Bali Tourism Board

One year ago, the Bali Safari Marine Park welcomed a group of four striped-hyenas (Hyaena hyaena)  to its happy collection of exotic animals hailing from almost every corner of the world. The striped hyenas – one of four remaining hyenas species is mainly nocturnal and notoriously shy.

The hyenas that took up residence at Bali Safari Park – 2 females Manama and Adliya, and 2 males Hamad and Riffa, were compelled to overcome their innate shyness to confront the many thousands of Park visitors eager to see these unique carnivores.

The “baby” weighed only 860 grams at birth but will grow to an average adult weight of around 35 kilograms and live in captivity for more than 20 years.

When celebrity Jessica Iskandar, the mother of Indonesian music star El Barrack, visited the Bali Safari Park on Sunday, 08 November 2020, she was given the honor of “naming rights” for the new-born striped hyena. Jessica gave the matter some thought and then called the baby “Mooi” – a name taken from the Dutch language meaning “beautiful.”

According to drh. Yohana Kusumaningtyas, Bali Safari’s senior veterinarian, Mooi is receiving intensive treatment from a team of doctors. Only six days after birth, Manama’s milk was insufficient for Mooi’s needs. As a result, the doctors formulated a special milk formula that Baby Mooi was fed at six-hour intervals.

The team of expert doctors continuously monitored Mooi’s development and weight, adjusting his formula along the way. Two weeks after birth, Baby Mooi’s eyes opened. A week after that, teeth began to emerge, and the toddler took its first halting steps that allowed him to take his first exploratory steps into the wider world. One month after his birth, doctors slowly introduced solid foods into the infant’s diet of milk formula.

Mooi’s birth represents the latest chapter in continuing success stories in breeding rare and endangered animals at Bali Safari. 

According to the Assistant Curator for Bali Safari Park, Nyoman Su Journalist, Mooi’s birth resulted from the hard work of all parties at the Park, including the Keepers (animal caretakers) who consistently apply the principles of good animal management. In the future, Nyoman Su Journalist predicts even more animal births in the Bali Safari Park, both in species endemic to Indonesia and in animals from abroad.

Thomas Colbert, General Manager of Bali Safari Park, also expressed his happiness at the latest addition to the Parks collection of animals. Adding: “Our joy that cannot be described in words. This is because we, as a conservation organization, have succeeded in breeding this unique animal for the first time in Bali or maybe even in Indonesia. What’s more, (this was done) during the current Covid-19 pandemic conditions.”

For those coming to visit Mooi and his extended family of more than 400 animals from across 100 species, Colberts said, “We encourage visitors to follow health and safety protocol during their visit to Bali Safari.”

Continuing conservation efforts at the Bali Safari Park is supported, in part, by the #Kitacintasatwa campaign that has attracted donations from people who want to assist the Parks’ animal conservation activities. Launched at the beginning of the Covid-19 Pandemic, it continues to help the Park provide the highest level of care to its animal collection.

From Bali Discovery

President Joko Widodo has announced that the Island of Bali will host the 2022 gathering of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GPDRR).

As reported by Kompas.com, President Widodo lauded the GPDRR as a biennial meeting convened by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. The Platform’s stated goal is to exchange ideas and the latest techniques for handling natural or human-made disasters.

Commenting on Thursday, 15 October 2020, the President, about the 2022 conference coming to Bali, said: “This forum will be attended by 193 countries, making it a very large event with 5,000 to 7,000 participants expected to attend.

The President instructed all the relevant elements of the Government to prepare well for the event. Adding: “Please don’t forget that the attendance of some 190 countries will generate a momentum that can be used to promote Indonesian tourism.”

The President emphasized that the large-scale international conference must be utilized in the Country’s best interest. The forum must also highlight Indonesia’s role in reducing the risk of major disasters. “Because of this, preparations must be well done. I believe that Indonesia as the host will bring its great experience of acting as the host of major international events,” the President said.

