“BALI makes me feel young. I don’t know what it is, or why. There’s a freedom. And then I walk past a mirror and go, ‘Oh shit.’?”

That’s Paula Gillham, a 64-year-old Sydney pensioner and mother of two who came to Bali three years ago with just one acquaintance living on the island. Gillham smiles often, is dressed youthfully in a short dress and seems perfectly content in her adopted home, where she now has an established social network. On a part age pension, she rents a $10,000-a-year, two-storey home at Kerobokan with a swimming pool facing emerald rice paddies, and has a daily home help (pembantu).

At $100 a month, the pembantu makes Bali life seductive. “She cleans, cooks, washes, irons, runs messages, pays the bills… she found me this house,” enthuses Gillham, a three-time divorcee and retired shop manager. Then there’s the gardener and pool man, the $6 massages, the constant dining out.

Maybe it’s that permanent on-holiday sensation, the tropical sun, affordable spas, ready Balinese smiles, exotic Hindu ceremonies, but Bali has become a mecca for retirees wanting the good life – or at least, a quality of life they could never afford in Australia. Many who claim they could barely make ends meet in Australia can live like lords here. One Australian visitor described it as a colonial paradise, one reeking of the last days of the Raj.

A growing colony of retirees are able to call Bali home under a retirement visa available to Australians aged 55 or older who can fully support themselves. The one-year visa, which costs $1000, can be extended every year until five years has elapsed, at which time they can apply for a permanent stay permit. However there are restrictions: visitors on the retirement visa cannot work, must employ an “Indonesian maid servant” and must be able to prove that their living expenses total $US18,000 annually, close to the full Australian pension.

Once there, nagging worries can surface about healthcare and living arrangements as old age approaches, isolation from family and lifelong friends, and a sense that in emigrating they’ve burnt their bridges, at least in an economic sense. Not to mention worries about the recent spate of assaults and robberies targeting “wealthy” expats (more on this later).

But Gillham is content with the expat life and adheres to its catchcry: if you can’t work, you must do something useful in Bali; you shouldn’t just loaf in the lap of luxury. Gillham’s circle of friends include women – many Australian – dedicated to charities, particularly the Bali International Women’s Association, which keeps inmates at Kerobokan’s infamous jail clothed, fed and health-smart, at least to some degree. Today, Gillham, in her BIWA role, has made hundreds of sandwiches to deliver to the jail. The Bali Nine heroin smugglers and convicted marijuana trafficker Schapelle Corby rely on BIWA’s weekly support visits, but, says Gillham, the Indonesian inmates are more in need. “Most of them just want us to visit; they’re lonely.”

Gillham eats out a lot, sometimes at cheap local warungs, sometimes at smart restaurants, although with the exorbitant taxes alcohol – apart from the local Bintang beer – is too expensive.

When she first arrived here, Gillham considered it only a base for travelling. “I will keep my little flat in Dover Heights [eastern Sydney] until I need to sell,” she reflects. “It’s some stability.” A seasoned traveller, courtesy of AirAsia’s cheap tickets, her next trip is to Southeast Asia next month with an expat pensioner friend. Next year they’re off to Mumbai and Malaysia. What’s not to like?

BALI is a great leveller, with expats from unlikely backgrounds connecting in cafes and clubs. Those who would be hard-pressed to pay the weekly grocery bill in Australia can afford to eat out frequently here. And let’s face it, you’re not doing too badly as a pensioner if you can afford a pembantu, a chauffeur, a swimming pool, and the odd posh restaurant meal.

How can you live like that in Australia? “You can’t,” says Melbourne expat Frank Andrews. “You live on a third here of what you need in Australia.” The opportunity to slow down – and, no doubt, his 38-year-old Javanese wife of two years, Sandra – has given Andrews, 64, a new lease of life. Though not retired, he says he’s proof of the island’s health benefits, which he attributes to a stress-free lifestyle.

He’s ditched a host of medications including heart tablets and blood pressure pills after his diabetic condition abated. “I don’t need them,” he boasts. “I have a different lifestyle, ethics and diet.” Having sold his house, he has no ties to Australia. Divorced in 2009, his two adult daughters and four grandchildren in Australia visit annually. “I won’t go home. I’m having a great experience here.”

Quitting his printing business in Melbourne, he carved out a career in Bali several years ago as a business and villa consultant, advising foreigners on investment pitfalls. Clients have become his closest friends. “That’s what wonderful about Bali – your work contacts merge with your social life. The friendships I’ve made here are much stronger than those I had in Australia.”

Though the self-confessed revhead didn’t ride a motorbike in Australia, he now owns a second-hand Harley-Davidson, joining the Bali Harley Owners Group and establishing a set of Indonesian friends. The day-trippers roar around the island on weekends with a police entourage in tow, cutting through traffic like VIPs. Andrews likes nothing better than to zip off with his wife on the back. When they see him, “my Australian friends say, ‘Here comes the old grey fart on the Harley’. I honestly believe I’ve added five to 10 years to my life. I reckon I could get to 85 and still be very active because of the way I’ve changed my life.”

