HECTOR’S DIARY Bali Advertiser, Jan. 23, 2013

In the Swim

We hear that Celia Gregory, the underwater sculptress, will soon be back among us. She’s coming up for air after a longish sojourn in Britain. Gregory’s interest lies in the crisis of coral – everywhere but chiefly in our own interest in Bali and Lombok – and she has a novel way of applying a remedy for this destruction.

     She gave an interesting talk to Canggu Rotary last year on her underwater sculpture project, which is designed to give the little polyps something artistic to grow on. She’s done this in cooperation with the BioRock project in Lombok’s Gilis and plans to do more of the same in Bali: at Pemuteran, where she’s already done sterling work and where “The Underwater Goddess” now has a home; and at Amed, with Reef Check Indonesia and an international organisation, Coral. At Amed, in a depressingly common story, precious coral was destroyed in the 1980s when it was used for building material in place of cement.

     Gregory tells us that while in the UK she won funding from the far-seeing Roddick Foundation for development work on her project. She gave them this pitch, which it is impossible to gainsay:

     “It is clear that marine habitat around the world is in mass decline and a radical new creative approach is needed to halt the destruction. I believe using the lucrative economy of art mixed with the vital economy of tourism we can help re-inject a sense of value and awe of our oceans back into society, helping the world to once again revere the wonderful hidden underwater world that is so desperately in need of protecting.”

      The money will enable The Marine Foundation – which Gregory founded – to develop its website and profile so it is more accessible to both a wider audience and to greater funding support.  She tells us: “It is vital we place this within the context of tourism and contemporary art as a powerful way to support marine eco-system restoration and sustainable management.”

      Indeed. Apart from anything else, Indonesia’s (and Bali’s and Lombok’s) marine tourism sector needs to protect and nurture the living environment that gives it a commercial edge in the world market.

My Hatten! A Nice Drop

The lovely little MinYak’s regular Question Time column is always a must-read at The Cage, so when the latest edition cantered into our in-box the week before last, we grabbed it with glee. And with good reason, it turned out, because the subject was James Kalleske, Hatten Wines’ new blender extraordinaire.

     We’re into wine here at The Cage. And mostly Hatten, since the art of surviving a period of genteel decline undefined by any pre-disclosed end date to assist budgeting precludes the practices of former years, when such recurrent costs were not really a factor. It’s still outrageously expensive to drink wine in Indonesia, but if you’re prepared to quaff Chateau Cardboard and know the lie of the land well enough to find an emporium with the nous to understand that people will buy more if it’s cheaper, then Hatten’s products fit the bill. Forget Pepito.

     We drink Aga Red. So well do we do this that the people at the local store we buy ours from now get a box out of their locked display cabinet whenever they see us pulling up outside. For some months, Aga Red has even tasted like wine. Lolly water it no longer is. An Aussie gripe – yes that’s a pun, love ’em, not a mistype – seems to have got into the mix in significant quantity.

     Kalleske is a Barossa boy from a South Australian winemaking family. So we’re really glad he’s here and is putting his mark on a new range of locally produced wine blends. But he got here from Western Australia, proving yet again that WA is Bali’s leading source of expatriate settlers.

     He tells a lovely story about his most memorable wine occasion. This from the MinYak:

    “What's the funniest situation you've had to navigate so far as a wine-blender?

    “Not so much funny as embarrassing. During an interview for a position with a very exclusive winery in Margaret River, one of the questions the GM asked me was ‘What is your most memorable bottle of wine?’ 

   “I told him it was a bottle of 'X'. I said: ‘The wine was absolute rubbish, really hideous! But it was the first bottle of wine I drank with the girl who turned out being the love of my life, and that is why the wine was so memorable.’ The GM replied: ‘I made that wine! Under a label I created...’ Needless to say I didn't get the job.”

    In vino veritas, as they say. But Kalleske has a good mind for difficulties – that should help him through his developing Bali experience – and also told the MinYak he believes “it's always better to have a wine than a whinge.”

     Vintage, James. And puns help too.

A Special Day

Anand Krishna, the spiritual spruiker, scarcely needs introduction. He’s so well known that several people are still trying to put him in jail under the Trumped-Up Charges Act. You don’t have to try very hard here to get up someone’s nose.