From Bali Discovery

Born into the Balinese family that owns the Casa Luna Group of restaurants, 27-year-old Krishna Suardana clearly takes cooking seriously. Krishna is the son of Janet De Neefe – the legendary Australian founder of the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival and the Ubud Food Festival, and a Balinese father, Ketut Suardana – the hard-driving business cohort of De Neefe.

Krishna returned from tertiary studies at Melbourne’s Swinburne University to assume a management position in the family’s culinary concerns. And, although trained in management and commerce, Krishna abandons his office desk every weekend to lace up his apron and stoke the flames of the wood-fired brick ovens he personally installed at the Indus Restaurant in central Ubud.

Passionate about pizza, Krishna immersed himself in the art of Pizza Napoletana or Naples-style pizza during an extended trip to visit his sister studying in Italy.

Because of the Napoli genre of pizza’s hallowed inclusion on UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage and protection as a Traditional Specialty Guaranteed Product (TSG) in the European Union, purists will argue that only pizzas assembled with tomatoes grown on Mount Vesuvius’ volcanic plain and made with Mozzarella di Bufala Campana can genuinely claim a Neopolitan branding.

And while these culinary purists have their point, the Neopolitan Pizza is, after all, the precursor of the world-renowned New York Style Pizza brought by Italian immigrants to the USA. In Bali, the close culinary cousin of the Neopolitan pizza now available in Ubud, comes courtesy of one of the Island’s native sons, after a careful and studious sojourn in Italy. And to earn the right to call their pizzas Neopolitan – no effort is spared in sourcing only the finest of ingredients.

Using precise ratios of hearty wheat flour and yeast, the resulting dough must be kneaded, ideally by hand, at a slow and steady cadence. Allowed to rise to a proper consistency, the dough is then shaped by hand to a thickness of no more than 3-millimeters, after which toppings and sauces are added to be cooked in a wood-fired brick oven at 485 degree Celsius for as little as 1 to 1.5 minutes.

While Krishna presents a traditional range of Neopolitan Pizzas, he also presents bold delicious local variants that include a locally inspired Crispy Ayam Kremes and Babi Kecap.

An outstanding pizza range is prepared by Krishna and his team at Indus each Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 12:00 noon until 9:00 pm.

Priced starting from Rp. 50,000 each, free delivery is available in the Ubud area.

From Bali Discovery

What’s more, there’s little to indicate that we have reached either the “turning point” or the peak of the current crisis. Indeed those fearing “the worst is yet to come” may be sadly correct.

One dire global prediction from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and Evaluation (IHME) estimates an astounding 4 million deaths by the end of 2020. More conservative projections from The World Bank puts that number at a number just under 2 million. If the current surge continues, it remains anyone’s guess what the final death toll will actually be and, with no end of the disease in sight, when that grim tally can be counted.

In a world where many are out of both cash and hope – living from week to week, it is not clear if we have arrived at the beginning of the end or, for that matter, even the beginning of the end.

In the case of Bali, predictions of a recovery in the travel industry in the second half of 2021 may prove optimistic and well beyond the ability of most to survive the current health and economic maelstrom.

Vaccines are being developed at breakneck speed, precariously bypassing critical trials along the way. If a viable vaccine is discovered, there will remain problems of sufficient production, pricing, equitable distribution to the world community, and overcoming political and religious reluctance to immunize. Should an obstacle arise at any one of these stops along the way, the current economic downturn with untold misery and pain to people everywhere will continue for an indefinite future.

When a Cure is Much Better than the Prevention

Accordingly, the most practicable and quickest solution to the current global pandemic is therapeutic steps proven effective in treating the mounting toll of 42 million afflicted by COVID-19 since its sudden appearance in the early months of 2020.

The HIV-AIDS epidemic, first identified in 1982, claimed more than 32 million lives before an effective therapeutic for that disease was discovered, commuting a “certain death” sentence, and allowing the world to, once again, “couple in confidence.” Similarly, as the world waits for a yet-to-be-developed COVID-19 vaccine, our “best bet” is that a promising drug treatment will mitigate the worst effects of the disease and embolden humankind to again re-congregate to shop, entertained, dine, drink, and travel again.

