Very civilised savages: A new exhibition asks who were more brutal - the Aztecs, or the 300 Europeans who annihilated them?

By Tony Rennell
The battle-hardened, armour-clad soldiers stopped in their tracks and stared in amazement. Rising out of the waters of the vast lake before them was a majestic island-city of wide streets and white stucco-fronted houses.
Bathed in bright sunshine and against a backdrop of snow-covered mountains, palaces and temples towered into the clear blue sky.
'Glorious!' exclaimed the Catholic monk who accompanied the gold-seeking adventurers from Spain on their journey of exploration from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean

Slaughter: For the coronation of the one Aztec king 80,400 human hearts were cut out in four days

They might have expected to find little more than a settlement of mud huts when they landed on this foreign shore more than 5,000 miles from home.

Instead, gleaming there in the winter sunlight of November 1519, was the magnificent capital of the rich and thriving Aztec civilisation.
It went by the name of Tenochtitlan and was larger than any place these Europeans had ever seen or even dreamed of.

With a population in excess of 200,000, it was bigger than London, Madrid and Rome put together. It drew its immense wealth presiding over an area the size of Britain.
As the Spanish captain, Hernan Cortes, and his conquistadors, rode in procession through an arrow-straight causeway into the city, there were more sights to amaze them.

Venice-like canals criss-crossed it. Artificial gardens floated on the water. Man-made dykes protected it from flooding.
Compared to the crowded, rubbish and excrement-strewn conurbations back in Europe, the place was pristine, as were its people. Sweepers kept its streets clean. There were public bathing places and even public lavatories.
'On all the roads, there are shelters made of reeds or straw so the people can retire when they wish to and purge their bowels, unseen by passers-by,' wrote one contemporary Spanish chronicler, well impressed. This was the height of civilisation.
In the marketplace, gold, silver and precious stones - notably blue-green turquoise - were traded, along with jaguar skins and brightly-coloured parrot feathers.

Food of all types was plentiful, as were tobacco and a heady alcoholic potion made from cactus juice.
Prized above all else were cocoa beans for mashing into chocolate, a potent bitter-sweet beverage that was highly addictive. It was served cold and frothy in small, gold cups and reserved for the royal family, noblemen and warriors.

Montezuma II: Emperor of the Aztec Empire from 1502 to 1520, before being murdered by the conquistadors

At the heart and head of this sophisticated civilisation was the imposing figure of the god-like Aztec ruler himself - Moctezuma (or Montezuma, the more recognisable version of his name). He is the centrepiece of a ground-breaking exhibition opening at the British Museum in London this week.
Sculptures, idols, gold artefacts and dazzling, jewel-encrusted masks and skulls from half-a-millennium ago bring a forgotten era back to life. Around them, a story unfolds of a world-changing power struggle, political intrigue and brute force as two cultures, Europe and America, clashed head on.
A key historical figure, it was Moctezuma's inexplicable submission to the Spanish invaders without a fight nearly 500 years ago that was the starting point of the colonisation of the Americas.
The exhibition's organisers hope visitors will reach a deeper and more sympathetic appreciation of this maligned and misunderstood native emperor.
What has over the centuries been held against him, and his people, was discovered by Cortes and his men as they reached the precise geometric centre of the city, a huge plaza containing the Great Temple.
From a platform high up on this stone pyramid ran steep flights of wide steps. The horror was that, from top to bottom, they were streaked red with human blood, while alongside them were rack upon rack of skulls. A rank smell of putrefaction hung in the air.
It became clear to the invaders from Christian Europe that, in this otherwise perfect city of hospitable and well-mannered people, human sacrifice was practised on a massive scale.

A stone at the top of the steps was where men - usually but not always tranquillised with 'magic mushrooms' - were held down while the high priest slit open their chests with a sharp blade made from flint or volcanic rock, and plucked out their hearts.
According to one Spanish account, he would hold up the steaming heart to the sun - to whom the sacrifice was made - before throwing it into a stone urn to burn.

Then he deftly kicked the corpse down the steps. At the bottom, prime cuts of flesh would be stripped from the legs and arms to be cooked and eaten.
How often this bloody ritual took place is unclear, but there were stories of epic sacrificial ceremonies. For the coronation of one king, 80,400 hearts were cut out in four days and the lines of victims waiting for their slaughter stretched back to the far ends of the city's four causeways.
There never was, recorded a priest in the entourage, 'a people more idolatrous and given over to the killing and eating of men'.
But the Aztecs made no apologies for their bloodthirsty traditions. Rather, these rites were at the core of their beliefs. Only if the gods were fed blood - or 'precious water' - would the soil be fertile and rains return.
They claimed the victims, most of whom were prisoners taken in battle, went willingly to their deaths, knowing that their sacrifice would keep the cycle of life turning.
The killing was done with respect and veneration, not in hate or anger. The sacrifice blessed both the dying and the living and was a fate to be embraced.

Aztec belief reassured those about to die that they would toil helping the sun god to banish the night, and after four years return to life as hummingbirds and butterflies.
Such pagan concepts were anathema to the One-God-fearing Cortes and his men, or so they declared. They made the dangerous journey across the ocean and into the unknown to hunt for gold, but also to spread the Christian gospel. The downfall of Moctezuma would further both missions: moral and the mercenary.
It did the Spaniards' case no harm if, in their subsequent accounts - the ones on which history has to rely - they tended to exaggerate the Aztecs' appetite for ritual slaughter.

