Paddy's bar rises from the ashes

The Australian
August 4, 2003

Paddy's bar rises from the ashes

By Martin Chulov, Bali

THERE were no parked cars allowed out front, guards with metal scanners
prowled the door and the second floor had gone, but a symbol of the Bali

bombings ?
Paddy's bar ? has risen from the ashes of last October 12.

The famous Kuta nightspot reopened its doors on Saturday night for the
first
time since being destroyed by a suicide bomber carrying a vest stashed
with
TNT.

The club's owners called it a soft opening, a precursor to the grand
event
planned for the 12-month anniversary of Indonesia's worst terrorist
attack,
but
everything about the new venue was hard ? the grog, the music and the
drink
bill.

All the staff who survived the blast returned to duty ? some with limbs
still
wrapped in pressure bandages to treat their burns. For most it was their

first day's work in 10 months. Eager and emblazoned in the club's new
red
livery,
they helped pull in a take that would have rivalled a busy night for the

Paddy's of old.

The new club has been dubbed Paddy's "Reloaded" ? after the Matrix movie
of
the same name, but there were flashes of familiarity everywhere ?
especially
for South Australian Taryn Hall, 15, who was in the club when the bomb
went
off.
She had returned to Bali with her mother Carol and some friends.

"We were about to leave," Ms Hall said of her ordeal last year. "We were

waiting for a taxi but the taxi wasn't there so we came back to the
dance
floor
and as we turned around the bomb went off."

Ms Hall then nearly became another victim, running out the front door of

Paddy's and turning right towards the Sari Club. The terrorists had
planned
to use
the smaller explosion in Paddy's to force a spillway of panicked patrons

into
the path of the devastating Sari Club bomb.

The bomb knocked Ms Hall to the ground but she escaped with six stitches
and
some bruises.

Paddy's co-owner Gede Wiratha said the reopening sent an important
message
to
jittery would-be tourists.

"The community of Kuta . . . want to show to the people around the world

that
Bali is still alive," said Mr Wiratha, who is also the chairman of
Bali's
tourism board. "Bali is still like before, it is safe and in harmony and

still
concerned with tourism and culture."

Another Australian patron, Dave Campbell, said he was more excited than
nervous about visiting Paddy's again.

"They are not going to stop us here," he said. "We are back, come on
back,
guys. Everything's like it was."

The new Paddy's is about 100m further south along Jalan Legian from its
predecessor, which like the demolished Sari Club is now vacant land,
occupied only
by banana groves. There are no plans to reopen the Sari Club, where most
of
the 202 victims were killed.

------------------------------------------
-- -Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com
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