Late News from Bali : Met Ari Smith, Last of the Foreign PaintersPrepared by Harold Stephens
Travel Correspondent for Thai Airways International
Forty years ago two news-breaking events took place on Bali in Indonesia. A new hotel, the island’s first major hotel, opened its doors. And the same year, an international airline inaugurated flights to the island. The two events, in 1966, introduced the age of tourism to Bali.
The hotel was the Bali Beach Hotel and the airline was Thai Airways International. There was still another event that happened that year that is part of this story. This writer became THAI’s official travel correspondent, a job I have held ever since. My first assignment was to travel to Bali and cover the opening of the Bali Beach Hotel and to be on hand when the first THAI jet arrived from Bangkok via Jakarta. Needless to say, I was thrilled. But there were a few problems. Back then, not much was known about the island, no guidebooks or tourist brochures, and getting there was not easy.
I had to travel across Java from Jakarta to Surabaya by train and from there by bus to Banyuwangi on the east coast where I boarded a ferry to Gilimanuk on Bali. As I stood at the railing and watched the green mountains of Bali draw closer my excitement grew. What was ahead? I knew I would like Bali when I boarded a bus and an old woman began tossing flower petals over the front of the vehicle. I could hardly believe it, but during the five-hour bus trip to Denpasar we must have passed through a half dozen villages that were celebrating with festivals of some sort or another. I believe it was on that trip that I discovered that Bali is a mood as well as a place.
Once upon a time, everyone who came to Bali stayed in Denpasar. The reason? There were few other places to stay. I checked into a hotel in town before going to the Bali Beach Hotel, to get a kind of feel for the place. The hotel that I had checked into, immediately captured my attention, not for its ambience but for its sense of history. It was the Natour Bali, once called the Bali Hotel. It dates from Dutch days and was a pleasantly old-fashioned place with a restaurant that was true to the East Indies colonial style. They served the same rijstaffel as they did for the Dutch before the war.
The next morning, after a tour around town, I caught a bemo to the Bali Beach Hotel in Sanur. Here was the forerunner of all posh hotels that flourish on Bali today. When it was being built, with Japanese reparation money, not many people agreed with its architecture. It was an eyesore, they said, rising up a dozen storeys overlooking Sanur Beach. When I arrived, the hotel had just been completed. Being brand new, and grand, the Bali Beach was the talk of the island and the place to meet and entertain friends on the island. The enterprising sales manager then was Mr. Rai, a young Balinese prince, who had an answer to all the questions I had to ask about Bali.
Also at the Bali Beach at the time, I met two young German photographers, Hans Hoefer and Werner Hahn, both who were filled with enthusiasm and high hopes. They were there to produce a first class photo guidebook to Bali. They achieved what they set out to do, and forty years later the book is still the leading guide to Bali. Insight Guides number in the hundreds today.
Thai Airways had their office in the Bali Beach then and they still do today. The excitement, of course, was the arrival of the first international jet liner on a test flight before the official service began. We all rushed to the airport to see the Caravelle arrive. We heard the sound before we saw the aircraft, and all eyes fixed upon it when it touched down. It was an anxious moment. There was fear the runway might be too short, but that didn’t concern the pilot. Half way down the runway a parachute popped out from the stern and the Caravelle came to a halt, to everyone’s joyful shouts.
Of course, now when I returned, no one gave thoughts about a short runway. Bali has a modern international airport that can land the largest aircraft flying the skies today. But what did concern me when I arrived was how much Bali might have changed after the dreadful disco bombing a few years ago.
The taxi drive from the airport to the Bali Beach Hotel, now called the Inna Grand Bali Beach Hotel, showed little if any change. The Bali Beach Hotel impressed me when I first saw it forty years ago and it did now again. It has gone though a remarkable metamorphosis while keeping its original charm. Opened originally on 1 November 1966, it was re-launched, after major upgrading, on 4 October 1993. What struck me then, and now again, were the vast landscaped tropical gardens that spread out over 45 hectares. It’s obvious that it takes an army of gardeners to maintain the place. Also it’s now a Resort & Spa with recreational facilities like tennis courts, mini golf and a real nine-hole golf course, poolside chess and Bali's first and only bowling center. And four beachside swimming pools.
Early the next morning, I rented a Suzuki jeep and drove down to Benoa. Encouraging. Yachts at anchor like I had never seen before, with several new yacht marinas and clubs. The good news is that the government has changed the yachting rules. Only a few years ago sailing in the Indonesian islands was a hassle. All pleasure yachts were required to check into and clear each Indonesian port they visited. Now, all they need do is check in and out of an approved port.