In their righteous indignation, they chose to ignore that European 'civilisation' was also drenched in blood, and contemporaneous monarchs like Henry VIII butchered with as much religious zeal as Moctezuma did, and probably with more relish.
Montezuma receiving a chocolate aphrodisiac to satisfy his harem

But there is no denying that human sacrifice was central to Aztec culture. Each year a seven-year-old boy had to die at the altar of the rain god. His blood was sprinkled over a feast of turkey, game and chocolate. A young girl was sacrificed to appease the water goddess and her blood poured into the lake.
In ceremonies, Moctezuma pricked his ears, arms and legs with eagle claws to draw blood and demonstrate his own power to feed the sun and the earth with 'precious water'.
He himself was both priest and a warrior. The Aztecs were essentially a nation of fighters, who, through conquest, had expanded from a small tribe to a rich and powerful empire in just 150 years. They were always grabbing new lands or suppressing uprisings in those they already held.
Terror was a useful weapon. Like modern-day punks, warriors - the ruler included - had ear and nose piercings. Flat discs were also inserted into their lips to stretch their faces into frightening grimaces.
It was a tradition that the first prisoner taken in any battle was skinned to make a cloak for the ruler to wear as a warning to his enemies.
But Moctezuma was as terrifying to his own people as he was to his foes. Fifty years old, slender with short hair and a long, thin black beard, he was described as astute and learned but also harsh and irascible. His name translates literally as 'Angry Lord'.
His subjects never dared look into his face or raise their heads in his presence. They approached him barefoot. He was never touched, except by the four beautiful women who washed his hands before he ate.
Why, then, did this tough, ruthless and experienced king, who had ruled his people fearlessly for 18 years before the Spanish arrived, fall prey so easily to the invaders, allowing his fiercely independent people to be subjugated?
The fact was that the Aztec ruler was utterly baffled by the newcomers. With reports flooding in about their tall ships, metal armour and horses - never before seen by them - he was at a loss to know how to deal with them.
There were just 300 of these alien beings approaching his capital. His armies could have overwhelmed them easily, despite their advanced weaponry of steel swords and muskets. But he was beset by curiosity and a strange chivalry that made him want to be welcoming.
Were they gods, perhaps? He sent gifts, keen to impress them. But by deciding to play a waiting game, he gave the wily Cortes every opportunity to manipulate the situation.

Along the way, the Spaniard made pacts with rebellious towns who were ready to rebel against Moctezuma's rule. He sacked one town that stood in his way, slaughtering the populace and burning its temples before marching on towards the city in the lake, his army swollen by local recruits.
On the Spaniards came, and Moctezuma, in green feather headdress and gold sandals, went to meet them at the causeway gate.
The conquistadors were impressed, but not overawed. Once settled inside the city, Cortes played his masterstroke in one of history's most brazen and successful acts of deception. In a speech of welcome, Moctezuma mentioned how Aztec lore spoke of the return one day of a great overlord, to whom he would pledge allegiance.

Seizing on this, Cortes told the startled Aztec he came on behalf of just such a supreme emperor. Cortes invited him to submit to the overlordship of this emperor, which the obliging Moctezuma duly did.
For a while, relations were amicable. But they soured when Cortes's men erected a Christian cross on the top of the Great Temple.

With unrest growing, Cortes seized Moctezuma and held him captive in one of his palaces. He was allowed to carry on governing his lands but as a puppet ruler. His grip on power was slipping away.
Among the Aztecs, there was growing discontent. Priests were barred from temples and the idols of their gods replaced by the images of Christ.
When priests and warriors crowded into the Great Temple for a religious festival, Cortes's men perceived a threat. They sealed the doors and butchered thousands of them.
Open warfare was about to break out, until Moctezuma was pressured to step in. He ordered his people not to attack and they reluctantly obeyed. But by this act his sway over them was fatally undermined.
An uprising began in the city, led by Moctezuma's brother. The Spaniards sent the captured ruler out on to a balcony to confront his people and make them withdraw. A volley of rocks and arrows came at him. He was hit in the face - the crucial blow said to be a stone hurled by his brother - and died three days later.
The more likely truth, say modern scholars, is that it was the Spaniards who killed him. With his authority gone, he was no longer any use to them. They stabbed him to death.
Cortes and his men now left the city in a desperate fighting retreat across the causeway. But the excuse was there for them to return.

A year later, Cortes was back with a reinforced army and took the Aztec capital after a bloody battle. In the name of the Emperor Charles V of Spain, he established himself as Governor and Captain-General of 'New Spain'.
He hanged Moctezuma's brother, who had succeeded as ruler. The reign of the Aztecs was over.
Much of their heritage was lost as the Spaniards looted the land. Fervent friars arrived to convert the people. Smallpox, an inadvertent import by the conquerors, killed 90 per cent of the indigenous population. Spanish settlers came in increasing numbers.
But the blood line remained. Cortes took Moctezuma's sister as his mistress and fathered a child by her. He married off some of his captains to the daughters of Aztec noblemen. From this integration, a new and distinctive Mexican nation began to emerge, part Spanish, part Aztec.
The past was buried. Tenochtitlan was destroyed and a new Spanish city built over it. Given the name of Mexico City, it has grown into a megametropolis of 20 million people, as much a wonder of the modern world as its forgotten island predecessor.
Recovered from beneath its streets, the lost past is back in all its gore and glory and set to live again in London.

