave. It was a full moon and with Rusty playing his guitar, a few Balinese fisherman perched on the rocks against the cliff face and an exploding sea not far in front of us it was a pretty memorable experience."
Photos from that period show dirt tracks and no tourist-facing development to speak of. Instead there’s cliffs, surf, and some crusty looking surfers and fishers. There wasn’t, need it be said, a private pool villa in sight.
Take my word for it, it was an even worse result for the rooster. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Back to Geertz and his cocks, now at the business end of the affair:
“Most of the time, in any case, the cocks fly almost immediately at one another in a wing-beating, head-thrusting, leg-kicking explosion of animal fury so pure, so absolute, and in its own way so beautiful, as to be almost abstract, a Platonic concept of hate.
...
Surrounding all this melodrama—which the crowd packed tight around the ring follows in near silence, moving their bodies in kinesthetic sympathy with the movement of the animals, cheering their champion on with wordless hand motions, shifting to the shoulders, turnings of the head, falling back en masse as the cock with the murderous spurs careens toward one side of the ring ... surging forward again as they glance off toward another—is a vast body of extraordinarily elaborate and precisely detailed rules.”
Today, the Bukit is home to some of the most exclusive and expensive resorts on the island—if not in Indonesia. Over the last couple of decades, one scar after the other has been hewn into its white limestone base. From brush suitable for little more than grazing cattle, the transition repeats over and over, first to bare earth, then to fenced off lush luxury. In some cases alongside this “development” small family-run warungs, those who took to supplying Falzon’s ilk with simple fare and iced Bintang between waves, were “moved on,” often in far from acceptable manners.
Following in Falzon’s footsteps. Photo: Sally Arnold.
In the process, vast tracts have become increasingly difficult for non-guests to access what is, by law, public beach. Meanwhile, the dirt tracks and goat paths Falzon and friends used have become paved, radiating across the peninsula. The improved access, would be a boon for cattle grazers, were it not for the perennial convoys of trucks carting water to top-up the hundreds of private pool villas the smudges of luxury boast. The gridlock I should note, doesn’t interfere with the best-heeled of guests—they shuttle from Bali’s airport by helicopter.
Battle done, the money having changed hands, Geertz writes:
“Every people, the proverb has it, loves its own form of violence. The cockfight is the Balinese reflection on theirs: on its look, its uses, its force, its fascination. Drawing on almost every level of Balinese experience, it brings together themes—animal savagery, male narcissism, opponent gambling, status rivalry, mass excitement, blood sacrifice—whose main connection is their involvement with rage and the fear of the rage, and, binding them into a set of rules which at once contains them and allows them play, builds a symbolic structure in which, over and over again, the reality of their inner affliction can be intelligently felt.”
My question I guess, is what happen when the rules don’t hold anymore?
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Don’t forget, you can find the free podcasts on Apple, Pocket Casts and Spotify as well as right here on Couchfish.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit couchfish.substack.com -
A quick word of introduction. My name is Stuart McDonald and this is Couchfish—the perfect tub of ice-cream for the traveller stranded on the couch. The newsletter has both a paid edition which traces a fantasy itinerary through Southeast Asia, and a free one that covers, well, everything else. If you’d like to support me finding more tourism stuff to moan about, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you.
Earlier this week, The Guardian ran a story about a UK traveller who was badly injured while riding an elephant in Thailand. The accident happened over twenty years ago (in 2002), and the story focuses on the tourist’s experience and subsequent recovery. Thinking back to when she got onto the elephant, the tourist says:
“I remember climbing on and thinking: ‘I don’t know about this’.”
On one hand, it’s a feel-good story—tourist overcomes adversity and all that. Less so though if you’re the elephant concerned, the story suggests the elephant may have been euthanised after the incident—something that I struggle to believe—but at the end of the day, nobody seems to be sure. What matters, at least as far as the story is concerned, is that the tourist survived and moved on with their life.
To be fair, twenty years is a long time, and back in 2002 calls for the banning of elephant riding were far from the mainstream calls they are today. Indeed, it would be another eight years before the Intrepid Foundation would underwrite a report by World Animal Protection titled Wildlife on a Tightrope. The report served as a watershed moment in the better protection of wildlife—including elephants—in Thailand and elsewhere.
Totally natural. Chained elephant awaiting passengers in Luang Prabang, Laos. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
With this in mind I think it is a bit unfair to give the tourist concerned a hard time about getting on an elephant in the first place. The journalist, not so much. It seems, if nothing else, a missed opportunity to better highlight the elephant abuse which continues to this day in Thailand—solely to feed the desires of tourists.
The problem is far more widespread than Thailand, and affects wildlife for more varied than elephants. From patting drugged tigers in zoos, to swimming with captured dolphins in chlorinated pools, attractions where the abuse of animals is central to the “tourist experience” remain common right across the region. Indeed a few years ago when I was in Lamalera in eastern Indonesia, I discovered one can pay 200,000 rupiah to go out on a boat to spear a dolphin.
What?
Whale shark awaiting butchering at Lamalera, Indonesia. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Unlike the above elephant-rider twenty years ago, travelling in Southeast Asia today and saying “Oh I didn’t know better” is a pretty hard call. And yet, take a quick look at on- and offline tour providers and it would seem plenty still have their head in a hole. Travel review garbage fire TripAdvisor, has for years claimed to not monetise “animal attractions,” and yet if I look at their page on Oslob, the top four recommended activities involve whale sharks. For each, TripAdvisor lists—on a commission basis—paid tours. Need I say it again, the people who run TripAdvisor are utter reprobates. Do not use that website.
Hang on, how did I get from Thailand and elephants to some joint called Oslob and whale sharks? Let me explain.
Oslob sits on the southeast coast of the island of Cebu in the Philippines. At first glance there may be nothing to distinguish it from other seaside spots, but right offshore, whale sharks swim. The Philippines claims almost 2,000 whale sharks—the second largest population on the planet. While hunted for generations, Filipino law protected the species in 1993 and today they feature on the 100 peso note rather than the wet market floor. In theory anyway.
All good then. Photo: Pinoy Numismatist Network and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas., Fair use.
Tourists visit Oslob to swim, dive, and snorkel with whale sharks—filling Instagram with their stunning whalies. The industry however is widely considered to be a sustainability train wreck. Every dive shop I spoke to in Moalboal (a southern Cebu dive centre I spent a week in—I didn’t visit Oslob) emphatically said not to go and suggested other destinations where whale sharks could be observed with a modicum of sustainability in mind. If you don’t want to listen to me and my dive shop vox pop, how about the Large Marine Vertebrates Research Institute Philippines? They pull no punches in their appraisal of the place. They write—sorry for the long quote, but it all matters:
“Oslob, Cebu is home to the largest non-captive provisioned whale shark tourism interaction in the world. The town gained international publicity after the local government approved the feeding of whale sharks in the fishing Barangay of Tan-awan in 2012. What began as a small tourist operation has since exploded into a rapidly growing and mostly unregulated industry.
The whale shark feeding activities in Oslob have resulted in a boom in the local economy. This has come with a significant impact on the natural behavior of the whale shark, affecting its movement, residency, and local marine habitat. These effects have raised serious concerns over the sustainability of the operation.
LAMAVE in-water researchers collected daily data on the whale sharks of Oslob from March 2012 to January 2020. These eight years of work also included stakeholders’ meetings, local, regional, and national level training and workshops, and internationally published scientific studies.
Despite our best efforts, there was a perpetual unwillingness among local and regional stakeholders to shift away from unsustainable tourism and management practices. Due to this, LAMAVE decided to place our work in Oslob on hold. We will only resume this project if substantial improvement in the management of the activities is implemented.”
The above mob isn’t the only one saying stuff like this, National Geographic and WWF are on record with their concerns. Others disagree—including a legion of travel bloggers on comped trips—and this frontend piece to an academic paper which sees Oslob as a win for whale sharks. Others, who should do better, are more circumspect. Consider this from Lonely Planet in their 2018 Philippines guidebook:
“Regardless of how you feel about the ethics of feeding wild animals, you may or may not be impressed with the Oslob whale-shark interactions. While carefully composed photos may appear to show your friends swimming alone with these leviathans in the big blue, the reality is different. There are hundreds of people in the water at any one time, most of them watching up to a half-dozen or so whale sharks hover near the surface begging for food.
…
If you prefer a more natural experience, you’ll likely find the whale-shark interactions programs in Donsol and Pintuyan (Southern Leyte) more to your liking.”
I’m not sure what to make of that, other than to wonder why it is so hard for Lonely Planet to simply say “Do Not Go.” Also their using “whale-shark” and “whale shark” in the text is them not me.
A Moalboal guesthouse explains to guests why they do not support whale shark tours. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Below the above-mentioned LAMAVE text, they go on to list a litany of research findings indicating just how problematic the scene is. One paper jumped out as me, and thinking of our elephant rider’s trepidation, it is worth a closer look.
“A guilty pleasure: Tourist perspectives on the ethics of feeding whale sharks in Oslob, Philippines” (free version of full paper here) looks at the ethics of what is going on at Oslob, with particular attention given to participants’ motivations. Both through interviews and an analysis of reviews of TripAdvisor, they found some pretty interesting stuff, including this: A significant number of tourists knew it was bad—but not only did it anyway, but recommended it to others. They write:
“TripAdvisor comments mentioning ethical issues with this activity were coded and classified. Ethical concerns were mentioned in 27.2% (N = 254) of all TripAdvisor reviews analysed. The TripAdvisor analysis identified three types of commenters concerned with the ethical nature of whale shark provisioning in Oslob. The “guilty pleasure” group was aware of the moral and ethical issues of provisioning a threatened species for tourism purposes, but still chose to do the tour and recommended it to others (i.e., a score of 4 or 5; Table 5).”
As with Thailand’s elephants, there are (mostly) financial upsides to whale shark tourism. The paper considers this, noting:
“The provisioned activities in Oslob are worth an estimated US$5 million to the local economy and have allowed for the socioeconomic development of the community. Prior to the start of these activities, many of the fishermen turned tour operators in Tanawan were living off just US$1 per day whereas now they can afford to put children and extended family through school, pay for hospital treatments for extended family, food, motorbikes and concrete homes.”
