Compromising Eden: part V

Let us return to the subject of the brochure. Does a potential traveler to Indonesia want to see images of a Jakarta businessman in his Armani suit driving his BMW and speaking on his cell phone or rather a long line of lovely Balinese girls walking through the rice fields on the way to the temple ceremony? How about those same traditional Balinese girls that were praying at the Hindu temple eating at McDonalds after the ceremony?

Are we more enthralled looking over a brochure that has local spear fishermen paddling their wooden dugout canoes with a powdery white sand background or do we get more inspired seeing urban Javanese children playing computer games and eating Dunkin Donuts? Documentary film makers that show their work on National Geographic and Discovery Channel usually have a professional duty to feature a specific "genre" when filming in Indonesia (i.e. wildlife or cultural). Many of the remote regions of Indonesia are still living in what Westerners would describe as a "wild and primitive" environment and perhaps it is these very conditions that we lost in the West many generations ago that motivate us to preserve these remaining peoples and jungles now in the 21st century. If it is true that the "meek shall inherit the earth" maybe we can also surmise that it is also the archaic and remote peoples that still practice the natural laws that have governed the world for the past the fifteen millennium. My intuition tells me that it is these simple islanders that have a thing or two to teach a Western millionaire about simple daily tasks such as; treating a cut in the jungle with wild plants, making diving goggles out of an old beer bottle, grilling tuna with banana leaves and hot rocks, or building a shelter on the beach in less than 30 minutes. Perhaps by "taking a step back in time" and deliberately venturing into these obscure, far flung places that have yet to receive satellite television, plastic bags, and instant noodles, we are forced to look inward at our own culture and humanity and try to determine how civilization and Eden can still coexist in the world in this early 21st century.

Mike Hillis is a writer and an ethnologist living in Indonesia. He is also the Marketing Director of Unexplored Adventures, a diving and Eco Travel Company based in the Spice Islands of eastern Indonesia.