Read more...

Has Osama Bin Laden been dead for seven years - and are the U.S. and Britain covering it up to continue war on terror?

By Sue Reid
The last time we heard a squeak from him was on June 3 this year.
The world's most notorious terrorist outsmarted America by releasing a menacing message as Air Force One touched down on Saudi Arabian soil at the start of Barack Obama's first and much vaunted Middle East tour.
Even before the new President alighted at Riyadh airport to shake hands with Prince Abdullah, Bin Laden's words were being aired on TV, radio and the internet across every continent.

Genuine picture: Osama Bin Laden in October 2001

It was yet another propaganda coup for the 52-year-old Al Qaeda leader. In the audiotape delivered to the Arab news network Al Jazeera, Bin Laden said that America and her Western allies were sowing seeds of hatred in the Muslim world and deserved dire consequences.
It was the kind of rant we have heard from him before, and the response from British and U.S. intelligence services was equally predictable.
They insisted that the details on the tape, of the President's visit and other contemporary events, proved that the mastermind of 9/11, America's worst ever terrorist atrocity, was still alive - and that the hunt for him must go on.


Bin Laden has always been blamed for orchestrating the horrific attack - in which nearly 3,000 people perished - eight years ago this week. President George W. Bush made his capture a national priority, infamously promising with a Wild West flourish to take him 'dead or alive'.
The U.S. State Department offered a reward of $50million for his whereabouts. The FBI named him one of their ten 'most wanted' fugitives, telling the public to watch out for a left-handed, grey-bearded gentleman who walks with a stick.

Yet this master terrorist remains elusive. He has escaped the most extensive and expensive man-hunt in history, stretching across Waziristan, the 1,500 miles of mountainous badlands on the borders of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Undeterred, Barack Obama has launched a fresh operation to find him. Working with the Pakistani Army, elite squads of U.S. and British special forces were sent into Waziristan this summer to 'hunt and kill' the shadowy figure intelligence officers still call 'the principal target' of the war on terror.
This new offensive is, of course, based on the premise that the 9/11 terrorist is alive. After all, there are the plethora of 'Bin Laden tapes' to prove it.

Yet what if he isn't? What if he has been dead for years, and the British and U.S. intelligence services are actually playing a game of double bluff?
What if everything we have seen or heard of him on video and audio tapes since the early days after 9/11 is a fake - and that he is being kept 'alive' by the Western allies to stir up support for the war on terror?
Incredibly, this is the breathtaking theory that is gaining credence among political commentators, respected academics and even terror experts.
Of course, there have been any number of conspiracy theories concerning 9/11, and it could be this is just another one. But the weight of opinion now swinging behind the possibility that Bin Laden is dead - and the accumulating evidence that supports it - makes the notion, at the very least, worthy of examination.
The theory first received an airing in the American Spectator magazine earlier this year when former U.S. foreign intelligence officer and senior editor Angelo M. Codevilla, a professor of international relations at Boston University, stated bluntly: 'All the evidence suggests Elvis Presley is more alive today than Osama Bin Laden.

Prof Codevilla pointed to inconsistencies in the videos and claimed there have been no reputable sightings of Bin Laden for years (for instance, all interceptions by the West of communications made by the Al Qaeda leader suddenly ceased in late 2001).
Prof Codevilla asserted: 'The video and audio tapes alleged to be Osama's never convince the impartial observer,' he asserted. 'The guy just does not look like Osama. Some videos show him with a Semitic, aquiline nose, while others show him with a shorter, broader one. Next to that, differences between the colours and styles of his beard are small stuff.'
There are other doubters, too. Professor Bruce Lawrence, head of Duke University's religious studies' department and the foremost Bin Laden expert, argues that the increasingly secular language in the video and audio tapes of Osama (his earliest ones are littered with references to God and the Prophet Mohammed) are inconsistent with his strict Islamic religion, Wahhabism.

He notes that, on one video, Bin Laden wears golden rings on his fingers, an adornment banned among Wahhabi followers

This week, still more questions have been raised with the publication in America and Britain of a book called Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive?
Written by political analyst and philosopher Professor David Ray Griffin, former emeritus professor at California's Claremont School of Theology, it is provoking shock waves - for it goes into far more detail about his supposed death and suggests there has been a cover-up by the West.
The book claims that Bin Laden died of kidney failure, or a linked complaint, on December 13, 2001, while living in Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains close to the border with Waziristan.
His burial took place within 24 hours, in line with Muslim religious rules, and in an unmarked grave, which is a Wahhabi custom.
The author insists that the many Bin Laden tapes made since that date have been concocted by the West to make the world believe Bin Laden is alive. The purpose? To stoke up waning support for the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan.
To understand Griffin's thesis, we must remember the West's reaction to 9/11, that fateful sunny September day in 2001. Within a month, on Sunday, October 7, the U.S. and Britain launched massive retaliatory air strikes in the Tora Bora region where they said 'prime suspect' Bin Laden was living 'as a guest of Afghanistan'.

