All language subtitles for Around.the.World.in.80.Gardens.S01E10.South.East.Asia.Bangkok.Singapore.and.Bali.720p.iP.WEBRip.AAC2.0.H.264-RTN

I believe that
a really good way to understand
a culture is through its gardens.

This is an extraordinary
journey to visit 80 inspiring
gardens from all over the world.

Some are very well known like
the Taj Mahal or the Alhambra.

And I'm also challenging my idea
of what a garden actually is.

So I'm visiting gardens
that float on the Amazon.

A strange fantasy in the jungle.

As well as the private homes of
great designers.

And the desert
flowering in a garden.

I shall be meeting people that share
my own passion for gardens,

on my epic quest to
see the world through 80 of its most
fascinating and beautiful gardens.

My journey this week has brought
me to a region of rich diversity,
both botanical and cultural.

It's a steamy,
tropical sub-continent

with some of the fastest growing
plants and cities in the world.

South East Asia.

This is Bangkok,
the capital of Thailand,

and one of the noisiest, dirtiest,
most polluted cities in the world.

And it's the starting point
for my journey to find the
real exotic tropical garden.

Now, we in the west have taken
plants and the concept

of the jungle garden and put it
in our northern backyard.

But here, where there are only two
seasons, it's either wet or dry,

it's always hot
and plants grow constantly.

I want to see what
the real tropical garden is like.

This will take me on a trip right
through the south-east Asian region.

I'll start in Thailand in the
garden of a western silk merchant.

I'll then head nearly 1,000 miles
south, to visit the self-proclaimed
garden city state of Singapore.

Finally I'll cross the Java Sea,
to experience a little of
the deep spirituality

and diverse cultural influences of
the Indonesian island of Bali.

Our fascination
with lush tropical plants

has been going on for at
least 200 years and it's growing.

At Gardeners' World,
we've made a jungle garden.

But, it's in an idiom that actually
was forced by a set of circumstances

that were partly industrial and
partly political because, the
British Empire started to take over

the Asian world and bring back
plants as part of colonisation.

People made more and more money,
bought large houses,

and wanted trophy plants to
show off, to show their status.

And then, the development of plate
glass and cast iron and cheap fuel,

meant that vast glasshouses,
like the one at Kew,

could be made so people could go in
and immerse themselves in what they
thought of as a jungle.

Typically, these gardens were lush,
green and full of exotic varieties,

usually much
bigger and faster growing than
anything that we could find at home.

And these plants, although beautiful
and exciting in their own right,

also acted as indicators for all
the richness of tropical life,

and suggested a freer,
less inhibited world.

It was, from the first,
an intoxicating
and intense association.

My journey to discover
the reality behind
that potent image, starts here.

The consensus seems to be that,
if you want to visit gardens
in Bangkok,

the first place to go to
is Jim Thompson's house.

So, that's where I'm starting.

If you're in Bangkok, you've
certainly got to take a tuk-tuk.

But the slight disadvantage is that,
if you're taller than about
four foot six, you can't see a thing.

In 1946, Jim Thompson, an American
entrepreneur and bon viveur,

moved to Thailand
and proceeded to revolutionise
the Thai silk industry.

His house, right in the centre
of Bangkok, sits surrounded by a
densely planted tropical garden.

Jim Thompson mysteriously
disappeared

in the Malaysian jungle in 1967,
and no-one did anything
to the garden for 25 years

which, as jungles will,
grew enormous and impenetrable.

One of Jim's friends,
the garden designer Bill Warren,

was part of the team that took
the garden back into hand.

The house was really designed
as a theatre set

and as a place to entertain.

And Jim entertained here
every night.

It's not designed,
let's say, for comfort,

because this room is open,
there are no screens.

Jim wanted to look down on a jungle.

And the little houses in there
were... The servants' quarters.

There was the houseboy,
the cook and the gardener.

When did you first come here?
I came to visit in 1959.

I came to the house warming.

OK, let's go and have a look
at the rest of the house.

The garden weaves around and under
the house, rising on various levels,

and screening out the city
that is on three sides.

We're now underneath the main
house, I guess.

One can't help but notice

the way that the garden forms
this...greendrop
in the background, without any sky.

So you have garden but no sky which,
of course, is the jungle effect.

Jim had a plan of this house
and he marked this area "jungle".

That effect doesn't take
a lot to achieve, does it?

I mean, there are certain key
plants, certain ways of doing it,
which is this layering of foliage.

