Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Three Weeks in Bali: A Personal Account of the Bali Bombing
    Three Weeks in Bali: A Personal Account of the Bali Bombing
    Three Weeks in Bali: A Personal Account of the Bali Bombing
    Ebook105 pages1 hour

    Three Weeks in Bali: A Personal Account of the Bali Bombing

    By Alan Atkinson

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Alan Atkinson has worked for the ABC for more than 20 years and is currently Day Editor in the Adelaide ABC newsroom. He has also worked for newspapers in Australia and overseas, including the Sydney Morning Herald and the Adelaide Advertiser, the London Guardian and the Scotsman in Edinburgh. He is married with two children - his family was with him in Bali on holiday when he was woken with news of the bombing. He was one of the first Western journalists on the scene. His radio and tV broadcasts on the morning after the bombing - which included eye-witness accounts and the first reliable death toll - were heard across Australia, earning him a Walkley Award nomination. He has won several other media awards, including Journalist of the Year in South Australia.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins Publishers Australia
    Release dateOct 1, 2012
    ISBN9781743098653
    Three Weeks in Bali: A Personal Account of the Bali Bombing

    Read more from Alan Atkinson

    Related to Three Weeks in Bali

    Related ebooks

    Politics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Have You Seen This Boy?

      May 22, 2021

      THE Lee Mentoor who stares from the poster is older, his forehead has broadened and he carries the casual smile of a school boy. Here Liyaqat Mentoor, better known as Lee, is 7 years old, and if he looks anything like this, it means he is alive. The

      3 min read

    • Article

      Is This The Most Toxic Man On Earth?

      Mar 22, 2023

      Is This The Most Toxic Man On Earth?
      9 min read

    • Article

      SMOKE and MIRRORS

      Feb 15, 2023

      SMOKE and MIRRORS
      7 min read

    • Article

      All For The Camera?

      Feb 6, 2020

      All For The Camera?
      3 min read

    • Article

      ‘Death? I Can’t Wait For The Adventure!’ Most Haunted’s Yvette Fielding On Ghosts, Sceptics And The Afterlife

      Oct 4, 2022

      The First Lady of the Paranormal, also known as the Queen of the Night, is waiting for me at Crewe railway station in a bright red vintage Mini. I just about fold myself into the front seat. She cackles, performs a miraculous U-turn and puts her foot

      8 min read

    • Article

      TV, FILM & RADIO

      Mar 17, 2022

      TV, FILM & RADIO
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Monster Of Modelling

      Aug 17, 2022

      The Monster Of Modelling
      7 min read

    • Article

      Remembering India’s Partition, One Act Of Courage At A Time

      Aug 12, 2022

      As a survivor of Partition – the chaotic and violent cleaving in August 1947 of British colonial India into two independent states – Nirmal Singh might be excused or even pitied if he were bitter, or sad, or still traumatized today by events he says

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Queen Of The World

      Sep 8, 2022

      The Queen Of The World
      14 min read

    • Article

      Inside Her Dark Web

      Jan 12, 2022

      Inside Her Dark Web
      11 min read

    • Article

      Newsweek US

      Sep 9, 2022

      GLOBAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF _ Nancy Cooper DEPUTY EDITOR _ Diane Harris VICE PRESIDENT, BRAND CREATIVE _ Michael Goesele VICE PRESIDENT, DIGITAL _ Laura Davis MANAGING EDITOR _ Melissa Jewsbury OPINION EDITOR _ Josh Hammer SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR _ Fred G

      2 min read

    • Article

      Treading The Spiritual Path

      Jan 22, 2018

      Treading The Spiritual Path
      10 min read

    • Article

      Uddhav’s Lonely Fight

      Jul 16, 2022

      Uddhav’s Lonely Fight
      5 min read

    • Article

      Mother’s Little Angel

      Jul 3, 2020

      Mother’s Little Angel
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Movie Wives Are Speaking

