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Vaudine England

Rarely has the traveller been able to stroll down the middle of Jalan Pantai - the main road to Kuta Beach.

Normally, touts of all kinds would be harassing moving packs of eager tourists as a roaring crush of cars, motorcycles and vendors force people on to cramped pavements.

Now quiet reigns.

Only the neighbourhood guards lurk in doorways at night. By day, shopkeepers sit dazed in their doorways, forgetting about trying to sell the gaudy sarongs and knick-knacks on which their livelihoods depend.

Bali's people are subdued, saying they don't know where this leaves their island and their businesses, and unsure who to blame.

Just as surreal is the sight of the remaining tourists, still walking shirtless or in bikinis and sarongs around the edge of the now-closed bomb site.

Few are laughing or chatting, and now the cameras are focused on debris rather than on Kuta's traditional delights.

Surfers still surge past, with boards attached to their motorbikes, and one Japanese surfer was having a fitting for a new waterproof money-purse.

But the smell of the dead and the stink of charred wood from the devastating fire is still pervasive close to the site.

As forensic experts search for any remaining clues and body parts, Jim Dinan is considering how to rebuild his clothes shop at the back of the destroyed Sari Club.

'I've been here since 1996, but now have nothing. I was not insured. But I'll just have to fix it up and start again. What's my choice?' said Mr Dinan, who comes from Sumatra.

Repair work is already underway on the smashed shop windows and ruptured metal roller doors of many shops.

A few smart operators have set up generators to replace the erratic local electricity supply, so some cash machines and photo shops are still working.

Phone lines to anywhere off the island are jammed with the volume of calls from distressed relatives and from journalists.

The Internet Outpost Travellers Lounge is offering 15 free minutes to contact home and on the plywood now replacing the shattered windows is a sign: 'Register your name and address here and inform your folks'.

Up to 300 metres away from where the bomb exploded, tiles have flown from roofs, walls have crumpled and rubbish-clearing is the full-time job.

At the Bounty Club, almost opposite the Sari Club bar, a staff meeting had just ended where the waiters and bar staff were hoping to find out if they still had jobs. As they rode their bikes away, they looked grim and said only that they did not know what the future held.

Alongside police guarding the bomb site are the red and black-clad 'Pemuda Desa Kelurahan Kuta' men. They are security guards from the strong local village and district-level organisations that have long marked Bali out as a highly regulated and communally organised society.

'The people who did this are not from Bali,' said Nyoman Agus Putra, of the local neighbourhood watch.

'Elsewhere in Indonesia there are so many problems, and maybe some people want to make Bali like everywhere else. But we are different.

'Here everyone is joining in to help and we have been here since it happened to bring security to the area.'

A barricade now prevents crowds of onlookers from getting past him and his men, and only visiting politicians such as disgraced parliamentary speaker Akbar Tandjung - recently convicted of corruption - are given access.



Uncertainty and despair take up residence on the tourist strip