Things like the fan palms,
and the gingers, they all create
different textures

and different colours,

if you look at them carefully.

I love the little ponds in pots.

These were to catch the rainwater,
but they have used lotuses
for decoration.

And you had those in the bathrooms
when I first came to Thailand,

and we bathed
from one of these jobs. Really?

Jim Thompson finished the house
in 1959, and just eight years later

disappeared after going for a
walk in the jungle whilst
on holiday in Malaya.

After the garden lay untended
for a quarter of a century,

Bill was asked to help restore it
as it was in Jim's day.

Standing here,
you can only see foliage,

with just touches of that red
of the ginger, through there.

I cut down a lot of trees, so
that you could see the rooflines.

You can go on cutting forever,
in the tropical garden.

Probably it could use
some cutting back now.

It's hard for people
used to western gardens,

to appreciate just how fast
this sort of garden will grow
if left untended. Oh, yes.

These are heliconias. It's almost
sculptural and sort of...

unbelievable as a flower,
it's so physically solid.

If you made it in plastic,
you wouldn't know the difference.

This is the spirit house.

Every Thai residential
or business compound has a spirit

that's supposed to watch over
the fortunes of the people
who live in it.

Every day, they make offerings
of burning incense, flowers,
to keep the spirit happy.

I think here, like any garden,
you've got to know
something of the context.

Jim Thompson placed his garden here,

absolutely knowing that he
was looking out over
his village of Muslim silk weavers,

really rather like a sort of
mill owner in Victorian Britain
looked out over his workers.

They could see him,
and he could see them.

And the whole place is to do
with performance, and command,

and display.

I like Jim Thompson's garden.

And clearly a lot of people do.
175,000 visitors a year don't lie.

But it wasn't a Thai garden and, I
think to be fair to Jim Thompson, he
would never have pretended it was.

It was an approximation of what
he thought a jungle might be.

And the really telling thing was
that, after his disappearance,

they had to clear the growth back to
make it look like a jungle garden.

And we could do that at home.
It's not the real thing.

It's not got me any closer to Thai
indigenous gardens, or gardening,
or culture even, I don't think.

But I've read that the fastest way
to get an insight into Thai culture

is to be out in a public
park at precisely 6pm.

TANNOY ANNOUNCEMENT
THAI NATIONAL ANTHEM BEGINS TO PLAY

Guide books will tell you everybody
stops for the national anthem,

but actually seeing it happen,
is extraordinary.

The image of the king is everywhere,
and any kind of disrespect

towards it is regarded as sacrilege
and a very serious criminal offence.

The royal palaces then are places of
huge significance to Thai people,

and it seemed to me that I should
visit one or two of them

on the basis that they must
surely be a profound influence.

The best known royal palace
is the Grand Palace,
which is a major tourist attraction.

Religion, in this case Buddhism,
the state,

buildings and plants
all merge together.

It seems to me to be a surprising
and eclectic mix,
with tightly clipped cloud topiary,

strongly influenced by Chinese
gardens, Thai temples and shrines,
and massive buildings.

It is all fascinating
but very strange.

The Grand Palace tells me something
about Thailand, but not a lot
about any kind of gardening style.

And to try and get closer to that,
I am leaving the centre of Bangkok

to visit the king's horticultural
project at his official residence,
the Chitlada Palace.

Good afternoon. Hello.
Good afternoon.

Rosarin Smitabhindu has been guiding
dignitaries round the palace and
grounds for more than 30 years.

Ah! So here are your cattle.

Hello, my dear. They look very well.

Clearly, these are not your
ordinary palace gardens.

Since 1961, the king has been using
his grounds to try out sustainable
methods of food production

that his subjects can then apply
in their own gardens.

How many people
work in this project?

About 700. 700? Yes.

Now, what are you growing on
these plots? This is rice field.

But during this time,
it grows mung bean, soya bean and
peanuts, these for rotation crops.

And then when do
the rice go back in?

In August. And this is to
keep the birds off, is it?

Yes. We have lots of birds here
because, not far from here
this is our demonstration forest.

There's a lot going on here,
isn't there? Yes. This is from 1961.

So, for the last 45 years,
His Royal Highness has been
building up this demonstration

for the Thai people? Or for himself.

Yes. Yes. For the Thai people.

Because he learning by doing here
and, also he's educating people.

We have to make lots of visitors
come here to see the projects.

I came expecting to see
something that fufilled my
preconceptions of a palace garden.

But Rosarin has more horticultural
research projects and labs
to show me.

