In their continuing commitment to presenting fine wine and food, The Laguna Bali presents a six-course degustation dinner carefully paired with wines selected by the Resort’s Sommelier and Travis Brown, regional director of Kim Crawford Wines. These two wine experts in concert with the Resort's Executive Chef will guide a select number of diners through a deliciously indulgent evening of wine and culinary excellence.

What promises to be exceptional dining experience commences Friday, January 20, 2012,  at 7.00 p.m. with cocktails and canapés, followed by dinner at 7.30 p.m. in the Balai Raya Ballroom.

Kim Crawford Wines

Starting out in a small cottage in Auckland, New Zealand, Kim Crawford was launched in 1996 with the label has grown in popularity around the globe in the intervening years. Aiming to present the best in the wine industry, the Kim Crawford label embraces unconventionally and innovation with equal measures of élan and aplomb.

Unwaveringly simple and straightforward in their approach to wine-making, Kim Crawford produce and present the very best wines from every grape variety and every premium wine-growing region found in New Zealand.

Winning multiple awards, including consecutive 8 annual Wine Spectator Awards from 2002 – 2010; the International Wine Challenge 2010; Decanter Wine Award 2010 and numerous other Wine Awards.

The Menu

Amuse
Kim Crawford Pansy Rose, Auckland, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand
Merlot 2009
++++
Slow-Poached Lobster Tail and U10 Scallops
Artichoke Heart and Oven-Dried Tomatoes
Brown Onion Jam, Vanilla Lemon Vinaigrette
Kim Crawford SP Spitfire, Auckland, Marlborough, New Zealand
Sauvignon Blanc 2008
++++
Raviolo of Quail
With Young Spinach and Winter Black Truffle Oil
Kim Crawford, Auckland, Marlborough, New Zealand
Sauvignon Blanc 2010
++++
Seared Ahi Tuna - Done Rare
Black Mussels and Wild Rice Salad
Pinot Noir Jus, drizzled with Rosemary Oil
++++
Tender Veal Sirloin - Done Medium
Sautéed Red Seedless Grapes, Soft Foie Gras Butter
Marble of Preserved Red Beetroot and Potato Puree
Grilled Leaks, Cognac Meat Reduction
Kim Crawford SP Kim's Favorite, Auckland, Marlborough, New Zealand
Pinot Noir 2007
++++
King Island Cheese Tasting
Roaring Forties Blue Cheese, Double Brie, Cloth Matured Cheddar
Sour Plum Strudel and Walnut Melba
Kim Crawford, Auckland, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand
Merlot 2010
++++
Araguani 72% Bitter Chocolate Mousse
Cinnamon Merlot Rhubarb Compote, Dried Figs Sherbet
Kim Crawford, Auckland, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand
Merlot 2010
++++
Chocolate Truffles
Coffee or Tea

Cost
Cocktails, canapés, seven-course degustation menu and paired wines for Rp 1,100,000 (US$122) net per person.

Seating is limited and reservations are essential. Telephone ++62-(0)361-3005503 or [email]  
 

The State News Agency Antara reports that the Denpasar District Court has sentenced a 46-year-old South African woman, Nomakorinte Christabell Nyolukana, to 16-years imprisonment after being declared guilty of trying to smuggle 1 kilogram of methamphetamine into Bali via the Ngurah Rai International Airport on September 3, 2011.

The court handed down the sentence on January 4, 2012, meting out a punishment that was two years longer than the 14 years demanded by prosecutors but less than the maximum penalty of death before a firing squad that could have been handed down in the case. In addition, the presiding judge levied a fine of Rp. 2 billion (US$222,000) against the woman that, if left unpaid, will add another year to the woman’s sentence.

Custom’s offices arrested the woman after she disembarked from a Qatar Airways flight, discovering the illicit drugs hidden in her pant’s pocket and inside her brassiere.

The woman, who works as a domestic servant, later told police that she was to be met in Bali by another South African woman, Rivombo. When police subsequently arrested Rivombi, they found a small quantity of methamphetamine on the second woman who later admitted her part in the smuggling operation.

The South African woman is still considering whether or not to appeal her sentence.

Bali’s new Sarbagita Bus System, which has been sometimes slow to win the acceptance of the public, was overwhelmed with passengers over the New Year’s holidays.

Ida Bagus Parsha, the man in charge of Bali’s commuter bus service, told Radar Bali that for the period August through November 2011 the system carried an average 1,514 passengers every day. Commencing from early December, that number increased to 1,894 passengers per day, growing by 25%.

The popularity of the bus system surged even further on January 1, 2012 when the number of passengers traveling hit 5,513 passengers – a 264% increase in average use over the proceeding four months.

Business was such on the first day of 2012 that the bus haltes of the Sarbagita Bus System were full to overflowing with long lines of passengers waiting to board.

Said Pasha, “this is way beyond our expectations that the passenger numbers would suddenly explode.”

Pasha said the sudden rush of passengers reflected an urge among the public to experience the Sarbagita Bus System and was beyond all expectations, causing the busses, in some instances, to leave travelers at the bus stops when those waiting to board exceeded the carrying capacity of the busses.

[More Information: Sarbagita Bus System]

Travel.ninemsn.com.au recently published an interview with Ryan Ver Berkmoes – the coordinating author of the Lonely Planet Guide to Bali and Lombok.

Ryan – an old friend and arguably the dean of travel guide book writers, uses the interview to share his thoughts on the trials and tribulations of writing guide books, the joys of inspecting 40 cheap lodging places in a single day, what he like most and least about Bali, his special love of Ubud, and thoughts on Australian tourists.

He also talks about love-lorn lady travelers flocking to Bali inspired by EAT PRAY LOVE and the general “ins and out” of sex tourism in Bali.

[Read the Entire Interview] 

The Jakarta Post reports that the Indonesian Ministry for Tourism and the Creative Economy is preparing an international campaign to increase the meeting, incentives, convention and exhibition travel sectors (MICE) to Indonesia.