This military offensive ignored the fact that Bin Laden had already insisted four times in official Al Qaeda statements made to the Arab press that he played no role in 9/11.
Indeed, on the fourth occasion, on September 28 and a fortnight after the atrocity, he declared emphatically: 'I have already said I am not involved. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge... nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act.'
Within hours of the October 7 strikes by the U.S. on Tora Bora, Bin Laden made his first ever appearance on video tape. Dressed in Army fatigues, and with an Islamic head-dress, he had an assault rifle propped behind him in a broadly lit mountain hideout. Significantly, he looked pale and gaunt.

Although he called President George W. Bush 'head of the infidels' and poured scorn on the U.S., he once again rejected responsibility for 9/11.
'America was hit by God in one of its softest spots. America is full of fear, from its north to its south, from its west to its east. Thank God for that.'
Then came a second videotape on November 3, 2001. Once again, an ailing Bin Laden lashed out at the United States. He urged true Muslims to celebrate the attacks - but did not at any time acknowledge he had been involved in the atrocity.
And then there was silence until December 13, 2001 - the date Griffin claims Bin Laden died. That very day, the U.S. Government released a new video of the terror chief. In this tape, Bin Laden contradicted all his previous denials, and suddenly admitted to his involvement in the atrocity of 9/11.
The tape had reportedly been found by U.S. troops in a private home in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, after anti-Taliban forces took over the city. A label attached to it claimed that it had been made on November 9, 2001. The tape shows Bin Laden talking with a visiting sheik. In it, he clearly states that he not only knew about the 9/11 atrocities in advance, but had planned every detail personally. What manna for the Western authorities! This put the terrorist back in the frame over 9/11. The Washington Post quoted U.S. officials saying that the video 'offers the most convincing evidence of a connection between Bin Laden and the September 11 attacks'.
A euphoric President Bush added: 'For those who see this tape, they realise that not only is he guilty of incredible murder, but he has no conscience and no soul.'

In London, Downing Street said that the video was 'conclusive proof of his involvement'. The then Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, added: 'There is no doubt it is the real thing. People can see Bin Laden there, making those utterly chilling words of admission about his guilt for organising the atrocities of September 11.'
Yet Professor Griffin claims this 'confessional' video provokes more questions than answers. For a start, the Bin Laden in this vital film testimony looks different.

He is a weighty man with a black beard, not a grey one. His pale skin had suddenly become darker, and he had a different shaped nose. His artistic hands with slender fingers had transformed into those of a pugilist. He looked in exceedingly good health.
Furthermore, Bin Laden can be seen writing a note with his right hand, although he is left-handed. Bizarrely, too, he makes statements about 9/11 which Griffin claims would never have come from the mouth of the real Bin Laden - a man with a civil engineering degree who had made his fortune (before moving into terrorism) from building construction in the Middle East.
For example, the Al Qaeda leader trumpets that far more people died in 9/11 than he had expected. He goes on: 'Due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the explosion from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. That is all we had hoped for.' (In reality the Twin Towers' completely fell down).

The words of the true Bin Laden? No, says Griffin, because of the obvious mistakes. 'Given his experience as a contractor, he would have known the Twin Towers were framed with steel, not iron,' he says.
'He would also known that steel and iron do not begin to melt until they reach 2,800 deg F. Yet a building fire fed by jet fuel is a hydrocarbon fire, and could not have reached above 1,800 deg F.'
Griffin, in his explosive book, says this tape is fake, and he goes further.
'A reason to suspect that all of the post-2001 Bin Laden tapes are fabrications is that they often appeared at times that boosted the Bush presidency or supported a claim by its chief 'war on terror' ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
'The confession tape came exactly when Bush and Blair had failed to prove Bin Laden's responsibility for 9/11 and both men were trying to win international public support, particularly in the Islamic world, for the anti-terrorist campaign.'
Griffin suggests that Western governments used highly sophisticated, special effects film technology to morph together images and vocal recordings of Bin Laden.
So if they are fakes, why has Al Qaeda kept quiet about it? And what exactly happened to the real Bin Laden?
The answer to the first question may be that the amorphous terrorist organisation is happy to wage its own propaganda battle in the face of waning support - and goes along with the myth that its charismatic figurehead is still alive to encourage recruitment to its cause.

As for the matter of what happened to him, hints of Bin Laden's kidney failure, or that he might be dead, first appeared on January 19, 2002, four months after 9/11.
This was when Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf told America's news show CNN: 'I think now, frankly, he is dead for the reason he is a kidney patient. The images of him show he is extremely weak.'
In his book, Professor Griffin also endorses this theory. He says Bin Laden was treated for a urinary infection, often linked to kidney disease, at the American Hospital in Dubai in July 2001, two months before 9/11. At the same time, he ordered a mobile dialysis machine to be delivered to Afghanistan.
How could Bin Laden, on the run in snowy mountain caves, have used the machine that many believe was essential to keep him alive? Doctors whom Griffin cites on the subject think it would have been impossible.

