South East Asia: Bangkok, Singapore and Bali Around the World in 80 Gardens

I believe that a really good way to understand a culture is through its gardens.

This is an extraordinary journey to visit 80 inspiring gardens from all over the world.

Some are very well known like the Taj Mahal or the Alhambra.

And I'm also challenging my idea of what a garden actually is.

So I'm visiting gardens that float on the Amazon.

A strange fantasy in the jungle.

As well as the private homes of great designers.

And the desert flowering in a garden.

I shall be meeting people that share my own passion for gardens,

on my epic quest to see the world through 80 of its most fascinating and beautiful gardens.

My journey this week has brought me to a region of rich diversity, both botanical and cultural.

It's a steamy, tropical sub-continent

with some of the fastest growing plants and cities in the world.

South East Asia.

This is Bangkok, the capital of Thailand,

and one of the noisiest, dirtiest, most polluted cities in the world.

And it's the starting point for my journey to find the real exotic tropical garden.

Now, we in the west have taken plants and the concept

of the jungle garden and put it in our northern backyard.

But here, where there are only two seasons, it's either wet or dry,

it's always hot and plants grow constantly.

I want to see what the real tropical garden is like.

This will take me on a trip right through the south-east Asian region.

I'll start in Thailand in the garden of a western silk merchant.

I'll then head nearly 1,000 miles south, to visit the self-proclaimed garden city state of Singapore.

Finally I'll cross the Java Sea, to experience a little of the deep spirituality

and diverse cultural influences of the Indonesian island of Bali.

Our fascination with lush tropical plants

has been going on for at least 200 years and it's growing.

At Gardeners' World, we've made a jungle garden.

But, it's in an idiom that actually was forced by a set of circumstances

that were partly industrial and partly political because, the British Empire started to take over

the Asian world and bring back plants as part of colonisation.

People made more and more money, bought large houses,

and wanted trophy plants to show off, to show their status.

And then, the development of plate glass and cast iron and cheap fuel,

meant that vast glasshouses, like the one at Kew,

could be made so people could go in and immerse themselves in what they thought of as a jungle.

Typically, these gardens were lush, green and full of exotic varieties,

usually much bigger and faster growing than anything that we could find at home.

And these plants, although beautiful and exciting in their own right,

also acted as indicators for all the richness of tropical life,

and suggested a freer, less inhibited world.

It was, from the first, an intoxicating and intense association.

My journey to discover the reality behind that potent image, starts here.

The consensus seems to be that, if you want to visit gardens in Bangkok,

the first place to go to is Jim Thompson's house.

So, that's where I'm starting.

If you're in Bangkok, you've certainly got to take a tuk-tuk.

But the slight disadvantage is that, if you're taller than about four foot six, you can't see a thing.

In 1946, Jim Thompson, an American entrepreneur and bon viveur,

moved to Thailand and proceeded to revolutionise the Thai silk industry.

His house, right in the centre of Bangkok, sits surrounded by a densely planted tropical garden.

Jim Thompson mysteriously disappeared

in the Malaysian jungle in 1967, and no-one did anything to the garden for 25 years

which, as jungles will, grew enormous and impenetrable.

One of Jim's friends, the garden designer Bill Warren,

was part of the team that took the garden back into hand.

The house was really designed as a theatre set

and as a place to entertain.

And Jim entertained here every night.

It's not designed, let's say, for comfort,

because this room is open, there are no screens.

Jim wanted to look down on a jungle.

-And the little houses in there were...

-The servants' quarters.

There was the houseboy, the cook and the gardener.

-When did you first come here?

-I came to visit in 1959.

I came to the house warming.

OK, let's go and have a look at the rest of the house.

The garden weaves around and under the house, rising on various levels,

and screening out the city that is on three sides.

We're now underneath the main house, I guess.

One can't help but notice

the way that the garden forms this...greendrop in the background, without any sky.

So you have garden but no sky which, of course, is the jungle effect.

Jim had a plan of this house and he marked this area "jungle".

That effect doesn't take a lot to achieve, does it?

I mean, there are certain key plants, certain ways of doing it, which is this layering of foliage.