The Ministry has selected ten Indonesian cities as MICE destinations for the coming promotion: Bandung, West Java; Batam, Riau Islands; Denpasar, Bali; Jakarta; Medan, North Sumatra; Makassar, South Sulawesi; Manado, North Sulawesi; Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara; Surabaya, East Java; and Yogyakarta.

Tourism and Creative Economy Minister, Mari Elka Pangestu, told the press: “The MICE industry is very important. The cities will become famous tourist destinations, attracting more and more tourists.”

To coordinate the promotion, the Ministry has a MICE development department positioned under the tourism destination development directorate. Managed by deputy minister Sapta Nirwandar, the MICE department will assess the needs of the MICE market and help in the bidding process for future events.

The government estimates that the number of MICE tourists visiting Indonesia in 2010 was 236,000, or 3.37 percent of seven million arrivals, while in 2009, the figure was 205,000, or 3.24 percent of 6.3 million arrivals.
 

The Australian reports that worries are growing that rabies, affecting Bali and other regions of Indonesia, will soon make the hop-skip-and-jump through the chain of Indonesian islands to the Australian mainland.

According to the report, the disease has already landed on the island of Larat, 600 kilometers north of Darwin, where 19 people died due to rabies in 2010.

Rabies is found in 24 of Indonesia’s 33 provinces.

A New South Wales veterinary officer, Dr. Scott Orr, underlined the growing sense of concern, saying: "If it gets into West Papua, it is strongly likely that it will spread slowly and inexorably down through the entire island of Papua New Guinea, in which case it would be extremely close to our borders across the Torres Strait."

A representative of the Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry supported Dr. Orr’s comments, saying rabies outbreaks on the Indonesian islands of Flores, Bali, Pulau Larat and Ambon had increased the risk of the disease entering Australia.

Australian officials are particularly concerned that their long coastal border is prone to illegal importation of animal by boat.

Rabies is blamed for 55,000 deaths worldwide each year. Since the outbreak of the disease in 2008, 130 people in Bali have died from rabies. Officials in Bali have eliminated thousands of dogs and vaccinated an estimated 80% of the island’s dog population in an effort to make the island “rabies free” by 2015.

In order to be certified as “rabies free” a locale must be free of any new reported cases of rabies for a period of two consecutive years.

Beritabali.com reports that the provincial government of Bali has launched a Bali Mandara Coordinated Movement for Village Development (Gerakan Pembangunan Desa Terpadu - Gerbang Sadu) aimed at accelerating improvements in Bali’s poorest villages.
According to records kept by the provincial government, 82 (11.6%) of Bali's 706 villages are categorized as poor or as villages with at least 35% of its residents living below the poverty line.

Bali’s Governor Made Mangku Pastika told the press on Tuesday, January 3, 2012, that as a first step he will choose five villages as “pilot projects” and each allocated Rp. 1 billion (US$111,000). These funds will then be used to energize local residents to improve the economic standing of the local village.

“For example, what does it mean to energize the village economy? The (poor) villagers are unable to do much because they have no capital, they have no expertise, and they have nothing. We give them capital and we guide them, we help,” explained the Governor.

Pastika said the villages that would be prioritized for financial assistance are in the regencies of Karangasem, Buleleng and Klungkung. It is hoped that the formulation for the programs for village development will come directly from the people who live in those villages.

Bali resident, Dr Lawrence Blair is the writer, presenter and co-producer of the internationally acclaimed TV series Ring of Fire, an Emmy Award nominee and winner of the 1989 National Educational Film and Video Festival Silver Apple awards.

A sought-after international speaker and renowned documentary filmmaker, Lawrence makes his home in Ubud with his wife, Aly, and, until recently Dicky, his pet West Papuan Black Capped Lorikeet.

Sadly, Dicky died over the just passed Christmas holidays. Lawrence Blair contributed the following piece to Bali Update, fondly remembering the passing of his move-loved feathered friend.

Well Dressed and Badly Behaved
Xmas 2011/2012

By Dr. Lawrence Blair

Lost my parrot this morning and buried him in the garden to feed the roots of a banana tree.

We called him Dicky (for Ridiculous) on the principle that a sense of that is the key to humor and a sense of humor is the key to Life, and he kept us in stitches of laughter.

We shared four perhaps unhealthily close years before his dramatic demise. I’ve had lots of wonderful animals over the years, wild and domestic, including the endangered West Papua Black Capped Lorikeets, famous for their talkative and inventive natures, but Dicky was an eye-opener.

He had become my ‘daemon’, accompanying me everywhere either on my shoulder or dangling by a couple of claws to some part of my clothing. He’d learned to fly down to the ground to relieve himself when necessary, to save on laundry bills. I’d decided to take the risk of not clipping his wings, (for what is a bird if it cannot fly?) so he could freely swoop about the house and garden, and periodically land on my shoulder to whisper affectionate nonsense. He was fond of playing ‘vanish from his shoulder’ without my noticing. Houdini-like he would transfer himself to a bookcase or mosquito net as I was walking past, wait for me to notice his absence, and then demand to be collected again.

But outside, on my bicycle, he knew better than to take off, in a foreign land of foreign birds and roving gangs of cocoanut squirrels, which strongly resented his demeanor and attire.

Black Caps can live for 40 years, but Dicky just lived 4. I’d got him as an almost featherless fledgling, off a villager in Indonesian West Papua on the Arafura Sea. I was leading some adventurous tourists there at the time, on a smart yacht, and when we got him aboard we found his foot was so swollen and infected from a cord tied tightly round his ankle, that we thought he might lose it. With careful medication, he only lost a toe. Several years later a slammed car door crippled his other foot, leaving him with a grotesque limp, which in no way diminished his athletic skills or sense of importance.

