The beautiful Indonesian island of Bali

This is Hong Tju, the very bright, hard-working and 100% honest manager who ran my X's business on site in Denpasar, Bali. She was assisted by her two sisters, Helena and Hong Swan. Meeting and working with capable and reliable people like that occasionally gives you some hope for humanity.  

My X and I attended Hong Tju's wedding in November 1984, this photo is from her family's place in Baturiti up in the hills behind Denpasar. My X started to go to Bali around 1982, while I was still in the oil business, she would bring back clothes and Balinese handicraft items and sell them in Singapore and Denmark where she had family and connections.   

As I mentioned, my X was lucky in meeting the Hong family who would help her co-ordinate production, QC and shipment of the clothes. In the late 1980s, the company bought this spread of land outside of Denpasar and built a factory to better manage an expanding production facility. I gave my X the money to invest and I never got it back, but that doesn't matter now.  

Not always, but usually, land and property is a good investment. At that time, the area was just some obsolete paddy fields outside of town (Denpasar) and construction costs were low. Hong Tju built this house on the corner for herself and part of her family.  

Further down the road some factory space was put in.

This is the factory seen from the south-east during construction. My X started with a range of so-called karawang embroidery blouses and skirts. Karawang is a labour-intensive local technique using mechanical sowing machines to make perforated patterns in the fabric. 

Like I say above: I wasn't much involved in my X's Balinese clothes business as such. But sometimes I would tag along on her trips and find things to do. Here I rent a soft-top beach buggy with a tiny little Volkswagen engine to run around the island for a few days. Tju is on the left, she is helping us get ready for the trip. 

Bali is less than 6,000 sq km and has over 4 million people, so it is pretty heavily populated. However, most of the people live in the south and much of the back country is quite nice. This is the rural east coast road up to the North Coast which was little developed at the time. 

A stop during one of our road trips, you have the north-east coast to yourself. 

Right, hopefully this will be the only time I use a photo twice on this site: It turns up in the 'My mother' tab as well! My Mum on Legian Beach north of Kuta Beach from our Bali trip together. There were tourists then, but not nearly in the numbers that came later in the 1990s and 2000s when Asians started to travel. 

While on the subject of my Mum: This is a Balinese postcard I sent to her dated 30 Dec 1984. Kuta Beach at that time was mainly frequented by Europeans and white Australians, the women were allowed to sunbathe and promenade on the beach topless. Today there are more people on that beach but less white sand, it has largely been eroded away and replaced by plastic. 

Another Bali postcard to my Mum, this one dated 15 Oct 1982, I think that was my first visit. It says my X and I rented a car and drove all around the island. I find it beautiful, the culture is different from the rest of Indonesia, although parts are a bit touristy with pushy beach vendors. 

In the middle of 1986 I retired from the oil business and took up bird photography. So from then on I would combine my trips to Bali with picking up material for my photo collection. I took this auto-release selfie with a Balinese scenic background to promote my magazine features. I am holding a Nikon F3 with the 400mm ED lens I used at the time. 

Something funny happened to me in April 1989. I was working with Eric Oey (mentioned above ...), the Periplus Editions publisher; Eric was preparing a book Birds of Bali by Victor Mason (also mentioned above, in the 1986 postcard caption). The book was almost ready, beautifully illustrated in water colour paintings by (the late ...) Frank Jarvis. However, Victor wanted four bird habitat PHOTOS (no

Victor was very specific regarding the four locations he wanted: The Bali Barat National Park, the forest around Lake Tamblingan, Benoa Bay mud flats and the coast of Nusa Penida. Eric asked me if I could provide those; he would pay me S$50 per image. But he needed the pictures next week!?  I said 'YES'. Here are the results in the 1989 book - get a used copy if you possibly can, it is great! 

So I jumped on a plane to Bali, accommodation was no problem, I could stay with Hong Tju and her family. This postcard to my mother is dated 13 April 1989 and says that I have accepted this crazy photo assignment to travel to Bali to take three photographs (I had a picture from the National Park already)!  

Benoa Bay behind the airport was pretty easy to do, and the lake in the hills was fairly easy to get to as well. Nusa Penida was a bit different. Tju followed me down to the beach and found a boat-man who was willing to take me across to the island in his little canoe for a few dollars, the crossing took two hours. Then it was a four-hour hike cross country until I got to the coastline that Victor

The steep cliffs along the south coast of Penida were indeed magnificent, and the light held well. I am glad I saw this, I haven't been there before or since. It was getting late by then, so I hiked back into the island and found a village. It looked like someone had thrown a hand grenade into the village square when i turned up - the kids ran screaming for shelter! But the people settled down and

This is an article I sold to Indonesia Magazine Oct-Nov 1987 issue. I never got a real good photo of the iconic Bali Starling in habitat at the Prapat Agung Peninsula; all my published photos were of birds held captive at the release centre inside the reserve. 

In 1987, my photo collection of Bali birds was still a bit weak, a photo of the common Spotted Dove would do! The Lineated Barbet I found at nest walking through the national park is a bit more interesting.  

Apart from the drought-deciduous savanna forest, BBNP also has some nice coastal habitat and is a good place for migratory shore birds and terns, here the high Arctic Sanderling. 

Embarrassingly enough, I got the ID of this raptor wrong! While walking alone through the BBNP, I flushed up an immature Changeable Hawk-Eagle sitting on the ground, and I photographed it in this small tree before it took off. It is NOT a Honey-Buzzard!   

The previous story is a bit dry, but this one is in first person and a bit more interesting to read today maybe. It is from the South East Asia Traveller magazine, Nov 1987 issue, page 13.   

Page 14, SEA Traveller. 

Like I said, all my kids have seen the unique environment of Bali! Mark had his trip during school holidays in June 2013, he was 10 1/2. An old friend, Bridget Hedderman, invited me (plus Bee Choo and Mark) to stay at her lovely house just north of Sanur. Here Mark is studying at the breakfast table outside our room. The estate was wonderful, but the beach nearby wasn't. Bali has paid a high prize

Like his three brothers before him, Mark made it to the top of Gunung Batur, a periodically active volcano. This is the volcano as seen from the main road, it last erupted in 2000. 

Bridget's driver couldn't quite find the right way to the trail-head, so he dropped us off nearby, and we made our own way bushwhacking up to the summit at 1,717 m.a.s.l. Bee Choo stayed behind, but Mark and I persevered. In 1996 I carried Adam (5 at the time) much of the way, but I was stronger then!  

And this is the reward: The summit at last, looking down into the steaming ground of the Gunung Batur caldera. 

Mark is a strong swimmer, but I wasn't going to take any chances at this place: The Liberty wreck off Bali's North Coast. This is a popular dive site, but the current is very strong and the drop-off from the beach almost immediate, so I had to make Mark wear a life-jacket when we went snorkeling. Bee Choo didn't join us, she took these photos from the shore. 

Here you can see how close we are to the beach, Mark and I snorkeling over the enormous American war-ship torpedoed by the Japanese in 1942 and laying in the deep waters right below us! There are lots of fishes to look at here as well!