Bali Hotels

MAKASSAR - The Indonesian annual travel mart, Tourism Indonesia Mart&Expo (TIME) or 'Pasar Wisata Indonesia' is concluded today with total attendance of 104 buyers from 21 countries. The top five buyers consisted of Malaysia, Korea, India and Indonesia, Singapore, and the Netherlands. TIME 2008 also attracted 108 sellers from 16 provinces of Indonesia, which mostly come from Jakarta, South Sulawesi, Bali, North Sulawesi, West Nusa Tenggara, Yogyakarta and East Kalimantan, and Papua.

Kuta: Kontes raja dan ratu bertajuk Kuta Karnival ke-12 digelar di kawasan wisata Kuta, Bali, baru-baru ini. Bukan hanya warga lokal yang sibuk mengikuti lomba ini, wisatawan asing pun tak mau ketinggalan. Mereka bergaya dengan pakaian adat Bali.

Lomba ini bertujuan memperkenalkan budaya Bali pada wisatawan. Para peserta pun mengelilingi catwalk untuk memperkenalkan diri. Gaya masing-masing peserta jadi hiburan tersendiri bagi para penonton dan juri. Akhirnya dua peserta dinobatkan menjadi King and Queen Kuta 2008. Hans, pria warga Belanda dan Ashley, turis asal Australia.(YNI/Aries Wicaksono)

Asian Beach Games in Bali

Asian Beach Games will be held in Bali from October 18-26. The Games venues spread from Sanur to Kuta beach. Interested? Come to Kuta Beach (Body Building, Dragon Boat Racing, Surfing); Nusa Dua - Benoa (Water Polo, Beach Kabaddi, Beach Basketball, Beach Wrestling, Beach Pencak Silat, Jetski Sport, Paragliding, Woodball); Sanur Beach (Beach Volleyball, Beach Sepaktakraw, Beach Handball, Beach Soccer, Marathon Swimming, Triathlon); Serangan Island (Sailing, Windsurfing).

Beach Kabaddi
Beach Kabaddi is basically a combative sport, with four players on each side; played for a period of 15 minutes with a 5 minutes break (15-5-15). The core idea of the game is to score points by raiding into the opponent’s court and touching as many defence players as possible without getting caught on a single breath.

Beach Pencak Silat
Beach Pencak Silat is a combative art of fighting and survival. Pencak Silat describes the martial art forms practiced throughout the Malay Archipelago. It has evolved into a social culture and tradition in Indonesian and Malaysian civilizations for centuries.

Beach Sepaktakraw
Beach Sepaktakraw, a cross between soccer and volleyball, is a sport native to Southeast Asia, resembling volleyball, except that it uses a rattan synthetic ball and only allows players to use their feet and head to touch the ball across a volleyball-type net.

Beach Soccer
Beach Soccer is a variant of the sport of football played on beaches. The irregularity of the soft-sand playing surface leads to a style of play where players must improvise. The compact pitch (measuring 28 x 37 meter) allows players to score from anywhere.

Beach Volleyball
Beach volleyball is an Olympic team sport played on sand. Two teams, positioned on either side of a net which divides a rectangular court, hit a volleyball using their hands or arms. Players on each team attempt to hit the ball over the net in such a way that it touches the ground inside the court boundaries and to prevent the ball from touching the ground on their own side of the court.

Beach Wrestling
Beach Wrestling is practiced in swim suits within a sand circle of 6m and consists of very simple rules. A match lasts three minutes and is refereed by a single referee. To win the match, the wrestler must keep his opponent’s shoulders on the ground (victory by fall), bring him to the ground twice or push him out of the competition area twice. This new wrestling style is very popular and contributes to wrestling being more accessible and festive.

Body Building
In Competitive Body Building, bodybuilders aspire to develop and maintain an aesthetically pleasing body and balanced physique to display to a panel of judges who assign points based on visual appearance according to body building standards. The competitors show off their bodies by performing a number of poses thus revealing their toned definition through a combination of fat loss, oils, and tanning or tanning lotions.

Dragon Boat Racing
Dragon Boat racing is a sport where a very long and narrow boat is powered by a team of 10 to 50 paddlers. It originated in China and dragon boats are always rigged with decorative Chinese dragon heads and tails and are required to carry a large drum aboard that leads the crew throughout a race with the rhythmic beating that indicates the timing and frequency of paddling strokes, from the cadence to picking up the pace to slowing down.