He would have needed to stay in one spot with a team of medics, hygienic conditions, and a regular maintenance programme for the dialysis unit itself.
And what of the telling, small news item that broke on December 26, 2001 in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Wafd? It said a prominent official of the Afghan Taliban had announced that Osama Bin Laden had been buried on or about December 13.
'He suffered serious complications and died a natural, quiet death. He was buried in Tora Bora, a funeral attended by 30 Al Qaeda fighters, close members of his family and friends from the Taliban. By the Wahhabi tradition, no mark was left on the grave,' said the report.
The Taliban official, who was not named, said triumphantly that he had seen Bin Laden's face in his shroud. 'He looked pale, but calm, relaxed and confident.'
It was Christmas in Washington DC and London and the report hardly got a mention. Since then, the Bin Laden tapes have emerged with clockwork regularity as billions have been spent and much blood spilt on the hunt for him.
Bin Laden has been the central plank of the West's 'war on terror'. Could it be that, for years, he's just been smoke and mirrors?
^Daily Mail^

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Istanbul-Jakarta flight opened

JAKARTA - Turkish Airlines has opened an Istanbul-Jakarta flight service to increase cooperation between the two countries. "The opening of the service is part of the company’s efforts to widen relations between the two countries," the airline’s chief, Candan Karlitekin, said here on Saturday.

He made the statement at the opening of the service, which was also attended by the chairman of the Indonesian People’s Consultative Assembly, Hidayat Nur Wahid. The opening of the service had long been awaited by various parties in the two countries, Karlitekin said adding the route to Jakarta was one of hundreds the airline was serving in the world.

He said he was optimistic the service would increase the two countries’ relations in the economic field and also in tourism and make the relations between the two countries and their communities closer. "Indonesia is a big country and potential so that the company has considered it necessary to open flights to Jakarta," he said.

For the time being flights would still make a stopover in Singapore but in 2011 there would be direct flights, he said. Hidayat Nur Wahid welcomed the opening of the service and hoped it would make the two countries’ relations closer.

"I welcome the opening of the service and hoped it would benefit both Indonesia and Turkey," he said. The Istanbul-Jakarta service will be carried out five times a week namely on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday departing at 11.20 pm local times and arriving at 05.25 pm local times.

The Jakarta-Istanbul service will also be carried out five times a week on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday with schedule of departure at 07.15 pm local time and arrival at 05.40 am local time.

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Plant that Eats Rats

The Sun
A DEADLY plant that eats RATS has been discovered by British experts. The giant pitcher plant - believed to be the largest meat-eating shrub - lures rodents into its slipper-shaped mouth and dissolves them with acid-like enzymes.

Boffins have named the incredibly rare species after legendary wildlife broadcaster Sir David Attenborough. It is a real-world version of the flesh-eating plant called Audrey nurtured by a florist in the 1986 movie Little Shop of Horrors.

Scientists led by botanists Stewart McPherson and Alastair Robinson tracked it down on Mount Victoria in the Philippines after hearing that missionaries had seen "whole rats" being eaten. Mr McPherson, of Poole, Dorset, said yesterday: "The plant produces spectacular traps which catch not only insects, but also rodents.
"It is remarkable that it remained undiscovered until the 21st century. My team and I named it in honour of Sir David whose work has inspired generations toward a better understanding of the beauty and diversity of the natural world."


The plant - now dubbed Nepenthes attenboroughii - is green and red and can grow a stem more than 4ft long. It is found only in the scrub high on the windswept slopes of Mount Victoria.

Mr McPherson and former Cambridge University botanist Mr Robinson made their discovery during an expedition in 2007. But they have only just described the killer shrub in a journal after a three-year study of all 120 species of pitcher plant.

Flattered

Sir David, 83, said last night: "I was contacted by the team shortly after the discovery and they asked if they could name it after me. I was delighted and told them, 'Thank you very much'.

"I'm absolutely flattered. This is a remarkable species the largest of its kind. I'm told it can catch rats then eat them with its digestive enzymes. It's certainly capable of that."

Sir David already has a giant marine dinosaur, wasp and rare tree named after him. Read more...

Cycling Bali

by Andrew Bain
It was tough, it was wet, but Andrew Bain found unexpected delights pedalling around Bali.

"The road is a river, awash with monsoonal rains. The midday sun has darkened to a candle of light and thunder resounds like cannon fire across the sullen Bali sky."
"It is God's music," Wayan assures me from inside the shelter of his roadside stall, and for him the weather is indeed a divine blessing. I am the first traveller in months to stop at his store on the outskirts of the city of Gianyar, marooned here in my sodden clothes and with my mythically deep tourist pockets. I order a second drink and another stormy hour passes.

Out in the bitumen stream a prehistoric bicycle splashes past, its rider bared to the rain but for a pair of saturated trousers that cling to his grasshopper-thin legs. Such stoicism shames me, huddled as I am in the comfort of this temporary asylum. I make my farewell to a disappointed Wayan, who assures me I am both strong and crazy, and head back out into the rain and onto my own dripping bicycle.

"You are like Neil Armstrong," Wayan proclaims, though he means Lance Armstrong, since I've just told him of my intention to cycle around Bali.

My journey had begun in Denpasar just a few hours before. If there is safety in madness it is here, cycling in the turmoil of Bali's largest city. Traffic spins as wildly as a centrifuge, trucks, cars, motorbikes, pushcarts, dogs, pedestrians and chickens doing as they please. It's disorder that's accustomed to disorder, Asia condensed to a small island, and my bicycle barely registered in its mind. I was just another pothole or chicken to be driven around.