This one aims to protect
the disappearing biodiversity
of Thailand's indigenous species.

It's getting dark now.

So, during this time, you can
hear the voice of many birds.

We visited the patch of
demonstration forest
that was in the centre of the park.

As the light fell,
the insects came out.

The park is remorselessly practical
and felt a little bit more like

a corporate research station
than a garden.

But, inside this jungly bit,

you do get a hint of what
almost all of Thailand must have
been like until relatively recently.

The jungle was not something
that you would try and cultivate. In
fact, it was kept firmly at bay.

The king's projects at the Chitlada
palace are designed to be an example

for his subjects to follow
and, as such, they do work.

Thai rice growing
has apparently been transformed
by the work done here.

I can't help feeling, that there's
one element glaringly absent,
and that's any sense of aesthetic.

I mean it, it...

just wasn't very beautiful.

Bangkok,
for all its pollution and veniality,
is a beautiful and entrancing place.

So I am finding it hard to reconcile
that stark functionality

that I saw at the Chitlada Palace
with the fascinating tangle
of Bangkok street life.

There seems to be a dissonance
there, something I am missing

as I try and discover the
archetypal tropical garden.

Well, I've had a night's sleep
and a chance to think about it

and I think the best way to
understand this problem

is to go from the very top of Thai
society and the royal palace,

down to a more ordinary level
and have a look around and see what
people are growing at home.

To help me explore the
private gardens of Bangkok,

Patravadi Meechuthon, a well-known
Thai actress, has offered to
take me off the beaten track.

Well, off the track altogether
actually, because we are
off to explore the klongs.

A klong is the name given
to any of the waterways
that still vein through Bangkok

despite the
relentless development of the city.

The name is a good start.
Who couldn't love
anything called a klong?

They used to be the main way to get
around, although nowadays the klongs
are packed with tourists.

But you can see the gardens all the
way along them, from the poorest
shack to the grooviest apartment.

Do people not mind the noise?

We do mind,
but nobody does anything about it.

There's lots of plants.

I mean, every balcony.

Yeah. In every Thai heart,
there's always some softness.

But are they particular plants?
The plants you see there are the very
common plants that grow very easy.

You don't have to
water it all the time.

You know,
like this one, this pink flower.

It grows by itself really. The
bougainvillea. Easy to look after.

So people don't really want to
garden?

They want the plants, but they don't
want to look after them. It's hot.

So it's too hot work outside.

Yeah. In your country, you know
it's cool and you need the sunshine.

We hide from the sunshine,
we don't like sunshine.

It's too hot.

What about the rainy season?

Oh, then it's too wet!

That is fabulous. I'm going to take
a picture of this cos I like that.

Beauty has to be useful.

Beauty has to be useful. Yeah.

To see how beauty and
usefulness coexist in a Thai garden,

Patravadi suggested
that we stop at one of the houses
and ask to have a look around.

THEY SPEAK IN THAI

All this is his father's house.
And that's his house.

In Thailand we like to live together.

And next to each other.

It's handy, you know, handy.

It certainly is.
Oh, look, plants everywhere.

And hang on a minute, beautiful
pots there. Great big lovely pots.

Oh, this is his home.

Here we go.

Some people worship King Rama V.

It is very popular among Thai people.

And these whiskies.
All these whiskies.

Oh, he just like the boxes,
they look good. He's right. Yeah.

And then this beautiful garden.

And what is this plant here?

This is a tree.

When you eat the fruit,
you can eat lemon and it's sweet.

Interesting. So I mean, does
he enjoy growing these plants?

THEY SPEAK IN THAI

He says it's for relaxation,
a little exercise.

The fruits, they are vegetable he
can eat, and they are chemical free.

And we have here what looks sort of
like an apple or a...

It's the same family as the apple.

It's delicious. Is it?

You like your food, don't you?
It's very good, I like that.

Thai people like to eat. We eat all
the time. Well, you eat very nice
food.

We'll let this boat go by.

For the houses on the river,
it's just like displaying,

flowers in front of the house,
and screening the pollution
from his home.

I don't know this flower here.
What is this one here? Er...

HE EXPLAINS IN THAI

Cat... Cat's whiskers?

So, I mean, does he find it easy
to grow these plants in
pots here on the river?

Oh, yeah. He has to be careful.
Because when you water the plant,
the wood get heavier,

so the balcony can go and disappear!
Something that I hadn't thought of!

It's a very, very beautiful house
and garden. Tell him that for me.

