BACK TO "THE REAL WORLD"

Our last evening in Lovina, we celebrated with drinks and dinner beachside - a pure indulgent delight!

Our arrival mid-afternoon here at our hotel in Sanur, on the other hand, proved ample illustration of just how far Bali has slipped into the tourism mainstream.  As we struggled through the maze of motorcycle and minivan traffic, past an increasing number of recognizable franchise namebrand outlets, encountering more and more casually dressed (generously speaking) westerners out shopping in the midday sun (which everyone since Noel Coward penned the imortal lyrics knows only mad dogs and Englismen are prone to do), it became increasingly obvious that Bali had become, at least hereabouts, a mere shadow of its "authentic" self.

Our restaurant this evening mirrored the inevitable result.  While munching on an Italian cheese pizza and quaffing a local Bintang beer, we were entertained by a beautifully dressed and elegantly trained pair of traditional Balanese dancers - who then posed for photos and selfies with customers and passers-by alike, encircled by overly familiar arms around shoulders and waists, with hardly the usual respect accorded temple dancers in earlier times.  The restaurant wait staff all spoke really good English; no need to know any Indonesian words or phrases.  We might just as well have been in some crazy, mixed up version of Disney's Epcot Center!

The idealized image of Bali most of the rest of the world conjures up when imagining this supposed island paradise seems to have been swallowed up and homogenized into something of a parody of itself, becoming acceptably exotic without requiring visitors to step too far out of their personal cultural comfort zone.

Fortunately the earlier part of the day was spent motoring through stunningly beautiful remote mountain scenery on our way from Lovina to Sanur.  We stopped to walk through terraced rice fields, ate lunch at a quiet, almost totally deserted, resort restaurant overlooking our unimaginably lush green surroundings. "Authenticity" still exists, it seems; you just have to look harder to find it!