What to do with Bali's 'ground zero'?

By Lucy Williamson, BBC News, Bali

If you turn into the backstreets of Bali's main city, the sound of traffic deadens to a hum.

A small family compound is tucked into a narrow alleyway, and wind chimes compete with the noise of a sewing machine somewhere in a back room.

This is where Iluh Januarini lives, surrounded by photographs of her father - a taxi driver, blown up by a truck bomb outside the Sari nightclub in Bali's Kuta tourist district five years ago.

That bomb - and a smaller one at the nearby Paddy's Bar - killed 202 people.

All of them are remembered on a monument close to where the attacks took place, but the site of the Sari Club - known locally as "ground zero" - remains an empty plot of land, neglected and overgrown.

Once a year, on this day, Iluh makes the 30-minute journey to the site of the attack, to honour her father's memory.

"Every year I go back for the commemoration, and face that road," she says, sitting on a small sofa in the dim house she shares with her mother.

"Being there makes me feel cold. Apart from then, I don't go past it. I never go down that road - if I want to go to the beach or something, I go the long way round."

Looking forward

But will building on the site make it any easier for Bali to deal with?

On the first anniversary of the bombings, people from across the world gathered here on the beach to commemorate the dead.

But local journalist Iwan Dharmawan says that was more for the foreign visitors. Balinese culture, he says, is all about looking forward, not hanging on to the past with monuments and memorials.

"The empty Sari Club site lets the wounds remain wounds," he said as we walked back along the beach.

"It hurts the Balinese people every day when they walk past it. Visitors want to keep it as a monument to the ravages of terrorism, but the Balinese who live here want it to become a place of activity - a business or office, or whatever.

"The important thing is to get rid of the sense that 200 people were killed there by a bomb."

'Stained with blood'

At the marketplace where Iluh helps her mother run the family shop, opinions on what to do with the site are divided. Some people say they would like a memorial, but just as many are clear they want another bar or nightclub build on the site - a new Sari Club. "Rebuilding will bring the tourists back," one woman explained. "Don't leave it empty."

Iluh does not agree. "The site of the bombing is stained with human blood," she said.

"You can't build on a site like that - it's spiritually dirty."

She would prefer to see the site left empty, or made into a garden of some kind. It is an idea that has already gained support from victims' groups in Bali.

Asana Viebeke is a local community spokeswoman. She has thrown her support behind building a peace park on the site of the club, and says the Balinese need to accept that it is not only about what they want.

"Kuta does not belong to the Balinese only," she said.

"It's not about what the Balinese will accept, or won't accept. Look - it's 7am and people are walking here from all over the world."

Who owns the site is a very real question for Bali's government planning team.

It has drawn up plans to build a memorial museum on the site, but the private owner has so far refused to sell.

This is prime real estate, slap bang in the heart of Bali's busiest tourist area.

People may disagree over what they want to see on the Sari Club site, but ultimately it is likely to be market forces that decide.