Pita Prada celebrates traditional Balinese paintings

Painting connoisseurs who find themselves stranded in Ubud this month should not curse their fate.

Yes, the seemingly eternal traffic jams, the overzealous street hawkers and the hordes upon hordes of noisy visitors tend to make this little town a suffocating place to get lost in.

However, for lovers of good paintings, the town currently offers a rare feast for the eyes: the first biennale of traditional Balinese paintings, featuring more than 150 paintings, including masterpieces from the past and breathtaking works from the present.

The Flavor of Bali, at Roadside Stands

THERE are two kinds of culinary travelers who end up on Bali: ones who don’t flinch at spending hundreds of dollars for a bottle of Rioja at a trendy Asian-French fusion restaurant, and those who are obsessive about going as local as possible, searching out the most authentic Balinese meal, a box of Imodium A-D always at their side You’ll find the latter at Bali’s many streetside food vendors known as warungs. Scattered throughout Indonesia, warungs usually occupy a modest shack or roadside lean-to with a small counter and a bench where customers sit and eat traditional dishes. The bigger ones are no more than no-frills cafes, sometimes fashioned out of modest materials like rattan and corrugated metal.

Arrests, but Few Details, in Bali Murder

Denpasar. Police in Bali are refusing to release details of the reported arrests made in connection with the brutal slaying of Japanese national Hiromi Shimada.

“I promise, we will reveal everything in two days,” Sr. Comr. Gede Alit Widana, chief of Denpasar Police, said during a news conference on Tuesday.

All Widana would say was that police had arrested the suspected killers, though he declined to give their names or possible motive, or say how many people had been taken into custody. He did say, however, that the 41-year-old Shimada’s two Indonesian ex-husbands — Agus and Harianto — were not among the suspects.

A police source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said several male suspects had been arrested in East Java. He declined to say how many suspects were being held.

The source added that the Bali Police were working particularly hard to solve the murder, saying “our chief always gives special attention [to tourist-related crimes] and orders immediate arrests.”

Tri Hita Karana Tourism Awards Held in Bali

The Balinese Food Festival event made its way to Tri Hita Karana Tourism Awards 2009 in Bali.

The event theme "Tri Hita Karana" means to balance man with God, society and nature. And awards were given to members of the hotel and tourism industry who did just that.

Organized by Bali Travel News and the Indonesian Chef Association, the event attracted dozens of hotels and restaurants.

Traditional drinks and food served at the festival had to be specially prepared according to health and presentation standards.

Each participant must also prepare a typical Balinese menu, with a customized decoration as the theme.

An appetizer, main dish and dessert must be presented.

MAS Offers Three Daily Flights To Bali

Malaysia Airlines is flying three daily flights from Kuala Lumpur to Bali from Wednesday, with the additional flight departing Kuala Lumpur everyday at 12.25pm and arriving in Bali at 3.20pm.

Its senior general manager, network and revenue management, Dr Amin Khan, said customers could now travel anytime at their convenience as the daily flights were timed every three hours, with departures at 8.45am, 12.25pm and 3.20pm.

He said in a statement today that demand had been picking up, especially with passengers from other countries flying to Kuala Lumpur and connecting onwards to Bali.

"Our load factor is strong at 80 per cent, which is 10 per cent higher compared to the same time last year," Amin said.