Bali Echo Visitor's Guide

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February/March, 1998
No. 033/VI/98

cover story

Galleries Galore
The boom in
contemporary Balinese
art

A Matter of Taste
Why bourgeois Balinese
are collecting art

beyond
bali

From Toraja to the
Togians
Sulawesi's most seductive
parts

Treading Lightly in
Lombok
Tips to being a green
tourist

regular
features

Weekender
The Saltmakers of Amed

Home Grown
Legian's Legend,
Made Kasim

Health and Beauty
The Ubud-based
Bali Utama Spice

Books
The search for the Great
Bali Novel continues

Cuisine
Bumbu Bali cooking
school

Fiction
Marni's Ride by
K. Landras Syaelendra

Jungle Drums

advertising index for
Bali Echo web site

"Alchemy: an early form of chemistry with philosophic and magical associations. Studied in the Middle Ages, its chief aim was to turn base metals into gold and discover the elixir of perpetual youth."

(Websters New World Dictionary)

"We're just a couple of dreamers really," says Dayu Suci.

"Our dreams just happen to coincide," adds Melanie Templar, smiling at her business partner. These two women are the power and ideas behind Utama Spice, a small emerging business that creates some of the most sensational smells in Bali. "We are simply packaging people's birthright, the right to the smells of the forest and the earth, to re-establish the link between people and their traditions. The nose has a very powerful memory," explains Melanie, stealing a glance at my rather large honker.

I have frequently walked into hotels and been enveloped by the sensual heady fragrance of Utama Spice's Supa Dupa. The scent from these black sticks of enchantment now pervade beauty salons, where freshly oiled clients submit to the touch of Balinese masseurs and beauty therapists. They are burnt at trendy dinner parties where guests compete on the 'do you know' stakes, and are simply enjoyed in the evening as an adjunct to a perfect sunset and a glass of whatever.

The getting of wisdom
It was, in fact, the quest for the perfect dupa (incense) that brought Melanie and Dayu together. Melanie, already brimming with ideas for natural products, and describing herself as "in need of some Balinese help" was referred to Dayu Suci. Of Brahmanic descent, Dayu's pedanda (high priest) father originates from one of the Klungkung griya . As well as being where the pedanda and their families reside, the griya is one of the traditional repositories of the lontars - books made from the leaf of the lontar palm and inscribed in the ancient language form known as Kawi. These lontars are guides to age-old knowledge or rituals which concern healing, practicalities and matters otherworldly.

That first encounter was in 1992, long before either of them had telephones. Meetings to share ideas involved long bemo trips across the east of the island. But they needn't have bothered. When they did meet they found that their ideas precisely coincided. "We met in the land of dreams," said Melanie chuckling. "We found that our mutual interest in herbal lore, and our complementary knowledge made the perfect combination - better than most marriages."

In their quest for Bali Utama's first product, the now famous Supa Dupa, Melanie and Dayu met with many failures. Dayu recalls the early days of product development, when they would stick their samples into banana logs like the characters in the wayang performance. Many of the blends wilted, or would not stick. Some were too powdery. Others, when combined with glues, became as hard as glass and equally difficult to burn. Melanie discovered the perfect glue and they knew they had succeeded when Dayu's grandfather, also a high priest in Klungkung, flight tested the incense in his rituals and gently praised them for their efforts. That was the first transformation in the alchemic tradition. It was the first getting of wisdom.

continued