Things like the fan palms, and the gingers, they all create different textures

and different colours,

if you look at them carefully.

I love the little ponds in pots.

These were to catch the rainwater, but they have used lotuses for decoration.

And you had those in the bathrooms when I first came to Thailand,

-and we bathed from one of these jobs.

-Really?

Jim Thompson finished the house in 1959, and just eight years later

disappeared after going for a walk in the jungle whilst on holiday in Malaya.

After the garden lay untended for a quarter of a century,

Bill was asked to help restore it as it was in Jim's day.

Standing here, you can only see foliage,

with just touches of that red of the ginger, through there.

I cut down a lot of trees, so that you could see the rooflines.

You can go on cutting forever, in the tropical garden.

Probably it could use some cutting back now.

It's hard for people used to western gardens,

-to appreciate just how fast this sort of garden will grow if left untended.

-Oh, yes.

-These are heliconias.

-It's almost sculptural and sort of...

unbelievable as a flower, it's so physically solid.

If you made it in plastic, you wouldn't know the difference.

This is the spirit house.

Every Thai residential or business compound has a spirit

that's supposed to watch over the fortunes of the people who live in it.

Every day, they make offerings of burning incense, flowers, to keep the spirit happy.

I think here, like any garden, you've got to know something of the context.

Jim Thompson placed his garden here,

absolutely knowing that he was looking out over his village of Muslim silk weavers,

really rather like a sort of mill owner in Victorian Britain looked out over his workers.

They could see him, and he could see them.

And the whole place is to do with performance, and command,

and display.

I like Jim Thompson's garden.

And clearly a lot of people do. 175,000 visitors a year don't lie.

But it wasn't a Thai garden and, I think to be fair to Jim Thompson, he would never have pretended it was.

It was an approximation of what he thought a jungle might be.

And the really telling thing was that, after his disappearance,

they had to clear the growth back to make it look like a jungle garden.

And we could do that at home. It's not the real thing.

It's not got me any closer to Thai indigenous gardens, or gardening, or culture even, I don't think.

But I've read that the fastest way to get an insight into Thai culture

is to be out in a public park at precisely 6pm.

TANNOY ANNOUNCEMENT THAI NATIONAL ANTHEM BEGINS TO PLAY

Guide books will tell you everybody stops for the national anthem,

but actually seeing it happen, is extraordinary.

The image of the king is everywhere, and any kind of disrespect

towards it is regarded as sacrilege and a very serious criminal offence.

The royal palaces then are places of huge significance to Thai people,

and it seemed to me that I should visit one or two of them

on the basis that they must surely be a profound influence.

The best known royal palace is the Grand Palace, which is a major tourist attraction.

Religion, in this case Buddhism, the state,

buildings and plants all merge together.

It seems to me to be a surprising and eclectic mix, with tightly clipped cloud topiary,

strongly influenced by Chinese gardens, Thai temples and shrines, and massive buildings.

It is all fascinating but very strange.

The Grand Palace tells me something about Thailand, but not a lot about any kind of gardening style.

And to try and get closer to that, I am leaving the centre of Bangkok

to visit the king's horticultural project at his official residence, the Chitlada Palace.

-Good afternoon.

-Hello. Good afternoon.

Rosarin Smitabhindu has been guiding dignitaries round the palace and grounds for more than 30 years.

Ah! So here are your cattle.

Hello, my dear. They look very well.

Clearly, these are not your ordinary palace gardens.

Since 1961, the king has been using his grounds to try out sustainable methods of food production

that his subjects can then apply in their own gardens.

How many people work in this project?

-About 700.

-700?

-Yes.

-Now, what are you growing on these plots?

-This is rice field.

But during this time, it grows mung bean, soya bean and peanuts, these for rotation crops.

And then when do the rice go back in?

-In August.

-And this is to keep the birds off, is it?

Yes. We have lots of birds here because, not far from here this is our demonstration forest.

-There's a lot going on here, isn't there?

-Yes. This is from 1961.

So, for the last 45 years, His Royal Highness has been building up this demonstration

for the Thai people? Or for himself.