Horns sounded without end, but within an hour I'd learned to ignore them, their language more foreign to me even than Indonesian. They seemed to say nothing and everything - hello, watch out, move aside, good luck or, simply, I have a horn. Trucks lumbered by but only one came near to hitting me, a truck named God Bless II that almost blessed me head-on.

Denpasar sprawled east to blur into Gianyar, the roadside an unholy alliance of temples, urban rice fields and stores advertising Playstation rental and the machismo of cigarettes. Quickly it became apparent that the beaches, volcanoes and lush rice terraces that monopolise Bali's tourist image would not be the cyclist's reality, fading to secondary status behind the endless string of village life. Each time I stopped for a rest, motorbikes pulled in alongside, asking the question I'd answer dozens of times each day.

"Where you go?"

Any reply would suffice. Sometimes I'd name the next village, city or tourist attraction. Other times I'd get bolder.

"To the moon," I told one motorcyclist in Gianyar, delighting in my new kinship with Neil Armstrong.

"Very good, sir."

To the continued accompaniment of God's thunderous tune I turned inland at Gianyar, onto the fertile slopes of Bali's highest and most sacred volcano, Gunung Agung. Settlement and the road snaked up the volcano and into the former royal city of Bangli. Billed by one local book as the "Cinderella of Bali tourism", Bangli is bookended by great temples: Pura Dalem Penunggekan and Pura Kehen, the island's second-largest temple, stepped into a hillside above the city. Kehen is tourist central for Bangli, yet almost every one of the souvenir stalls at its edge was shuttered. That night, I would be the only guest at either of Bangli's two hotels.

"Bali many problems," a man at Pura Kehen's entrance told me. "Bomb." And so began another discussion that echoed through my days on the island: the Kuta bombing.

Not once did I dig at Balinese memories of the blast, but they lay scattered and exposed like rubble. That night, I heard music in the street below my hotel room - guitar, tambourine and wonderfully raucous, harmonising voices. Balinese songs broken by a recurring rendition of La Bamba. I wandered outside and sat on the kerb to listen. Within minutes I was invited over for a beer and a song.

"Three years ago Bangli had many tourists, but now there are none," one of the singers explained, his face hardening like stone. "F-- Amrosi. F-- terrorist." F-- terrorist, the others sang. The same words followed me from conversation to conversation, village to village. English-speakers or not, it seemed that everybody knew this one fervent statement.

In Bangli the night never stilled and I slept fitfully. Dogs fought in the street, roosters called impatiently and people rose to begin their long days. Finally, so did the sun, etching Gunung Agung black onto the dawn sky, its peak almost 3000 metres above the city. That day my punishment would be to contour across the mountain's ribbed slopes, riding a rollercoaster of lava flows towards the island's east coast. My reward for this effort would be to disappear into the verdant folds that held some of Bali's most attractive rice terracing.

Cattle ploughed the terraces and workers stood from their river baths, immodest about their nudity, to wave as I passed.

"Where you go, sir?" they'd call, and I'd just point ahead. On through this terraced country seemed as good as anywhere.

The road crested at around 600 metres above sea level, the rice fields suddenly behind and below me and a tropical cornucopia ahead. The forest thickened and filled with rambutan, papaya, banana and salak, the Balinese "snakeskin" fruit that would virtually fuel my journey. My panniers became heavy with fruit, an anchor for what would become a difficult next day.

My plan for that day was to reach the once-burgeoning east-coast resort of Amed, only 14 kilometres from where I slept in Tirta Gangga. It could have been so easy. Instead, I doubled back and turned onto the little-used coastal road that rounded Bali's eastern tip. Fifty kilometres later I'd be cursing the most trying day of my journey.

I joined the coast at Ujung, site of an elaborate water palace, its pools now more popular with local anglers than tourists. From here the road pointed up, not following the coast at all but ascending onto the slopes of the volcano Gunung Seraya.

Through Seraya village the road climbed 200 metres, sweat pouring from my body in the relentless humidity, making me wetter than I'd been in some downpours. The money in my pockets turned soft with moisture. So much for the luxury of the coast, which I sighted only through breaks in the forest, glimpses of gorgeous, faraway shores and tiny villages as remote as the Sea of Tranquillity.

Word spread along the road of my slow passage, and children ran from their homes and schools to wave and call. I was cheered, jeered and even horse-whipped by one importunate boy, but always - as had become customary - I was called "sir".

On I climbed, the road narrowing to a pencil line, devoid of almost anything but foot traffic. The landscapes changed - cornfields replacing rice on these drier, steeper slopes - and so did my welcome.

Young children suddenly ran from me, scrambling terrified into the cornfields. Babies wailed and dogs scattered. What sort of strange place was this eastern tip of Bali that dogs ran from cyclists and not after them?

It was as though I was a pioneering tourist on this far-flung nib of land, but I clearly wasn't. In an instant my name changed from "sir" to "pen" and "cigarette" as children and youths shouted their demands for handouts. On uphill stretches of road they ran alongside the bike, keeping pace, yelling, screaming, threatening at times. For two hours I shook my head at almost everybody I passed, my mood becoming as black as the beaches to which I was heading.