Since I couldn’t fly with him back to Bali from West Papua without first getting his registration permit as an endangered creature, it was six months before the posh vessel delivered him back to me. By this time he was a spoiled ‘sea parrot’, used to living high off the hog on such delicacies as caviar and imported Japanese plums, so he needed a bit of discipline, but his eating habits remained bizarre. He couldn’t stand papayas, was indifferent to mangoes, but thrived on bananas, scrambled eggs, chips and imported grapes. He would dunk his mouthfuls in water before eating them. Black Caps in the wild reportedly live mostly off flower nectars, extracted with a long tongue equipped at the end with a little crown of prehensile tentacles - a disconcerting instrument when used to plumb the eardrum while driving in the fast lane.

At night, or when I’d had enough of him, he was relegated to his cage, suspended from the verandah ceiling outside. He went through a period of throwing bits of his food to the floor in order to fixedly observe the various creatures attracted below him – lizards, toads, other birds and various species of rats. I imagine they all thought he was a bit of a Lord Fauntleroy.

He had a small stuffed toy, a baby eagle, suspended on rubber bands, which he mercilessly beat up and made love to in equal measure. When the bands broke, and the eagle lay on the bottom of his cage for half a day – he stared at it, motionless, for over an hour, willing it come alive, perhaps, or merely grappling with the mystery of death.

He was too young to be a good talker, but he seldom shut up. He could produce numerous kinds of human laughter, from the genuinely amused to the deeply sarcastic, and would say Hello with dozens of inflections and volumes. He could bark like a dog, meow like a cat and spoke the languages of all the wild birds so accurately that they’d be lured into the garden and shocked by the source. This would amuse Dicky.

He certainly belied the traditional wisdom that parrots only ‘parrot’ sounds without understanding their meaning. I returned home with him one day to find a stray white cat sitting under his cage. I pointed at it and said ‘pussy cat’, which Dicky repeated perfectly. A few hours later I visited my neighbor who’s white rabbit was free in the garden. I pointed at the rabbit and Dicky said ‘pussycat’. No cigar, but getting there. But he was only 4 years old, which isn’t to say he hadn’t matured in other respects.

Ornithologists affirm that male and female Black Caps are so alike that the only way to sex one is by sampling its DNA or waiting to see if it lays an egg. However, unless I’m being overly sexist, Dicky was a boy. He had recently taken to furiously humping his toy eagle or, to my long-suffering wife Aly’s distress, her, or my, clenched fists. He was discouraged from this at first, but then we thought why should he be subject to our anthropocentric qualms. It wasn’t much skin off our noses, and it didn’t take long anyway, before his claws tightened excruciatingly, he spread his wings in a Fan of Praise, and then sat in dazed silence.

He never remained silent for long. For his was the world of sound.

Sometimes he would just make parrot sounds. At others I’d turn my head to look at him on my shoulder and, his beak an inch from mine, staring into my eye, he’d produce a long riff of human language sounds in my own voice. A wild parrot would have been forgiven for thinking it was perfect English. He was a small parrot, but he could get right down on the register.

He was most interested in copying emotionally charged language – particularly picked up off the TV. Screams, expletives, shouted orders, ‘Helps!’ His preferred channels were Discovery and Animal Planet, which he watched, head–cocked, occasionally mimicking, as various creatures bellowed and hissed and whinnied across the screen. There was a period when I had to constantly change my cell phone’s message tones because he was annoyingly learning to imitate them.

Like all Black Caps he was also a water parrot, needing frequent, explosively enthusiastic baths, after which he’d resemble a sort of avian Chucky from hell, which he found amusing in the mirror. When I swam in the pool or the sea he’d ride my head, with his wings spread. As a youngster, he had to be prevented from climbing onto the dinner table and trying to take a bath in the water glasses.

When he thought I was spending too much time on the computer he’d lunge for and detach, with lighting léger-de-main, the finger tabs of my keyboard, one after another. I couldn’t remove them by hand myself, and my computer technician said he couldn’t either, and they needed a special key. Once Dicky learned this was forbidden, he adopted the different approach of landing ostentatiously on my desk, scattering my papers, and slowly lurching towards me with his beak scraping the wood ahead of him, as if pushing a wheel barrow – a gesture of submissive affection.

This morning, the monsoon wind and rains were kicking in, but I raised an umbrella over our heads and cycled, as usual, down a lane to breakfast on the beach. A sudden gust turned the umbrella inside out with a pop. Dicky took off like a helicopter and sailed over the wall into a hotel garden. Within seconds I was round the wall and retrieving him, clinging to a low branch, stunned, as two guilty dogs came up to me wagging their tails. ‘Parrot was screaming. The dogs were playing with him’, someone told me.

The bird was wet and deeply shocked, but with no visible injuries. I took him home, clinging to the inside of my shirt, but he wasn’t right and for the next few hours he went steadily downhill. Just before he could no longer stand up, he wheel-barrowed his beak unsteadily towards me along the back of the sofa I was lying on with him.

I then took him into bed, where Aly joined us. It wasn’t long before he abruptly raised his head, arched his back, spread his wings in a giant Fan of Praise, ejected blood from his nostrils, and died. Like a phoenix dying rather than being born.

He was a small parrot, with a very large charge in him. I buried him beneath the banana tree, with his toy eagle.

I loved him - less for his constantly surprising skills and sensitivities, as for his extraordinary self confidence, his happiness, his ability to entertain himself for hours: his tendency, when I covered his cage with a cloth for the night, of climbing immediately up to his sleeping corner with a contented croak, yawning and going fast asleep. No hesitation, as I might have had, on knowing the curtain was being drawn on a wonderful day: only that the curtain was going up on a wonderful night.

I never expected his death to be so ridiculously painful.

A grown man glued to a small bird. A pathological projection? A fetish fixation? Even a psychological ‘fashion statement’, as I sometimes saw in the reproving eyes of strangers. After all, as Anais Nin said:

“We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are”.