This is persuasive to a point, but perhaps an important consideration is the series of kleptocratic regimes that have run the Philippines for decades. What role did those thieving scoundrels have in a situation where a 2010 fisherman is living off of $1 a day?
It sure as hell wasn’t the whale sharks’ doing.
In summary, if what you are doing while on holiday in Southeast Asia involves touching an animal, you almost certainly should not be doing it. It is that simple.
Couchfish is 100 per cent independent and reader-supported. If you’re not already a subscriber, and you’d like to show your support, become a paying subscriber today for just US$7 per month—you can find out more about Couchfish here—or simply share this story with a friend.
Don’t forget, you can find the free podcasts on Apple, Pocket Casts and Spotify as well as right here on Couchfish.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit couchfish.substack.com -
A quick word of introduction. My name is Stuart McDonald and this is Couchfish—the perfect tub of ice-cream for the traveller stranded on the couch. The newsletter has both a paid edition which traces a fantasy itinerary through Southeast Asia, and a free one that covers, well, everything else. If you’d like to support me finding more tourism stuff to moan about, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you.
Those who have read my series on Java’s Mount Bromo may, upon reading the title of this piece, be thinking “Oh here we go again.” In my defence, I would like to note that the following took place before I went to Bromo, not after. Or, to put it another way, I didn’t learn from my mistakes there rather I didn’t learn anything from here.
When people, aghast at what downtown Ubud has become, ask me for alternatives, I ask what they love in life. If they answer rice field walks, I point them to Sidemen in Bali’s east. If they are more waterfall people, I suggest Munduk, in the west. Today, I’m all about the latter.
Temperature drop. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Munduk stretches out shoelace-like along a western ridge of the greater Bedugal caldera. As you leave the rim and dogleg down, to the north there’s views to the Bali Sea and to the south, the Indian Ocean and Java beyond. Not that you get much time to gaze—the winding—and often slippery—road demands attention.
The cooler climate an altitude of around 800 metres delivered made Munduk a favourite among the colonialists. They flocked here both for something remotely closer to Dutch temperatures, but also for the fertile soil. While further afield is lashed with paddy, Munduk’s immediacy is all about cloves, coffee and other cash crops.
Do linger for a moment before rolling down the slope to Munduk. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
The Dutch left behind more than fragrant cloves and bitter coffee—a clutch of their colonial period buildings live on midway along the shoestring. Today rather than housing plantation owners they’re instead welcoming tourists. I stay elsewhere, but for those looking for a colonial keepsake, they’re worth a look.
It’s near this colonial outpost though that I receive the fateful instructions that title this piece. When asking directions to Melanting Waterfall, the first of three I plan to take in on foot, I’m told clearly and succinctly:
“Take the left and keep going.”
These things always start simple. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
It’s just after Taman Ayu Homestay I spy what must be “the left.” There’s no sign or anything, but it seems like the best of, well, no other options. It drops me down the side of the ridge in no time, Munduk’s little traffic fades behind the dogs, roosters and birdsong. Mimicking my descent, the footpath degenerates. Hardtop to dirt, dirt to mud, narrowing all the time till it’s no more than sodden grass hemmed in by bushes. The waterfall though I can hear, and so I press on.
Of course I shouldn’t have. The waterfall’s siren call beckons me and so despite understanding I’m lost, I continue. Then out of nowhere a trail appears—a good sign—and a bridge—not such a good sign. I realise I’m above the falls and turn back.
Clearly on the right track. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Not all the way back—or at least, not back to the house with the dog—but most of the way back, and I take a right. I’d reached this junction earlier, but thinking the turn was to an even rattier trail, I’d ignored it. Now however, it was clear—ratty be the way. Fifty metres or so in on Jalan Ratty, the trail splits again, I take the wrong turn and persist for a hundred metres before turning back and taking the worse trail.
The worse trail taps out at mossy boulders I slip and slide over. There’s spider webs aplenty, mosquitos the size of crows with panther-sized teeth. I can hear the falls, I must be close, I must continue.
I reach a cutting in the middle of nowhere with a fall-down woodshed guarded by an upright dog. I take my leave, scattering back into the woods. There’s a trail of sorts and it’s heading in the right direction—down ... and away from the dog.
Almost there. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Down, down, down. I stumble upon another trail, remnants of stone steps, everything is wet, slippery as hell—I’m so glad I’m wearing flip flops. I’m beside a river now and I convince myself I’m below the falls—I have to be. I stick to the trail, switching to walking in the river where the trail has collapsed. I haven’t seen another person the entire time.
The trail veers to the right, and there, right in front of me, is a set of perfectly manicured—and clearly well-used—stairs. No doubt leading down from the “other left.” There’s no point in swearing though as nobody would hear me—at this point the falls are deafening. I push on and finally glimpse them.
Achievement unlocked. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Despite my poor planning, I’ve somehow timed my arrival perfectly, with the sun sitting immediately behind the mouth of the falls. Melanting is at full tilt and pouring into a tightly enclosed, forest-wrapped cup. The air is sodden, rushing out and past me aboard the frosty wind the falls whip up.
There’s not a soul here, and I sit, soaked to the skin, breathing in the mist, eardrums reverberating with the fall’s boom. Birds carve through the soaked sunlight above and the ground and trees are crawling with critters. There’s a rhythm to it all, hypnotising even, then my meditation shatters.
On another visit, with the kids, we used the stairs. As you can see by my hunched over son, they loved it. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
A good-sized log, at least a couple of metres, clutters over the falls and bangs down the waterfall’s sides, crashing into the base. Through some weird acoustic quirk, it sounds exactly like a smashing glass bottle, and the birds scream, lifting aloft as one.
It’s time to go—I’ve got two waterfalls to go—but I’ll be taking the stairs out.
How long to stay in Munduk
I’ve been to Munduk a bunch of times and reckon it is worth a minimum of two nights. There’s the waterfalls for starters—while I only stumble to one in the above, I did manage to get to three on this wander and there are more.
Another day, another waterfall. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
The popular and most accessible waterfalls are on the north side of the ridge, while on the south site there is a broad valley perfect for aimless wandering. Instead of rice it is filled with mostly cash crops, with plenty of cloves, fruit and coffee. You don’t really need a guide for any of this, but if you want to use a guide, your accommodation should be able to sort you out.
Further afield, there’s Tamlingan Lake and its attached reserve. Most only stop on the rim, from where there are terrific views—and a few cafes to enjoy said views from—but there’s also decent trekking—and camping—possibilities lakeside.
Some good spots to stay in Munduk
Most of Munduk’s accommodation is clustered along the ridge road. Options vary from affordable homestays through to quite smart freestanding bungalows. You’re unlikely to need to book one of the cheaper places in advance, but as a few tour groups do use Munduk for an overnight stop, the pricier places do tend to fill, especially in high season.
I’ve stayed a number of times at Puri Alam and while the rooms are a bit rough and ready, their rooftop restaurant has great views, and I love their horizon pool—even if the water is freezing. Rooms start at around the 250,000 rupiah mark. For something a bit cheaper, consider Munduk Panorama.
Down time with the kids at Puri Alam. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
The colonial place I mentioned up-top is Guru Ratna, which floats around the 300,000 rupiah mark. This one does fill up fast and lacks great views—you’re paying for the colonial stuff.
For something a bit more up-market, but still central, Puri Lumbung sits on the north side of the road, a bit of a walk from the centre of things. The views are great, and the rooms can offer up plenty of (somewhat dated) character, but they are not all as well-appointed as one another. If you show up and your room feels like not the best, ask to see another. Starts at around 1,000,000 rupiah.
Meet Puri Lumbung. Photo: Sally Arnold.
If you’re after something spendier still, there are a few more luxurious options well out of town—you will though need your own transport if you plan on spending a lot of time in town. Munduk Moding Plantation (from around 2,800,000 rupiah) is a reliable option at this price point. Another that comes recommended, though which I’ve not seen for myself is Desa Eko (from around 1,200,000 rupiah).
Just a disclaimer here, Agoda is a Travelfish partner, so if you book a room through them a commission may be payable to us.
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Don’t forget, you can find the free podcasts on Apple, Pocket Casts and Spotify as well as right here on Couchfish.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit couchfish.substack.com -
A quick word of introduction. My name is Stuart McDonald and this is Couchfish—the perfect tub of ice-cream for the traveller stranded on the couch. The newsletter has both a paid edition which traces a fantasy itinerary through Southeast Asia, and a free one that covers, well, everything else. If you’d like to support me finding more tourism stuff to moan about, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you.
Indonesia has no shortage of islands. Indeed, depending on what you consider to be an island, there are somewhere between around 15,000 to 17,000 of them. Through a tourism lens, Bali is arguably the best known, and at a bit over 5,000 square kilometres in size, comes in at 15th. Most visitors though—particularly first-timers—restrict themselves to a far smaller patch—the south. Depending on where you draw a line on the map, this patch measures around 450 square kilometres—less than a tenth of the joint.
There’s exceptions to this of course. Some head north to Lovina, east to Amed, offshore to Nusa Lembongan or Penida, or elsewhere. Broad strokes though, most don’t—making it a very big small island. Do a bit of travelling around and you could easily mistake it as one island within another.
It wasn’t always this way though.
Typical coast near where Wallace would have anchored. This somewhere near Seririt. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
It took Alfred Russel Wallace’s vessel some twenty days at sea from Singapore to hit Bali’s northern shores, and this Bali landing, on the 13th of June 1856, was in a way an inconvenience. Makassar was Wallace’s target but he’d been unable to find direct passage and so had a couple of days on the north coast. He was never to return, and reading The Malay Archipelago, his regret at this is obvious.
As was his way, he availed himself to the local hospitality then got busy shooting birds, hoovering up butterflies, and admiring the scenery. Within 48 hours he was gone—a mere drop of time in what was an expansive trip across much of the archipelago—and yet he writes:
“The islands of Bali and Lombok, situated at the east end of Java, are particularly interesting. ... Had I been able to obtain a passage direct to that place [Makassar] from Singapore, I should probably never have gone near them, and should have missed some of the most important discoveries of my whole expedition to the East.”
