Central Bali + Deep thoughts

bratan lake on bali indonesia anchor blog

A long but beautiful ride it was to go to Bratan Lake Temple which is located 2 hours north of Kuta Bali, in central Bali. This day trip offered beautiful landscapes and a very serene temple by the lake. The must: all the gardens surrounding it. So many different kind of trees and flowers. It's lovely to walk everywhere around the temple. Pura Ulun Danu Bratan, it's local name, is a recent temple, maybe 17th century, and is dedicated to offerings ceremony that Balinese do for Dewi Danu, their Goddess of water, river and lakes. It's mostly Shiva that you can see all over the place but Buddha and Ganesh are very present as well.

Now... Outburst of deep thoughts.

The contrast between the natural beauty of this island and the garbage that are everywhere is chocking. I know they don't have the proper infrastructures and probably neither the money to put and maintain those infrastructures in place. I know. But there's got to be a solution to every problem, right ? At some point, I think the Government of Indonesia should force, with strict measures, certain very bad practices that cost them many billions every year : the burning of farming lands. First of all, it's a crisis that the media should speak about and a human crisis that the UN should be acting - MORE!- on. Indonesia is burning right now, literally. El Nino made it worst this year, the land is hotter and dryer which spread the fires very quickly and uncontrollably. Local people are chocking to death under a thick smog. Human lives are dramatically lost by million every year, whether from people choking to death during the fires or from those prematurely dying of respiratory diseases or cancer. And, my point, monetary loses are HUGE and corruption is EVERYWHERE! Let's say that every regular year of land burning costs minimum 10 billions to Indonesia and about the same or less to Malaysia and a couple billions to Singapore. A year like this one... double or even triple these numbers... and the number of lives lost. Is the Indonesian government taking measures ? Yes, but not enough despite the pressure of the Singaporean and Malaysian government. It's been like that for decades and it seems like the corruption is growing within the Indonesian Government. It's sad and frustrating, the money that they loose from lower tourist activity due to those land fires is uncountable and adding to the countries's burdens. So my point was that if they could manage that single situation, aside of a considerable amount of lives that would be spared, they would have funds to find better farming techniques and to develop a working system for garbages & pollution. By taking action there, I believe that Indonesia would also be securing it's primary industry : tourism. Please, share your opinion! And, enjoy the pictures!