I don’t doubt that I’m incapable of seeing him, or any other creature, as it really is, but he did confirm how powerful and reciprocated inter-species love can be, and how such sophisticated evolution can be concealed in such deceptively simple packages. All this intelligence and versatility were already there, long-earned and ingrained in his genes. And thus all this humor and inventiveness, plus more than we can imagine, is moving through his wild tribe – the great rainbow clouds of Black Capped Lorikeets, unseen by man, in the remote jungles of New Guinea.

My mind tells me that Mr. Ridiculous (Dicky for short) was a fleeting glimpse of those two undying mysteries: Love and Intelligence in Nature. But my heart is taking longer to catch up.

Yet here we are again, on the brink of a new beginning, the iconic year of 2012, and yet another chance to dance in the Now, with all it may bring – if there’s room in us for it. I wish you, my dear fiends, and myself, a coming year of greeting the nights with the same joy with which we can greet the days, and of remembering that what we love most dearly are but symbols of what we cannot see.

Bali - December 18, 2011

Indonesia recent reclassification as “investment grade” is expected to lure many foreign investors to Bali’s shores.

In 2012 Bali expects more than Rp. 18 trillion (US$2 billion) in new investments, according to the head of Bali’s Investment Board (BPM), Ida Bagus Made Parwata, quoted by Bisnis Bali on January 2, 2012.

Parwata said that total investment in Bali in 2011 totaled Rp. 15.2 trillion (US$1.68 billion). Most of this new investment was in the tourism and supporting sectors. It’s expected that in 2012 this pattern of investment will continue.

Parwata said efforts will be made to encourage investments in Bali in a more even distribution between Bali’s districts and sectors. Thus far investments have concentrated in the southern regencies of Bandung, Denpasar and Gianyar. He bemoaned the disparity in investment levels between Bali’s South, North and Eastern regions. In order to find a solution to encourage investment in areas outside Bali’s South, Parwata feels the regions seeking these investments must create supporting infrastructures in order to attract investors.

Addressing disparities between various sectors of Bali’s economy, Parwata wants to establish workable synergies between the tourism and farming sectors. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the tourism sectors must be directed towards energizing farming in Bali. The agricultural sector in Bali needs to be ungraded to enable farming products to meet the demands for quality by hotels and restaurants.

Discussing Bali's 2009 Zoning Law (RTRWP), Parwata said the law is not negotiable. Investors who wish to invest in Bali must follow all local regulations, he said, including regulations on building and zoning.

 

Warnings from Western Australian Health Officials that visitors to Bali obtaining a tattoo are at risk of HIV infection [See: I’ve Got You Under My Skin]  has been greeted with skepticism in Bali where Indonesian health authorities claim that a lack of information from Australia make its impossible to properly evaluate the accuracy of the Australian reports.

As reported by Kompas.com, the head of the Bali Health Service, Nyoman Sutedja, confirmed that meetings have been held with representatives of the Australian Consulate General in Bali. “They said they were prepared to give us the necessary information. But we cannot force them to hand over this information,” explained Sutedja on Tuesday, January 3, 2012.

As reported widely in both the Indonesian and Australian media, an Australian tourist claims to have been infected with HIV after receiving a tattoo in Bali. However, the identity of the tourist and the name of the tattoo parlor where the tattoo was received remains a mystery. Sutedja said there always remains the possibility that the subject tourist acquired the HIV infection via other high-risk activities.

Because of this, the Indonesian authorities are seeking complete details of all activities and movements of the HIV victim in order to better asses the actual source of the infection. In the meantime, health officials in Bali are taking the preventative steps of checking tattoo parlors to ensure the use of proper hygiene and health protocols.

Along Bali’s popular Kuta Beach areas Kompas.com counted no less than 35 tattoo parlors, a number that does not include “roving” tattoo services.
Sutedja confirms that the tattoo studios in operation in Bali are following good health practices. “We have made field checks of all the tattoo studio about which we have received health-related complaints. We have also rounded up the roving tattoo suppliers,” he said.
 

An ancient art form sometimes described as ‘meditation with movement’, Tai Chi has been shown to promote vibrant mental and physical health in people who practice regularly. Young and old alike benefit from Tai Chi's slow, flowing body movements that combine concentration, balance, and awareness.
special weekend Tai Chi Retreat to be held in Ubud, Bali on January 28-29, 2012, at the Komaneka Resort on Jalan Monkey Forest, participants will learn how this ancient exercise and meditative practice can be used to support mind-body health. Attendees will learn five body-loosening methods and a ten-movement short form that can be easily mastered by beginners and practiced in just a few minutes every day. Special emphasis is given to making Tai Chi part of a naturally healthy lifestyle.

Instructor Rod Lee

Rod Lee of Sydney, Australia has over 30 years of experience as a Tai Chi practitioner and teacher. He is also proficient in meditation practice and Shiatsu healing massage, which informs his understanding of mind- body health and wellbeing. His main teacher was a student of the lineage holder Master Huang Sheng-Shyan famed in Southeast Asia as the ‘Old Man of Tai Chi’. Rod Lee continues to teach the master’s Tai Chi style to students in Australia and Southeast Asia.

The workshop will be held in Ubud, Bali’s center of holistic health, at the renowned Komaneka Resort –centrally located on Jl. Monkey Forest.

Language of instruction is English and Indonesian organized by Rio Helmi and the Ubud Meditation Group

A Rp. 2,500,000 (US$288) fee covers the cost of the two-day workshop, Tai Chi instruction, walking meditation, discussions, an instructional video CD, light breakfast, tea, 4-course lunch at Komaneka Resort and a celebratory vegetarian dinner.

Operated as a non-profit event, proceeds will be used to help establish a meditation retreat center in Ubud. Registration is on a first-come-first-served basis and strictly limited to 30 participants.

For registration or more information [Email] 

[Contact Bali Discovery]  for assistance with local transportation and accommodation.

Tony Raka Gallery on Jalan Raya Mas 86, Mas Bali will host “Ad Infinitum”- an exhibition of work by six photographers open daily from Friday, January 13, 2012 until February 3, 2012.

