• Selling Last and Love in Bali
• What to Do-Kuta and Seminyak
• The Hidden Life of South Bali
• The Struggle to Save Bali's Turtles
• Jimbaran-The Bukit
• What to Do-Impossible Surf at The Bukit
• Fair Trade in Bali
• Ubud
• A Dance for Every Day
• Balinese Painters
• Ubud-What to do
• A Word of Dance
• East Bali in a Nutshell
• The Hidden life of East Bali
• Klungkung
• Where to Stay-Padang Bay
• Where to Stay Candidasa
• First and Third World in Tenganan
• Amlapura-Tirtagangga
• Tirtagangga and Around
• Amed Beach
• Planning Your Trip: The Best of Bali
• South Bali in a Nutshell

 

Planning your Trip:

The Best of Bali

A History of Tourism

Lured by the waves of Kuta and Uluwatu, the beach resorts of Sanur and Nusa Dua, or perhaps Seminyak's nightclubs and Ubud's boutiques, many visitors to Bali never make it past the southern districts of Gianyar and Badung. Most of them reach the island through the ­Ngurah Rai International Airport near Kuta­

Yet until World War II, travellers re­ached Bali through the northern harbour of Buleleng . After the end of the Dutch conquest in 1908, Westerners became fascinated with the flamboyant culture of south Bali , and ­the colonial government decided to promote tourism in this ­part of the island. From Buleleng, the first tourists were brought via limousine to Denpasar, where the Dutch opened the first official hotel in 1928 – the Bali Hotel, which still stands today.

­Soon afterward, a wave of foreign artists discovered Bali . Shunning the bland Bali Hotel, they found their way to Ubud, in the heart of the culturally-rich kingdom of Gianyar . There, Prince Tjokorde Gede Agung Sukawati had engineered a movement of renewal in the fine arts, with the help of foreign painters Walter Spies and Rudolf Bonnet. A travellers' hostel opened in Campuhan in 1937, on the site of the present-day Hotel Tjampuhan. Cultural tourism was born.

planning your trip

Best of Bali

colonial government decided