By now I knew that Bali, the country of my adoption, was my place in the world. And I decided that I must learn more about it than I could see from the perspective of the puri. I must go forth by myself and live within the kampongs.

By this time I was known to the people all over the island. News travels fast in Bali, and the peasants knew that I was friendly. And Agung Nura had introduced me to many of them at temple feasts and dances. It was therefore easy for me to stay at the kampongs. I just went in and said that I should like to stay with them for a few days. The peasants were delighted with the idea.

I was gone from the puri for more than two months and I did everything I had been warned against doing. I went to all corners of the island, living in unspeakable conditions in the very lowliest of kampongs, and everything that Nura had said about them was true, and more besides. Night after night I slept on a mat on the floor in dank huts without windows. I ate food prepared by women with filthy hands and dirt-caked nails. I drank unboiled water from their earthenware jugs, and their fermented palm wine out of dirty glasses or broken cups with dead mosquitos floating on top. I bathed in the creek with the other women and for toilet facilities wandered into the bushes. I watched old women with betel-stained mouths chew food to a pulp and then stuff it into the mouths of children who lacked the teeth for chewing. I remained in excellent health, free from dysentery or malaria, though both diseases were rife. I never showed that I was shocked at anything or that I considered myself above anybody. And I received nothing but affection.

Despite the filth, the discomfort, and the meagre meals from which I always arose hungry, I found the kampongs the paradise for which I had left Hollywood. To me they contained a curious quality of peacefulness which I had not found in the palaces of the rajahs. It was an artistic, an uninhibited way of life. Most of these poor peasants were artists of talent and power of expression.

I finally came to the village of Kuta on the west coast facing the Indian Ocean. The beach was magnificent and without a house or a hut. There were a few temples and numerous fishing smacks or praus moored close. What a site for a house! I revisited the beach frequently and it was here that the idea entered my head of building an exclusive hotel. It was merely an idea. What would I be doing with a hotel? A hotel took capital and I had by this time given most of my money away . . .

One day, sitting on the beach, I asked my artist friends, ‘What are we going to do now? My money is almost gone.’