Even with so little time, what struck him then, has carried forward to today. On visiting a village and its residents, he continues:
“It was a very dull and dreary place; a collection of narrow lanes bounded by high mud walls, enclosing bamboo houses, into some of which we entered and were very kindly received.”
Sound familiar? Then of the sublime beauty of the island, and how the Balinese work it, Wallace writes:
“... I had never beheld so beautiful and well-cultivated a district out of Europe. A slightly undulating plain extends from the sea coast about ten or twelve miles inland, where it is bounded by a fine range of wooded and cultivated hills. ... Everyone of these patches can be flooded or drained at will, by means of a system of ditches and small channels, into which are diverted the whole of the streams that descend from the mountains. Every patch now bore crops in various stages of growth, some almost ready for cutting, and all in the most flourishing condition and of the most exquisite green tints.”
He’s writing of Bali’s subak of course—the irrigation system that earned the island a UNESCO heritage listing. Little was he to know the pressure tourism would place upon it, mostly through over-construction to observe its very beauty.
Wallace may have missed this one. Inland somewhere from Seririt. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Two days gone, Wallace bade the island farewell and sailed for Lombok’s Ampanan. From there he made time to wax lyrical of the sunrise and sunset views across Bali’s premiere peak Agung and Lombok’s even taller Rinjani:
“We enjoyed superb views of the twin volcanoes of Bali and Lombok, each about eight thousand feet high, which form magnificent objects at sunrise and sunset, when they rise out of the mists and clouds that surround their bases, glowing with the rich and changing tints of these the most charming moments in a tropical day.”
If only Instagram had existed back then, Wallace would have been a power user.
Jokes aside, here we have a guy who, by the time he penned his epic, was about as well-travelled as they grow them in Indonesia. His experience of Bali though, was but for a couple of days in Singaraja and its surrounds. Set, on the western ramp to Bali’s northern-most point, the town is best known as the educational centre for the Balinese political leaders and revolutionaries who would eventually see the colonialists off the island. Today though, it is—at first glance anyway—a hard one to fall in love with.
Sekumpul Waterfall, inland from Singaraja. Photo: Sally Arnold.
Not so with Lovina, a somewhat dated tourist beach strip west of Singaraja which is about as close to mainstream tourism as the north gets. It’s a low-key joint, lined by black sand beaches facing onto calm waters with dolphins aplenty. Up in these parts, the hospitality Wallace mentions continues to this day, as does the scenery. All in all it’s a far less adulterated area than down south.
A common approach is to cast one’s travels further afield as the hot spots ride the tourism rollercoaster to disintegration. It’s easy to view Bali through a lens like this, to write off the south as an over-developed, traffic-clogged hellhole, then to strike further afield, seeking out “the real Bali”—or I guess a real Bali that hasn’t been spoilt yet by catering to tourists.
Once a royal palace, now a family home. Wandering Puri Agung Singaraja in Singaraja. Photo: Sally Arnold.
It is through this sort of process of elimination, that some travellers find themselves in Bali’s north and west. To them, travelling outside Bali’s “inner island” may have seemed like a bit of cutting edge travel, but all they really needed was Wallace’s book—and a map. Forget about getting a new guidebook—instead grab the oldest one you can find.
With this in mind, over the next few days I’m going to be writing of a few of these off-the-inner-island destinations—none of which Wallace will tell you about.
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Don’t forget, you can find the free podcasts on Apple, Pocket Casts and Spotify as well as right here on Couchfish.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit couchfish.substack.com -
A quick word of introduction. My name is Stuart McDonald and this is Couchfish—the perfect tub of ice-cream for the traveller stranded on the couch. The newsletter has both a paid edition which traces a fantasy itinerary through Southeast Asia, and a free one that covers, well, everything else. If you’d like to support me finding more tourism stuff to moan about, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you.
While the travel press prefer the (frankly offensive) tag of “resort island,” Pulau Dewata—the “Island of the Gods”—is how Indonesians know their small island of Bali.
The westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands, Bali sits midway along the archipelago. Shaped like a westward-facing chicken laying an egg (sorry Nusa Penida), the island has been on the traveller radar for over a century. Like the waves that wash upon its many beaches, its popularity has ebbed and flowed over the years, but the last couple of decades have been most certainly flow years.
Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Thanks Sally Arnold for pointing it out.
Despite the deluge of both domestic and inbound tourists—and the damage they’ve wrought—the residents Pulau Dewata refers to have not moved on. When you know where to look—and what for—you’ll see that in Bali, the gods are everywhere.
As you walk away from the ferry landing at Gilimanuk you’ll no doubt see small offerings laid on the pavement. Canang Sari, these offerings are placed daily by devotees of the island’s dominant faith, Balinese Hinduism. At a glance, they seem photogenic but trifling—if a bit mysterious. Take a closer look though, and you’ll see that they’re a microcosm of an entire cosmology, one crafted with care to honour a glad-bag of deities.
Offerings come in many shapes and sizes. Note those in the foreground are offerings to me—not the gods. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
For years I wondered what they meant. I knew they were “some kind of religious thing”, but that was about it, and it wasn’t until I asked a Balinese to pull one apart and explain it to me that I got a quick lesson in the divine. Please bear in mind, canang sari come in many varieties with many different purposes, so I’m tackling the simplest of examples here.
The base is the easiest bit. The square palm leaf base symbolises the earth and the moon, and if coconut leaves are there, they’re for the stars. You need to think of this as both a representation of a realm but also a vehicle to present the essence of the offerings to the gods. The business end of the offering stick is contained within.
For Vishnu the Preserver, and the northern compass point, there’s red betel nut. White lime is for west and Shiva the Destroyer. Brahma the Creator gets the south and scores a cutting of gambier for their efforts. Atop these lies white flower petals, for the east and Iswara. The aforementioned trio also score flowers—red for Brahma, yellow for Shiva and green or blue for Vishnu. Atop these still, there might be candy, cookies or another small snack—which, alongside the time required to prepare the offering, are indicators of the selflessness of the devotee.
Pizza, ciggies—any brand will do—nobody said the gods are on a health kick. As you can see, day to day practice doesn’t always reflect the theory. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Once prepared, the offering is placed on the pavement, within a family temple, or elsewhere. Holy water is sprinkled onto the offering, then as a soft prayer is mouthed, incense is lit, and a hand is waved gently through the smoke. With the wave, the smoke carrying the meaning of the offering makes its way upwards to the gods. Even this final motion is elemental—earth, fire, water and wind coming together to deliver one’s prayers to another realm.
This process takes place every morning—in temples, households, and places of business. From the beach, up the rivers, through the forests, to the mountaintops, you’ll see canang sari. Once you know where to look—and what you’re looking at—the gods are everywhere.
Ritual on Bali permeates far deeper though. As I wrote yesterday, there’s something one needs to do before leaving Gilimanuk to delve further into the island. You’ll need to walk for almost a kilometre, but on the upside this will help to work up an appetite.
Say your prayers. Photo: Sally Arnold.
Ayam Betutu Men Tempeh sits on the north side of the road, behind a large parking area—don’t worry you can’t miss it. In business since the late 1970s, over the years entrepreneurial staff have left to start their own knock-off shops—often with confusingly similar names—but the original is easier enough to find.
The dish in question is Ayam Betutu, a rich and spicy chicken dish (though the duck version is perhaps better known), that is right up there with babi guling and lawar when you’re grasping to furnish a must-try Bali dishes listicle.
Ayam betutu is more than a meal though. Much like canang sari, this is a dish made with the gods in mind—indeed the story goes that the original recipe was handed down from the gods. Sadly as the Ibu behind Ayam Betutu Men Tempeh has passed away, this snippet can’t be verified.
A meal fit for the gods. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Regardless of its origins, the bumbu (spice mixture) that goes into ayam betutu honours the gods. As this piece by chef Will Meyrick details, the four primary incredients are there to pay homage. There’s turmeric for Shiva, galangal for Brahma, ginger for Vishnu and kencur (a galangal varierty) for Iswara. Meyrick writes:
“In traditional Balinese kitchens, these four ingredients are measured with the length of fingers; galangal by the middle finger, turmeric the index finger, Ginger the ring finger, and kencur the pinky. Eight more spices are combined with these main ones, including shallots, garlic, shrimp paste, chilli and salt.”
While it isn’t clear from Meyrick’s write-up how much bumbu the above produces, going on the flavours at Ayam Betutu Men Tempeh, she must have had big hands. Hand size aside, the chicken is boiled in the concoction for an hour before being ladled onto plates ready to be slung. The staff—who I’ve found to be reliably terse verging on rude over the years—will grudgingly provide more spice if desired, but for many, especially those new to Bali, extra heat won’t be necessary.
Don’t forget to give Java a final wave goodbye. Photo: Adam Poskitt.
So there you go. You’re in Bali. You’ve walked by countless offerings to the gods, then you’ve eaten a meal sourced from them, and made with them in mind. And you’re not even a kilometre in yet. And you know what? You’ve not seen a single resort. It’s called Pulau Dewata for a reason.
Couchfish is 100 per cent independent and reader-supported. If you’re not already a subscriber, and you’d like to show your support, become a paying subscriber today for just US$7 per month—you can find out more about Couchfish here—or simply share this story with a friend.
Don’t forget, you can find the free podcasts on Apple, Pocket Casts and Spotify as well as right here on Couchfish.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit couchfish.substack.com -
A quick word of introduction. My name is Stuart McDonald and this is Couchfish—the perfect tub of ice-cream for the traveller stranded on the couch. The newsletter has both a paid edition which traces a fantasy itinerary through Southeast Asia, and a free one that covers, well, everything else. If you’d like to support me finding more tourism stuff to moan about, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you.
You know that thing when you’re waiting to board a flight and staff announce “we’re now boarding rows 20-30,” and every person stands to queue up? What is wrong with people? Where’s the fire?
