Eat, Play, Learn: Bali and Indonesia
My tour-de-asia came to close in Indonesia, though that’s a bit like ending a trip to North America with a stop in Las Vegas and LA and claiming to have visited the USA. As one online guide warns, “there’s more to see in Indonesia than you could do in several lifetimes.” With thousands of islands (including some still basically unexplored), hundreds of languages, and a tumultuous recent history of colonization and occupation, it’s no surprise that Indonesia boasts more unique cultures than any other nation.
So after a month there, most of the highlights remain on my bucket list: trekking with orangutans in Sumatra, Komodo Dragons and Flores, temples and volcanoes in Java, scuba diving in Borneo, and island hopping around Sumbawa and others…If you’re planning a trip to these, I can offer you company instead of tips :). My four weeks were split between Bali (of course) and its neighbor to the east, Lombok.
BALI wasn’t actually on my original itinerary; it seemed a bit too western, stereotypical, touristy (one girl coined me a ‘tripster’ for wanting to avoid the popular spots…first time I’ve ever been called hipster). And in some ways it lived up to the cliches: Drunk Australians in Seminyak? Check. Free-thinking spirits trying to find their way in Ubud? Overwhelmingly. Digital marketing expats in Canggu, super friendly locals throughout Bali, gorgeous rice fields and idyllic surfing spots? Yep. While I was ready to leave after a couple weeks, I do get why people love it. It’s a thriving and open place, where locals and expats mix for both fun and business more than anywhere else I’ve been.
A few times I got lost on my motorbike in random neighborhoods, which just meant more gorgeous rolling hills of rice and locals shouting at me to stop for a bowl of soup. Usually I wouldn’t stop, too full from ribs at Naughty Nuri’s, fish at Jimbaran fish market, or sate at the stand down the road. But apart from the taxis (which is a crazy mafia that literally chased my Uber away with crowbars), you feel how much the locals want to help you enjoy their island. I don’t know if it’s the Hindu religion, traditional customs, the constant good weather or something else that cemented the attitude. It’s unique though, and they know it: as I prepared to head to Lombok the locals of Bali warned me to be careful. “Be careful. People aren’t nice there, it’s not like here,” I heard over and over, warning me about thefts and more. Luckily, I found none of that.
Lombok is like its neighbor Bali, but not. Similar size, population, weather, activities, volcano, beaches. However, like the rest of Indonesia except for Bali, Lombok is Muslim. It’s an interesting time for an American to be visiting a Muslim country, which I was excited about (certain members of my family would probably replace ‘excited’ with less positive emotions). Religious difference drives so much global news and sentiment, yet I’ve literally never spent time in a place where I felt the presence of religion altering the overall feel of a place. Of course religious attitudes and fervor change in places both at home and abroad, but it usually feels like different customs that lead to similar vibes. Would Lombok be different? My feeling from two short weeks: yes on the surface, but mostly no on a deeper level.
As soon as I got off the boat at Gili Trawangan, an island of Lombok, a makeshift alarm reminded me I had jumped from Hindu to Muslim culture: the mosque was blaring prayer loud enough for the whole village to hear. Imagine if 5 times each day, starting at dawn, the same song was piped into your ears. I don’t care if you love the lyrics or hate them, listen intently or let it play in the background, if it pumps you up or somberly grounds you. Whatever your reaction, a lifetime of that omnipresence makes some kind of imprint.
The people express it in other ways too. My local friends from the hostel (Chill and Jewel were their ‘resort names’ they had adopted so we tourists could pronounce them) were furious with other locals on Gili T at the time. Frustrated at how tourism was interfering with their traditional and religious way of life, they had ransacked the quasi-legal huts that lined the main waterfront strip, leaving the beach covered in rubble and tourists without some of the most fun food and drink spots. Chill and Jewel were Muslim too, but the openness they cherished did clash with the Islam culture in ways that it hadn’t with Hindu and Buddhist culture we’d spent time in before. Another local, a 16-year-old on break from school, drew some serious looks from his family while talking to a friend and I, expressing his frustration with school: he was whip-smart and wanted to keep pushing his education, but the required daily 5am prayer wakeups and rote religious study was, he felt, wearing out his spirit not building it.
Despite these clearly observable differences, Lombok didn’t “feel” different in a big way. Despite warnings I never felt unsafe, locals were always super friendly and welcoming — in a random town in the North two locals saw us lost and spent the afternoon showing us around the area — and my being American or Jewish (neither of which I hid) never came up in a meaningful way. Now, this is not a definitive experience. I was there for just two weeks and spent much of that in Kuta, one of the more tourist-friendly spots on the island. But from warnings, including locals on Bali and the Gilis, you might expect the Muslim culture to define the experience. I didn’t feel that at all.
As I learned since, this isn’t by chance. After Dutch colonial rule, brutal Japanese occupation, and independence under authoritarianism, Indonesia has moved (with some setbacks) towards independent democracy. (Beauty is a Wound is a stunning historical fiction account of this time, and I can’t recommend it more highly). During the transition out of authoritarianism, there was a strong international concern that Indonesia — with more Muslims than any country in the world — would be radicalized. However (again with some exceptions), Indonesia has been mostly successful limiting extremist activity or influence. This, argue some, is the result of explicit policy efforts to incorporate some Islamist agenda and leaders into the mainstream and go after terrorism in a super specific way, coming down hard on militants but being careful not to repress (and so radicalize) others.
This may be the most shallow and ill-informed account of Muslim culture and anti-extremist policy you ever read. It’s my only in-person experience though, and even a shallow dip into that pool brings the deeper accounts I read to life in a much more meaningful way, and absolutely strengthened my desire to spend more time in places rooted in Islam (and other religions). Hopefully more to come on this before long.
