Bali Hi - A visit to the Gardens of Eden
My last child was to be married, in perhaps the most romantic place on Earth. Kerry and Anthony, both lawyers who worked and loved in Jakarta, Indonesia and, despite political unrest and eventual riots in Jakarta, were determined that their marriage would take place in Bali. So, on 6th June 1998 in the beautiful garden of a private villa, the ceremony united two handsome, intelligent, adult people and the celebration became a night of joy, never to be forgotten.
Hundreds of candles lit the starched linen tablecloths, perfumed flower arrangements scented the evening air, little Indonesian flower girls in authentic costumes, sat on both sides of the garden path, baskets of flower petals were held in their laps, to throw under passing feet. Never mind the feet were swollen and the new shoes pinched from the heat of that tropical island, all was forgotten with the joy and the hymn to beauty. A Hollywood picture? No, that's a wrong description. Perhaps a scene from a Scott Fitgerald story? Almost, but still not the real essence of that night. Relaxed, happy, awesome all these things but above all, quite natural in that island of dreams.
BALI
Nehru of India is quoted as calling Bali "The morning of the World". For Gay and Kees, it was "The Evening of the World" Earlier in this Century, the American traveller, Hickman Powell wrote of the "last Paradise" and I will quote in full [ for it is exactly my feeling] an English visitor who said in the 1930's - "I went there half-unwillingly for I expected an uninteresting piece of bali-hoo, picturesque and faked to a Hollywood standard; I left unwillingly, convinced that I had seen the nearest approach to Utopia that I am ever likely to see."
Everybody in Bali seems to be an artist and these artists live in an Island of absolute physical beauty. Wherever you travel, you walk beneath hundreds of Palm Trees. Breath the air and it is heavy with the perfume of Frangipani and Night scented flowers. Wherever you look, you are gazing at the golden fish darting in between the Lily pads. Lift your eyes and you are gazing at tumbling Bougainvillea, Hibiscus and Orchids. A tiny Island, 144 kilometres at its widest and just 80 kilometres long, there are three million people living there, that means it is one-tenth the size of Tasmania and our population is a half a million
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