Modern times
Not long after Indonesia proclaimed independence in 1945, Sanur
witnessed the beginnings of an expatriate building boom led by
Belgian painter Le Mayeur, whose former studio home on the beach
north of the Grand Bali Beach Hotel is now a museum. Le Mayeur's
heavenly courtyard was the inspiration for his breast, nymph-filled
paintings.
Australian artists Ian Fair-weather and Donald Friend, whose marvelous
books and paintings have inspired a generation of Australians,
also chose picturesque Sanur for their Bali retreats. Donald Friend
lived here in imperial splendor with an in-house gamelan and Bali's
finest art collection within the grounds of the dream he founded
Batu jimbar Estates - now home to the world weary and the grand.
Sanur designs its future.
At about the same time, two Sanur brahmans were leaving their
mark on the community The first, high priest Pedanda Gede Sidemen
was entering the twilight of a prolific career which spanned 70
years as south Bali's most significant temple architect, healer
and classical scholar. His life, and the pride he brought to his
native Sanur, were to inspire a generation of Sanur brahmans who
may otherwise have contemplated abandoning their Vedic scriptures
for a life on the juice blender.
The second, Ida Bagus Berata nephew of Pedanda Sidemen insisted
his tenure as mayor of Sanur from 1968 to 1986 that the area should
be economically as well as culturally autonomous. To that end,
Ratu Perbekel, as he was affectionately know established a village-run
cooperative that to this day operates a beach market, a restaurant,
a car-wash and service station, and owns land in Kuta and Denpasar.
This strident new economic approach provided a friendly environment
for the establishment of many other Sanur-based tourist businesses.
By the 1980s the writing was on the wall Sanur's bread and butter
(but not its lifeblood, its culture) was mass tourism. The brahmans
of Intaran are now hotel-owners their "serfs" are building
contractors and room boys, and the farmers of the area have become
taxi drivers and art shop owners Beachside there is no land left,
and the ribbon of "Bali Baroque" palace development
thickens along the highway. Sanur's brahman priests are met at
dawn by convoys of limousines their schedules of incantations
and blessings as busy as those of any senior statesman or tycoon.
The mega-Tuans of yesterday are gone and forgotten; the new generations
of rich and famous are obsessed more with diet and the rag trade
than with skull drudgery and gamelan galas. But late at night
when the cash-registers are asleep under their batik cosies and
the beepers are turned off, Ratu Ayu steals from her throne into
the night; to a temple near you ... Sanur's checkered ness is
not a thing of the past.
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