The exhibition showcases the work of five foreign and one Indonesian photographer:

Jan Tyniec: Between Artistic Photography and Straight Photography

Tyniec describes his photographs as follows: “In my works I have been avoiding storytelling and references of scale and time in order to unravel meaning. I remain most interested in exploring the relationships between culture and nature, or document (the perception of the real) and artifice (the deception of reality). Photography allows me to create the most straightforward, yet highly personal images of water, sky, land, the lotus flower or a person within the context of landscape, beliefs and most importantly myth. My work process is very emotional and often challenging as I aim to establish a most intimate relationship and understanding of the subject.”

The notions of “avoiding storytelling” and “to create the most straightforward images” relate Tyniec’s works with “straight photography”. Like Paul Strand’s works of “straight photography” or Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s works of “New Seeing” photography, Tyniec’s photographs is the product of direct photography par excellence that exploits contrast and gradations of light and dark. Just like Strand's work, Tyniec’s works relied on the photographer’s sensitivity to maintain a balance between realistic-documentary closeness and formal-aesthetic finesse.

Unlike “straight photography”, however, Tyniec’s photographs did not seem to rely on abstract composition and sharp focus. The subjects of his pictures are fairly identifiable, and they are shown by emphasizing their hazy, unremarkable, details – a significant feature of “artistic photography” as exemplified in photography by Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen. In this respect Tyniec, with his photographs that look like paintings, is the successor of Stieglitz who states: “Photography being in the main a process in monochrome, it is on subtle gradations in tone and value that its artistic beauty so frequently depends.”

Made Wianta: Against Art Photography

nta’s use of photography in his work disclaimed any relation to art photography. Wianta treated the photographic medium with an anti-art photography attitude that reminds one of Ed Ruscha who insisting that his 1960s photobooks are “technical data like industrial photography... nothing more than snapshots” (Ruscha 1965). Through the strategy resembling “conceptual” art of the 1960s, Wianta adopted photography as a means to move beyond the object to work directly on cultural sign systems. Like Douglas Huebler and Victor Burgin, he embraced photography’s functional and anti-aesthetic character that aestheticism actively suppressed.

By employing the flat look of amateur, Wianta adopted the photographic documentation as a seemingly neutral means of presenting information. It is as if his photograph can be produced by anyone employing camera, a machine that Huebler called “dumb copying device”, especially in the era of digital technology. This neutrality, however, is deceptive or ironic, because Wianta deliberately used it to question the politics of representation and to display the representation of politics. The documentation of the rat in his amateur photograph is in no way neutral. Rather, it is symbolic: a politically charged myth.

In Wianta’s work, photograph was extracted from moving images produced by camcorder. Comprising still image, as well as the video clip which is its source material, the work merged photography and videography. It is a fusion that suggests the direction of the development of photography in the future, as camera becomes more perfectly integrate still images and moving images into one mode of recording.

Linda Connor: A Appointment with Death

Linda Connor’s photographs featuring the ancient cultural artifacts seemed to confirm Sontag's reflection on photography. Her works prompted remorse and anxiety because the subjects have aged, decayed, or no longer exists – they remind one of the inevitable threatening death. Connor’s camera recorded the shadow of ruins, the signs of biological and social life in the process of destruction, what will be lost crushed by the unbearable rolling wheel of linear time towards the end: the photographs are testimonies of our own mortality. Connor's photographs seemed to whisper a sentence ringing in Jacques Derrida's ears when he was reflecting on Jean-Francois Bonhomme’s photographs made in Athens: “We owe ourselves to death” (Derrida 2010).

At the same time, Connor’s works suggest a view against a linear theory of time within the discourse of Western modernity and Christian theology. Her photographic subjects are the sacred artifacts of Eastern religious traditions that embrace a cyclical theory of time. In the Eastern religious traditions, such as Hinduism, time does not move from the beginning towards the end in linear fashion, but in cyclical one. Death is never the end, but always a rebirth. Connor’s photographs admitted that we owe ourselves to death, while suggesting that death is not the end of the story.

Lonnie Graham: The Paradox of Photographic Portrait

Lonnie Graham's portraits are the attempts to steal the fleeting moods and expressions from individual subjects. More than just documentation, his portraits show the efforts of the photographer to reveal something about the personalities of the subjects. These efforts are never neutral, because they require the primacy of the photographer. The photographer should “read” or interpret the personality of the subject. For, as Henri Cartier-Bresson (1951) says, “The sitter is suspicious of the objectivity of the camera while what the photographer is after is an acute psychological study of the sitter.”

Graham’s photographic portraits surreptitiously declare the traces of the persons or personalities they portrayed: the portrait as an analogue of the original subject. However, this analog is constantly interrupted by the anonymity of the subject. Viewers, especially in Indonesia, where portraits of the President and the Vice President and political leaders are so easily found in public spaces, would immediately confront a series of questions: Who are the foreign individuals in these portraits? What did they do and what are they doing? Why did the photographer take their pictures? And so on. Paradoxically, Graham’s portraits reveal and conceal identity at the same time. The paradox is reinforced by the absence of setting, context or framework within which to understand the subject.

In Graham's portraits, facts about persons and their personalities are displayed as “fictions”, which requires viewers to complete the stories to make the portraits meaningful. The suggestive forces of the “fictions” rely on the strength of involvement of the photographer. Rather than revealing the subject, Graham’s works expose the intimacy shared by the photographer with his sitter.

Vladik Monroe: The Doublefold Self-referential Art

Vladik Monroe’s works are self-referential in two senses of the term. His works are self- referential because they made reference to existing artworks, especially the ones that have acquired “iconic” status in the history of art. Monroe “borrowed” or reworked, among others, the famous image of Marilyn Monroe. In this sense, his works are “appropriation” art.