SHE SPEAKS IN THAI

The beauty of Mr Lek's garden was
real and gave me great pleasure,

but it was entirely
based upon utilitarianism.

It was not created as anything like
our idea of an exotic
tropical garden.

If you go looking for the exotic,
the last place you're going
to find it is where it grows,

because the exotic is always what
we can't have, what we can't grow.

The exotic is a state of mind.

It actually doesn't really
exist at all.

It's time to leave Bangkok
and move on.

And I haven't really perceived an
indigenous Thai gardening culture
here. I don't think it exists.

But Bangkok's a modern city,
and it's changing fast,

and you can make a garden here
in a matter of weeks, because
of the extraordinary climate.

So it's possible to develop a
style for gardens, as opposed just
for plants, very, very quickly.

And it could happen.

The next stage of my journey takes
me south from Thailand, 900 miles
to the city state of Singapore.

I am making the journey by train,
racing through the Malaysian jungles

and palm oil plantations
and enjoying the most civilised way
that there is to travel.

Coming from Bangkok,

which is so rich in
images and human life

and yet rather elusive when it comes
to gardens, my next stop will
be very, very different.

For the last 40 years, the
government in Singapore has been
pursuing a programme

of self-consciously greening
the 270 square miles of this densely
populated island nation.

Today it promotes itself
as a city in a garden.

Thank you.

I am staying at the Shangri-la
hotel, because it was built in 1971,

right at the vanguard of the
corporate drive
to make Singapore a green city.

The centrepiece is the lush,
very green tropical garden,

right at the heart of the hotel,
with soaring planting down in the
well of a balconied courtyard.

Well, there are strange
things going on here,

but it's a tale of two halves.

And one half is really
interesting and the other is
disturbing and shocking.

Up above,

with all this greenery and this
rather beautiful architecture,

it's a really good indication of
what the hotel was setting out to do
to embody the greening of Singapore.

And succeeding. I think it's really
beautiful. Below, you have this...

weirdly horrible,
phoney wood balustrading and steps,

which looks like a bad theme park
and could easily put you off.

But, this is not a garden.
This is really to get at the concept

that is the greening of Singapore.

And for that, it's really good.

Before I came to Singapore,
I was sent this book

called
The Tale of the Magical Seeds,

which is all about the
wonderful greening of Singapore,
issued by the national parks people.

And I'll just read
you a little bit of it.

"There was once a beautiful tropical
island in a clear blue sea." Are
you sitting comfortably by the way?

"Birds sang from
trees and butterflies
danced among the flowers.

"Friendly animals played in the
forest." You get the drift.

Anyway, people came along
and liked it and decided
to make it their home.

It's significant the order of
the words, "The people worked hard.

"Trees were cut,
land was cleared and many fine
buildings and factories were built.

"The harbour filled with
ships and the city grew rich."

And it says, "The birds
and butterflies went away.

"The friendly animals hid,
the children became sick
and everyone was sad."

Not good.

So they turned
to this master gardener

who has magical seeds which he sows
and in due course, they grow.

Everything is rosy again
and the island becomes a garden.

And the last page is, "The island
became a tropical paradise

"where happy people and
their children lived in a garden
and cared for nature."

That the government describes
the greening of Singapore

as a fairy tale is interesting,
and there is no doubt that it is of
huge symbolic importance to them.

To find out exactly where the
idea came from, we have been
granted the rare privilege

of an audience with the model for
the mythical master gardener,
former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew.

I saw Hong Kong.

I saw Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok,

and they were dreadful.

I can't say that in public, I mean,

they were concrete jungles,
some tarmac and concrete.

So I decided
that we have to be different.

When we started, it was just
to combat the greyness

and the drabness of a city
which has no greenery.

Since the government of Singapore
embarked on the greening project
40 years ago,

skyscrapers and underpasses have
been covered with plants,

and more than 4,300 acres
of parkland have been landscaped.

It's transformed what would have been
a very drab, grey place

into a clean, green and exciting
place.

Well, it is famously clean,
and I am keen to have a look
at its greenness for myself.

There is no doubt,
this is very different to Bangkok.

In this city devoted to frenetic
consumerism, the roads are lined

with fabulous mahogany and rain
trees, both smothered in epiphytes,

and they are lush, green
and extremely beautiful.

As part of Lee Kuan Yew's green
fairytale vision,
parks were laid out

to give Singapore's densely packed
population places to relax in, to
take exercise and be stimulated.

Bishan Park is held up as a
fine example of Singapore's
creation of these green spaces.