At Amed's edge I passed a final group of youths, my head down to avoid contact, but still they turned to stare. "Have a nice trip," one called and waved me on. The words hit me like a cool wind, blowing off my sweat and anger.

In Amed, fishing and tourism appeared to have struck an uneasy balance. Here, as yet, it had been impossible to replace island reality with the sterility of a resort strip. Fishermen's hovels lined the beaches, little more than roofs without walls, their toilets cut into the sand, awaiting the flush of high tide. Fishing boats were stacked so thickly that the beaches beneath might not have existed, and pigs, not touts, sniffed after strangers on the beach.

My flirtation with hills over (for now), I woke to a day of blessed flatness across Bali's north coast. The volcanoes became scenery rather than cruelties, and greetings seemed to ring from every home - "Hello, sir" - and from unseen workers in fields. Even the constant crowing of the fighting cocks caged at the road's edge began to seem like salutations.

People tested the few English phrases they knew - "Thank you, yes"; "I love you"; "How you going, bloke" - and one corn farmer ran from his field, insisting I take his photo.

"One thousand rupiah," he demanded once I'd done so - a 20-cent modelling fee. He asked for my shirt and my watch also but didn't even shrug when I refused. He waved me on with a smile.

And in the spa town of Air Sanih, a new greeting: "You want girl?" I pedalled on, though it had been my intention to stop the night here.

My journey's goal - my pilgrimage, if you like - was only a few kilometres beyond Air Sanih, at the point where the still-unbroken string of villages bunched into the unheralded city of Kubutambahan and the temple regarded by some as the north coast's most impressive, Pura Maduwe Karang. I came not to appreciate its aesthetics; instead, I'd cycled around 300 kilometres to see a single temple carving.

I wandered to the rear of the temple, to the wall on which I knew to be the carving of a cyclist, said to be Dutch artist WOJ Nieuwenkamp. The Balinese I'd spoken to along the north coast simply called him "Captain Nieu", and he was believed to have been the first person to have cycled in Bali, exactly 100 years ago. Somehow he'd finished up immortalised on this temple, the rear wheel of his bike transformed into a frangipani flower.

I sat quietly before the image of my predecessor, thinking not about Nieuwenkamp but about my return to Denpasar. On an island with a spine of volcanoes, there was one way back, and that was up, up and over a choice of caldera rims, but a climb either way of about 1600 metres.

The lactic acid of the previous day still burned at my thighs, and now also at my mind. I'd almost determined to hire a driver to carry me and the bike to the top, but Captain Nieu's stoniness seemed like disapproval. I would decide in the morning.

I continued along the coast to Lovinna, the north coast's answer to Kuta, its off-season beaches all but buried beneath a patina of rubbish. Looking over this littoral tip from the hotel restaurant, I found unintended solace in the words of the resort owner, Gede.

"I've had many cyclists stay here, and those who have climbed the mountain have always stopped here an extra day to rest," Gede had told me, hoping I'd stay longer than my intended night. "Those who have" - three words that filled me with cheer. Other cyclists had made this climb before me.

The main road across the island leaves the north coast at Kubutambahan, looping over the ever-steaming Batur volcano. I returned to Kubutambahan in the early morning, stopping again at Pura Maduwe Karang. Drizzled in holy water by a temple attendant, I sought blessing from Captain Nieu. In the midst of a Hindu full-moon ceremony, I placed the customary frangipani flower behind his ear and willed strength back into my failing legs for this climb into the clouds.

For more than four hours I toiled uphill, the slope wearing but manageable. The road was quiet, with the ubiquitous motorcycles coasting downhill, their engines off to save petrol. The equally ubiquitous dogs watched me pass until, 600 metres up, I was finally attacked, a pair of mutts salivating over my legs. Why now, when I couldn't outride them, when even the grass seemed to move faster than me? This one lot of barking and snarling drew another and suddenly there was a line of aggressive dogs awaiting me through the villages. I almost ran out of drinking water squirting it in their angry, mangy faces.

At the top, smothered in the thickest of fogs, the beauty and the pain of the climb balanced evenly in my mind and legs. The road had been kind, even if its dogs hadn't. In truth, I shouldn't have been surprised by its steady gradient. This island crossing had been built by the colonial Dutch - rely on the Dutch to make even the biggest mountain flat(ter).

The climbing was over, only a relaxed descent to Denpasar to complete my journey. I circuited the caldera rim, which was topped by an unbroken sprawl of villages. Full-moon ceremonies were now in full swing, effigies of gods being carried along the highway, vehicles banking behind them, trapping me in the surreal - a traffic jam atop a volcano.

Finally the road tipped off the rim, carrying me with it, the altitude, fog and rain creating a chill that was almost alpine. Motorcycles rolled carefully through the stream that again flowed over the road but I would not waste this one glorious descent. Freewheeling, I passed the motorcycles, signs flicking by, including the incongruous: "Antiques, Made to Order".

I shivered in the cold and did not care. No rain could stop me now.

FAST FACTS

Getting there: Qantas and Garuda Indonesia fly to Denpasar from Melbourne.
Visa requirements: Australian passport holders can obtain a visa on arrival.
Currency: us$1 equals about 10,000 rupiah.