Since the 1970s, inspired by the conceptual notions induced by Marchel Duchamp in the 1910s, many postmodernist artists have employed the strategy of “appropriation” to question the nature of “art”, authorship and originality. As Douglas Crimp observes, postmodernist artists like Sherrie Levine, Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince created appropriationist works unmasked the notion of originality in art photography as a myth. They “have addressed photography’s claims to originality, showing those claims for the fiction they are, showing photography to be always a representation, always-already-seen. Their images are purloined, confiscated, appropriated, stolen. In their work, the original cannot be located, is always deferred; even the self which might have generated an original is shown to be itself a copy” (Crimp 1980).

Monroe’s works are also self-referential because they made reference to the artist himself: they are self-portraits. Like Cindy Sherman in the 1980s, Monroe played the roles of the characters in the artworks he appropriated. The results are ironic self- portraits: portraits that concealed, obscured or distorted his own identity, or revealed the “dark side” of his self-hidden from public view. In Monroe’s self-portraits, the original self cannot be located, is always deferred. Destabilizing the notion of one’s “essence” or one’s “true self”, including essentialist assumptions about masculinity and femininity, his works demonstrate the nature of the self as “copy” or, at best, “alien.”

Joel Singer: Photomontage in the Digital Age

ger began making photomontages in the 1980s. Photomontage involves cutting, pasting, and matching images to create a new work of art. The art has roots since photography’s inception in the 19th century. Alexander Rodchenko, in his works during the Russian Revolution, was one of the influential photographers who worked with photomontage.

Singer refers to his works as “Photage” (photo collages). His use of the term presumably derives from the distinction between “collage” and “montage”. Collage and montage involve the same process of combining cut and torn pieces from one or more photographs. The difference is that, in montage, the final assemblage of materials is rephotographed, so the copies may be produced (Hirsch and Valentino, 2001). After Singer adapted cut and paste techniques to computer in the 1990s, which of course enabled him to copy the end product digitally, his works can be called “montage” or “photomontage.”

Located at the intersection between photography and digital art, Singer’s works show the level of photographic assemblage that traditional collage and/or photomontage almost impossible to achieve. Various imageries in his works penetrated each other. Singer also utilized multiplicity and repetition of digital images to visually describe, for example, the sequence of movement. However, he seemed to maintain some characteristics of traditional collage. In his works, there is an impression that no attempt is made to hide the fact that the image is actually an assemblage created from a variety of source materials.

Rather than pursuing the creation of seamless montage, Singer concerns with the efforts to express his thoughts, which do not exist to be photographed. With digital photomontage, Singer demonstrates that photography, a medium that is technically tied to the real, can be used as a perfect vehicle to move beyond reality.

Exhibition notes courtesy of Arif Bagus Prasetyo who is a curator, alumnus of the IWP University of Iowa, USA.

Despite a troubled world economy, total foreign tourist arrivals for all of Indonesia grew 8.9% for the eleven months January-November 2011.
data supplied by the National Statistic Bureau, foreign tourist arrivals for the month of November 2011 totaled 654,900 representing an increase of 13.28% as compared to November 2010. On a cumulative basis for January-November, 6.92 million foreign tourists came to Indonesia, putting the country within striking distance of achieving 7 million visitors for the entire year once the final tally is completed.

Indonesia has set a target of 7.1 million visitors nation-wide for 2011.
A review of Indonesia’s major gateways through the end of November 2011, the greatest growth in foreign tourist arrivals occurred at Adi Sucipto Airport in Yogyakarta (268.8%), Adi Sumarno in Solo (129.3%) and Husein Sastranegara in Bandung (76.4).

Meanwhile the biggest decline in foreign tourist arrivals for the same period took place in Makassar (down 47.2%) and Tanjung Uban in Bintan (down 2.3%).

Indonesia’s Minister of Tourism and the Creative Economy Mari Elka Pangestu remains optimistic that Indonesia’s tourism economy is insulated to a large extent from the economic woes of the U.S.A. and Europe. Quoted in Kompas, Pangestu said, “our promotion will attack emerging markets like Russia, India and other Asian nations.”

The government estimates that the foreign exchange earned from tourism in 2011 will exceed US$8.5 billion, an increase of 11.8% over 2010. This is due to a large extent to the increase in the average level of expenditure from US$1,085.70 in 2010 to US$1,118.20 in 2011.

The government remains extremely “bullish” on the prospects for national tourism, estimating 8 million tourist visitors in 2012 generating US$8.96 billion in foreign exchange.

The government is also wisely prioritizing domestic tourism. In 2011 an estimated 172.99 million domestic holidays generating Rp. 114.6 trillion (US$12.73 billion) in revenues took place. Indonesian travelers are also spending more on vacations, averaging Rp. 641,740 (US$71). This figure is expected to increase to Rp. 700,000 (US$78) per person in 2012.

A team from the Ministry of Transportation and representatives from inter-island ferry operators have agreed that the tariff for riding a ferry must increase.

Their recommendation has been sent to the Indonesian Minister of Transportation, E.E. Mangindaan, in December 2011 for final approval before the final actual application of any increase in tariff.

Current estimates from the government is that only 57.73% of the actual cost of inter-island ferry operations are covered by revenues generated by passenger and vehicle traffic.

The current cost for ferry service between Ketapang – Gilimanuk (Java to Bali):

• Passenger Adult Rp. 6,000 (US$ 0.66)
• Passenger Child Rp. 5,000 (US$ 0.55)
• Motorcycle Rp. 16,000 (US$ 1.78)
• Sedan/Car Rp. 114,000 (US$ 12.67)
• Large Bus Rp. 373,000 (US$ 41.44)

The current cost for ferry service between Padang Bai and Lembar (Bali to Lombok):

• Passenger Adult Rp. 36,000 (US$ 4.00)
• Passenger Child Rp. 23,000 (US$ 2.56)
• Motorcycle Rp. 101,000 (US$ 11.22)
• Sedan/Car Rp. 659,000 (US$ 73.22)
• Large Bus Rp. 2,168,000 (US$240.89)

The price review committee has recommended a 51.67% increase in the fares between Ketapang – Gilimanuk and a 42.48% increase on the fares between Padang Bai and Lembar.