Yes. Yes. For the Thai people.

Because he learning by doing here and, also he's educating people.

We have to make lots of visitors come here to see the projects.

I came expecting to see something that fufilled my preconceptions of a palace garden.

But Rosarin has more horticultural research projects and labs to show me.

This one aims to protect the disappearing biodiversity of Thailand's indigenous species.

It's getting dark now.

So, during this time, you can hear the voice of many birds.

We visited the patch of demonstration forest that was in the centre of the park.

As the light fell, the insects came out.

The park is remorselessly practical and felt a little bit more like

a corporate research station than a garden.

But, inside this jungly bit,

you do get a hint of what almost all of Thailand must have been like until relatively recently.

The jungle was not something that you would try and cultivate. In fact, it was kept firmly at bay.

The king's projects at the Chitlada palace are designed to be an example

for his subjects to follow and, as such, they do work.

Thai rice growing has apparently been transformed by the work done here.

I can't help feeling, that there's one element glaringly absent, and that's any sense of aesthetic.

I mean it, it...

just wasn't very beautiful.

Bangkok, for all its pollution and veniality, is a beautiful and entrancing place.

So I am finding it hard to reconcile that stark functionality

that I saw at the Chitlada Palace with the fascinating tangle of Bangkok street life.

There seems to be a dissonance there, something I am missing

as I try and discover the archetypal tropical garden.

Well, I've had a night's sleep and a chance to think about it

and I think the best way to understand this problem

is to go from the very top of Thai society and the royal palace,

down to a more ordinary level and have a look around and see what people are growing at home.

To help me explore the private gardens of Bangkok,

Patravadi Meechuthon, a well-known Thai actress, has offered to take me off the beaten track.

Well, off the track altogether actually, because we are off to explore the klongs.

A klong is the name given to any of the waterways that still vein through Bangkok

despite the relentless development of the city.

The name is a good start. Who couldn't love anything called a klong?

They used to be the main way to get around, although nowadays the klongs are packed with tourists.

But you can see the gardens all the way along them, from the poorest shack to the grooviest apartment.

Do people not mind the noise?

We do mind, but nobody does anything about it.

There's lots of plants.

I mean, every balcony.

Yeah. In every Thai heart, there's always some softness.

-But are they particular plants?

-The plants you see there are the very common plants that grow very easy.

You don't have to water it all the time.

You know, like this one, this pink flower.

-It grows by itself really.

-The bougainvillea.

-Easy to look after.

So people don't really want to garden?

-They want the plants, but they don't want to look after them.

-It's hot.

So it's too hot work outside.

Yeah. In your country, you know it's cool and you need the sunshine.

We hide from the sunshine, we don't like sunshine.

It's too hot.

What about the rainy season?

Oh, then it's too wet!

That is fabulous. I'm going to take a picture of this cos I like that.

Beauty has to be useful.

-Beauty has to be useful.

-Yeah.

To see how beauty and usefulness coexist in a Thai garden,

Patravadi suggested that we stop at one of the houses and ask to have a look around.

THEY SPEAK IN THAI

All this is his father's house. And that's his house.

In Thailand we like to live together.

And next to each other.

It's handy, you know, handy.

It certainly is. Oh, look, plants everywhere.

And hang on a minute, beautiful pots there. Great big lovely pots.

Oh, this is his home.

Here we go.

Some people worship King Rama V.

It is very popular among Thai people.

And these whiskies. All these whiskies.

-Oh, he just like the boxes, they look good.

-He's right.

-Yeah.

And then this beautiful garden.

And what is this plant here?

This is a tree.

When you eat the fruit, you can eat lemon and it's sweet.

Interesting. So I mean, does he enjoy growing these plants?

THEY SPEAK IN THAI

He says it's for relaxation, a little exercise.

The fruits, they are vegetable he can eat, and they are chemical free.

And we have here what looks sort of like an apple or a...

It's the same family as the apple.

-It's delicious.

-Is it?

You like your food, don't you? It's very good, I like that.

-Thai people like to eat. We eat all the time.

-Well, you eat very nice food.

We'll let this boat go by.