      Nov 25, 2023

      The Movie Wives Are Speaking
      5 min read

    • Article

      Q&A

      May 13, 2021

      CJ Carey is a pseudonym for British journalist and author Jane Thynne. She has worked for the BBC, The Daily Telegraph and The Independent. Widowland is her tenth novel. She lives in London and was married to fellow author Philip Kerr until his death

      1 min read

    • Article

      A Nation Overwhelmed

      Apr 30, 2021

      A Nation Overwhelmed
      6 min read

    • Article

      Jen & Ben FOREVER TOGETHER

      Sep 30, 2021

      They’ve been pretty much attached at the hip since reigniting their romance back in April, so it came as no surprise when Ben Affleck showed up in New York City to cheer on girlfriend Jennifer Lopez at the Global Citizen Live event on September 25. “

      2 min read

    • Article

      Modern Day Cults

      Jul 7, 2020

      Modern Day Cults
      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Three Weeks in Bali

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Three Weeks in Bali - Alan Atkinson

      Dedication

      This book is dedicated to the victims of the Bali bombing, their relatives and friends.

      CONTENTS

      Cover

      Dedication

      Introduction

      Monday, 30 September 2002

      Tuesday, 1 October 2002

      Wednesday, 2 October 2002

      Saturday, 5 October 2002

      Sunday, 6 October 2002

      Thursday, 10 October 2002

      Saturday, 12 October 2002

      Sunday, 13 October 2002

      Monday, 14 October 2002

      Tuesday, 15 October 2002

      Wednesday, 16 October 2002

      Thursday, 17 October 2002

      Friday, 18 October 2002

      Saturday, 19 October 2002

      Epilogue — Monday, 21 October 2002

      Acknowledgements

      Copyright

      INTRODUCTION

      The Bali bombings have been a turning point. Carefree tourists and honeymooners have long flown to Bali from Australia and many other countries. They have been looking for a holiday with a difference and a brief taste of Asia in what has been a safe haven away from violence in other parts of the region.

      Now that has changed. Kuta Beach, its nightclubs, bars and cheap shopping are no longer an attractive lure for many young people and probably won’t be for some time to come. And it may be a long time before other tourists return to sample the island’s rich Hindu traditions, temples, breathtaking scenery and the legendary friendliness of its people.

      I was in Bali on holiday with my family when the bombs went off at Paddy’s Bar and the Sari Club. So I was one of the first Western journalists to file from the scene. When the ABC asked if I would write down my diary, I agreed because I knew it would be helpful to me to put on paper as much as I could remember in the post-bombing blur, as a way of trying to make sense of the incomprehensible.

      But we all have our own experiences of the Bali bombing — relatives, friends, emergency and medical workers, holidaymakers, local business people, tourism operators, politicians, onlookers. If the story helps anyone else gain some useful perspective on the tragedy, then all to the good.

      Alan Atkinson

      Adelaide, October 2002

      30.09.02

      MONDAY

      This holiday’s arrived too quickly. I wanted to look forward to it more. I was still at work in Adelaide only yesterday, producing the 7.00 p.m. television news, and now we’re on the plane to Darwin on the first leg of the journey to Bali.

      I guess it’s always the same with holidays. You plan them but then they’re upon you before you’ve had a chance to relish the fact that you’re finally going to be away from work for a good two weeks. It was only on the way to the airport that we all started to get excited.

      My wife Margie’s already asleep across the aisle. She needs a break too. She works for a busy care agency. I’m hoping the holiday will be good for her, that it won’t take too long for us all to wind down, that none of us gets Bali belly and that it’s as interesting for the children as it was for me when I first visited the island.

      That was twenty years ago. Everyone was saying then that Bali had been ruined by tourists but it was my first time and I loved it, motorcycling all over the island and meeting some of the friendliest people. Pujiana was one. He was manager of a little homestay called Munut Cottages set in rice paddies just outside the artistic centre of Ubud.

      Pujiana was delightfully gentle, charming and polite, with the readiest of smiles. Like so many other Balinese. How is it that they smile so easily? I remember after that holiday coming home smiling more. I wonder if the same thing will happen this time?