Sometimes it seems that people have an inbuilt desire to stand next to one another. Who hasn’t been in an empty elevator only to have another person get in and stand right beside them? Or sitting, waiting for the above flight in a deserted corner of the terminal only for a complete stranger to come and sit beside them? Or, my forever favourite, the empty cafe, where you sit in a corner only to have some random come and sit beside you. And, of course take an online call without goddam earphones.
“Eco plane,” oh ha haaa Cebu Pacific. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
I’m not anti-human—honest—but I don’t understand these people. I’m not saying there aren’t joys to be had in meeting and getting to know complete strangers, but, well, having the space to determine when I want to avail myself of these bounties would be nice. I’m not here though to whine about planes, lifts and cafes. Rather, I want to zoom out a bit.
Yesterday, I came across a BBC story about an Austrian village named Halstatt. The picturesque village has taken a beating with the overtourism stick, with its 700 residents dealing with as many as 10,000 tourists a day. Considering attempts to better manage visitor numbers, sustainability smart thinker Anne de Jong lamented that in this case perhaps any changes would be too late.
I took a look at Halstatt on Instagram and sure enough, plenty of the pics, taking in the village’s best side, are taken from the near exact same spot. Yet, despite all the pics, few—if any—had other tourists in them. It’s easy to imagine a queue to take said photos going all the way around Halstatt’s oh so pretty lake. Out of shot, out of mind, and all that.
Instagrammers must be fair weather friends, as there were none in sight when I last hit Pura Lempuyang. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
This immediately brought Bali’s Pura Lempuyang to mind. Better known in tourism circles as the “Gates of Heaven,” the temple is a revered site that ended up on the tourism highway thanks to an iconic view it offers up. As ever-needing to adulterate the unadulterated, through the use of a mirror the photo is doubly striking. As with Halstatt, the photos invariably feature no other tourists save perhaps the subject doing a yoga pose or whatever. Most who come, come to take a pic, then leave.
Instagram and TikTok are the two primary flogging horses on this phenomena. As I’ve argued before, I see these as but the latest incarnation of the postcard, a means to satisfy the desire of many to prove they’ve been wherever. Why are they there besides that? I mean sure, who doesn’t want to visit a pretty spot, but beyond that? Good question.
Much of dealing with challenges like this boils down to people management. It is easy to look at a village of 700 people and decide 10,000 tourists a day is a bit excessive, but what is a reasonable number? Half that? A quarter? A tenth? Different parties will have different answers. The out-of-towner who runs a trinket shop selling tourist tat may be keen on no limit. The hotelier wants enough tourists that it doesn’t impinge on their ability to fill their hotel. The retiree resident who has nothing to do with tourism may well prefer zero. Balancing their desires is, well, a balancing act, but in every case, there is a figure out there.
No mirror required. Also, no tourists—this is an old photo, well before the temple hit the tourist charts. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Once derived, how to implement it? As I wrote recently with regard to Mount Batur on Bali, ticketing—with a finite number of tickets—offers a straightforward approach. Aside from a limit on tickets, this approach needs a cohesive view. Consider Emily Ding’s recent persuasive piece on Indonesia’s Nusa Penida. There, with no overall coordination, all manner of access fees are in play, with it not always clear what is being paid for, or why. The result, tourists, frustrated and weary from incessant toll keeping, give up.
This is less than ideal. Sure it brings revenue in—to where exactly being up for investigation—but it doesn’t address the volume of people. Much as one needs to book a table at a sought after restaurant—sometimes months in advance—why not the same approach for the above temple or lakeside village?
The restaurant is a good example. A decent manager knows how many tables they have and, at capacity, how many staff—chefs, bar-backs, waiters and so on—they need. They know how much food and booze they’ll require and how many tablecloths and napkins they’ll be sending to laundry at the end of the day. This knowledge helps the restaurant—at least in theory—improve both their bottom line and the experience for diners. The same goes for sights and attractions.
Kuching eatery dealing with the Bourdain-effect. Complete madhouse. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
It isn’t like the technology for online ticketing is a dark art. Tickets need not be exclusive in their pricing, indeed in some cases, tickets should be free. The important thing is the ticket—not the price. The other important thing? The ticket needs to be booked by the tourist—not the tour company. Why? To stop hoarding and onselling or scalping. If tourists complain about this being inconvenient, well, they managed to pre-book their flight and accommodation. They’re perfectly capable of booking in advance when it suits them—particularly if it is going to save them money.
Another step would be prolonging the stay. Now I’m sure the poor villagers at Halstatt would baulk at 10,000 people overnighting there. A glance at Google Maps marks a dozen or so hotels in the vicinity, so there is clear limited capacity there. Prolonging the stay need not be overnight though.
Consider that a parking area for buses an hour away on foot would add at least two hours to every visit. There could be various touch points along that hour-long walk to both disperse tourists and extract more dosh from them. When I was in Singapore, one of the things I was working on was rewriting our walking tours. In the case of Little India, there’s a series of houses of worship, more or less in a row walking away from an MRT station. The first temple was full of people who were clearly foreign tourists. By the fourth, I was the only one.
Kali would sort this overtourism thing out in no time. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Sure, in part it was the middle of the day and I was the only person mad enough to be mapping out a walking tour in that heat, but as matters shook out, the fifth site was the most interesting. In the process of getting there, I had a lassi and later, a coconut, which is to say sometimes being a pleasure delayer pays off, even if in small ways—both for the destination and the punter.
You could argue that factoring in an hour-long walk as a price of access is in itself exclusive. Not all tourists are that mobile, while others would have too tight a timeline to dedicate two plus hours for a photo. For the former, yes, in the fine tuning there would need to be scope to facilitate visits by all. For the latter however, my answer would be “too bad.”
And it is this final answer, “too bad,” that much of the discomfort around all this stuff boils down. Destinations—be them temples, villages or whatever—are leery of turning off the tap. Witness Venice’s forever wincing on levying even a nominal charge on day tourists who are easily the most problematic of its visitors. This is Venice for Hell’s sake—it isn’t like tour operators are going to say, ok lets go to Monfalcone instead.
Should Bali’s Nyepi Ogoh Ogoh processions be ticketed for foreign tourists? Hard yes. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Boiled down, destinations are actually in the strongest position here. People don’t go to Venice because they want to fly RyanAir or pay for a freakin TUI holiday. They go to Venice because they want to see Venice. The airlines, and to an increasing point, tour operators, are nothing more than dumb pipes. Yet destinations have relinquished door security to bad boy airlines and tour operators who have a vested interest in keeping the doors open 24/7. After all, they’re not the ones who need to wash down the vomit at the end of the night.
Destinations have all the cards and have held them for decades. Now, more than ever, they need to start playing them.
Couchfish is 100 per cent independent and reader-supported. If you’re not already a subscriber, and you’d like to show your support, become a paying subscriber today for just US$7 per month—you can find out more about Couchfish here—or simply share this story with a friend.
Don’t forget, you can find the free podcasts on Apple, Pocket Casts and Spotify as well as right here on Couchfish.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit couchfish.substack.com -
A quick word of introduction. My name is Stuart McDonald and this is Couchfish—the perfect tub of ice-cream for the traveller stranded on the couch. The newsletter has both a paid edition which traces a fantasy itinerary through Southeast Asia, and a free one that covers, well, everything else.
This is the conclusion of a two-part series and you can read part one here. Yesterday I looked at the stories behind Bali’s Mount Batur and what the trekking experience can be like today. Today, some thoughts on how perhaps the visitor experience could be better managed. Both pieces are free-to-read, but if you’d like to support me finding more tourism stuff to moan about, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you.
Earlier this year, news did the rounds that Bali was to close its volcanoes. There would be exceptions for religious and other cultural needs, but trekking—by both local and foreign tourists—would end. The reason? The actions of a minuscule minority of—mostly foreign—tourists striding up the peaks and into full-blown idiocy. No, I’m not linking to any of the stories about those clowns, sorry.
Balinese see both Agung and Batur as holy peaks, but you didn’t need to be Balinese to be aghast at some of the ridiculous behaviour. The tourism industry, in particular trekking guides, did not support the measure, and, as with other proclamations of a similar tilt, nothing came of it.
There’s always a goddam drone. One of at least six I saw—the crater is full of dead ones apparently. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
While at the summit last weekend, I didn’t see any naked Russian influencers or Canadian healers. In fact I didn’t see anyone nekkid—it’s cold, and I’d have been content with more clothes rather than less. What I did see was way too many people. Not only too many people from an aesthetic or experiential point of view, but also from one of safety. Trekkers continue to die and maim themselves on Batur and other peaks in the country, yet safety briefings, signage, fencing, and so on, as far as I saw, were non-existent. Despite these safety issues, the volume of people—and their impact—seemed to be less of an issue when it came to proclamations about closing the peaks.
Despite the accidents—many minor ones of which, according to our guide, go unreported—Batur is an easy climb. Depending on how long you linger at the summit beach party, you’re looking at three to four hours up and back. Agung is a good bit more challenging, and takes seven to nine hours, sometimes longer. When we climbed Batur, there were plenty who’d never set foot on a volcano before. I talked to Australians, Bangladeshis, Brits, Indians, Indonesians, Saudis, and South Koreans, among others. In all but the Indonesian case, they’d never climbed a volcano before. If someone comes to Bali and wants to climb one, in the past having never climbed anything but their laundry stairs, Batur works. The thoughts of those I spoke to I can sum up in two words: Beautiful and busy.
So how to address the latter and preserve the former, while not hitting the hip pocket of local residents? Also, how best to rope in the tourist idiocy that saw chit chat of a climbing ban in the first place? A typical approach is to jack up prices. This pushes it out of the reach of budget travellers who are—without any proof—often portrayed as being the source of most of the idiocy.
Today I’m arguing the opposite—to drop prices ... sort of.
No more cruise trekkers
Day tourists, those who don’t stay overnight in Kintamani, are the least valuable, highest impact kind. Sure they pay for the trekking, but that’s it. They don’t pay for a hotel nor homestay, nor the meals a stay entails. They drive in and drive out on the same day, contributing to Bali’s ghastly traffic. My solution? If you don’t stay in the immediate Kintamani area for two nights, you can’t climb Batur.
