The rest offer little if they even think of offering anything at all and most of what's on offer now in Bali is modern snacks and Uluwatu view apartment villa solitary confinement cells with no strings attached and bus tours with buffet lunches and barf bags and sunset photo ops and umbrella garnished cocktails and smiling waitress hostess cewek-cafe complete-masseuses with black knit dresses and white pumps and guaranteed ROI investments and plasma TVs bigger than your pool for sure and those TVs are in the toilets too and breakfast included lifestyle investments and hum-v's that break the roads and testarossas that will be broken by the roads and interest free credit on black vinyl reclining karaoke vibrating lounge sets and plastic tropical plants with birdsong soundtracks built-in at Ace Hardware and marmer granit floors for all and all that including pseudo crystal chandeliers and silk tropical flower arrangements imported from China and cracked-buddha-head-pissing-water-features plus sequin-encrusted drag-on-the-floor kebayas and The American Dream nightmare from which there is no (extermintor-induced) awakening even at 3am when sleepers desperately need a pee but there is no awakening for the addicted because the nightmare continues just when you thought it was safe to go back in the garment-industry tainted water to swim among the plastic bags and body parts and discarded syringes
. . . I don't think they are doing just damn fine anymore . . . judge success by the Gross National Happiness of the People . . . not by the Gross National Product . . . (an adapted quote from the King of Bhutan) . . . I don't see a lot of gross national happiness in the nation of Bali despite the exponential increase in the gross national product and euro dollar investment figures. Not at all. not in the least. I talk daily to bajillions of people who readily admit they love all the goodies of today, and then readily admit with more convincing tones that they were actually happier 30, 40, 50 years ago.
Ah well, welcome to the kaliyuga awareness society. . . small but devoted and chronically-disappointed membership.