I am told that it is packed at
weekends, but during office hours
it is all but empty.

This is a very disturbing place.

It's got all the ingredients,
and clearly there was a
corporate plan to...

make it beautiful -
get a designer in,

clad the place in all the
recognised elements of an enjoyable
and pleasant garden.

And it sort of has. But a garden
must have humanity

and the more quirky and the more
individual that humanity is, the
better the garden will always be.

The truth is that it is easier for a
garden to pass through the eye of a
needle than be good and corporate.

Singapore proclaims itself the
city in a garden, but I don't
think I've yet found that garden.

Dr Lawrence Leong Chee Chiew is from
N-Parks, the government department
in charge of the greening process.

Maybe he can help me
solve this conundrum.

If we indeed want to be
a city in a garden,

so that the city actually rises
from a garden ambience,

then we need the presence
of a garden, everywhere you go.

How would you define
a garden as opposed to a park?

A park must have space for
informalrecreation activities.

But a garden is what you
have here in this small area

where particular attention is paid
to how the plants are displayed.

And if you extend this to the
whole of Singapore,

and you consider Singapore as a
garden, then you have to see

our roadsides, plants on our
buildings, gardens along our canals.

And now we are getting the
people in the local communities to
take up gardening as a hobby as well.

Can a garden be the entire city
in all its component parts?

Can it be dictated and laid out by
governmental and corporate decree?

Can it be enough that it is
clean and useful and pleasant?

Lots of questions. And although I
know where my own instincts lie,

I want to know more about
Singapore's gardens,
not my own attitudes.

The truth is that, as most people in
Singapore live in high rise flats,

not many people have
the chance to garden.

But I have met up with Wilson Wong
who is harnessing the enthusiasm of
users of his internet message board

to create a communal garden.

Wilson, tell me the story of
this garden. When did it start?

This garden was started
about two months ago.

It was initiated, started by me,
to actually bring gardening to the
residents who live in this estate.

And who designed it?
I was the one who designed it.

So, you conceived it,
you got the money raised,

you persuaded people to do it,
you've designed it. It's pretty much
your baby. Yeah. You can say that.

And what have you got at this end?

OK. In the front part of this garden,
we actually designed a medicinal
garden in a European garden style.

So a herb garden based on a sort of
European Renaissance model really.

Yes. We bring it to south-east Asia.

OK. This here, I mean,
these cat's whiskers,

I last saw these
in the backwaters of Bangkok.

I never thought I would say that.

But there we are, it's true.

I have learned to appreciate
the constant climate.

All year round summer.

We do not need to actually observe
the seasons.

Over here you can just plant,
or plonk in whatever you want,
as and when you want it.

And this is a plant that can actually
be used in one of our local dishes.

You can smell it. It actually has
a very fragrant, nice aroma.

Ah! It does smell wonderful!

Now these are your vegetable beds.
What's your soil like? Oh!

Over here the soil is very clay,
so we have a very hard time trying
to improve the soil texture.

When you talk about soil,
top soil, you get this kind of soil.

So will you be making
your own compost?

We are going to make a little
compost heap here, returning
everything back into the ground.

This is exactly what I like to hear!
What are you growing there?

This is actually water spinach.

These are your first crops. No.
But it's only been going
for a couple of months.

So you've already had one harvest?
Yes.

We nurture plants and we cosset them
and we take them through
their life journey

which, for cabbages, or purple
sprouting broccoli or something,

we can sow the seed in April and
harvest the following March
or April.

Yeah. But over here, all it
takes is just less than a month.

I feel so attached to this garden.

In the middle of the night,
I can bring my dog through
this garden a couple of times.

The residents here can
be the witnesses.

They say, "Now who is this crazy guy
that comes down in the wee hours of
the morning to look at his plants?"

You're not alone, I assure you.

You are not alone. So that's how
attached I am to this garden.

Wilson Wong's community garden
is in itself wholly unremarkable,

but it's undoubtedly the
best thing I saw in Singapore.

Although it might seem ordinary,
it is filled with the passion
and enthusiasm of one individual

bucking the corporate blandness
that threatens to smother
the rest of the garden city.

OK. To the Earth Walk, please.

OK, sir.

There's no doubt that Singapore is
really eager, desperately eager,

to present itself as a garden city.

And I think it's completely genuine
in that, to create what they
call the city in a garden.

But that can only come alive
if it is driven not by the state

but by the contrariness
of individuals like Wilson.

Predictably, at the airport,
there is a display of orchids
under the harsh terminal lights.