Still filling up. How many were day trippers? Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Why am I arguing for two nights rather than one? Because Kintamani and its surrounds have enough to kill two days. Indeed you can base yourself there and visit a range of further flung spots, that people tend to do from Ubud. This would be a win for Kintamani businesses as you’d be spending more money, and across a more diverse range of businesses.
Without a doubt, mandating a two night stay would reduce the number of people climbing. In turn, trekking revenue would fall. However, in staying two nights, the overall spend in the area would increase. Research has shown that some residents feel tourism isn’t delivering the financial windfall some hoped for, so this could help.
This feeling of tourism “not delivering” is in part because the activities are so concentrated on the peak. There’s volcano jeep riding and black-sand motor-cross riding for example—but spend some time looking at the tours on offer. Most include hotel pickup and drop off—from anywhere in Bali. The subtext? Many of these guests are not overnighting in Kintamani. Not only that, they’re often buying a tour through an overseas company—further reducing their local spend as the overseas agency takes a cut.
Reform the trekking business
As with Mount Agung, almost all trekking on Batur is at sunrise. Aside from the beauty, there are weather considerations at play as the peaks often cloud over in the afternoon. That said, it is often clouded in at sunrise too—the day before we climbed it was cloudy, when we did, it was crystal clear. Make an offering to the weather gods the day before.
Immediately behind these two it is a sheer drop. According to our guide someone fell to their death from here a few years ago. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
I also suggest a hard cap on the number of tickets available daily. Tourists plan their flights and hotels in advance and there is no reason why they can’t do the same with a volcano climb. Offer the tickets online only, through a centralised online portal to keep one hundred per cent of the funds in-country. No ticket, no climb. As it stands, despite being a UNESCO Global Geopark, Batur doesn’t appear to have a functional website. Likewise, their Facebook page is infrequently updated. You can see an archived version of the former here. This is to say, I’m not suggesting this could be set up with a click of the fingers, but, come on fellas.
I’d also suggest that slots be available for three times—sunrise, daytime, and sunset. If sunrise is the most in demand, then price it higher. As a point of reference, currently two trekkers will pay anything from 400,000 to 750,000 rupiah all up a head—we paid 500,000 rupiah. Something like the following (note these are only for access and do not include transport, add-ons etcetera) could be a starting point:
* Dawn (start 04:00): 300 tickets 250,000 rupiah
* Daytime (start 08:00-14:00): 200 tickets 100,000 rupiah
* Sunset (start 16:00) 200 tickets 175,000 rupiah
As it stands, a chunk of what you pay goes to The Association of Mount Batur Trekking Guides—the above should replace that. This community organisation is not without controversy, but I’m not getting into that here. If you’re curious, pages 9-11 of this paper are a good starting point. My point is, if you want to climb Batur, you pick an agency to use, but you buy your Batur Pass independently, online. No pass, no climb. The agency can still make their money through guide fees, transport, add-ons etcetera as they already do. They just lose the ability to sell—and mark up—the access fee. As is the case now, this access pass money could continue to go towards wages, social endeavours and keeping the trails clean. By Indonesian standards, Batur’s trails have a limited trash problem—well done.
According to our guide, where I am standing in taking this photo, some years ago a British woman stepped straight off the rim into the crater before dawn. She didn’t have a torch and wanted to change her trousers, but didn’t realise where she was. She broke her neck and some limbs, but survived. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
With something like this, further people management tools become available. Think seasonal variations—50 per cent more in peak season July and August, 25 per cent less over monsoonal November through to February. Having the majority of tickets booked in advance brings with it plenty of business planning benefits. Most importantly, the ticket numbers should be hard capped. Get some volcano carrying capacity person—ie., not me—to take a look and figure it out. I am pretty confident though in suggesting a thousand people at the summit is not ideal.
There’s no doubt the trekking scene is bringing money and jobs into Kintamani. But for whom? At a glance, most guides are young men, which is typical in Indonesia. On our climb, I don’t think I saw a single female guide, though guides are not indicated by a badge or anything, so I can’t be sure. I did see plenty of women selling snacks, drinks, and polished lava bracelets at the summit. Female trekking guides have been a selling point on Lombok’s Rinjani, so why not on Batur? According to one Batur trekking company, of 600 trekking guides, ten are women. Smart operators should get onto this.
Say no to idiocy
As already mentioned, Balinese view both Agung and Batur as holy peaks. It should come as no surprise to most that people getting nekkid, having sex, or filming themselves having sex, are not in tune with local sensibilities. A step or three down the idiocy list, flying a drone likewise, is not permitted. This last one is a bit complicated, as the government site seems to suggest you need a license, but it’s not very accessible for non-Indonesian speakers, which would include most foreign tourists. Drone sites meanwhile, suggest otherwise. This confusion aside, in Bali, drone pilots do need permission to fly a drone over a religious site. On this count, both Agung and Batur qualify.
On the way down the crowds are gone and we’re able to have a safer separation between people. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
The best way to address these points is by requiring visitors to read and sign a plain language document outlining rules and norms. At least then, when someone gets their gear off to nude-pilot their drone while they’re having sex, they can’t say they didn’t know. And they sure can’t whine when they’re punished. Obviously this document should be a part of the online booking process.
But this isn’t fair!
I imagine some are reading this and thinking, well this isn’t fair. That they’d like to climb Batur but can’t afford to give Kintamani two nights. My answer to that is to either take a longer trip, or to rejig your existing itinerary so that you can fit it in. Prioritise your trip accordingly—you can’t do everything.
Slow down and smell the coffee—I hear Kintamani isn’t bad on that front.
Couchfish is 100 per cent independent and reader-supported. If you’re not already a subscriber, and you’d like to show your support, become a paying subscriber today for just US$7 per month—you can find out more about Couchfish here—or simply share this story with a friend.
Don’t forget, you can find the free podcasts on Apple, Pocket Casts and Spotify as well as right here on Couchfish.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit couchfish.substack.com -
A quick word of introduction. My name is Stuart McDonald and this is Couchfish—the perfect tub of ice-cream for the traveller stranded on the couch. The newsletter has both a paid edition which traces a fantasy itinerary through Southeast Asia, and a free one that covers, well, everything else.
This is a two-part series, with the conclusion tomorrow. Today I’m looking at the stories behind Bali’s Mount Batur and what the trekking experience can be like today. Tomorrow, some thoughts on how perhaps the visitor experience could be better managed. Both pieces are free-to-read, but if you’d like to support me finding more tourism stuff to moan about, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you.
Situated in the northern reaches of Bali, Mount Batur is a 1,717 metre peak at the centre of an enormous caldera. Thought to have once towered to some 3,000 to 4,000 metres, two tremendous eruptions some 20,000 to 30,000 years ago halved its height. Still active, the volcano has over two dozen recorded eruptions to its name, with the lava of a 1960s eruption still blanketing the caldera floor. While nearby Mount Agung may be the better known, Batur is easily the most popular to climb.
Sunset from the caldera rim, with Mount Agung in the distance. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Batur has two creation myths to its name. One holds that Bali was once a free-floating—dare I say free-thinking—island, cruising the ocean’s surface. Hanging out on Mount Semeru, this bothered the gods, so they decided to anchor it in place. To do so, they shifted Semeru’s peak to Bali, breaking it in two, with Agung forming the male half and Batur the female.
The better tale also harks back a bit, to the days when a giant named Kebo Iwa called Bali home. No, he wasn’t named after the Nusa Penida fast boat that sank last year, though there are some interesting angles on his name here. A kind-hearted soul, he was gargantuan in both size and appetite, and when his tummy rumbled, his temper flared. After a bad rice harvest one year, famine ravaged the island and the Balinese didn’t have enough to satisfy his appetite. He spat the dummy and smashed the place up, filling his belly with villagers rather than whatever it was giants ate back then.
Sunset with Batur at the centre. The lake in the foreground was Kebo Iwa’s undoing. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
For the people, this was a bummer and they came up with a plan to deal with their giant man-child once and for all. Once he chilled out, they convinced him to amend for his tantrum and fix stuff up, which he did. When it came to sorting out some water, the villagers pointed him to north Bali and asked he dig a well. Digging and digging, deeper he went, all the while the mound of displaced earth growing. As he dug, the villagers piled limestone on the other side of the well. When he struck water, they’d build him a house to say thanks, they told him. This pleased Kebo Iwa.
When he finally struck water, the giant figured he deserved a bit of a kip and took a nap in the bottom of the well. The villagers, seeing him snoozing, threw the limestone in around him, where it mixed with the water, turning to a gooey paste. When the giant awoke, he realised something was up and threw another tantrum, but all he got for his efforts was for the mushy limestone to hold him fast. The water gushed in and poor old Kebo Iwa drowned. When the water ebbed, Lake Batur took shape and the giant’s mound of earth became Mount Batur.
Moral of the story: Don’t sleep at the bottom of a well—particularly if your so-called mates are stacking up limestone by the side.
Late arrivals. Note the very suitable mountain climbing attire by the shirtless guy in front. Trekkers were this close almost the whole way up. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Mount Batur forms the centrepiece of the Batur UNESCO Global Geopark. Designated in 2015, the park encompasses over 370 km2, with famous-for-its-coffee-and-touts Kintamani, perched on the caldera’s southern rim. A popular destination for both local and foreign tourists, some come for the cool climate and coffee, others for the majestic views or hot springs. A growing number though, come to climb—as I did with my son and a mate of his, on Saturday morning.
A tiny family-owned homestay in Banjar Alengkong on the caldera’s northeast ridge, was our home for the night. As the sun fell, we enjoyed magnificent views across to Mount Agung to the east and Batur to the south. Later, we warmed ourselves by the fire as a million stars twinkled above. If this weather holds, we’re up for a good climb, I remember thinking.
The homestay was a thirty minute drive from where we would start climbing at Pura Pasar Agung. From there, as the crow flies, it is less than a kilometre to the rim—about an hour and a half climb according to our guide. Many though, begin their trek two and a half kilometres—or 45 minutes on foot—earlier, from the main road. When I say many, I mean ... many.
