Yogya’s Southern Beaches: Grasping Business Opportunities while Taking Care of Nature

By: Sri Rahmawati & Vatsya Mallayana

Photos by: Dorothea Gecella Putri Lestari

8 a.m. and we started our trip to explore some beaches in Gunung Kidul, the most mountainous part of Yogyakarta. It took us over two hours by car to get there from Yogyakarta City, not only to take pleasure in its natural beauty, but also to talk business and to learn how people there take care of their beaches.

Our mouths could not stop gaping until a child surprised us with a splash on the surface of the turquoise water. Later, the heat of the sun that had totally burnt our faces could not stop us from creating footprints across the warm, white sand. Strips of giant rocks on the western end of this beach seemed to want to make us believe that we were the subjects of a famous painting.

Tired of Trash in Yogyakarta: “Let’s Do It Yogya!” Wants to Clean-Up for Good

By: Monica Dominguez

If you have ever visited Yogyakarta, Indonesia, you may have seen the plethora of art, music and traditional Javanese culture coloring every corner of the city. You may have also noticed how in these corners, intertwined and sometimes overshadowing the beauty of Yogya, is trash. Lots of it. Every backyard, front yard, river, sidewalk and street have become acceptable disposal grounds in Yogyakarta, and the amount of it is overwhelming. Berit Renser and Marie Le Ferrand have discovered that there is a part of the population here that wants to change the trash problem for good. Let’s Do It Yogya! is a campaign initiated by Berit and Marie in Yogyakarta whose aims are to educate the citizens of Yogyakarta about trash disposal, to work with the local government and non-governmental organizations to develop a sustainable system for disposal and to, well, clean up the trash!

Yoga in Bali: Where to go?

By: Ed Caffin

Ohm… Bali has something for everyone. As a holiday destination the island offers all you wish for: beaches, good weather and an endless variety of restaurants and activities. Whether you want to shop, surf or party till you drop, Bali has it all. Among the millions of holiday-makers, the island attracts an ever growing number of yoga practitioners. Especially since the bestseller book and subsequent blockbuster movie Eat, Pray, Love, going on a meditation and yoga retreat on Bali seems the thing to do. But where to go?

It’s safe to say that Bali has grown into Asia’s center for yoga. This is partly due to fact that the practice of yoga is part of Balinese Hindu religion. Balinese style yoga classes, focusing mainly on spiritual energy, can be found all over the island, but most centers adopt a more physically oriented western style of Hatha or Ashtanga yoga. Good studio’s can be found all over the island, most of them however are situated in the Kuta-Denpasar area and around Ubud.

Lion City, Tiger Land: Singapore’s Native Cat on the Brink of Extinction.

By: Morgan Victor

A Forgotten Namesake

Narrow streams of light penetrate the thick canopy of dense virgin jungle. A small herd of deer stop by a stream for a drink, looking up occasionally for signs of danger. Orange and black stripes blend seamlessly into the lalang (tall grass) behind them. The sudden unnatural quiet spooks the deer and they take off quickly across the stream. The huntress watches them escape and silently recedes back into the foliage as mysteriously as she had appeared.

Scenes like this were not uncommon in Singapore as little as 150 years ago. In what has now become a concrete jungle, terms like ‘Tiger Beer’ and ‘Tiger Airways’ have become parts of the local vernacular. The significance of this elusive creature in the country’s history however, is ironically something that has been all but forgotten.

Bali’s Unique Rice Paddies Unesco World Heritage?

By: Yvette Benningshof

The lush green rice paddies of Bali and its unique water management system of subak are under threat. Tourism and water shortages are one of the many causes. The good news is that this week representatives of Unesco will visit Bali to see if these paddies can be put on the World Heritage List. Anthropologist Steve Lansing delighted everyone with this news at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival.

During the panel discussion ‘Cycle of rice’ Steve Lansing was called ‘the rockstar of rice’ by the other panelists--writers and experts on this subject--just like adventurer Jan Reynolds who has lived with indigenous tribes on each continent for her award winning series about vanishing cultures. The third panelist Kirk Johnson is the director of the Bali Field School of the University of Guam and brings students to Bali to experience the rice culture.