The paddy fields turn into long strips of chic boutique hotels, while the adjacent rice saplings provide a serene and tranquil sea of green. The mornings are wet and luscious, and the wooden decks and rattan sofas beckon you to stay on and linger, to be carefree and timeless, and sprinkled by the occasional flashes of passing showers. Why shelter?
The face of tourism is changing the interior of Bali, and I am the beneficiary. Who can blame the field owners from being the first to transform their strip of tranquility into opportunity, while their neighboring fields and toils play the supporting cast and backdrop?
Further afield, in the rural back-roads amid the occasional Doppler whine of a passing bike, children hunt down their shrimps in irrigation drains that has served countless centuries of paddy farming through carefully regulated divisions and diversions.
Indeed, the beauty of Bali lies deep within its interiors rather than on its fringes and sterile sands.