BALI’S tropical delights have cast their spell on many Shoalhaven residents, including Allan Baptist, who until recently was Shoalhaven City Council’s arts manager.

Now, Mr Baptist has set down his fascination with all things Bali in a book, officially launched in Nowra on Friday night.

Featuring many photographs by Shoalhaven photographer Ross Pulsford, Bali Revisited was inspired by an experience Mr Baptist had on his first visit to the island as a 25-year-old in 1975.

He was staying in an old palace at Singaraja on the island’s north coast, eating a bowl of curry, when a scrawny cat approached him.

Mr Baptist said cats were basically treated as vermin in Bali, yet he shared his food with this one.

After the cat took off Mr Baptist returned to his room for the night, and during the evening was confronted by a giant spider that chased him.

But out of nowhere the cat appeared and pounced on the spider, killing and eating it.

Mr Baptist said the experience symbolised the law of karma, which was a strong thread in the lives of Balinese people.

The story of the cat, the curry and the spider has been told and retold many times over the ensuing years, and was to be the basis of a book of short stories Mr Baptist was going to write, and which had been accepted by a publisher.

But the plans changed.

“It just seemed that I wanted more – more for the book – and the best way to get what I wanted was to take a photographer along,” Mr Baptist said.

The result was a glossy, colourful publication, which Mr Baptist said was of “magnificent” quality.

And the quality was fitting for the beauty of Bali, where people viewed children as “dew drops from heaven”, Mr Baptist said.

“They’re the most beautiful people,” he said.

Unlike most of Indonesia, Bali was predominantly Hindu, yet it had a form of Hinduism different to that practised in India.

Mr Baptist said in India the caste system was rigid and members of the lowest caste were despised, yet the Balinese did not despise anyone of any caste, believing “everything has a place, everything is holy,” Mr Baptist said.