Striking a Perfect Balance
by Jeremy Allan

That you cannot please everyone is an exasperating fact of life all tourist industry professionals must accept. Most resort hotels try to focus their appeal on distinct market segments in an effort to ensure that the majority of their guests share common tastes, expectations, and requirements. Market segmentation has Asians flocking to the Bali-baroque concrete monoliths of Nusa Dua while Europeans and Americans are channeled toward the garden bungalows of Sanur and Kuta.
However, the most astute marketing experts are often stymied by a new and increasingly important class of guests: culturally mixed couples and families. One of the more intriguing side effects of globalization is the creation of a class of professionals and entrepreneurs who take up permanent residence in another country. A growing percentage of these expatriates are young and single or middle aged and divorced who often find life partners in their adoptive countries.
Unlike their forebears, colonial traders and plantation managers who took native concubines and treated them little better than household pets, both male and female expatriates soon discover that their spouses regard the marriage as an equal partnership. While these cross-cultural marriages can be singularly rewarding experiences, the life of a mixed couple is all-too-often an endless series of misunderstandings and annoyance resulting from divergent preferences and expectations. Nowhere do these differences become more apparent than during a weekend trip out of town.
During a recent trip to Ubud I was faced with the dilemma of choosing a hotel acceptable to both myself and my companion. Craving a break from frenetic living in the heart of Kuta, I wanted only a simple thatch-roofed pondok in the middle of some rice field or on the bank of a river, while she insisted on a fully equipped
room close to shops and restaurants. Crossing my fingers, I followed the suggestion of a friend and booked a bungalow at the Bintang Pari in the village of Sakti, ten minutes north of Ubud.
My first impression was one of slight disappointment. The hotel is situated on a moderately noisy roadway. But a few steps through the prerequisite art gallery which featured charming paintings by local schoolchildren brought us to a stairway leading down to another world, where the buzz of motorcycles was replaced by the hush of a gentle breeze wafting through the palms and rice fields. The Bintang Pari consists of six air-conditioned bungalows flanking a decent-sized swimming pool and manicured grounds. With no other structures in evidence besides a line of straw-roofed bungalows on the neighboring property, the Bintang Pari strikes a perfect balance between seclusion and accessibility. While my companion turned on the air-conditioning and sprawled on the king-sized bed, I settled into a lounge chair on the terrace and watched the sun set behind the adjacent facing the rice fields and forested hills beyond.
The hotel's efforts to please both Western and Eastern tastes does not end at the rice field views. Dinner time gave us a demonstration of the culinary skills of the proprietor, Gusti Nyoman Pupa, a Sakti native who has been working with foreigners in various capacities since his youth. While most of the dishes are standard Indonesian fare adapted to western palates, the soup course offers an intriguing glimpse into Ubud history. Gusti obtained the recipes decades ago from an ancient Ubud resident who, in his youth, was the housekeeper for Dutch artist Rudolf Bonnet. The soup choices corn, green bean, or kidney bean are all Dutch recipes altered to employ locally available ingredients, fusion cuisine that dates back decades.
Though such incentives are hardly required, guests who stay for at least a week are treated to a complementary Balinese meal. The feast features, besides an East-meets-West soup course, such signature Balinese dishes as duck steamed for a full day in an earthenware pot covered in smoldering rice husks, and desserts using only fresh, natural ingredients, most sinfully sweet but without a hint of refined sugar.