For the houses on the river, it's just like displaying,

flowers in front of the house, and screening the pollution from his home.

-I don't know this flower here. What is this one here?

-Er...

HE EXPLAINS IN THAI

-Cat...

-Cat's whiskers?

So, I mean, does he find it easy to grow these plants in pots here on the river?

Oh, yeah. He has to be careful. Because when you water the plant, the wood get heavier,

-so the balcony can go and disappear!

-Something that I hadn't thought of!

It's a very, very beautiful house and garden. Tell him that for me.

SHE SPEAKS IN THAI

The beauty of Mr Lek's garden was real and gave me great pleasure,

but it was entirely based upon utilitarianism.

It was not created as anything like our idea of an exotic tropical garden.

If you go looking for the exotic, the last place you're going to find it is where it grows,

because the exotic is always what we can't have, what we can't grow.

The exotic is a state of mind.

It actually doesn't really exist at all.

It's time to leave Bangkok and move on.

And I haven't really perceived an indigenous Thai gardening culture here. I don't think it exists.

But Bangkok's a modern city, and it's changing fast,

and you can make a garden here in a matter of weeks, because of the extraordinary climate.

So it's possible to develop a style for gardens, as opposed just for plants, very, very quickly.

And it could happen.

The next stage of my journey takes me south from Thailand, 900 miles to the city state of Singapore.

I am making the journey by train, racing through the Malaysian jungles

and palm oil plantations and enjoying the most civilised way that there is to travel.

Coming from Bangkok,

which is so rich in images and human life

and yet rather elusive when it comes to gardens, my next stop will be very, very different.

For the last 40 years, the government in Singapore has been pursuing a programme

of self-consciously greening the 270 square miles of this densely populated island nation.

Today it promotes itself as a city in a garden.

Thank you.

I am staying at the Shangri-la hotel, because it was built in 1971,

right at the vanguard of the corporate drive to make Singapore a green city.

The centrepiece is the lush, very green tropical garden,

right at the heart of the hotel, with soaring planting down in the well of a balconied courtyard.

Well, there are strange things going on here,

but it's a tale of two halves.

And one half is really interesting and the other is disturbing and shocking.

Up above,

with all this greenery and this rather beautiful architecture,

it's a really good indication of what the hotel was setting out to do to embody the greening of Singapore.

And succeeding. I think it's really beautiful. Below, you have this...

weirdly horrible, phoney wood balustrading and steps,

which looks like a bad theme park and could easily put you off.

But, this is not a garden. This is really to get at the concept

that is the greening of Singapore.

And for that, it's really good.

Before I came to Singapore, I was sent this book

called The Tale of the Magical Seeds,

which is all about the wonderful greening of Singapore, issued by the national parks people.

And I'll just read you a little bit of it.

"There was once a beautiful tropical island in a clear blue sea." Are you sitting comfortably by the way?

"Birds sang from trees and butterflies danced among the flowers.

"Friendly animals played in the forest." You get the drift.

Anyway, people came along and liked it and decided to make it their home.

It's significant the order of the words, "The people worked hard.

"Trees were cut, land was cleared and many fine buildings and factories were built.

"The harbour filled with ships and the city grew rich."

And it says, "The birds and butterflies went away.

"The friendly animals hid, the children became sick and everyone was sad."

Not good.

So they turned to this master gardener

who has magical seeds which he sows and in due course, they grow.

Everything is rosy again and the island becomes a garden.

And the last page is, "The island became a tropical paradise

"where happy people and their children lived in a garden and cared for nature."

That the government describes the greening of Singapore

as a fairy tale is interesting, and there is no doubt that it is of huge symbolic importance to them.

To find out exactly where the idea came from, we have been granted the rare privilege

of an audience with the model for the mythical master gardener, former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew.

I saw Hong Kong.

I saw Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok,

and they were dreadful.

I can't say that in public, I mean,

they were concrete jungles, some tarmac and concrete.

So I decided that we have to be different.

When we started, it was just to combat the greyness

and the drabness of a city which has no greenery.

Since the government of Singapore embarked on the greening project 40 years ago,

skyscrapers and underpasses have been covered with plants,

and more than 4,300 acres of parkland have been landscaped.

