From ‘Can we Live Here? Finding a home in paradise’ by Sarah Alderson

Akula has been in Mumbai less than 20 hours and its not the heat or the noise or the smells that have blown her away, it’s the dresses. She doesn’t see the poverty or the outstretched arms begging for alms. She just sees the blues and the pinks and the reds and the greens of the saris, and thinks she’s arrived at a Barbie fashion convention…….there’s no place like India for realizing the quintessential truth about the unfairness of life….

India makes me feel a lot of things: hot, tired, elated, frustrated, delighted, angry, stressed and relaxed. But mostly it makes me feel enormously lucky.

And in equal measure, guilty.

If Singapore were a drink it would be Perrier (because it looks nice, its chilled and its expensive but ultimately its boring and kind of eighties) …….feels like a giant mall where consumerism is used as a form of mind-control.

Ubud, Bali …….Its like a lusher, less stressful version of India….

….Bali: Wayan is a name given often to the first-born child whether boy or girl, hence the preponderance of Wayans……

….Malaysia….on a train ….Hell, these toilets – they even make me yearn for India…… I miss Indian trains – same strip lighting, probably more filth and more cockroaches but there’s something so epic about an Indian train ride. I think it’s the chai wallahs. ….And the samosa sellers…..maybe what I miss most is the never-ending stream of fod and tea straight to your bunk.

Driving in Bali is like playing Space Invaders. Cars, dogs, scooters, chickens, trucks and bikes are all sharing the one-lane road with you and they’re coming at you from every direction trying to kill you.

The Balinese like their ceremonies. Every day offerings are laid out around the house – little palm-leaf containers holding incense, petals, rice and small bits of food for the spirits. And then there are the big ceremony days, which occur several times a month: on the full moon and new moon, and then on odd days in between and for a plethora of reasons……..However the Hinduism of Bali is not like that of India, it mixes in elements of Buddhism and animism too, and the result is the most fascinating religion I’ve ever come across, a religion that permeates every facet of life. …..These offerings are made at dawn following the belief that no one in the house can eat until the spirits have. There are three tenets at the heart of the Balinese belief system: respect and love for God, respect and love for humankind, and respect and love for the earth. If any of these are out of harmony then chaos reigns.

I have a sudden longing for Bali. I want to live in a country where no one loses their temper or shouts, which is hugely uncool and largely unthinkable for a Balinese person to do (though some will happily smile to your face and then go away and put a blackmagic curse on you behind your back, so I hear.) ………Divorce is exceedingly rare in Balinese communities…….

I …..felt awful for them that they were flying 20 hours to come to Bali. The beaches were filthy. The rivers were basically open sewers. The rice paddies are vanishing beneath concrete. I was here 20 years ago, when Bali was truly a paradise. Now, I have to say, it more and more resembles hell…..streets are so jammed that Ubud could contend with Mumbai or LA for worst traffic congestion.