      Pujiana was young, dark and handsome then. Now he must be middle-aged and handsome. He took me to his village to see his family. Most of them were woodcarvers. He was the only one with a job in tourism. All his money was going towards looking after his extended family of twelve, from grandparents to newborn baby.

      When he drove me to meet his family, we stopped on the way to see a spectacularly colourful Hindu cremation, at which a whole village was present. That and meeting his family were two of the highlights of my 1982 visit. I wonder if he’s still there? Maybe he’s rebuilt Munut Cottages? Perhaps he’s moved on to manage a luxury hotel in Sanur or Nusa Dua? I’d love to see him and his family again.

      Pujiana’s story was like that of so many other Balinese, a story of working hard in the ever-burgeoning tourism industry to provide for a family back in a village somewhere off the beaten track. In Bali, family ties are strong in the villages, as are religious rituals. Every village has its temples. Unlike the rest of Indonesia, Bali is mainly Hindu but their religion includes other beliefs as well, such as animism. There’s a sense of an all-pervasive spirituality that seems to bind the people so strongly to their surroundings that they seem to work with it and be at one with it in ways that I, a Westerner, find hard to understand. Perhaps it’s similar to Aboriginal Dreaming.

      Of course the regular public performances of fire dances and other dramatic rituals are well-honed for the hordes of tourists but behind the shows it seems the ancient traditions and stories still mean a great deal to the ordinary Balinese. There doesn’t appear to be the same disconnection between faith and daily life that seems so evident in Western culture. Perhaps that’s partly because not many of the remote villages have television.

      Some Westerners, of course, would say the Balinese sense of spirituality is more like superstition. I like to keep an open mind.

      As the Qantas 737 drones on across Central Australia to Darwin, I wonder if our two children will get the same chance as I did to sample some of the Bali that’s off the tourist routes?

      Our fourteen-year-old daughter Sarah has just started learning Indonesian at high school so I think she’ll get quite a lot out of the holiday. Our son, Nick, is on the edge of being a teenager and more into downhill bike riding, computer games and cricket than being with his parents. I hope he’s not too bored. That could be a pain. Friends who have been to Bali this year have enthused about the snorkelling, as well as the shopping, and one of their boys is the same age as Nick.

      Anyway, we have half a day in Darwin to get used to the tropical warmth after the dryness of Adelaide. I want to see the Parliament House there. That could be the first test of interest or boredom. We shall see.

      The hours in Darwin before the late night flight to Denpasar have gone well, though our eleven-year-old son was clearly a little perturbed after noticing a group of white and Aboriginal Darwinians noisily drunk in the street. He’d not seen that in Adelaide. Drinking in outdoor places in the city centre has been banned there.

      We went to see the Northern Territory Parliament House, which to my eye is magnificent as well as huge. Our politicians really do like grand buildings, don’t they? Did they really need it that big?

      For what it’s worth, I think I prefer the main hall of the Darwin building to that of Parliament House in Canberra. There’s a touch of Asia about the design that matches my mood.

      The Darwin art gallery is impressive. I’m not a great connoisseur of Aboriginal art but I know what I like, as they say. There’s a touring exhibition on at the moment with some fabulous work on display. I wonder how many Australians from the big cities really make an effort to get out to see Aboriginal art or learn about it? I include myself as one of the lazy ones.

      After visiting the gallery we walk on the beach then sit at an outdoor restaurant in the centre, drinking copious amounts of water. Margie’s already enjoying the humidity. She once worked in Far North Queensland and loves this kind of all-encompassing warmth. I like it too. Some people can’t stand it. Sarah and Nick are also coping well with the change of climate. They’ll need to because according to the weather forecast Bali’s going to be even hotter.

      01.10.02

      TUESDAY

      We arrive at Denpasar Airport to be greeted with flowers by the travel agent’s local representative and his driver. They will take us to our hotel in

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1