HOW many centuries are gathered in the virgin forest around Lake Tamblingan? Thousands of trees, ancient, young, crowd together, interweaving with the bushes, tendrils and vines; the dense foliage thickened by ferns that have hidden the path since time immemorial.

I was walking there that evening, along the lake in the hills of north Bali, forging through the undergrowth and losing a sense of distance in a solitude disturbed only by the sou