Jet-Ski Sport
Jet-Ski Sport is an extreme competition on a type of jet ski. The sport discipline involves racing and adrenaline-pumping free-style contests.

Marathon Swimming
Marathon Swimming is long distance swimming across large bodies of water such as the Great Lakes, the Atlantic Ocean and the English Channel. Marathon swimming is an endurance sport that pits a swimmer not only against other contenders in the race but also against the currents and tides of the water. According to International Swimming Federation rules, swimmers cannot use wet suits as this can artificially increase speed or endurance. Swimmers are accompanied by a nearby boat crew that monitors and advises the competitors.

Paragliding
Paragliding is a recreational and competitive flying sport using a free-flying, foot-launched aircraft. The pilot sits in a harness suspended below a fabric wing, whose shape is formed by the pressure of air entering vents in the front of the wing.

Sailing
Sailing is a surface water sport using a boat, sails, wind and water to increase, maintain or decrease speed.

Surfing
The sport of Surfing requires participants to ride on the crest or along the tunnel of a wave.

Triathlon
Triathlon is an athletic event consisting of swimming, cycling and running over various distances. In most modern triathlons, these events are placed back-to-back in immediate sequence and a competitor’s official time includes the time required between the individual legs of the race, including any time necessary for changing clothes and shoes.

Windsurfing
Windsurfing is a surface water sport using a sailboard that is usually two to five meters long and powered by a single sail. The sport combines rules and aspects of both sailing and surfing, along with certain athletic aspects shared with other board sports like skateboarding, snowboarding, waterskiing, and wakeboarding.

Woodball
Woodball is a lawn game where the players use a mallet for teeing off and fairway for playing and putting. Woodball consists of playing a ball from the starting area through the gate by a stroke or successive strokes in accordance with the Woodball Rules. The competitor who plays the stipulated round or rounds in the fewest strokes is the winner. Each team consists of 2 to 4 players.
(BTN/*)

Niken Prathivi, The Jakarta Post, Grobogan, Central Java

Dubbed the fastest man in Southeast Asia, Indonesian sprinter Suryo Agung Wibowo received a flaming torch near Semarang on Wednesday to mark the beginning of the 2008 Bali Asian Beach Games torch relay.

He was handed the torch by Bali Asian Beach Games director Rita Subowo at Mrapen geological site in Grobogan, around 35 kilometers outside Semarang, Central Java, and carried it for a lap of the Mrapen course.

Suryo, who was a gold medalist in both the 100-meter and 200-meter events at the 2007 Nakhon Ratchasima Southeast Asian Games, then passed the torch on to one of seven other athletes who took it in turns to carry around the course. They were: Rollerblader Alan Candra, weightlifter Hadi, sepaktakraw athlete Yudi Purnomo, volleyballer Ardi Muyanto and footballers Mico Ardiyanto and Zauzan.

"This torch symbolizes an eternal flaming spirit within sports," Rita, who also chairs the Indonesian Sports Council, told reporters after the ceremony.

"I call for support from all Indonesian citizens for the success of the Bali Beach Games. Hopefully, we can inspire the world with our efforts," she said, referring to the theme of the games, Inspire the World.

From Mrapen, which is a regular site for starting torch relays of national sporting events, the flame was ferried by bus to Central Java provincial office in Semarang.

"We welcome the games and wish all involved the best of luck," Central Java's newly-elected deputy governor, Rustriningsih, told reporters.

From Semarang, the torch continued on toward Jakarta, and is expected to arrive at the Indonesian Sports Council headquarters by 3 p.m., Thursday.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is scheduled to hand over the games torch back to Rita on Friday, before it is relayed from Jakarta to Bali by motorcade.

The torch is expected to arrive in the resort island on Saturday, and will be paraded through eight regencies and one municipality.

The games, which will run from Oct. 18 to 26, will be officially opened by the President on Oct. 18 at Garuda Wisnu Kencana Cultural Park in southern Bali.

Some 5,000 athletes and officials from 45 countries are expected to take part in the Rp 210 billion event that will feature 17 beach sport events.

Source : Jakarta Post