Skip to main content

Bali by the numbers

To breakdown the island into numbers seems anti romantic but sometimes it helps to get your arms around it - how romantic.

So some you might and some you might not - know -


  • It is one of hundreds of islands that make the Indonesian Republic
  • 8 degrees below the equator
  • It is about 2,220 sq miles which is half that of the Big Island of Hawaii (which if you drive it is a round trip of under five hours) - not so in Bali - one point to another can take a day (roads are narrow and congested)
  • It houses close to 5M people most of which clutter around the eastern part since the western thirds is a national park 
  • Housing and constructed buildings tend to be shorter than the tallest temple in town so nothing over five stories was visible for miles making for tightly packed homes that house more than one family in the compound.  
    1. Typically Balinese families stay as joint families.  
    2. They have a family temple right on the edge of their home and visible from the road.
    3. The kids are numbered like the Cat in the Hat books - thing 1, thing 2 etc.  
    4. Except they are named in the delivery sequence - the first offspring is usually Putu (boy or girl); second is Made - yes we know but pronounced Maa Day; third is Nyoman; fourth is Ketut and then they start all over (assuming they want to - literally)
  • They observe one day of complete inaction and silence - usually in March - called Nyepi - literally brings the island to a halt - no sounds, no lights - nothing.  A plane flying over that evening sees a dark blob in the ocean.  It is a time to meditate and reflect.  Some don't eat all day.  The day after Nyepi is the local New Year's Day Festival where they have a big party.
  • Perhaps we can all take that to heart and just do nothing for a Day!
Labels:

Comments

  1. RajendraAugust 7, 2016 at 9:14 PM

    Sounds like fun, have tried it on occasion, too..good for nothing tht I was.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On the go(zay masta) in Japan again

Cool cat the Japanese are Tokyo at dusk  My second visit to this land of the rising sun after almost a decade. Back then clearly I was wet behind the ears product manager and likely didn’t pay attention to all (efficient) things Japanese. But today I did and of course continue to be impressed. It is as much the obvious stuff like on time travel that is both clean and comfortable and all that which makes it possible. The impressive landmark and landscapes that these humans have put together despite their cramped (or because of it) surroundings and precarious geological conditions could amaze a novice architect among us. But it’s also the little things that someone had to think about which have a phenomenal impact on day to day lives that make the Japanese stand apart. Below are few random examples- 1. Providing a very fine machined wooden toothpick in every packet of wooden chopsticks. The said chapsticks are simply set on the To Go counter of any food vendor/ convenience store wher...
Post a Comment
Read more

Presumptive Society

Today's world is hyper connected.  I am not so sure what it means but you hear it a lot.  It is probably hyper but not sure how connected it is.  Sugar (fermented or not) is available in many ways than before and so getting hyper is easy.  It is probably more a threat than cocaine since it is sold legally. And what is this connected stuff?  Most people I encounter seem disconnected from reality.  So going back to this assumption that we are connected there are subtle and no so subtle instances of how brands and companies and middle men try to portray someone - A linkedin profile for somebody working for X years at a place advertises to the connected network that so and so is CELEBRATING X years @ Such and Such Inc. Do we know if (s)he is celebrating or cringing?  Perhaps a better way to portray will be - So and So LASTED X years @ such & such inc. Then it exhorts the readership to go ahead and congratulate them for this lasting effe...
2 comments
Read more

Greasy Dra'ch'ma

With all the furor in the media around Greece for the past couple of years I thought it would be good to list all things Greek that people use in common parlance - 1. Some of us are familiar with Greek history as being where the world's largest organized scam was born - called the Olympics. At the time this courier delivered a message by running a large number of miles and that got converted into a spectator sport. Nobody thought about what this implied? Fedex does not use any of the marathon runners instead relying on bio diesel trucks so not sure where we went from courier delivery to extracting money for tickets to watch people balance themselves on a pommel horse - which by the way is quite different from a Trojan Horse - 2. which brings me to the next invention from Greek mythology that finds use today - except used in the computer virus arena. This innocuos program is accepted by a computer since it looks friendly only to unleash undesirable effects leading to loss of s...
2 comments
Read more