Just like the effective therapeutic for HIV-AIDS, effective treatment for COVID-19 would similarly allow a self-isolating world to resume normal human contact. Travelers would take holidays, attend sporting events, and attend conferences confident that, in any case, reliable medications are available that can prevent death and restore good health. Despite a growing number of new infections, that death rates as a percentage of total coronavirus cases are in decline, and hospital stays are shortening, demonstrates that advances in the treatment of the virus are providing positive results.

Treatment over a more distant hope of preventative inoculation is what a crumbling world economy most urgently needs. 

Recently, this need for immediate action was stated by U.S. Travel Association, President and CEO Roger Dow, who said: “The U.S. and global economies simply cannot afford to wait for a widely-distributed COVID vaccine for international travel to resume, so innovative technologies and the embrace of best health practices need to provide the way forward.”

While improved and more reliable screening will facilitate travelers’ movements across borders, the world’s best hope to avoid the cataclysmic effects of this prolonged global depression is a highly effective course of medical treatment. Only with the near-certain knowledge that the coronavirus can be readily identified and the fatal progress of the disease reversed in hand will people again confidently travel to destinations near and far and commune with each other in restaurants and other public places.

Treatments for COVID-19 will continue to come in spurts and dashes, eventually providing increasingly effective ways to deal with the disease. Effective testing methods and proven therapeutic remedies are being discovered daily. This approach together with following disciplined health protocols are “the shortcuts” to the resumption of commercial activity and the badly-needed‘V-shaped” recovery for the economy.

We remain hopeful that an effective vaccination will eventually become available to the world. But, given the likely schedule of developing and delivering a vaccine, a Cure for COVID-19 is arguably better and its prevention.

From Bali Discovery

From Bali Sun

From Bali Sun

From Bali Sun

The Provincial Government of Bali has launched a new electric bus service in Bali in a ceremony held at the Governor’s Residence in Denpasar on Friday, 06 November 2020.

As reported by Tribun-Bali.com, the head of the Provincial Transportation Authority, I Gde Samsi Gunarta, said the trial operation of electric buses in the Strategic National Tourism Zone (KSPN) follows a decision by the Director-General of Land Transportation. 

Initially, the electric bus service will be operated by 12 buses headquartered at Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport. 

The five initial electric bus routes will serve:

1: Bandara I Gusti Ngurah Rai-Central Park Kuta-Ubung-Mengwi-Bedugul-Singaraja.

2: Bandara I Gusti Ngurah Rai-Sanur-Ubud-Kintamani-Singaraja.

3: Singaraja-Menjangan-Taman Nasional Bali Barat.

4: Bandara I Gusti Ngurah Rai-Goa Lawah-Padangbai-Manggis-Amuk-Amed.

5: Bandara I Gusti Ngurah Rai-Sanur-Klungkung-Besakih

The electric bus system will only embark and disembark passengers at fixed points along the declared routes.

In addition to the above island-wide bus system, an electrified shuttle bus service is planned in Bali’s centralized government administrative zone. The shuttle bus will connect government offices in Renon to Jalan WR Supratman to the Provincial Police Headquarters, the Indonesian Arts Institute Denpasar (ISI), the Warnadewa University before returning to Renon.

Samsi underlined that the electric buses’ initial operation plans are intended to trial the buses in various applications in Bali.

Indonesia’s Ministry of Transportation is funding the new bus services with buses provided by the Bali Development Bank (BPD), PT INKA (The Indonesian Train Service), and PT Build Your Dreams.

As a move to popularize the new service, the buses will operate without charge until the end of 2020.

Kompas.com reports that the new Electric Bus System is part of a more ambitious program by the Government of Indonesia to introduce electric buses, elevated suspension cars, and trams in various locations across the Island. The overall Bali Transportation network’s tram element will include a 7-kilometer long system in Kuta and a 12-kilometer system in Sanur.

The tram system is funded by the Indonesian Rail System (PT INKA) supported by the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) headquartered in Jeddah.

Part of the project is the construction of a workshop costing Rp. 2.6 trillion.

From Bali Discovery