That’s us in 2017, and that’s one of Bali’s famous beaches, Seminyak. It doesn’t look much in this photo, I grant you. But further along, going north, the sands turn white, the waters blue and the surf’s up. Which was where we stayed, in the Bali Oberoi Hotel.
Bali is one of the most peaceful parts of Indonesia. Bali bombings aside, of course. And that was carried out by votaries of my favourite religion (/sarc). Reason for Bali being peaceable? Its Hindu. The rest of Indonesia is Muslim. I leave that there for now.
Usually it’s the other parts of Indonesia that have trouble. The parts that are Islamic, which is most of Indonesia. Anti -Chinese riots, for example. Or fighting for even stricter Sharia.
Recent rioting is in the capital Jakarta is mainly against government corruption, I believe. That's all well and good, but there's an undertow of anti-Chinese hate. Mainly, like the similar hate against Jews, by Muslims against Chinese and, as with Jews, it's because they’re successful.
The second morning of our stay at the Oberoi we took part in the once-a-year release of baby turtles into the sea. Tiny things no bigger than a table-coaster, dropped in to the surf, their tiny paddles twirling like propellers in the desperate push to open water. Where just one in a thousand of them will mature to the size of floating coffee tables, and only half of those 0.1%, the females, will make it back to this same Seminyak beach, to crawl up the sands, at night time, years later, to dig a hole in the dunes hidden in mangroves, to lay her dozens of soft-shelled eggs, to bring the process full circle.
Here in peaceful, Hindu, Bali.