Lush, exotic, beautiful,
but completely artificial
and rather depressing,

and I feel further away from my idea
of a tropical paradise than ever.

But things are looking up,
because my next stop is Bali.

And on top of its
obvious attractions,

I know that gardens are completely
central to the local culture.

Bali is an Indonesian island
just off the east coast of Java,

and it is probably many people's
idea of a perfect tropical paradise.

Wow! How about that for a view?

That is magnificent.

The contrast with Singapore
is dramatic and exciting.

It feels as if the hunt for the
ideal tropical garden is back on,

and I celebrate by buying a snazzy
piece of local headwear.

Bali has a combination of
three things that make one think
they may well be gardeners.

For a start, it's a volcanic soil,
intensely fertile.

Secondly, a long tradition of
sophisticated use of land, so that
they're growing things all the time.

And thirdly, this climate which
is common to the region, where
everything grows tremendously fast.

Put it all together, and
it's perfect for making gardens.

To really understand
that Balinese gardening tradition,

you have to know a little
about the predominant religion.

Unlike the rest of Indonesia
where the majority are Muslim,

more than 90% of Balinese practise
their own version of Hinduism

which gives them a deep and
ingrained respect
for the natural world.

And if I really wanted to
get under the skin of the modern
domestic Balinese garden,

I was told that I should first go
to a temple garden, and the best
known of these is Pura Taman Ayun.

It was built in 1634
as part of the capital
of the ancient kingdom of Mengwi.

A member of the local ruling
family, Agung Prana,
gave me the guided tour.

This is the central court where
people usually prepare the offerings

and perform the ritual dances.

And what's the significance
of the trees you have here?

Those trees are special frangipani
that we use very much as the
main part of the offerings.

And what's that tree there with
the sort of scarf wrapped round?

It's also a holy tree that we use
as part of the offerings.

Because, in the offering, the main
part of the offering is flowers.

The flowers are practical.

They have significances,
their symbolic significance.

Yeah. What about the trees
themselves,
are they included in the...

sensation of reverence?

Yes. It is. We have the philosophy
of life in Bali.

we have what we call Tri Hita Karana.
We have to be friendly and
in harmony with our God.

We have to be friendly and in
harmony with our environment

and also socially with the
human to human. And that's
the balance of three, yeah.

Now this is the entrance to the
next court, is it?

Yeah. This is the main entrance to
the main part of the temple,
is the inner court,

which is the holy part of the temple
where prayer will be conducted.

So can we go through? No.

Unfortunately people who are not
praying, can only see it from
the other side of the temple.

Ah! My word. So this...

I hadn't expected to see this.

Yeah. This is the inner court of the
temple, this is the holy part,

and
this part is surrounded by the water.

Lotus and water lily is very much
used in the offering.

Beautiful looking, but also
it is the symbol of the seat of our
deities and gods.

We try to keep it in serenity.

So serenity, it has a religious
function and it's to do with the
gods, and it's just beautiful.

That's altogether.

Now explain to me the different
functions of these buildings.

Those with the
black roof, they are the shrines.

Those building with the grass roof,
they are the place of the offering,

a place for the ritual singers,

and then also the place for
the priest to conduct the ceremony.

I'll take my hat off. It's not the
most flattering thing, but very
good at keeping the sun out.

I'm overwhelmed by this place.

My reaction on coming here
was fundamentally delight.

And, above all, this sense of
balance and harmony that integrates

every aspect of life, whether it be
plant, human, spiritual,

as one completely interwoven
tapestry
that you can't possibly unravel,

and I think very beautiful.

Now it is important to square
both sides of the equation, of the
spiritual and the normal human life.

And to get the humanity side
of things...

Whoops!

Hello! I'm busy. In a minute. OK?

..I've taken myself
to the Kumbasari,
the night market in Denpasar,

which is about the busiest place
I've ever been to in my life.

However...even in here,
the spiritual is to be found.

Um...

All over the market, I found
flowers and their petals for sale.

These aren't for decoration
but, just as in the temple,

they are the ingredients for
making offerings to the gods.

The completed offerings, intricate
baskets that are said to represent
the universe, are also made here.

Now traditionally,
these would have been made from
flowers from people's own gardens,

and I think a domestic home and
garden is where I should go next.

But before that, I need to sleep.

It's another
absolute scorcher today,

and I'm feeling a bit fragile
because I spent the night without a
wink of sleep, inflicted by...

let's call it "Bali belly".

