Canggu

I’ve spent most of my life in Bali,5 years of it in Canggu. When the villa was first built, we had no neighbours except for the lush green vegetation and mooing cows. Canggu was ideal for living; located on the outskirts of the busy districts of Kuta & Seminyak, it meant Canggu could give you both the tranquility and seclusion of a much dreamed of Balinese Gateway and yet close enough to Bali’s nightlife and tourist areas.

Ofcourse Canggu wouldn’t be Canggu without its clean waves, giving surfers a fairly consistent surfing schedule. In general the best waves come at dusk and hence so do the most experienced surfers. The most challenging break in Canggu is Echo beach aka. Echopoint; if not Batu Belig beach fits more the intermediate surfers.

With the large influx of surfers came the opening of restaurants; with the opening of restaurants came the villas. Now in 2010 my neighbours are now construction workers who are building luxurious homes & villas, roaring or screeching of fast moving metal against wood, ceramic tiles and metal-making it hard to study after school. I have a feeling Canggu will become Umalas in a few years.

Foreigners and investors seeing the potential in the countryside are now all chipping in to purchase land, land in Canggu which was considered valueless a few years back are now considered gold mines. With land prices doubling in just a few years.

Ofcourse the government couldn’t allow all the farmers selling their land for a fortune; rice prices would’ve gone up and in the long term farmers would have nothing left but their homes. The government enforced the law that no foreigners could own property in Bali, off the record however, there are ways to “twist” the law.

Now overall Canggu is still the countryside, bird’s are still chirping, the sweet crashing of waves and the cooling breeze in sweet harmony are still enveloping the traumatizing sound of a hammer and saw-at least for now.