Writer's Bio:
Andrew Bain prefers adventure to avarice and can usually be found walking when he should be working. He is the author of Headwinds (the story of his 20,000-kilometre bicycle journey around Australia), A Year of Adventures, and lead author of Lonely Planet's Walking in Australia guidebook. His work features in magazines and newspapers around the world. He was awarded the Australian Geographic story of the year for 2003 and was formerly commissioning editor of Lonely Planet's outdoor adventure series of titles.

Andrew is a reformed sportswriter with a journalism degree, ditching the world of Australian Rules Football a decade ago to trek, ride, kayak and amble his way through various parts of five continents. He's unwittingly smuggled goods across the China-Russia border, shared his bed with a crocodile in the Northern Territory, and been deported from Estonia. He lives in Melbourne with two children and three bicycles, which probably says something about his priorities.


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Land, air search for missing plane in Papua

Jayapura (ANTARA News) - A land and air search will be conducted to find a Twin Otter aircraft belonging to the state-owned Merpati Nusantara Airlines that went missing here on Sunday.
Chief of the Jayapura air base Col. Suwandi Miharja said here on Sunday that his side was preparing a team and five planes for search of the missing aircraft on Monday (Aug 3) morning.
The five planes which be provided are from the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), Associated Mission Aviation (AMA), Yayasan Jasa Aviasi Indonesia (Yajasi), Twin Otter of Merpati Airlines and an Air Force Cassa place, he said.

The Twin Otter lost contact with the tower while flying between Jayapura and Oksibil on Sunday (Aug 2).

The MZ 9760 aircraft which took off from Jayapura at 10.15 a.m. Eastern Indonesia Standar Time (WIT) was scheduled to arrive at 11.05 a.m. WIT, PT. Merpati`s operations director Capt. Nikmatullah said here on Sunday.

"After taking off, however, the aircraft didn`t make any contact with the tower," Nikmatullah said, adding that the aircraft carried the pilot, co-pilot, a mechanic, 11 adult passengers and two babies.

"Hopefully, it will be fine weather tomorrow and nothing to hamper the search," Suwandi Miharja said.

The Twin Otter plane was conducting its routine flights twice daily, the official said.
"Before taking off, the Twin Otter plane had already undergone the routine airworthiness check and a full tank for 3.5 hours of flying, but it needs only 55 minutes to cover this route. So, actually there is no problem with its airworthiness. But we will check again in greater detail," he said.

In the meantime, ANTAR News reported from Papua that an Avia Star plane also went missing while flying between Dekay and Wamena in Papua on last Monday.
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Missing Australian diver found dead in West Nusa Tenggara

Panca Nugraha , The Jakarta Post , Mataram | Mon, 08/03/2009 3:20 PM | National
After being declared missing for three days, Mathew Peter Hanne, a 26-year-old Australian diver, was found dead on Sunday in Gili Trawangan waters, West Nusa Tenggara.

West Nusa Tenggara Police spokesman Comr. Tribudi Pangastuti said Monday that Mathew's body had floated 200 meters off Gili Trawangan Beach, Lombok.

His remains were taken to Bhayangkara Hospital, on Sunday afternoon for an autopsy.

Some parts of Hanne’s body had decayed, making it difficult to determine whether or not he was hit by a blunt tool. However, there was no evidence that he was stabbed.

Hanne reportedly went missing last week after telling his friends that he was going for a swim at Gili Trawangan Beach.
ardi etchujima
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Obama mentions his plan to visit Jakarta

New York (ANTARA News) - US President Barack Obama reiterated he planned visit to Indonesia to enjoy his favorite food he had during his childhood years in Jakarta.


"I will come to Indonesia to taste again my favorite food like `nasi goreng, bakso, and mie goreng` (fried rice, meat balls, and fried noodle)," Indonesian ambassador to US, Sudjadnan Parnohadiningrat, quoted Obama as saying in Washington, DC, on Thursday.

The US president has for several times mentioned his plan to visit Indonesia, as he once told his Indonesian counterpart Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono recently.

Obama had spent part of his childhood years in Indonesia, and lived in Menteng Dalam area, Central Jakarta, from 1967-1971.

In a telephone conversation with Antara here, Parnohadiningrat said the US president again mentioned his plan to go to Jakarta at a reception with foreign ambassadors in Washington, DC, recently.

"But the specific date of Obama`s visit to Indonesia has yet to be fixed, and thus we are still waiting for confirmation from the US side," Parnohadiningrat said. In the reception, the US president tried to practice his Bahasa Indonesia when he greeted the Indonesian envoy.

"Hallo, apa kabar? Saya malam ini sudah berbicara Bahasa Indonesia kepada dua orang dan anda orang kedua," (Hallo, how are you? I try to speak Bahasa tonight with two persons and you are the second), Obama was quoted as saying by the Indonesian envoy.

Obama on the occasion spoke Bahasa Indonesia to Algerian Ambassador to US, Abdallah Baali who was accredited to Indonesia in the 1992-1996 period, and also to Parnohadiningrat. In his conversation with the Indonesian envoy, Obama again expressed the US commitment to helping Indonesian in times of the crisis, especially after the bombings at JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels in Jakarta recently.

Obama made similar commitment through a statement issued by the White House shortly after the Jakarta bombings, and by a telephone conversation with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
ardi etchujima



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