It is impossible to predict exactly what the final level of increase in tariff will be for the ferry services connection Bali with Java in the west and Lombok in the east, with the final decision on the matter in the hands of the Minister.

Meanwhile, the head of the team representing ferry operators in the price hike negotiation team told Bisnis Indonesia that he anticipated the minimum increase will be 20%.
 

A whole range of preparatory work is now underway in connection with the underpass project at the Simpang Siur Dewa Ruci Monument in Kuta, Bali.

Trees are being felled, street lights removed and road medians demolished. The high-profile and often contentious LED TV screen installed by the provincial government at the intersection is also scheduled to be removed in February.

Hendro Satrio, one of the officials involved in the construction of the Underpass project, confirmed to Bali Post that his team is busily making pre-cast reinforced concrete box covers that will eventually be installed around the Dewa Ruci Monument for drainage purposes.

Once the box covers are in place, work will begin on widening the current roadway, which much be done before digging of the actual tunnel can commence.

Satrio confirmed that the underpass project would take 18 months to complete with the entire underpass scheduled for handover in May 2013.

The project team remains optimistic that the project can be completed on time.

The desire of the Minister of Public Housing, Djan Faridz, to give full property ownership rights to foreigners has run afoul of the National Constitution and the Basic Agrarian Land Act. As an alternative and in order to encourage foreign capital investment in the property sector, the right to rent or lease land will soon be extended to an initial 60 year period, an increase over the current limit of 25 years.

The government plans to issue the new regulation allowing 60 year lease holds is expected to published by late January.

Under the former Basic Agrarian Law instituted in 1960 foreigners were eligible to obtain a Hak Pakai -- Right to Use Title for a maximum period of 25 years, extendable for additional sequential increments 20 years and 25 years.

The new law still limits foreigner to the rental of property, but now for an initial contract period of 60 years.

The Minster of Public Housing had originally promised to open property ownership to foreigners by opening Hak Guna Bangunan - Building Rights Title, short of the actual outright ownership of land. This idea, however, appears to be a concept that is anathema to the Basic Agrarian Law and the National Constitution.

Caveat Emptor

Despite advertisements in Bali offering freehold property title, the Indonesian law remains absolutely clear on the point that the Indonesian equivalent of Hak Milik is the exclusive right of Indonesian citizens. Efforts to contravene this prohibition on foreign ownership of land through absolute powers of attorney and nominal ownership secured by nebulous loan agreements are “legal constructs” proven likely not to stand the test of time, legal challenge or close scrutiny by tax officials.

Related Articles

[Regulation of Property Ownership by Foreigners]

[Bali Property Ownership by Foreigners]

In the seminal days of Bali tourism - the years just before and after WWII, the Dutch shipping line - KPM (Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij) paid regular calls in Bali, embarking and disembarking their passengers in Bali’s northern regency of Buleleng at the port of Celukan Bawang.
rs would travel down the narrow roads pass the island’s former capital of Singaraja, often traveling through Kintamani on the way to Denpasar, where Bali’s growing trickle of foreign visitors typically camped out at the KPM hotel (now the Inna Bali Hotel).

Celukan Bawang today is more commonly used as a port for the discharge of cement, with cruise ships now typically calling at the eastern ports of Tanah Ampo or Padang Bai, or at the southern port of Benoa.

Everything Old is New Again

The 212-passenger Seabourn Legend is scheduled to relive a bit of cruise history when it calls at the port of Celukan Bawang on February 13, 2012.

The pier at Celukan Bawang has recently been extended to a length of 140 meters, just sufficient to accommodate the 134-meter long vessel.

Because of the short duration of stay for ships calling on Bali, ship calling at Bali’s north open a whole new range of shore excursions to the less-visited areas of Bali located in Bali’s North, West and mountain-lake district.

[Cruise Ship Handling in Bali]


 

Sriwijaya Air is now ranked as the Indonesian air carrier with the worst on-time performance, as measured by the government for the period July-November 2011. Meanwhile, counting from the bottom up, Lion Air registered as the  airline with the “second-worst” on-time record.

Data for the first eleven months of 2011, however, show Lion Air as holding the distinction for the Indonesian airline must likely to leave late.

National Air Carrier Garuda Indonesia has logged the best on-time performance (OTP) during the same period.

Bisnis.com reports that Sriwijaya Air managed to land their airplanes on time on only 62.31% of their scheduled flights. It was, however, a close race to be named the airline whose planes are most often late with Lion Air turning in an OTP of 62.72%.

Djoko Muratmodjo, an aviation official from the Ministry of Transportation, said: “Sriwijaya Air sunk in their OTP for Semester II of 2011 until the end of November. Moreover, in July, the airline had an OTP of 60.76%.”

He went on to say that for the entire eleven-months January-November 2011 the airline with the worst OTP was Lion Air at 66.78%. According to Djoko, delays experienced by the erring airlines average between 1-2 hours in duration.

“In order to reduce these delays the Ministry of Transportation have introduced Ministerial Decree No. 77 of 2011 on the responsibility of carriers, including compensation amounts that must be paid by airlines experiencing delays of more than four hours,” said Djoko.

The senior manager for public relations for Sriwijaya Air, Agus Soedjono, told Bisnis.com that he did not yet know the data for OTP for semester II of 2011 through the end of November. “I am still out of town, later I will look for the data,” said Agus.

Only two Indonesian air carriers are reporting OTP above 70%: Garuda Indonesia (82.51%) and Batavia Air (73.95%). Airlines operating at OTP levels below 70% are given official “red cards” by the Ministry of Transportation with the implied threat that a continuing failure to improve performance could result in suspension of operating licenses.
 

Radar Bali has revealed that a new luxury hotel being constructed on Jalan Raya Kuta in Bali may be in flagrant violation of zoning laws that stipulate setback distances from local rivers. The five-storey Citadine Hotel is said by the paper to stand on the embankment of the Tukad Mati River Way.