John Burridge, a fit-looking 69, lives frugally, but it’s not an entirely ascetic lifestyle. Savouring his evening tipple – the local brew, arak – at his favourite warung and relishing the social contact is a daily high point while the sun sets over the surf at Batu Belig, near Kuta. At $2 a shot, arak is a pleasure he can afford. “And where else can you enjoy such a stunning view from a restaurant at that price?”

Burridge, who lost his wife, Anne, in 1988, sold his house in Tasmania to live on Bali four years ago. He rents a small flat for $3500 a year in the southwest area of Canggu from his Balinese landlord upstairs. “I liked the climate, the people, the food… I thought I may as well move. I like the quiet life.” He visits his three daughters in Australia about once a year but friends have drifted away. “Friends thought I was mad to come… I am isolated and insulated here.”

Despite a strict budget, he says he’s much better off in Bali than in Australia. “I live entirely on the pension. It’s ample. I don’t go out socialising much, sometimes for a meal. I can get a decent meal and a drink for the price of a cup of coffee in Australia. There I’d be classed as a poor pensioner, but here I’m not.”

The strong exchange rate and a part UK pension – about $2300 per year – stretches his total income to $18,000. He doesn’t have health insurance. “If I need it, I will return to Australia and use Medicare. I’m nearly 70, I feel quite healthy, I don’t have any major health problems.” He relies on local dentists and GPs, paying about $5 a visit.

After years spent caring for his wife, who had multiple sclerosis, Burridge says it is his time to enjoy life. “I can see myself living here for the rest of my life unless something untoward medically pops up. Your perception changes here. I don’t need a big plasma TV, a four-wheel-drive, or the trappings of life.”

CHRIS Lauder is dolled up in fire-engine red leggings, trendy black dress and heels. Sipping cocktails at an expat gathering, she says her son – a corporate chef who works in Indonesia and lives near her in Uluwatu, in the island’s south – complains he can never get hold of her.

The gregarious 64-year-old divorcee from Victoria recounts one of her trips to a remote village for the breast cancer charity Pink Ribbon, which is a branch of Bali International Women’s Association. Eyes shining, she describes the pomp laid on for Bali’s visiting Governor I Made Mangku Pastika and wife Ayu.

As a BIWA member, she is enrolled in its inexpensive Bahasa Indonesia classes and uses her business acumen as a former fashion shop owner and wool promoter to assist with charity events. Voluntarily, she also manages a dress shop in the fashionable Legian area, the Bali Black Orchid Boutique Plus Size Fashion Boutique, catering to Aussie tourists with fuller figures. “They’re thankful to find something that fits them here.” She loves the social interaction.

On divorcing eight years ago, Lauder’s options included living with her daughter and family in Queensland or in a gated retirement village, neither of which appealed. She chose Bali three years ago for a better quality of life on the pension. She has no superannuation. But a weekly rent of $52 and a weekly grocery bill of no more than $50 provide considerable financial freedom. “If I’m out at lunch I have warung food. But I can afford to go out with friends to a nice restaurant sometimes, which I couldn’t do in Australia. You can remain in a hole, worrying about which bill you can afford to pay next, or try for a better life. I acted before I was too old to do it.”

Despite budgeting assiduously, she’s always out, and employs an occasional chauffeur. She even manages to save, joining visiting Australian friends on tours. “In Australia, if you don’t own your own home, the weekly pension of $350 for rent, bills and food is not enough. Probably a lot more people would be here if they realised they’d be much better off.”

Lauder is another who swears by the island’s youth-enhancing characteristics. Yet life in a society geared to tourism can be challenging for the elderly. A full-time nurse can be employed for about $300 a month but the standard of care, depending on needs, may not be up to scratch. There are no retirement homes in Bali, though Craig Beveridge, Perth part-owner and operator of the private Bali International Medical Centre Hospital, has ambitions to open one.

Lauder thinks about the future: “There may come a time when I can’t look after myself. Where do I go when I get too old? There are no guidelines for pensioners.” Under Centrelink regulations, pensioners must return to Australia every six months to retain the pension. Fearing the pension will cut out, she says, “I will get to the stage where I will be unable to travel.”

Paula Gillham says insurance costs about $1000 a year but a lot of people don’t keep it up because they can’t afford it. A brief spell in hospital that cost several thousand dollars convinced her insurance was crucial.

EXPAT Sydneysider Robin Dougherty, 73, who has holidayed on Bali for a couple of decades, built a $5000 granny flat three years ago beside her daughter’s rented house, a gorgeous, rambling property and tropical garden in the heart of Legian. “If Sarah [her daughter, a single mum and journalist] had not been living here, I probably would not have come.”

