Jl. Drupadi Seminyak: Fast dissappearing rice fields

This afternoon I rode down Jl. Drupadi in Semniyak, the location of my first house in Bali. Across from my old house at 16X, is the new office of Bali Land & Houses, the guys who rented me the house, what a small world it is.

Inside I chatted with manager Kadek, the stocky Balinese fellow who is super nice and polite. I asked Kadek about the rumour I heard that ‘bules’ (foreigners) can own lanf outright. Kadek said it was not true, although foreigners can enter into an agreement with local, making them the owner. Kadek also suggested a 30 year lease would be good for some people.

Jl. Drupadi is new villa central and as I sat on my bike snapping photos, I has to be careful of the trucks coming in and out. When I moved into Jl. Drupadi, in February 2003, the road did not go all the way throguh to Jl. Dhyana Pura. In fact Jl. Drupadi was somewhat of a backwater. Now everything has changed. The traffic from Jl. Dhyana Pura gets funneled into Jl. Drupadi via the new road that runs through rice paddies, onto the southern end. That road is now being developed with local shops and villas. Talk about extinction, rice paddies are fast becoming extinct in Seminyak and I reckon in 5 years time, we’ll look back with amazement that there were ever rice paddies here in our lifetime.

Land in Seminyak will go for somewhere between 300m rp - 400m rp per 100sq meters.