Has Bali changed?

Has Bali changed? I would say YES. I remember visiting Bali for the first time around 80s (I’m pretty sure most of you weren’t born yet) and Bali has changed a lot compared to the Eighties. If you had the chance to enjoy Bali during those times, congratulations!

To be honest, for me, the change is quite worrying from the sustainability perspective. The massive development (but lack of thorough and long term planning) in Bali, under the guise of investment, created many new problems. Now as we can witness, Bali is (sadly) struggle with things like water scarcity, waste management, traffic jams, quality of tourists, loss of rice fields, and perhaps loss of identity as well. The economy has increased rapidly right after the plandemic (oops), but it will definitely backfire in the future if those problems persist. What’s the point if the economy bounced back short and temporarily, only to experience another lean period next, due to people choosing other, more comfortable places? Have the stakeholders in Bali seriously thought about this?

For me, the uniqueness of Bali compared to other places in Indonesia is no other than her rich culture and traditions. That’s Bali’s true identity! Sadly, investors want to build a Disneyland in Bali, and they already built ‘a selfie garden’ in Baturiti (if you know, you know) with a replica of Marina Bay Sands there (and as predicted, Singaporeans made savage jokes about it). Really??? What were they thinking? Were they lost their minds?

In 2023, the World Travel & Tourism Council considered Bali as one of the tourist destinations suffering from overtourism. This statement is not a baseless exaggeration, it is proven that at the end of 2023, during peak season, people are stuck in traffic jams for hours just to reach DPS (I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport) in southern Bali. Back in 2022, I took an important decision that I felt was right, by selling our property in the Canggu area, an area where traffic jams are getting worse day by day.

This visual note is compiled from Expeditionary Joey's journeys in Bali from 2018 to 2023. This visual note is the image of Bali as she should be (or at least from my perspective). Dumogi Bali setata ajeg lan lestari!

(To be continued)

Production studio: Studio Hargai Teman.
Director/DOP: Mikael Ari.
Aerial DOP: Cendy Trias.