A divorcee and mother of four, Dougherty could not fund her retirement in Sydney. Though she worked until the age of 70 she could barely afford to go out. She left her rented apartment and arrived on her daughter’s doorstep with a couple of suitcases. It was the start of a new life. “I was very excited,” she recalls.

Most retirees, including Dougherty, say a lack of assets probably rules out a return to Australia. “Realistically I can’t, I don’t have a home there. I will probably die here,” she says. As we chat, the pembantu pads through the open-air house delivering freshly laundered clothes to Dougherty’s apartment. Another maid cleans and there’s also a gardener. Dougherty, wearing smart white pants and top, employs a tailor who whips up a wardrobe at minimal cost, saving on off-the-rack garments. “She’s making something for a wedding now.” What retiree wouldn’t jump through hoops for this type of lifestyle? “It’s fantastic,” admits Dougherty, a keen cook. “When you cook, she’s there cutting up things. When you walk away, she cleans up after you. If you have people over, she’s cleaned the table and washed the dishes by the time you’ve finished the meal.”

There have been a few health scares, however. Since living here, Dougherty has suffered dengue fever, pneumonia and a broken wrist. “It made me realise the vulnerability of being here and being sick,” she says. Travel insurance costs have tripled for those over 72 in the three years she’s been on the island. Retirees told The Weekend Australian Magazine they would rely on Medicare for serious conditions. “The thing that worries me is if I have a stroke and I need to be medically evacuated,” frets Dougherty. The cost is up to $65,000.

Dougherty also bemoans the ban on paid work. “I haven’t come to terms with not going to work anymore,” she says. She is involved with many fundraisers and is lobbying for a home hospice facility.

Men? Lauder and Dougherty would welcome a congenial dinner companion but both women are fiercely independent – and wary – and would rather read a book than compromise. Says Lauder: “The men have 18-year-old Bali girls. I’m happy with my independence and my dog. But if I did meet someone it would be nice.”

THE trouble with paradise, of course, is that it can never last forever. In recent years many of Bali’s problems – water shortages, frequent electricity blackouts, dodgy phone and internet connections, poor sewage facilities, traffic congestion – have increased along with the much bigger inflow of tourists and untrammelled development (this year the island will welcome more than 2.1 million tourists, up from 1.3 million in 2001, despite the bombings by Islamic radicals in 2002 and 2005). Starry-eyed newcomers also need to learn the concept of jam karet or “rubber time”, where appointments made often don’t eventuate and tomorrow never happens.

Much more troubling is the recent surge in violent crime – robberies and assaults – particularly against foreigners. In August, a British tourist was stabbed during a villa break-in in Kuta, the fourth foreigner, including an Australian woman, to be targeted that month.

Just as we were going to press with this story, Paula Gillham’s villa was broken into and $100,000 worth of jewellery stolen. She is now under no illusions about the dangers of the island, particularly after a friend of hers was raped by an intruder after stepping out of the shower (after the police asked for a fee to file a report, the friend has even questioned the value of going to them). While these incidents have deeply upset Gillham, she has no plans to leave Bali at this point.

Nor, for that matter, do any of her friends. Many don’t even register with the Australian Consulate in Bali – an Australian government recommendation because of the high threat of terrorist attack – perhaps because they’ve married Indonesians or relinquished all ties to their homeland.

As with everything in life, it comes back to weighing up the risks, particularly for retirees as they get older and frailer. It would be foolhardy to believe that Bali offers the same level of medical and aged care as Australia. Reflects Lauder: “At the moment life’s good, but long-term I don’t know about my health. I don’t believe in burying my head in the sand.”

In the meantime, Lauder is revelling in something she insists she doesn’t get as a retiree in youth-mad Australia: a sense of dignity and respect from the people around her, whether young or not-so-young. That, for her, is the real icing on the cake.”BALI makes me feel young. I don’t know what it is, or why. There’s a freedom. And then I walk past a mirror and go, ‘Oh shit.’?”

That’s Paula Gillham, a 64-year-old Sydney pensioner and mother of two who came to Bali three years ago with just one acquaintance living on the island. Gillham smiles often, is dressed youthfully in a short dress and seems perfectly content in her adopted home, where she now has an established social network. On a part age pension, she rents a $10,000-a-year, two-storey home at Kerobokan with a swimming pool facing emerald rice paddies, and has a daily home help (pembantu).

At $100 a month, the pembantu makes Bali life seductive. “She cleans, cooks, washes, irons, runs messages, pays the bills… she found me this house,” enthuses Gillham, a three-time divorcee and retired shop manager. Then there’s the gardener and pool man, the $6 massages, the constant dining out.

—————-

from http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/paradise-on-a-pension/story-e6frg8h6-1226146772640