The silhouette of Rinjani never disappoints. The weather could not have been better—perfection. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Along that drive, while I wasn’t counting, I reckon we passed close to five hundred people. Western guys shone torches in our driver’s face and yelled “cheaters” as we drove by. Sorry we didn’t walk from Kerobokan fellas. I knew Batur was popular, but I didn’t expect crowds of this scale, and at the temple parking lot, I realised I hadn’t seen anything yet. Trekkers thronged by the temple, and in the distance, their torches illuminated the entire trail to the summit.
The climb wasn’t too hard. I worked up a bit of a sweat, and some panting occurred, but compared to climbing Agung, it’s a walk in the park. What made it a chore—not only a chore, but dangerous—were the crowds. When climbing, you want some distance between people—for slips, dislodged rocks and so on—yet here people were on top of one another. If I slowed to allow for a few metres between the next trekker and myself, some impatient would barge past, inserting themselves into the gap. I’d say for the first hour of the climb, I had someone else’s boots in my immediate field of vision the entire time. People fell and slipped, rocks flew, and tempers frayed—it was not ideal.
Around 100 people (that I can count in the photo, there were far more down the slope to the right etcetera) strung out along the first quarter of the rim. They lined the rim in this manner the entire way around. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
In summary—it sucked. It made for both a crap experience, and an unsafe one. Nevertheless, the three of us and our guide reached the rim in good time, with a half hour to spare before dawn.
I wandered the start of the rim and witnessed the most unexpected of scenes. Guitars strummed, as did music from smart phones. Vendors flogged beer, coffee, snacks, and polished lava bracelets. Aloft, at least a half dozen drones buzzed, and there were selfies aplenty.
A crowd of hundreds, predominantly foreign, were setting up along a series of terraces hewn into the rim. Along each, simple wooden benches allowed for more comfortable seating. In other bench-less areas people marked out their territory much as you would a tract of sand by the sea. Across the peak, the entirety of the rim—with a circumference of almost a kilometre—glowed with trekker torches. By the time the sun rose behind Mount Rinjani on Lombok, there had to be at least a thousand people at the summit. Together we waited for sunrise.
Finally, some Indonesian climbers—the red and white always gives them away! Photo: Stuart McDonald.
I turned to our guide and asked if it was always this busy. They shook their head saying:
“It is much worse in August when we have to start at 1 am to get a seat.”
We’d stumbled onto a volcanic beach party.
Tomorrow, some thoughts on some alternative approaches to visitor management at Batur—and elsewhere. Not only to improve the visitor experience but also to protect both local peoples’ livelihoods and to better act to respect their faith.
Couchfish is 100 per cent independent and reader-supported. If you’re not already a subscriber, and you’d like to show your support, become a paying subscriber today for just US$7 per month—you can find out more about Couchfish here—or simply share this story with a friend.
Don’t forget, you can find the free podcasts on Apple, Pocket Casts and Spotify as well as right here on Couchfish.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit couchfish.substack.com -
A quick word of introduction. My name is Stuart McDonald and this is Couchfish—the perfect tub of ice-cream for the traveller stranded on the couch. The newsletter has both a paid edition which traces a fantasy itinerary through Southeast Asia, and a free one that covers, well, everything else. You’re reading the latter here today, but if you’d like to, you can upgrade your subscription via the button below. Thank you!
As I type this I’m supposed to be somewhere in Laos, but I’m not. I did get a third of the way—to Singapore—but due to some unplanned changes (a.k.a. poor planning on my behalf) Singapore was as far as I got. Laos trip delayed, for my sins I scored four and a half days in Singapore.
It’s no secret that Singapore can be expensive. Going on the deluge of news stories lamenting skyrocketing rents, pricey scoffing, whining tourists (like me), and that the mooncake prices are heading towards the ahhh moon, it seems never more so than today.
Other things I could have done with my money. At Sri Vadapathira Kaliamman Temple, Little India. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
The thing is, there are many steps you can take to ensure your stay in Singapore is even more expensive than it needs to be—and I’m here to tell you how. Why? Through my lack of foresight, bad planning, and general incompetence, I lived it.
What I got wrong
Buy your sim card at the airport
As I said, I had not planned on lingering in Singapore, so I grabbed a sim card upon arrival at Changi Airport—for $30. The card worked fine and gave me all the data I needed, but had I purchased one online, I could have got something similar for around $10.
Don’t throw away your EZ-link card
I’m through Singapore quite a bit, and somewhere back home there’s a pile of half-used EZ-link cards. If you’re not familiar with these, they’re stored-value cards you use for public transport in Singapore. When you buy a new card, it costs $10 but comes with only $5 worth of credit. So yes, I bought yet another card to add to my growing collection of cards still loaded with credit at home. You can (in theory) use your credit card in lieu of an EZ link card, but I’m having too many credit card problems to even entertain that approach—thank you Westpac and Commonwealth Bank.
Book nothing in advance
In my defence, my original plan held for me spending one hour and fifty minutes in Singapore. My connection to Laos was so tight I’d splashed out on a front row AirAsia seat to aid my sprint between terminals. Laos trip binned a week before departure, I could have booked my beds, but, well I never got around to it. When I did, the day before my departure, hostel rates were as high as my flight.
I tracked every single cost over the entire trip—then wish I hadn’t. The app, called Tripcoin, is simple to use. The “Others” section includes $110 in clothes and duty free, so maybe shave that off mentally. I don’t know what the previous 4 days bit means, so just ignore that too. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
I then doubled down on my error and booked one night, figuring I’d find something cheaper as a walk-in once there. This, again, was a dreadful error. Not only had many of the backpackerish places I liked shut down thanks to the pandemic, my trip coincided with a public holiday weekend. Excellent.
In summary, I ended up paying $70, $78 and $66 for pods and then $100 for a hotel. If you’re a road warrior attuned to paying north of $200 a night, these rates might seem rock bottom, but I’m no road warrior. And I’m sure not attuned to paying $78 for a pod.
Contact your accommodation direct to get a better rate
Ha ha ha, yes, good luck with that. One of the places I stayed only accepts bookings through Agoda and Booking. When I asked about booking direct, they gave me a telephone number and told me to Whatsapp them for their bank account details for me to make a transfer to. When I asked after rates, they told me to look at Agoda—who I know they were paying a commission of 25 per cent to. This seemed … dumb.
More and more pods and less and less of these. Not sure that is totally a bad thing. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Another hostel wouldn’t match the Agoda rate—despite me standing in front of them with money in my hand. The third one, a hotel, I paid in cash in person, but if I wanted to book for the future, they advised I needed to either use Agoda or call them as they “don’t check their email every day,” and promise to show up.
Don’t stay out of the centre of town
Again, this is hardly brain surgery. If you want to stay downtown, close to many of Singapore’s sights, then you’re going to pay a premium for the privilege. If you’re willing to stay a little further out, prices drop—almost to a point where they could be described as good value. Yes there’s a trade off as you’ll incur the time and costs of getting downtown—I opted out of this trade off and paid the premium.
Don’t bring your own plate and cutlery
This isn’t so much a cost thing, but bear with me. It might sound bonkers given all Singapore’s sustainability blah blah, but the hawker centres are awash in styrofoam. According to the government, this has been banned for new stallholders in all hawker centres since 2018, though in the past they’ve said alternatives are too pricey.
Just eat and pretend not to know your plate and cup will take a bazillion years to break down—or be incinerated. At Chinatown Complex. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Regardless of the blah blah, styrofoam features not only for takeaway, but eat-in as well. Likewise single use plastic is prevalent for cups, forks, and spoons. Single use wooden chopsticks are far more common than they should be. Plastic straws are everywhere. You can bring your own plate—I saw quite a few Singaporeans doing just this—but my plate was at home, probably full of half-used EZ-link cards.
Don’t look at menu prices
Some deranged hostels turn the air-con off between 10am and 2pm, so when that happens, seek air-con in the closest air-con cafe you can find. Be sure to order as you walk in without looking at the menu. Don’t hesitate to order a second one when the first one goes down a treat. This is the best way to seamlessly pay $16 for two flat whites. A bag coffee from a hawker station? Around $1.60. Where’s the mug?
Don’t plan your sightseeing beforehand
The best way to maximise sticker shock is to not check admission prices beforehand. Gardens By The Bay for $53, or the Art Science Museum for $51, hell yeah. The National Museum at $40 was eye-watering, but with the excellent Experiencing Singapore Through Travel 1800s - 2000s exhibition costing a mere $18 I went with that instead. It was worth every penny. On the other hand with the Mandai Singapore Zoo at $48 I thanked the travel gods I didn’t pack my kids.
The Cloud Dome is pretty wild—but could have done without the tacky Avatar tie-in. Also $212 for a family of four. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Don’t make use of Singapore’s many free public spaces
Singapore has plenty of park space that won’t cost you a dime—so be sure not to allow time to use any of it. The Botanical Gardens and Fort Canning Park are free, as is the Southern Ridges Walk, Bukit Timah and Labrador Nature Reserve. Likewise hitting Pulau Ubin won’t cost you any more than the bumboat ride there and back.
Things I got right
Those feet were made for walking
I walked. I walked a lot—around 89,000 steps according to my phone. Singapore is a fantastic walking city, and as one of the things I decided to do while there was rework our walking tours, I fitted in plenty of this. Chinatown, Little India, Kampong Glam, Bugis, Raffles, and The Quays are all great destinations for wandering. There’s plenty of pretty architecture, temples, pagodas, mosques, and churches—all of which are free to explore. There’s also terrific—and more affordable—museums such as the Peranakan Museum to get you off the street and out of the blistering heat.
Inside the beautiful Sultan Mosque. Also, free. Photo: Sally Arnold.
Combine wandering with an EZ-link card, and there’s no need to go anywhere near anything that uses four wheels. Good for the wallet—and the planet—even if only a small number of buses are electric for now.
Hawker centres are your friend
All but two of my meals were in a hawker centre. This kept costs down, and I love the food. There is the aforementioned styrofoam and single use plastic issues, but you can work around those. There is some price variance—Chinatown Complex or Maxwell are a little pricier than Albert Centre, but it isn’t a deal breaker. If you drink, hawker stations have the cheapest beer in town—think around $6-$7 for a large Tiger—more for fancier tipples.
