Chasing Amy-Lou

Somewhere between Seminyak and Canggu, Bali, Indonesia;

I arrived in Bali late last night, the airport taxi queue was just as I remembered – long, busy, chaotic. The number of drivers waiting for pick-ups was absurd, and the queues for the cash machines even worse. I didn’t care so much though, in fact, I didn’t care at all; I was back in Bali, a place where two years ago I’d made quite a connection and had found some peace with my inner self, and also with my outer self – something I still constantly struggle with.

After a long taxi ride from the airport in which I was sure the driver totally ripped me off, charging almost as much for a 14km journey as I’d previously paid for a 37km journey (looking on Uber at the time of writing, I know for a fact I’d been royally jibbed), I checked into my accommodation – Gusti Homestay just outside of Seminyak, close to Kerobokan and Canggu.

The homestay was basic. Very, very basic. The bathroom smelt a little bit like piss and there were no hooks to hang towels or clothes from, but the toilet was solid (no squatting for me!) and for $6 a night with a free breakfast, a lovely roof terrace from where I could watch the stars and hopefully sunbathe, I really couldn’t grumble.

Today then, after a semi decent nights kip thanks to my trusty pal, Nytol (I still wasn’t sleeping well, my mind a constant battlefield, so I’d resorted to addictive over the counter drugs), I decided to take a walk into Canggu and go visit the area I’d stayed in two years ago.

In June 2015 I fell in love with Canggu. It was a peaceful little place with a few cafes and restaurants, boutique clothes shops and bakeries, homestays and bars. Even though there was a lot of building work going on, in 2015 the roads were relatively free of traffic, and were easy to walk down; the rice fields were green and gorgeous; and the quiet beach was a stones throw away from where I’d stayed at Serenity Eco Lodge. I’d also practiced a lot of yoga in Canggu and was looking forward to reconnecting with the feelings I’d had when I was last there.

A couple of hours after I left Gusti’s, stopping along the way to check out the price of knock-off Nike trainers, fake Raybans and flip-flops, I arrived in Canggu. And following a hearty lunch of Balinese tuna steak in a cute little cafe called Hungry Volks, I took some time to ingest my surroundings and tried to get my bearings, recognising familiar cafes and remembering certain crossroads and landmarks. The excitement I’d had on the journey here though soon dispersed and my heart began to break a little in saddened dismay. Canggu had changed. And in my eyes, not for the better.

Where I’d once walked the road from Canggu Beach to bars such as Deus and Junction without giving scooters or heaving traffic a second though; where I’d once been able to hear the birds chirping and the slow breeze rustling through the trees; where I’d once felt relaxed in a serene aura of calm, I now felt agitated and pressurised, I felt the idyll had been interrupted by noise and pollution, by groups of tourists on motorbikes and JCBs digging up the earth, destroying the old buildings to make room for new resort complexes and homestays. Canggu had gotten noisier, and busier, and I felt sad, really sad.

I wandered down to the beach and sat for an hour in quiet contemplation. The wind was strong and the clouds overhead were dull and blackening. The surfers were out in force though and the waves bounced and swept and lapped onto the shore in a magnificent crashing crescendo. Even this stretch of sand was busier than I remembered. I sighed.

As the rain slowly made an appearance (NOT what I wanted for my time in Bali, Karma must really hate me at the moment) I ducked into a cafe at the side of the road and waited for it to die down. It was while sipping on a large Bintang that I got chatting to a Balinese guy called Argus. I asked him about the changes in Canggu and he told me that tourism had increased a hell of a lot over the last couple of years. Apparently all the tourists had begun to move west; first from Kuta to Seminyak and now they were gradually drifting from Seminyak to Canggu. “Soon”, he said, “they will move further west still, until nowhere is free from the noise of scooters”.

He continued by telling me that even Ubud had seen the same spike in tourism; and now you couldn’t move or hear for the sound and onslaught of scooters. I shuddered. I loved Ubud, it had been my Mecca the last time I was on this island and it was the last intended destination of my whole trip. If I wanted peace, Argus told me, I needed to head to the west, before it was too late.

Sighing in shocked disbelief, I questioned Argus as to how he and other locals felt about this shift. He said it was, “good but worse”. Asking what he meant by that, he replied: “It’s good for locals as they need it for the money and to help them live; but it’s worse because there are too many scooters; too much noise; too much traffic; too busy now.”

As sad and angry as it made me, Argus’s words really got me to thinking – why didn’t anyone walk anywhere anymore? Why didn’t anyone cycle? Better still, why didn’t groups of friends grab a taxi or an uber? Distances between Seminyak, Canggu, and Legian aren’t really that far – I would’ve walked around 10kms that day, mainly because I had time on my hands, and I enjoy walking, so it was normal for me (and I was less likely to get in an horrific RTC from walking than if I was on a scooter – Bali is rife for scooter accidents).

Ok, so I could understand the appeal of scooters for families or older people, and I can definitely understand the excitement younger travellers get from bossing about on two wheels all day (I’ve done it, I did it to get to the rice fields in Ubud) but it was the younger tourists I felt most annoyed with – those who could easily walk or cycle because they were fit enough. Understandably, scooters are quicker and less effort, but for the environment and the tranquility of areas such as Canggu, they’d really ruined it.

Trying not to let it bother me too much (although the noise levels were quite disturbing), I said farewell to Argus and began the long journey back to Gusti’s. On the way I stopped to pick up a beer, grab some fruit, and order some food for dinner. If there was one thing that I was glad hadn’t changed so much in Canggu since I was last there, it was the abundance of food and fresh fruits on offer. I surveyed the selections of healthy goodness with greedy eyes, purchased a tasty looking mango and skipped off home. The traffic might have been bad, and the skies might have been grey, but my mango was going to be delicious!