     So it was nice to see that on Jan. 14, to mark the 22nd anniversary of the Anand Ashram Foundation in Ubud, the inauguration took place of Aadi Paraashakti Devi Mandir (The Mother Goddess Chapel). The proceedings were conducted in Bahasa Indonesia.

A Fine Legacy

This year’s winners of the Elizabeth O’Neill Journalism Award – it’s in honour of the public affairs counsellor at Australia’s embassy in Jakarta who was among 21 people tragically killed in the 2007 Garuda crash at Yogyakarta – are ABC journalist Amy Bainbridge and Indonesian online news editor Renne Kawilarang. 

     Australian foreign minister Bob Carr, who made the announcement on Jan. 15, said both winners were worthy recipients of the award with a strong commitment and interest in the relationship between Australia and Indonesia. The annual award goes to one journalist from Australia and one from Indonesia to visit each other’s country for up to three weeks on a fully-funded programme.

     Carr said in announcing this year’s winners: “The relationship between our two nations is fundamental and the Elizabeth O’Neill Award fosters greater understanding, leading to better informed media coverage of issues affecting both countries.”

     Bainbridge has worked on many of Australia’s flagship current affairs programmes including Lateline, PM and The World Today. While in Indonesia, she will focus on the representation of women in local politics and business, the Australian expatriate community and the role of Islam in modern Indonesian society.

     Kawilarang, a news editor with VIVAnews.com, has extensive international relations experience and has previously won the British Council’s Chevening Scholarship. He will use his time to research Indonesian links with Australia by interviewing Indonesians now living there and speaking to young Australians who have lived in Indonesia.

He’s got the Sheets

Steve Palmer, man about Bali, recently issued a plaintive plea on one of the Facebook groups he can be found on: “Does anyone know where to find the finest quality hand, bath, and face towels in Indonesia? Finest cotton... Super soft, super absorbent, nice colours [he spelt that without the “u” of course, but we forgive him – Hec]; even dye lots across all articles, not looking for a bargain, looking for the best... Two months ago I tried to get good sheets here and ended up getting Frette from New York as everything local available was too much of a compromise. Hope I don't have to suffer the same for towels.”

    There’s a lesson there for Bali suppliers of all sorts of products. It is that quality does count and that it has to be real rather than imaginary.

Poison Alley

Methanol, the poison of choice of criminally-minded liquor-adulterers in Indonesia whose consciences are apparently even more defective than their mental capacities, this month claimed the life of an Australian teenager who became ill after unwittingly consuming an adulterated drink on Gili Trawangan, Lombok.

    The young man, whose name was Liam Davies and who was 19, became sick after a New Year celebration with friends. He was flown home to Perth, on the advice of doctors, but died in hospital there.

     Methanol is a deadly killer. There have been numerous incidents in which people have drunk adulterated liquor – methanol is used to create larger quantities of alcohol (often arak) that they then sell to the unwitting – here in Bali, as well as Lombok, and of course elsewhere in Indonesia.

     Last year a well-known Perth rugby player, Michael Denton, died in Bali of methanol poisoning. In 2009 a total of 25 people died here – four of them foreign tourists –after drinking methanol-laced arak. An arak factory operator in Denpasar subsequently faced court and was convicted of breaching regulations regarding alcohol production.

    Kim Patra, who writes the Paradise in Sickness & in Health column in the Bali Advertiser, devoted an entire column before Christmas to the dangers of being unaware of risks to your health here.

Buzzing Off

Jennifer Bee, who markets Komodo and its diving and dragon attractions for Grand Komodo Tours at Sanur, is changing tack in February: she plans to set up her own home-based business that will offer an eclectic mix: business services, relocation assistance, a travel agency, house and villa maintenance and a window into the world of art.

     Bee (not her real name but she gets a buzz out of it) says she’s had enough of working for other people and wants to go it alone using the internet as her office. It’s the coming thing and we wish her good luck and good fortune.

Hector's Diary appears in the print edition of the Bali Advertiser, published fortnightly on Wednesdays, and on the newspaper's website www.baliadvertiser.biz. Hector tweets (@scratchings) and is on Facebook (Hector McSquawky).

