Stepping stones and democracy

We've been at our resort on the east coast of Bali for a few days now. You can't always be sure what to expect when you book a place though. We thought this place was more of a condo, since we rented I through the AirBnB web site directly from the owner, but it is more of a hotel resort. No matter, it turned out to be an excellent choice. Our rooms have great views of the ocean, and when the tide is high we can hear the surf pounding against the hotel's retaining wall, and see white water shooting up past the railing. The place is pretty quiet. There are not a lot of other people here, which is nice. The first night we were here we had dinner at the pool by the ocean and listened to a really good guitarist sing songs from the '80's and 90's mainly. I think they were targeting our demographic.

Today we hired a driver to take us to some of the sites in the area. We first visited the Taman Soekasada Water Palace in Karangasem. The place was built in the 1920's by the local king for this eastern part of Bali, known as the Raja of Karangasem. The grounds were very beautiful with a large rectangular water feature and bridges leading to a rectangular island in the middle. On the island was an airy building which housed the king's bedroom and a family room. The focus was more on the grounds than the building, and we enjoyed walking around to the various water features and gazebos. Everywhere we went the view was amazing. I wonder what I would have been like to be the king, going for a stroll along the many paths. As Mel Brooks said in the movie History of the World Part I (an oldie but goody), "It's good to be the king."

We next took a harrowing ride on a narrow road up and down the side of mountains along the shore on the way to a black volcanic beach in Amed. The views of the ocean and shores below were spectacular. Every little beach we saw along the way was packed with fishing boats. The boats were not like any fishing boat I have ever seen. Each of the boat hulls were about 15 feet long and four feet wide, shaped like a banana, and painted white. There was a pontoon made out of a wide piece of bamboo attached to each side to maintain balance, each placed about five feet from the hull and attached with cross beams and line. The boats were all equipped with a small outboard engine and a brightly coloured sail on a 15 foot mast. The masts and rolled up sails were detached and lying on the hull. It was a striking site to see so many fishing boats all lined up on the beach. We must have passed many of the fisher men's houses in the hills, which were very modest and basic.

We stopped along the way at one view point with a cloud free view of the Gunung Agung volcano. It was something out of a movie with its perfect conical shape and black sides, rising 3,000 meters to dominate the island. The volcano was thought to be extinct before it last erupted in 1963, killing about 2,000 people and devastating the agriculture in the area with ash and debris. It still belches a little smoke and ash on occasion.

At the beach in Amed we had lunch and enjoyed some snorkeling. The coral wasn't as beautiful and varied as that around Gili islands, but we did see a large variety of strange and colourful fish. We even saw some bright blue starfish under rocks which were unusual. It was also nice to see so many local Balinese enjoying the day snorkeling with their families (it's a national holiday today). It seemed most of them couldn't swim and so were snorkeling in orange life jackets.

On the way back to Candi Dasa we stopped at the Taman Tirtagangga Water Garden, which was built in the 1940's, again by the Raja of Karangasem. I guess he liked water features. The grounds were once again unique and beautiful. The kids especially liked one of the rectangular ponds where you could step from pillar to pillar in the pond. The pillars were only an inch or so above the water, and you couldn't see the pillars below the water line, so it gave the impression that the octagonal tops to the pillars were floating stepping stones on the water. It was fun to walk along the stepping stones, with three foot long black and gold coloured coy swimming in the pond below.

I was glad to hear that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2015 went to The National Dialogue Quartet in Tunisia for its contribution to building democracy in Tunisia following the 2011 Jasmine Revolution. I didn't know much about Tunisia, but learned that its new constitution was drafted in early 2014, and free elections were held later in the year. It's the first free and fair elections the country has had since gaining its independence in the 1950's. The Tunisian constitution is one of the most progressive in the region and guarantees civil liberties including freedom of expression and equal rights for men and women. Islam is the official state religion, but is not the source for law, and religious or non-religious freedom is protected.

Hopefully Tunisia can stabilize as a secular democracy as other Muslim majority states like Turkey and Indonesia have managed to do. It a good example for other countries in the region. As one pundit said, Tunisia proves that democracy is possible in the Arab world.

Here's a picture of Elizabeth on the stepping stones.