Sorry, but I can’t think of anything else I did right.
Closing bed tips
The hostel scene in Singapore has changed quite a bit post-pandemic. Many of the long-running “backpacker-style” places are gone, and most pod places lack a hostel vibe. That said, here’s some spots I recommend, and for each I’ve listed a direct rate from the property, listing the cheapest option for one night in mid October. Where they’re listed on Agoda, or in one case HostelWorld, I’ve added that as well. Just also to note, the Agoda links are affiliate links which means a commission may be payable to Travelfish if you click through and book a room.
Never ever carpet a hotel room floor. What $100 gets you at the South East Asia Hotel. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
If you don’t mind staying a little out of downtown, BetelBox (direct from $28) on Joo Chiat in Geylang remains a solid old-school hostel. Geylang can get a little ropey at night as it’s as close as Singapore gets to a red light zone, but I love the area, and the Vietnamese food—in particular Long Phung—is great.
In Chinatown, Wink Hostel (from $50 direct, Agoda) on Mosque Street is still going strong and has a second property for overflow. On South Bridge Road, Adler has changed hands and is now Atelier (in theory from $50, in practice $70ish, they have no website, but are on Agoda here), think of it as a slight step up from Wink, but it’s a chaotic mess management-wise. The Bohemian (via Hostel World from around $50, Agoda), Beat Arts Hostel (previously i-Stay In, also from around $50 direct, Agoda) and Rucksack Inn (direct from around $30, Agoda) are decent Chinatown backups to Wink.
In Kampong Glam, Cube Boutique (direct from $55-ish, Agoda) and The Pod @ Beach Road (direct from $50,
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A quick word of introduction. My name is Stuart McDonald and this is Couchfish—the perfect tub of ice-cream for the traveller stranded on the couch. The newsletter has both a paid edition which traces a fantasy itinerary through Southeast Asia, and a free one that covers, well, everything else. You’re reading the latter here today, but if you’d like to, you can upgrade your subscription via the button below. Thank you!
I need to head to Singapore next week and given what I’m forever ranting about, I figured I’d try and find a property that was doing things right. Normally I stay in a Chinatown hostel, but thinking perhaps I was missing out, I Googled a bunch of variations on “best eco-whatever in Singapore.” What could go wrong?
For every eco-listicle that Google threw back at me, the Marina Bay Sands was up top, so I decided to peer into that big-spending parallel universe to see what makes one the leader of the hi-so sustainability pack.
Singapore’s very own big banana. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
If you’re not familiar with the Marina Bay Sands, it’s the one that looks like a banana held aloft by three pillars. Opened in 2010, the hotel boasts 2,200 rooms starting at some US$655 a night (on Booking.com), placing it towards the mid- to upper-end of Singapore’s luxury scene. Owned by an American casino company, it features the world’s “largest atrium casino” with 600 tables and 2,300 slot machines.
Anyways, credit where due, the hotel has done quite a bit on the sustainability front. Their Responsible Business Highlights 2022 report makes for an interesting read, and that’s what I’m looking at today. Before I say anything else, I want to note that every hotel on the planet should prepare something like this, though with more context please.
Energy
Thanks to efforts towards more prudent energy use, they’ve saved just shy of 10 million kWh. Great! But how much are they still using? According to the report, they went through 244,425 MWh in 2022. With 2,200 rooms that total works out at around 111 MWh per room per year. Yeah I know they use power for lots of other stuff aside from the rooms, but you can’t have one thing without the other.
If only the nearby Gardens By The Bay generated power like they look like they should. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Let’s add some context. According to Singapore’s Energy Market Authority, the average use of a one- or two-room house is 175.6 KWh and an apartment 540 KWh. Note the difference—MWH and KWH—convert it and the hotel annual per-room average is around 111,000 KWH. About 600 times that of an average two-room home in Singapore and 200 times that of a private apartment.
An aside. You might note the report mentions that the Marina Bay Sands has a target of 30% renewable energy use by 2025. They’re currently at 21.9%—good to see they’re getting there. Over on Booking.com’s sustainability page for the hotel, they list it as “100% renewable electricity used throughout.” As I wrote last week, Booking’s sustainability reporting effort is a garbage fire. Do not trust a word you read on it.
Water
The hotel’s water use in 2022 was 1,341,002 cubic metres (one cubic metre is one thousand litres), which works out at around 3,600 cubic metres per day. Divide that daily figure by the 2,200 rooms and you get around 1,600 litres per day. Household water consumption in Singapore in 2021 was 158 litres per person. Roughly a tenth of one room at the hotel.
Marina Barrage offers nice views of the joint—it’s also essential to Singapore’s water supply. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Two things are worth noting here. First, despite how much it seems to rain there, Singapore has a limited water supply. It has four primary water sources—local catchment, imports from Malaysia, reclaimed, and desalinated. The imports represent the largest water source—and thus, for the hotel, an indirect economic leakage. Secondly, Singapore’s Green Plan 2030, aims to reduce household water use to 130 litres per person per day. Dare I say that’s but a drop in the ocean when there are enormous hotels using ten times that.
I want to go to Trash Island
Save a Covid19-induced respite, waste sent to landfill sits around the 10,000 tonnes mark. This sent me down a rabbit hole of Singapore landfill material which I’ve filed away in the “stuff I never planned to learn about” part of my brain. In summary, Singapore seems to have four waste-to-energy plants that contribute around two per cent of their power needs. What can’t be burned, plus the ash residue from what is burned, goes offshore to Pulau Semakau, an island off of the south coast.
A word on Pulau Semakau. It is an amalgamation of two islands Semakau and Pulau Sakeng. The former was home to a small fishing village but the government acquired the land and shifted the residents to mainland HBDs—they must have been thrilled. They even shifted the cats off the island. The islands were then joined and in 1999 the trash dumping began. You can learn more about what the island used to be like here, and old photos here and plenty more here.
On the Marina Bay Sands report, it reads “Waste sent to landfill,” not “Waste burnt in Singapore then buried at sea between two nearby islands that used to be home to fishers who are now living in mainland HBDs.”
While I couldn’t find a figure for household waste, according to the Ministry of the Environment, Singapore generates 8,700 tonnes of waste per day.
Maine Lobsters Rejoice!
The hotel report details steps it has taken to address waste—and all are to be applauded. There’s bamboo toothbrushes—and oddly razors—and they’re trying to get a handle on food waste. They even ditched lobsters from Maine, which is good for the lobsters I guess—and for the carbon involved in flying them around the planet. Despite this, the menus from the hotel’s many restaurants remain awash with imported produce. If you want to drop $300 on 120g of US imported beef, this is the place for you. Again, leakages all over the joint.
Do You Feel Lucky?
The final part of the report looks at the hotel’s social activities. Again, there’s plenty to support here—the Art Science Museum, food kits for Singapore’s more vulnerable, and educational activities. It is worth keeping in mind though that the whole enterprise sits atop an enormous casino—hardly a bastion of upwards social mobility. Indeed Singaporeans are not even allowed into it unless they pay a S$150 daily fee. I wonder why.
What’s My Gripe?
I think it’s important to note at this point that the Marina Bay Sands is doing a lot—far more than many hotels—to mitigate its impacts. My gripe isn’t that they’re not doing enough, I get that this stuff takes time. My gripe is that I don’t see how a property like this will ever be a sustainable undertaking in a tourism sense. While it is important—and helpful—for them to document the steps they are taking, suggesting the end result is going to be an example of sustainable tourism seems to be a stretch to say the least.
On the upside, it is photogenic. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Let’s skip back to the Chinatown hostel scene for a moment. Where there’s three showers for twenty bunks, no swimming pool and no lobsters from Maine. Where a travellers’ impact is—I’m guessing here—far closer to on par with a local Singapore resident—if not below. Hell, if you’ve ever stayed at Ali’s Nest, you know what I’m talking about!
I’m not suggesting that anyone who cares about sustainable tourism must stay in a hostel. If you’re comfortable being a bit spendy, somewhere like Lloyd’s Inn seems like a good middle ground. I’m guessing here though, as they have nothing about sustainability on their site. Indeed, sometimes it seems the least sustainable have the most to say, so perhaps having no information at all is a good sign!
I guess the core question to be answered here is what does one consider to be a step forward for sustainable tourism? If you go back to its original concept, roughly summarised as “operating in a manner that does not impinge on the future viability of a destination,” then you’d think trying to operate within the framework and limitations faced by local residents seems a decent starting point. Having an undertaking that uses hundreds of times the power and water that residents do, seems less so. As such, I have strong reservations about businesses like this one being reported on in the same breath as “sustainable tourism.” They do not belong there—and they never will.
Lloyd’s always struck me as just a lot more sane. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
I’m not arguing that hotels like the Marina Bay Sands should not exist—I understand their appeal. I get that hotels like this create thousands of jobs and I’m sure the government takes a nice slice off the casino side of things, though I’m less sure of where that dosh ends up—the hotel earned a staggering US$848 million over 2022/2023, with the casino pulling in some 70 per cent of that. I wonder how much of that revenue stays in Singapore. Sustainable tourism needs to be viewed in a holistic manner—at all aspects of the business—economic, environmental and social.
Finding other options—for now—remains a challenge. Travellers like myself who care about sustainability are left using a guess and gut feeling—and I don’t understand why this is the case. Someone needs to fix it, and it sure as hell won’t be Booking or Google.
Me? Back to Chinatown it is.
PS: Regarding last week’s piece on Booking’s sustainability train wreck, I received some feedback suggesting I had been unfair in not soliciting comment from the companies concerned. This is not correct, I did email both Booking and Travalyst, but didn’t hear back from either—but I forgot to mention this in the post. I’ve amended the post the mention this. Thanks again for the feedback.
Couchfish is 100 per cent independent and reader-supported. If you’re not already a subscriber, and you’d like to show your support, become a paying subscriber today for just US$7 per month—you can find out more about Couchfish here—or simply share this story with a friend.