HECTOR’S DIARY, Bali Advertiser, Jan. 9, 2013

In the Pink Again

There was a pleasant little soiree just before Christmas, at the plush new Marriott property The Stones at Legian, in favour of the worthwhile Bali Pink Ribbon cause. General manager Peter Brampton and his crew put on a great show for the crowd. Everything was pink: the complimentary mocktails and even many of the canapés, and certainly the staff.

     We managed to catch up with Gaye Warren, originator of the Bali Pink Ribbon Walks – this year’s is on April 28; put it in your diaries – for a quick briefing on how things are going with their plans for a breast cancer advisory service for Balinese women.

      She tells us: “After nearly four years of fundraising, thanks to the dedication of my Pink Team, I am delighted that we have raised enough funds to open our breast cancer support centre in Jl. Dewi Sri, off Sunset Road in Kuta, to be called Pink Ribbon House. It will be open to all those affected by breast cancer and their families, both Balinese and expatriate. Our medical advisers will endeavour to give free monthly seminars on women’s health at the centre.  We shall also be offering therapeutic courses and counselling by volunteers including breast cancer survivors.

     “All being well, we hope to open when the centre is more or less equipped by the end of January. However, we are still in urgent need of office equipment, up to date computers, etc. We shall also be planning a future fund raiser sometime in 2013 for a second-hand minibus to provide transportation to the centre for women from outside Denpasar.”

    They’re looking for an experienced office manager to run the new centre and take on some of their workload. And all this is in addition to the new breast cancer screening facility at Prima Medika Hospital in Denpasar, in which Pink Ribbon has been a major player.

      Gaye, who is herself a breast cancer survivor, has had a gruelling time lately. During her lengthy absence in the UK in 2012 the redoubtable Kathryn Bruce held the fort in her place. Gaye says of Kathryn: “I couldn’t possibly manage without her.”

     The Stones (one of Marriott’s upmarket Autograph Collection) opened late last year. It’s a great property.

Missing Link

It is to be hoped that Garuda will make it back to Darwin, as forecast, now it is apparently no longer just the notional airline. Proposals to resume the service from Bali to Australia’s “northern capital” this year have surfaced following a visit to Jakarta by Northern Territory Chief Minister Terry Mills, who took office last year following an election that saw the long-ruling Labor Party tossed into opposition.

     The north Australia connection is important to Bali and the eastern archipelago, and of course to Indonesia as a whole. Darwin implicitly understands the realities of living in the tropics, which most Australians do not. The city – it’s very small: 128,100 people on 2011 figures – is well serviced and makes a useful study centre for many Indonesian purposes; not least for storm drain technology that can deal properly with tropical intensity rain.

      The new government in Darwin has said it wants to continue and to expand the scope of the lifesaving connection between Royal Darwin Hospital and Sanglah in Denpasar (so see next item). This was an important and far-seeing initiative of the Territory’s former Labor government.  We will look with interest at performance versus promise on that front.

       Renewed air links are a boon. When Garuda dropped the ball – and Brisbane and Darwin – some years ago after it discovered to its horror that the corporations that owned its aircraft actually would like lease payments to be made, it did itself and the Australian connection immense damage. It had been flying to Darwin from Bali for 18 years. AirAsia took up the route but discontinued it because it couldn’t make it pay. That’s the commercial reality and AirAsia is (properly) ruthless in that regard. If it doesn’t make commercial sense, it won’t do it. Bali-Phuket was junked for the same reason, as were the Kuala Lumpur-Europe routes.

      The Qantas low-cost carrier Jetstar flies Bali-Darwin with services that originate from or fly on to other Australian cities, picking up payload as a result. Garuda has announced plans to fly Jakarta-Bali-Brisbane from later this year.

