Finding The Real Bali

Bali has changed a lot since tourist booming in 1970-ies. Many hotels, restaurant, and villas are built to accomodate the incoming visitors. Many local leave their villages, and their farm lands to go to get better promising job in tourist area. Some are successful in changing their life to a better standard, others are still trying to survive.

Apart from that, many visitors who visited Bali before, let say, twenty or thirty years ago, will commented that Bali has a experienced a lot of change. There were fewer cars in the streets, less buildings, but more rice fields. Last time you still could see farmers walked on the main road when going to the rice fields. You can still do it now, but you have to go to the villages, not in big city like Denpasar or Sanur.

Is Bali more beautiful thirty years ago? Probably yes. There were still originality, not very much tourists influence you would see. It's really funny the way they advertise Lombok in the media to visitors, Visit Lombok: It's Bali twenty years ago. A tourist who visited Lombok also said the same thing, "visiting Lombok is like visiting Bali twenty years ago."

Would we like Bali to remain just like thirty yeas ago? Not to change or advance or improve a bit. Dumb question, eh? Of course not, we want Bali to improve in technology, human resources, education and economy. Bali is not a museum where the island, the people, and every thing remain the same.

Many people want to find the real Bali where they can see rice fields, people walking to the farms, people haggling for prices, fisherman selling their catches, and bumpy roads in the village. But the real Bali has changed a little bit now. There are internet connection, satellite disc, cell phone, cars, hotels, villas, and cars. If you'd like to see the "real Bali" or Bali twenty years ago, you still can. You can go to remote areas where not many tourists come, then you will see the real Bali.