Is Sustainable Travel A Thing And Is It Even Possible In Bali?
The first time I went to Bali was last year as a stopover on the way home from a surf trip with my sister.
I think we were probably the last Australians in the country to make it to Indonesia, especially as people who surf. There wasn’t a solid reason as to my indifference of the place, I guess I just heard it from so many people about how good it used to be and the embarrassingly drunk, southern cross, Bintang singlet wearing, entitled people that seemed to flock there were not my kind of people. To be honest we probably would have avoided Bali all together if it weren’t for an old friend of ours from London who was staying in Uluwatu learning how to surf who we really wanted to see us. To arrive in the chaos that is Bali after three weeks in Rote, an island with only one road of restaurants and villas and easily manageable surf crowds, was overwhelming to say the least. The spoil of mass tourism and gentrification was so poignant and the rubbish strewn across the streets and in the ocean was ineludible. I found it difficult to look past it all even though I too was a part of the problem. I felt like someone who didn’t understand the punchline of a joke - not quite wrapping my head around what everyone else seemed to obsess over and return to year after year. I understand that I sound like an asshole but I never had this feeling when I travelled through Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand or even the Indonesian Island of Rote. It was specific to Bali. When Desa Potato Head reached out to us at Monster Children offering us a stay I can honestly say I nearly passed it up, but with Naz in Japan on Team Average and Sydney winter still somewhat lingering, I was encouraged to go, both because everyone in the office who had been to Potato Head loved it and because I probably really did need some sun.
Just over six hours on a plane from Sydney to Denpasar is what any Australian would call a chill flight so I can understand why it’s an easy travel destination for us down under. As a proud Queenslander, the hotter and stickier it is, the happier I am and so stepping off the plane in Indonesia is as warm of a welcome as anyone like me can hope for. Desa Potato Head is about a twenty minute drive from the airport depending on what time you get in, and whether it’s your first time or fiftieth, the drive is always amusing if you care to look up from your phone. Arriving at the Desa just after the sunset, I was welcomed with a Jamu, the Indonesian equivalent of an expensive health tonic with the difference being that Jamu is actually delicious and a well established antidote to the queasy Bali belly that many tourists succumb too. I can imagine arriving at the Desa in daylight would produce awe in anyone, given its position looking out over the ocean with the textured concrete and terrazzo architecture, but even in the dark, the tranquillity was immediate.
Now I will be honest and say I am not a regular five star resort stayer so it’s pretty easy to impress me with a room that isn’t a bunk bed in a hostel. There are professional hotel reviewers for that anyway, of which I immediately googled how to become the moment I stepped foot into my own room. A full bar to help yourself too, handmade treats (which are delivered daily), coconut husk slippers and the cohesiveness of design, both architecturally and interiorly, make it obvious no detail has been spared. And while I can wholeheartedly say this was one of the nicest places I had ever stayed in - the room was the least impressive part of Potato Head.
My scepticism of Potato Head’s sustainability measures was in full swing given the rise of greenwashing and the fact that the Desa overlooked an ocean where I knew several hundred creatures were ingesting their daily dose of plastic. Waste is a worldwide problem, but unfortunately it is the developing countries where it is most obvious. According to the United Nations Environment Program, Indonesia is the second biggest plastic pollution in the world after China, with single use plastic and poor waste management to blame. Potato Head, however, sits as an example for sustainability and waste management in a league that I have not yet seen. As I am taken around the hotel’s Waste Lab, Maria Garcia del Cerro, the hotel’s communication director, explains the process of every piece of waste, from the toilet paper to the beer bottles and everything in between. Not a single piece of waste passes through the hotel without being hand sorted and I know that because unlike other well to do waste tours, I am shown every smelly part of it.
We see how the plastic, the minimal amount used anyway, is upcycled from the equivalent of 833 plastic bottles into pop art style chairs designed in collaboration with Max Lamb. We see the candles made from the used cooking oil and the meticulous separation of leftover food that will be composted or fed to pigs as part of their sustainable farming program. And this is the part that really sells me. While waste tours usually start and end in a succinct circuit for tourists to wrap their heads around, I know that it is out there beyond the hotel where the real impacts are made. We are invited to the Sweet Potato Farm, a project originally set up during Covid to continue to be able to employ Potato Head staff during uncertain times which has since grown into a regenerative farm feeding orphaned children around Bali and what serves as the ongoing goal of Potato Head to establish their own organic supply chain. This, alongside the weekly beach clean up, mangrove conservation, Fairatmos carbon offset program, building their own Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) and drinking water bottling system, just to name a few, prove that this isn’t just a tourist feel good ploy, but a full circle, zero waste exemplar. It is beyond impressive, not just because Potato Head have managed to reduce their own waste from 50% at the time of opening down to 3% but because this is Bali. If they can do it here, there is no excuse for the rest of the world who have significantly more resources and money, but perhaps not as much heart.
The rest of the week is a kaleidoscope of sunshine, cocktails, fresh fruit, jamu, gadu gadu and an easiness that comes from being on island time. The ways in which Potato Head continued to impress me extend from its spectacular music program to the various art permanently installed across the Desa. Like the 5,000 Lost Soles by German activist Liina Klauss who created the instalment from 5,000 flip flops salvaged from Bali’s west coast shoreline. If you aren’t concerned about sustainability (which you should be), you’ll love the design and the art, and if you don’t care about design or art, you’ll love the music, and if you don’t care about music, you’ll love the food, and if you don’t care about any of that, you will at the very least love the hospitality of the Balinese people. At the start of the trip I was convinced I didn’t enjoy Bali and that sustainable tourism was simply a hoax to get people to pay more money to alleviate their own guilt but not actually do anything. But thanks to Desa Potato Head, I have been proved completely wrong.