Don’t forget, you can find the free podcasts on Apple, Pocket Casts and Spotify as well as right here on Couchfish.
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A quick word of introduction. My name is Stuart McDonald and this is Couchfish—the perfect tub of ice-cream for the traveller stranded on the couch. The newsletter has both a paid edition which traces a fantasy itinerary through Southeast Asia, and a free one that covers, well, everything else. You’re reading a mix of the two here today, and if you’d like to read the full edition, you can upgrade your subscription via the button below. Thanks!
In survey after survey after survey, travellers state that they want to travel in a more responsible manner. They want clear information that will help them to choose businesses that support the goals of sustainable tourism. They want, in essence, to do their part to make travel better. Not only better for themselves, but better for destinations and the people who live there, and indeed better for the planet. Laudable stuff.
This is not a new desire. One can’t throw a satay stick without hitting some news story detailing the latest ravages of tourism, and it is heartening that an increasing number of travellers are at least saying that this is a priority for them.
So who should step in and declare “we can fill this sustainability information black hole?”
Cambodia’s Sihanoukville never fails to deliver when I need a “Tourism WTAF photo”. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Booking Holdings, the parent of Online Travel Agents Booking and Agoda (among other firms), claims to be “the world’s leading provider of online travel & related services.” According to its own propaganda, as of 2022 the undertaking listed over 28 million places to stay sourced from over 220 countries. In that same year, the site processed a staggering 900 million room nights worth over US$120 billion.
Who better to have in the steering house of divining which properties are “sustainable”, than a company with a vested interest in recommending as many as possible?
In five acts, I’m going to cover first the genesis of their sustainability platform, how it works, some of the problems with it, consider why we’re seeing these problems, and then look at why this is bad for both travellers and destination residents. About half the post is free-to-read, to read the whole piece, please consider becoming a paying Couchfish subscriber. Membership costs US$7 per month and delivers access to an archive of hundreds upon hundreds of posts. Changed my mind on this—the whole piece is free to read, though if you want to become a paid subscriber, please do!
I. How To Build A Hen House
Sustainable tourism sits upon a three-pronged foundation—economic, environmental, and social. If a business takes a sustainable approach to its undertakings, it takes these aspects and considers how to operate without impinging on the future viability of a destination.
More royalty always makes things better. Pigeon at Phimai, Thailand. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
In considering how to fashion this foundation, Booking turned to Travalyst, another corporate entity founded by some royal dude. The Travalyst mission statement reads:
“Our mission is to make the travel industry more sustainable. We do this by convening leading industry players in a pre-competitive coalition to collaborate on bringing consistent sustainability information to the mainstream for the first time. This means we can empower consumers to make better choices: for themselves, and for the planet.”
As far as I can make out, Travalyst consulted with the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), an Independent Advisory Group, and their Accommodation Working Group. A notable missing wheel is any form of non-tourism stakeholder voice from destinations—this not giving destinations their fair number of seats at the table is a problem that has plagued tourism forever. This ever-familiar oversight aside, this entourage banged their heads together and came up with five areas of sustainability, each with a subset of related aspects. The five areas, followed by their number of subsets, are:
* Energy (19)
* Waste (14)
* Water (7)
* Biodiversity & Ecosystems (10)
* Destination & Community (11)
The list is, for what it is, sensible—there’s nothing on it that people wouldn’t consider to be a positive step, albeit perhaps the smallest of bandaids in some cases. I couldn’t find the list anywhere on Booking, which is a bit frustrating as properties often list sustainability achievements that are not on the list, so it isn’t clear where some of the benchmarks are coming from. You can see the full list on Travalyst here.
As I mentioned up top, the broad pillars of sustainability are economic, environment and social. While the Travalyst list doesn’t tightly correspond to these, broad strokes the first four fall under environment and the last one, social. Some aspects within energy, waste, and water, have economic angles, but it struck me as curious to not have a top line category for economic impacts. More generally, there are many, many … many, problems with the list—I’ll return to both this omission and the list’s problems later. And while I know this is rich coming from me, Travalyst needs to prioritise the hiring of an editor competent in the English language.
II. Fill The House With Hens
List done and dusted, participating properties self-select which sustainable practices they’ve adopted within the Booking extranet. I was unable to see exactly how this works, but according to this page, it sounds like properties tick the boxes that apply to them, and this then populates a list on their property page on Booking.
My son Will having a thrilling time in East Java. The homestay we stayed at does not participate in Booking’s scheme—and don’t need to—but will it be bad for their business if they don’t? Photo: Stuart McDonald.
There is also scope to add a property’s various “green” accreditations and certifications etcetera, which can supposedly play a part in checking the accuracy of what properties say, but, as I’ve written before, large tracts of that particular ecosystem more resemble a pyramid or pay-to-play scheme than anything intended to better inform travellers, so I’m ignoring it here.
Tick box ticked, based on the property’s location and practices, the programme’s “eligibility criteria model” (whatever that is) calculates an “overall impact score.” So what does this score look like? Booking has four implicit levels and one implied:
* Level 1: “You’ve implemented some impactful sustainability practices.”
* Level 2: “You’ve made considerable investments and efforts to implement impactful sustainability practices.”
* Level 3: “You’ve made large investments and efforts to implement impactful sustainability practices.”
* Level 3+: “This property has made significant commitments towards sustainability by subscribing to one or more third-party sustainability certifications.”
* Non-participating.
Levels one to four get a non-clickable stylised leaf icon displayed near the top of their property profile page on Booking. Then, depending on how many price brackets the property has listed—so anything from four to ten scrolls down—after the room pricing, there’s a short section noting the property’s “Travel Sustainable” level with a small link to read more. Click on that and you get a popup detailing what the property is doing. Depending on the property, this popup carries with it a footnote saying either:
“Independent organizations verify all third-party certifications and sustainability steps.”
or, the seemingly more common:
“We’ve begun exploring verification processes for these steps using guests’ feedback and a trusted third-party auditor. However, as of now, we can’t fully guarantee the accuracy of this information.”
Both are followed by a link titled “Learn more here,” which links to the Booking sustainability homepage—good luck learning anything about this there.
On some location pages, Booking offers readers the ability to filter by these criteria—and credit where due, this functionality and visibility has been drastically improved in recent times. However, this filtering is not displayed consistently. For example, if you look at their page for Lamai Beach on Ko Samui, there is no filter nor are any sustainability leafs shown for properties. This seems odd as this is the page you would land on if you were to Google “Lamai Beach Booking”. The leaf (and the filter) often only appear after you enter your desired stay dates.
Without getting too tangled in the weeds, the point I’m trying to make is that for a traveller concerned about sustainable travel, a filter like this, where one can, with a single click, surface only the properties meeting say “Travel Sustainable Level 3,” is super useful, and for properties qualifying for this level, I’m pretty comfortable in guessing it is driving bookings. Indeed, Booking claim that “73 per cent of guests are more likely to book at a property that has sustainability practices in place.” On a quick search for Ko Samui, some 240 of a supposed 599 available properties had at least Level 1.
Getting from Level 1 to Level 3 need not be all that demanding. Consider the KB Beach Club and Pool Villas—this is actually the top recommended property for Ko Samui that Booking surfaced to me. It has Travel Sustainable Level 1, and of the 61 items on the Travalyst list, has ticked 18 of them. The Conrad Koh Samui, a Travel Sustainable Level 3+ property, ticks 25 of them. I think (guessing here) the + is related to its certifications. The Conrad’s other extra efforts according to the Travalyst list?
* Single-use shampoo, conditioner, and body wash bottles not used
* Single-use plastic stirrers not used
* Single-use plastic straws not used
* Water-efficient showers
* Invests a percentage of revenue back into community projects or sustainability projects
* Local artists are offered a platform to display their talents
* Most food provided is organic
This doesn’t strike me as the heaviest of lifting to jump two levels. I’ll return to the Conrad a bit further along in this piece.
But how useful—and true—is any of this information?
III. Unlock The Gate
Booking are upfront—well, as upfront as you can be when it is via a footnote on a popup reached via a small link some four to ten scrolls down—in saying that they have no idea if the information they use to determine the travel sustainable level is accurate. Indeed, browse hotels in Vietnam and be amazed at just how many of them are 100 per cent renewable energy powered.
If only they could plug me in to some more damn hotels. Wind farm, Phan Rang-Tháp Chàm, Vietnam. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Problems around places making stuff up is hardly breaking news, and Booking does say that properties telling tall tales will have their listings adjusted, but, to my mind, this is only half the problem. The real problem is that the list is, well, kinda s**t.
I know I said up top that there was nothing on the list that people would quibble about, but give it a closer read, and you might start thinking this is the sort of checklist you come up with to make it look like you’re doing something when you’re not.
Consider the 100% renewable energy example I used above. By Southeast Asian standards, Vietnam does have a fair amount of renewable—mostly hydro— energy on tap, but it is far from 100 per cent. The chances of a ten-story 3-star hotel in Hanoi being on 100 per cent renewable power is as likely as finding a good bowl of phở in Bali. More to the point, while renewable energy is something worth striving for, I think what is really missing here is context. Let me explain.
Consider a traveller who decides they want to stay at a hotel that takes a prudent approach to its power usage. Telling the traveller a hotel uses 100 per cent renewable power, or that it reduced its use by five per cent over the past year (another tick factor), are both useful to a point. However, as they lack context, as a point of comparison to any other hotel they are largely meaningless.
The real question, is how much actual power does the property use? This matters not only with regard to comparing to other properties, but also to the destination as a whole—how much additional load onto the grid is yet another hotel adding? If you have two hotels, one of which is using the equivalent of the average daily household use per room night, and another is using tenfold that, then that is actionable intelligence.
Booking could require properties to upload their meter readings, from where a per room night figure could be derived and then displayed to consumers. If they wanted to be less explicit, they could develop a bracketed by room night kWh range, say low, medium, and high—with specific figures—and then note what the average per-capita power use is for the country concerned. This is much more useful information from a concerned travellers’ point of view.
Water use, as I’ve written before, is another great example. The Ritz Carlton Langkawi uses 5,387.51 litres per room per night while the average dail
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