Tourists visiting Bali’s Echo Beach in Canggu this weekend may see some important reconstruction work underway.
Over the last week, as heavy rains, high tides, and storms have hit the island, sinkholes have appeared, sidewalks have been destroyed, and flooding has triggered even more potholes to appear across the region.
Down at Canggu’s Echo Beach heavy rains triggered a sinkhole to appear in the patio area of the beach car park and cafe area. The massive sinkhole took with it panic tables and umbrellas, and a section of the sidewalk next to the beach itself also fell into the ground.
Tourists visiting Echo Beach should be particularly mindful of the condition of the sidewalk, which now features dangerous drops and broken concrete slabs that are both heavy and sharp in places.
Though an all too familiar reality for many of Bali’s sidewalks, the sinkhole beneath the broken pavement is especially deep.
By Thursday afternoon, local construction workers had already started to fix the broken beach walk and the sinkhole in the car park area, though even with community and government support, the site could take many days or weeks to fix well.
Echo Beach is one of Bali’s most popular sunset spots, and those planning on visiting the community hangout over the Christmas and New Year holidays with young children or dogs should be extra mindful of their walking route.
Regardless of the sinkhole and broken sidewalk, on the evening of Thursday, 19th December, tourists chose to visit the sunset lookout spot and chose to both walk and sit just inches from the open sinkhole, a move that many felt was an ill-advised risk considering the instability of the area.
At Batu Belig Beach, located between Canggu and Seminyak, concrete pavement blocks were also dislodged by the high tide and heavy rainfall on Thursday, 19th December.
In a similar vein, tourists visiting any of the beaches between Seminyak and Canggu should be wary that the sidewalks and concrete beach walks are all constructed in a similar way and could be unstable underfoot.
Seeing the situation at Echo Beach this week, Canggu locals and expats have questioned whether this kind of disaster was only a matter of time. It is clear that the concrete pavement slabs were laid without any kind of foundation or reinforcements.
Many hope that the reconstruction efforts will be implemented with greater consideration of the environmental conditions that the sidewalk and concrete tidal wall must be able to withstand.
In November, a similar fate befell the new beach walk at the area in Seminyak when high tides and heavy rains dislodged dozens of the newly installed concrete slabs.
Bali is, without exaggeration, facing one of the most intense and devastating monsoon seasons in recent history, and there are still many months to go.
Across Canggu, the combination of the high vacation season and the monsoon rains has a huge impact on tourists and locals.
Updates from the Canggu Shortcut this week show that the gridlock went so badly that a journey from one side of the cut-through to the other, which should only take 5 minutes, took over an hour.
Police and traffic officers have been deployed across the North Kuta area, including in the popular resorts of Canggu and Seminyak, in a bid to keep traffic moving safely and efficiently throughout the Christmas and New Year holidays.
In light of the peak party season kicking off in Bali’s nightlife hotspots, police and security teams will also be increasing patrols and working alongside security offers at entertainment venues to ensure that tourists are safe and public order is maintained as Bali welcomes over 1.3 million tourists to the island for the festive vacation.