Tourists can rent rooms in the villages, buy the indigenous crafts and take part in some of the ceremonies, Crone said. The rituals, ceremonies and arts mean more than just simple entertainment, Crone said. Everything from the village structure to the shape of a carving is imbued with mythological meaning that has ties to the landscape. Balinese villages are oriented on an axis between the mountains and the sea. The Balinese see things in terms of positive and negative currents, and strive to mediate the two by acknowledging the negative.
Rituals bring out both positive and negative aspects of things to achieve balance.
Thus, some areas of the island are left untouched by development. Thailand, however, has struggled with its identity, somewhat to the detriment of indigenous villages. The villages have tried to incorporate themselves into a market economy. The government has slashed forests in favor of growing rice, obliterating more than half the teak forests in the past 50 years. The leadership in Thailand, educated in Western schools, largely ignore the wisdom of their elders in indigenous tribes.