Still under construction, the hotel with allegedly illegal close proximity to the river can be clearly seen from the parking lot of the adjacent Bali Kuta Residence located on the opposite side of the river from the new project.

Rules published by the Badung regency stipulate that the minimum set back distance for construction outside of populated areas is 50 meters or 5 meters if the river has a constructed embankment.  While the set back distance for construction within populated areas is 10 meters for rivers without embankments and 3 meters for those with embankment.

Radar Bali contends the new hotels construction is built immediately adjacent to the river's embankment with no distance separating the hotel’s wall from the embankment.

Efforts by the Paper to discuss the seeming violation with the project manager or the hotel’s owner were unsuccessful.

The Urban Village Head for Kuta (Lurah), Wayan Daryana, told Radar Bali that he had checked the location three months earlier but the project was only partially built at that time and any violation was not clearly seen. AT that time, official had received assurances from the head of the project during their initial visit that set back rules would be followed.

Meanwhile, the sub district head for Kuta (Camat), Wayan Wijana, was unprepared to comment on the case, as he had not yet visited the location. He did, however, promise to coordinate the matter with zoning authorities (Dinas Cipta Karya).

The Jakarta Post reports that leading tourism-stakeholders in Bali are targeting 3 million foreign tourist arrivals in 2012.

Once the final count is done for 2011, total foreign arrivals will come in at something more than 2.7 million, meaning that despite an uncertain world economy Bali is seeking 10% growth in arrivals for the coming year.

Australians continue to be the main source of foreign visitors, constituting nearly 30% of all foreign arrivals. China has the next largest market share at 9% with Japan, once the main source of tourists from abroad, is down to 7%.

Ida Bagus Kade Subhisku, chief of the Bali Tourism Agency, said he felt it was likely that total arrivals for 2011 would top 2.73 million. Pointing to Bali’s success at hosting major conferences and visits by world leaders in 2011, Subhisku discounted the possibility that European economic woes would have a significant negative impact on Bali’s arrival in the year ahead.

Echoing Subhisku’s optimism was Djinaldi Gosana, executive director of the Bali Hotels Association (BHA) and Ida Bagus Gede Sidharta Putra of the Bali chapter of the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association. Djinaldi said occupancy and four and five star hotels in Bali exceeded 60% in 2011. Putra said his association’s members remained confident that arrivals would continue to be strong.

The Ministry of Transportation has extended the operating permit of Mandala Airlines until April 2012, providing another chance for the shareholders of the now-defunct Indonesian carrier to become airborne once again.

The Director General of Civil Aviation from the Ministry, Herry Bakti Singayuda Gumay, said the extension was given to Mandala to support efforts to regain the airline’s Air Operating Certificate (AOC).

“At this time, Mandala is still processing its AOC, so we cannot suspend the operation licenses for the company which technically expires on January 13, 2012,” explained Herry.

He went on to explain that the decision to extend the operating license of Mandala is in support of efforts by one shareholder, Tiger Airways, who owns 32.9% of all shared. Tiger Airways is owned by Singapore Airlines who are preparing two Airbus A320 aircraft for use by Mandala. These two aircraft are in Singapore awaiting airworthiness inspections by the Indonesian Government needed to fly the aircraft in Indonesian airspace.

Strict applications of the Indonesian rules demands that the operating license (SIUP) of Mandala automatically became invalid on January 13, 2012 – the one-year anniversary of the airline’s cessation of scheduled flights. Explaining the exception to the rules, Herry said: “But, Mandala is still trying. What’s more they have advanced an AOC which is under process, so our policy is to extend the SIUP for four more months.”

After the airline ceased operations in January 2011, the Saratoga Group and Tiger Airways acquired Mandala Airlines. Saratoga – an Indonesian financial group – now owns 51% of the Airline’s shares. The corporate secretary for the Saratoga Group, Devin Wirawan, said the delivery of several aircraft is awaiting the issuance of airworthiness certificates by the Ministry of Transportation.

Meanwhile, a professor of aviation law from the Trisakti University, Martono, said the decision to extend the operating license of Mandala is legally indefensible as it violates the aviation law of 2009.

That law places an absolute limit of 12 months on any gap in operations for any licensed air operator after which their operating license is revoked. That same law mandates that each airline operate at least ten aircraft, five of which it actually owns.

In March of 2012 Bali Update will celebrate its fourteenth year of publication.

From a simple chain of emails attempting to tell Bali’s side of the story on local and international news impacting on the island, our list of subscribers has grown to more than 26,000 readers receiving what we hope is a colorful and lively presentation of the news each Monday.

Over the past 800 plus editions, Bali Update has won awards and been cited for its accuracy by TIME Magazine.

Read by national and international policy makers and tourists alike, Bali Update articles rank high in Google News and are routinely republished by travel and mainstream media around the globe. Such is the hard fought reputation for accuracy and its wide-ranging coverage of Bali tourism news possessed by Bali Update.

The majority of the news presented in Bali Update is culled and translated from the Indonesian media, press releases from tourism stakeholders, and commentary/interviews from the wider Bali community. While we never aim to be controversial, Bali Update faithfully reflects the very lively debate underway about the current state and future direction of the island’s tourism industry.

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The preparation of Bali Update places large demands of the time of its editor and the technical team who put it on line each and every week. For the past issues the cost of our new service has been borne by Bali Discovery Tours – the owners of Bali Update.

In order to ensure that Bali Update continues uninterrupted in the future, we depend on the support of advertisers who purchase banners within Bali Update or on Balidiscovery.com. In return, advertisers enjoy the opportunity of showcasing their products and services on one of Bali’s most effective advertising platforms.

The most visited website for those in search of information on Bali, Balidiscovery.com enjoy exceptional targeting for businesses wishing to sell Bali-based tourism products.

Here are samples of the costs and adveritisng option on offer:

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