Back in 1993 I arrived in Bali with a friend from Pennsylvania. We had just spent a year working on the farm in Australia and were in need of some R&R. One of my earliest Bali memories is stepping out onto the main street wearing my hiking boots and socks, in sweltering heat.
We quickly bought cheap sandles and I could feel my feet breathing. Back then there was a ton of cheap batik around, and as Bali was more of a backpacker place than it is now, they were doing a trade. In those days the ladies would come around to your losman (guest house) with a stack of folded batik shirts. They would saunter up, say hello, sit on the porch and leisurely unpack their load, allowing us to look through it. Plenty of room for negotiation in those days too, and the ladies would offer to take one of our used garments, for a new batik shirt. That should of been a ‘heads up’ to everyone, seeing how no locals were wearing batik. The appeal of going native’ and wearing wafer thin colored shirts was too much to resist ,and they felt great for a while. The deal with the batik clothing was it tore at the seams and the colors all ran. My stack lasted about a month. Nowadays I barely see the old patchwork pants, although there are a couple of places in Kuta and Legian.
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