I watched my daughter splashing around in our resort’s little pool yesterday, having the greatest of fun here at our little resort in Nusa Lembongan, Indonesia. A few other kids joined her, and they soon formed a multi-national task force hell-bent on getting as much water out of the pool as possible.
While the rest of the parents and the resort owners laughed along with it all, my anxiety levels inexplicably started rising. I wanted to shout out, ‘Stop wasting water! Don’t splash! Be careful with all the water pouring out and going to waste by flowing into the sea !” etc., and other such pearls of water-wastage wisdom that we have learned and had drummed into us over the last few years. Since the Cape Town endless “Day Zero’ doom mongers started delivering their words of panic in 2018, the water shortage media campaign has been intense.
But water is plentiful in Indonesia. It rains every single day in Bali during the wet season (our summer months), and the micro-climates on the islands (Indonesia consists of about (13,000 islands) also tend to have daily rainfall, as well as well-serviced and guarded local well-points. There is water to spare.
It’s hot here; I’m not going to lie. For those who don’t like intense heat and humidity, far more brutal than, for example, Durban in February, this is not the place to visit.
As a result, every room is equipped with an air conditioner of varying degrees of age and efficiency. The room becomes a welcome respite from the heat. Yet I would find myself turning the A/C off for the day as we head down to the beach. It’s pretty pointless wasting electricity by leaving the A/C to cool down an empty room.
When we returned from the blazing heat of the beach, the A/C would have been turned back on again, and the room suitably chilled for us, as the staff would turn them all back on when doing the rooms.
There is no electricity shortage in Indonesia, it is affordable, and they are currently transitioning to solar, with a lofty goal of having as close as possible to 35% of national power coming from solar systems by the end of 2025.
Which, coincidentally, is the year we have bookmarked for a return trip.
Editor
Previous Indonesia travel columns:
Checking In From Nusa Lembongan
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