Nice Try, Fail

Sanglah General Hospital, Bali’s leading public hospital, will have to try again to win formally recognisable international accreditation. A year-long effort to obtain certification from the Joint Commission International (JCI) did not meet with success, since Sanglah failed on several significant tests: quality of the building, the hospital’s ability to control infection and the fit-out of bathroom facilities.
     JCI, which has been operating as a global standard-testing organisation since 1994 and is represented in more than 90 countries, sets rigorous standards of clinical care and managerial functions in acute care hospitals. It provides international accreditation, education and advisory services.
      Sanglah’s chief director, Dr Wayan Sutarga, says only 36 of 1218 separate JCI standards of service rate a fail at the hospital and 24 are non-medical in nature. He says therefore that it can be said that Sanglah General Hospital is “almost excellent.” Unfortunately that’s somewhat similar to hanging out a plaque above your office, as some Indians used to do in the old days, proclaiming oneself as B.A. (Oxon) (Failed).
      JCI will be back in three months. Dr Sutarga and his team need to be ready for excellence then.

Not that Rich

Governor Pastika has taken pains recently to reveal his salary and benefits. They are not excessive. He gets Rp 8,598,200 in take-home pay a month. He disclosed his emoluments, and those of his deputy, following a report published recently by the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (FITRA), which set out salary levels among various provincial and regional heads in Indonesia.

     On the face of it, it seems they got something a little wrong. It may be that the monthly office expenses got confused with salaries, since FITRA said Pastika was taking home Rp 176,660,994 a month.
     Local newspaper NusaBali also reported the FITRA survey as indicating that the regent and vice regent of Badung were among Indonesia’s best-paid regional officials, receiving monthly salaries of Rp 129,596,905 and Rp 122,876,905 respectively. Those figures are probably wrong too. But Badung is certainly Bali’s wealthiest district. Many refer to it, not without reason, by another name: Rip-Off Central.

In the Way

While the regent of Badung is busy collecting money from developers, he might like to spare a thought for the seaweed farmers of Nusa Dua whose 30-year-old industry is just about dead. The farmers want the government to change the regulations to make it easier for farmers to remain viable producers in areas such as Geger Beach, where the massive Mulia development has delivered the coup de grace to the little people.

     Seaweed farmers can no longer dry their seaweed on the beach but must take it inland, reducing production (and incomes). They were promised jobs with hotels in the area but many, unqualified for such work, have not been employed.

     Today, only 30 families still farm seaweed at Nusa Dua. There used to be 100. Their situation would make an interesting study for delegates at the 2013 International Seaweed Symposium, the 21st and the first hosted by Indonesia. (We love irony here at the Diary.) Sixty countries are down to attend and delegates are set to discuss the latest research and industry conditions in the seaweed world.

Um, Yes

We dined on the evening of New Year’s Day at Trattoria near Padang Padang on the Bukit’s Labuan Sait coast. The menu’s great – there’s a lovely Japanese selection too – and the ambience captures the locality and its culture while managing to blend in the origins of the Italian style of informal dining.

     It was raining heavily on the Bukit that evening and because the front restaurant was full – outside dining being off – we were directed to the other dining area, just a few steps away across a rainy terrace. A delightfully lissom and well appointed young woman with a lovely smile and an umbrella took us there.

     We ordered, though with difficulty. This was because all the staff appeared to hold master’s degrees in eye-contact avoidance. They also seemed not to understand their own language. We had to ask for roti to go with the pre-pizza salad, but we only got it after the happy fellow we were trying to order with had a brainwave and said, “You want bread!”

     When we left, it was still raining kucings and anjings. But that was OK; we made use of an umbrella provided for diners who might otherwise get drenched. At the parking area, however, the attendant was determinedly sheltering from the ambient inclemency. He showed no interest in waving us out of the car park with the usual combination of magic wand, whistle and shouts of “terus”. Further, it was abundantly clear that he had no intention of getting himself wet in an effort to retrieve his employer’s umbrella.

     So to make the point, your Diarist trudged through the rain after the Distaff was safely sheltered in the car, to return it to the idle little gent. (“Gent” was not the actual word that was upon your Diarist’s lips, sotto voce, but the Bali Advertiser has rules that proscribe profanity.)

Hector's Diary appears in the print edition of the Bali Advertiser, out every second Wednesday, and on the newspaper's website www.baliadvertiser.biz, Hector is on Twitter @scratchings and Facebook (Hector McSquawky).