My next destination was Ubud, the art center of Bali. There was one person in Ubud who could tell me about the present conditions and mood of Bali. He is Arie Smit, the last of the great foreign artists. I knew I could find him through the Neka Gallery.
It was the drive to Ubud that gave me the first indication that things were not normal. That stretch of road was once lined with shops catering to tourists—wood carvers and stone cutters, art and craft shops, kite makers, handicrafts, antiques, and just about anything you can imagine. In the past it took me a couple of hours to make the less than 20 km drive. My wife wanted to stop at every shop and stall en route. The shops are still there, but the doors are closed. It’s sad that only a few shops remain open but they certainly are making money.
Likewise, Ubud, before, was a bubbling beehive of activity with restaurants and open-air cafes jam-packed. They too, for the most part, have either closed or had vanished. I used to complain about the crowds but now I missed the people.
But Arie Smit is there.
Ever since the 1920s, Bali has attracted some very fine foreign painters. While most of them have passed away, their works have endured and have become valuable art treasures. The names of these foreign painters are words in the annals of Balinese art--Walter Spies, Rudolf Bonnet, Le Mayeur, Theo Meier, Han Snel, Donal Friend, and Mario Blanco. And Arie Smit is the only one of the old timers left.
Arie arrived on Bali in 1956, some 18 years after he landed in Indonesia from the Netherlands, then the Dutch Indies, as a young soldier. In Batavia, now Jakarta, he partly fulfilled an artistic yearning by training as a chromo-lithographer in the topographical service of the colony.
"I used to etch Balinese mountains onto maps of Indonesia," he said. "And I always promised myself that one day I would go to Bali." Like Theo Meier and so many others, he intended to stay only a short time in Bali but, like them too, he became bewitched by the island and decided to make it his home.
And that he did. He became an Indonesian citizen and this year marks his 50th. If anyone knew the mood of Bali he did. I wasn’t certain where he was living but I did know that Suteja Neka had provided a place for Arie to live and work. Besides, I was anxious to meet Neka again. He has both a museum and an art gallery in Ubud. The Neka Art Museum contains the finest collection of Balinese art seen any place in the world. Opened in 1982, a tour through the museum is a tour through art history on the island. And I was fortunate for Neka, a man I have known for 30 years, showed me all the latest editions. He then led me to the Arie Smit Pavilion, a marvelous display of Arie’s work over 50 years. He then took me to see Arie who has his own residence in the compound.
Indeed, Arie Smit is the last of the old foreign painters of Bali. Arie turned 90 this year and, unfortunately, he give up painting a few years ago when his eyes began to give out, but he himself looks fine, strong and robust. We sat down for tea and a long chat. Of course, I liked to ask him anecdotes about the expat artists and, for certain, Arie always had something new to add. Ask him about Mario Blanco and he will tell you that Mario’s son is now painting, or about Theo Meier and he will say, “Now he was a naughty guy.”
I then asked about Bali today. “With the first bomb a few years ago,” he said, “everyone said it was the end of tourism. I didn’t think so. But I was wrong. Tourism is hurting.” Arie also pointed out that Bali is in an awkward position. Its culture and religion are Hindu-Bali, and Bali is a tiny island in a Muslim world that is Indonesia.
It’s true that Bali is hurting from the drop in tourism but that is no reason for not going there. In fact, it’s a good reason for going there. The hotels are half empty and prices are incredibility low.
I was most interested to find new artists and seeing their work but, I must say, it was a little disappointing. It seems there is no new work being produced, and what I did see were artists who were copying other known artists. For my book, At Home In Asia, in which I had a chapter on Han Snel, I used a painting by Han for the cover. I had seen, in shops, a dozen versions of that cover and all rather poorly done. A few years ago National Geographic had a cover for their magazine showing the green eyes of an Afghanistan young woman. Those eyes can be seen in dozens of art shops around the island. For reasons unknown, Buddha imagines and paintings are in vogue.
Still, Bali continues to be a great place, and it’s the Balinese who make it that way. And never has the shopping been better.
Next week I am delving into another subject, Inflight Entertainment.
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
This week I am making a general statement in answer to hundreds of e-mails that I have received: How safe is travel in Thailand?
I honestly believe that Thailand is one of the safest countries in the world to travel in. I live here with my wife, and my three sons and their wives and kids live in Bangkok. None of us feel threatened. The world has heard about the coup, and I vowed I would always stay clear about reporting on such subjects, but I will say that the international press has been unfair. Except for a couple of armoured cars—not tanks—that appeared around town, life goes on in Bangkok as it always has. —HS
Harold Stephens
Bangkok
E-mail: ROH Weekly Travel (booking@inet.co.th)
Note: The article is the personal view of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the view of Thai Airways International Public Company Limited. | 