But there's still lots to see and,
having seen the way that temples

were laid out and all the ritual
significances tied into plants,
and how people use them,

now I'm going to visit a private
house which is in a compound,

and an awful lot of Balinese people
live in these compounds,

which are laid out in many of the
same ways as a temple.

The temple gardens
were clearly defined spaces,

yet their role and the role of the
gardens and shrines in general,
seems fused together.

A local resident, Bragies Warung,
has offered to show me round this
compound,

which is one of many in the village,
each home to an extended family

and laid out in the same way,
with individual buildings arranged
within a large enclosed courtyard.

This is the house for living.

This is for the old men
because they open bali.

Bali means house, does it?
Yeah. Bali means house in Balinese.

Right. And this building here?
This is, we call paon, in Balinese
language. We call kitchen.

So the kitchen there, and then
in the middle there's this area.

They use for all kind of ceremony,
preparing the offering or cremation
ceremony, wedding, whatever.

And what are they making there?
They prepare for the offering.

For offering for what?

The offering is similar to gift,
something you give to God.

Now what we have here, looks to me
like a little temple or a shrine.

Everyone, even in modern life, they
have a small temple in the house.

Can we go through? Yes.

So you have plants inside.
Yeah. This is hibiscus I think.

That's where we need the flower.

You need the flowers. Yes.

This, pinka we call. This used for...
Do you have a plant for a bad tummy?

For somebody have - what you call
that - when they are pregnant,
they have. No, I'm not pregnant.

That's the one they have here. OK.

This called bale daja.

People just get married and
they must stay a bit privacy here.

So they have privacy, and
pregnancy plants outside. Yeah!

Absolutely. Altogether. Very useful.
Yeah. Very useful.

And also this plant... And does it
have a use?

Oh, yeah. They use for
the anti-mosquito actually.

And what's over there with
those huge coconut trees?

Oh, this garden. Yes, the back
garden.

It's cool-er here, isn't it?
Yes, it's quite cool, for us.

Well, quite cool.
It's actually just roasting hot,

as hot as anything,
but slightly less hot than outside.

Would people treat this like a place

to come and relax in, or is it
just for work? Oh, yes, also, also.

In the hot day like this time after
they have plan, they have meal,

the children and the mummy and
everyone, go to the backyard.

Are people making modern gardens
in the spirit of this garden?

Oh, this garden
is completely like here.

Wild, they grow wild.

But useful, yeah?

But modern plan is different
and the concept of original
Balinese garden, very different.

There is one big question
that has to be addressed
and that is, is this a garden?

Well, clearly it's fascinating
and it's instructive
and it's stimulating.

But I think the garden side of it
was summed up for me by watching
the women sitting where I am now,

making up the offerings
from flowers they had grown,

little baskets
from the coconut leaves,

and then going out and placing them
with the relevant ritual. And
that whole process, using plants,

sitting in the centre of the
household, relating to their gods
and balancing everything,

balancing their entire world
through these plants

seemed to me the essence of
what is happening here.

It's not something
I've ever found in this way
anywhere else in the world.

The intimacy of the people
and their plants,

and the daily rituals of gathering
the leaves and flowers

for the offerings and
carefully making them into
the beautiful little posies,

seems to me to be as much gardening
as any of our own more familiar
horticultural primping and preening.

But even in Bali, there is a
distinct element of this
belonging to the past

and I am curious to know how these
complex and subtle traditions
could be applied to a modern garden.

So, with that in mind,
I go off to the Batajimbar Estate.

As Bali was opened up for tourism,
first in the '30s
and then more fully in the '70s,

wealthy holiday makers wanted
their conveniently westernised
luxury holiday homes

to be adorned
with gardens with a Balinese feel.

Guests on this estate have
included Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall
and, it's rumoured, Princess Diana.

Already it's clear that there
are elements of the compound here.

But, as you walk in,

there is a distinct aura...of money.

In contrast to what I've seen
elsewhere in Bali,

the house is distinctly luxurious
and the
gardens are landscaped and grand.

But the real attraction, and
something we haven't seen at all yet
looking for this paradise, is this.

It's right slap on the sea.

The warm tropical sea,
lapping just a few feet away
from the edge of the garden.

Now, as a gardener, it's astonishing
that you can have a garden
like this so close to the sea.

So that's unusual.

But I think the key here is
it's fulfilling all the fantasies

of what we westerners, we tourists,
want when we go on holiday.

The ceremonial house is handsome,

and the banyan tree is by far
the most striking example I've
seen on the whole of this trip.

And the shrines are genuine.
They're in the north-east corner
of the boundaries of the garden

but, there's none of the mess,
there are no chickens walking
around in it. It's very sanitised.

This is a wonderful
tropical holiday retreat.

But I don't need a holiday.

I'm in pursuit of the authentic
tropical garden, and this is not it.

The Batajimbar Gardens
represent the beginning of a
modern Balinese gardening style.

But they were laid out over 30 years
ago and so now, I want to see how
modern Balinese design has evolved.

My last visit in Bali is
to a man called Made Wijaya.

In fact, he was born in Australia
and called Michael White,

but he came to the country 30 years
ago, fell in love with it, stayed
here and made a beautiful garden.

Others admired it so much that
he made gardens for them,
and quickly became established

as an internationally
renowned garden designer,
specialising in tropical gardens.

So what I want to know from him is
how he's taken all the culture

and ritual and spirit of the ancient
Balinese style of garden

and turned it into a thriving
garden design business.

Made arrived in Bali in 1973 by,
at least according to his version,

swimming ashore after first
jumping ship during a violent storm.

And whilst perhaps this is not the
whole truth, the story seems to
fit his larger-than-life persona.

Somehow it's not surprising
that this garden started off

as a commission for someone else,
until he realised he liked it
so much he had to keep it.

When you began to create gardens
using Balinese courtyards and
traditions, did you have to jettison

any of the Balinese cultural history
and how much did you have to
bring in to put on top of it?

Having grown up in Sydney, which
was a sub-tropical paradise with
artful natural English design trends,

it was easy for me in my work
to introduce a more natural look.

But I was very influenced
working with the Balinese gardeners
and living in a Balinese society,

by the fecundity, the wild colours,
the incredible statuary,

the peopling of the gardens
with all of these shrines and things.

So, in one way,
I've been trying to keep the shrines
and the idea of a spiritual garden,

without it becoming too kitschy
or cheesey or Disneyland.

I'd like you to talk me
through your garden here because,
clearly, it's based on a compound,

but the compounds I've seen have had
almost no aesthetic consideration -

that seems to be incidental
to the practical uses.
Yet this is primarily aesthetic.

I wanted it to be first and foremost
a little mini history of all the
different Balinese landscape trends.

So I chose red brick shrines, and
then I had water features that I'd
seen in the palaces of east Bali.

I've tried to collect
ornamental courtyard trees and shrubs

that you find
in Balinese temples and palaces.

And the last one is a sand garden,
which is a homage to the old sand
gardens of the temples of Sanur,

the coastal gardens.

Made's garden is a complex series of
interconnected courtyards
which at once feels

authentically Balinese,
and yet also thoroughly modern.

How do you feel that westerners
coming to Bali, seeing the light
and the lushness and the fecundity,

and then trying
to recreate it back at home in
grey London, or Paris or New York?

I mean, do you think that can work?

It really doesn't work.

I'm forever being led into houses
all over the world, "You must see
our Balinese garden."

And it's like the anti-Christ!
It's horrible,
cultural prostitution almost.

But it's also very bitty and nasty.

I think you always need to
have cultural and geographical
reference in a garden, it's better.

How much of that
is going to be lost as the culture
changes, as it's going to?

Bali has a way of surviving.
So it's survived Islamification.

It's survived colonisation. It's
pretty much survived mass tourism.

Will it survive the real estate boom,
which is putting the garden down?
Let's see.

Made's garden was not what
I had imagined would be the goal of
my journey, but I loved it.

I'd found a truly creative garden
using local and, to me,
very exotic planting,

as well as being deeply entrenched
in a local idiom,
but making something new from it.

I set out on this trip to find the
perfect tropical paradise,

the garden that was the prototype

for all
those tens of thousands of jungle
gardens that are made at home.

But I've come to the conclusion
that it's a fantasy.

It's a figment
of our holiday imagination.

And what we're trying to do is
store that experience, so that we
can feed off it like a battery.

Nevertheless, over the 2,000 miles
I've travelled
throughout south-east Asia,

I have seen fascinating things
along the way, all suggesting
some kind of tropical ideal.

There were the practical, busy
gardens of the klongs in Bangkok.

And the wonderful compounds in Bali.

That overwhelming lushness and
fecundity right across the region,

and the modest but intense passion
of the new gardeners in Singapore.

All these had elements
of the idealised exotic garden.

But as for that
real tropical paradise?

Mankind will always
be looking for that Shangri-la,
that wonderful place.

And actually it exists within you.