It's transformed what would have been a very drab, grey place

into a clean, green and exciting place.

Well, it is famously clean, and I am keen to have a look at its greenness for myself.

There is no doubt, this is very different to Bangkok.

In this city devoted to frenetic consumerism, the roads are lined

with fabulous mahogany and rain trees, both smothered in epiphytes,

and they are lush, green and extremely beautiful.

As part of Lee Kuan Yew's green fairytale vision, parks were laid out

to give Singapore's densely packed population places to relax in, to take exercise and be stimulated.

Bishan Park is held up as a fine example of Singapore's creation of these green spaces.

I am told that it is packed at weekends, but during office hours it is all but empty.

This is a very disturbing place.

It's got all the ingredients, and clearly there was a corporate plan to...

make it beautiful - get a designer in,

clad the place in all the recognised elements of an enjoyable and pleasant garden.

And it sort of has. But a garden must have humanity

and the more quirky and the more individual that humanity is, the better the garden will always be.

The truth is that it is easier for a garden to pass through the eye of a needle than be good and corporate.

Singapore proclaims itself the city in a garden, but I don't think I've yet found that garden.

Dr Lawrence Leong Chee Chiew is from N-Parks, the government department in charge of the greening process.

Maybe he can help me solve this conundrum.

If we indeed want to be a city in a garden,

so that the city actually rises from a garden ambience,

then we need the presence of a garden, everywhere you go.

How would you define a garden as opposed to a park?

A park must have space for informalrecreation activities.

But a garden is what you have here in this small area

where particular attention is paid to how the plants are displayed.

And if you extend this to the whole of Singapore,

and you consider Singapore as a garden, then you have to see

our roadsides, plants on our buildings, gardens along our canals.

And now we are getting the people in the local communities to take up gardening as a hobby as well.

Can a garden be the entire city in all its component parts?

Can it be dictated and laid out by governmental and corporate decree?

Can it be enough that it is clean and useful and pleasant?

Lots of questions. And although I know where my own instincts lie,

I want to know more about Singapore's gardens, not my own attitudes.

The truth is that, as most people in Singapore live in high rise flats,

not many people have the chance to garden.

But I have met up with Wilson Wong who is harnessing the enthusiasm of users of his internet message board

to create a communal garden.

Wilson, tell me the story of this garden. When did it start?

This garden was started about two months ago.

It was initiated, started by me, to actually bring gardening to the residents who live in this estate.

-And who designed it?

-I was the one who designed it.

So, you conceived it, you got the money raised,

-you persuaded people to do it, you've designed it. It's pretty much your baby.

-Yeah. You can say that.

And what have you got at this end?

OK. In the front part of this garden, we actually designed a medicinal garden in a European garden style.

So a herb garden based on a sort of European Renaissance model really.

Yes. We bring it to south-east Asia.

OK. This here, I mean, these cat's whiskers,

I last saw these in the backwaters of Bangkok.

I never thought I would say that.

But there we are, it's true.

I have learned to appreciate the constant climate.

All year round summer.

We do not need to actually observe the seasons.

Over here you can just plant, or plonk in whatever you want, as and when you want it.

And this is a plant that can actually be used in one of our local dishes.

You can smell it. It actually has a very fragrant, nice aroma.

Ah! It does smell wonderful!

-Now these are your vegetable beds. What's your soil like?

-Oh!

Over here the soil is very clay, so we have a very hard time trying to improve the soil texture.

When you talk about soil, top soil, you get this kind of soil.

So will you be making your own compost?

We are going to make a little compost heap here, returning everything back into the ground.

This is exactly what I like to hear! What are you growing there?

This is actually water spinach.

-These are your first crops.

-No.

-But it's only been going for a couple of months.

-So you've already had one harvest?

-Yes.

We nurture plants and we cosset them and we take them through their life journey

which, for cabbages, or purple sprouting broccoli or something,

we can sow the seed in April and harvest the following March or April.

Yeah. But over here, all it takes is just less than a month.

I feel so attached to this garden.

In the middle of the night, I can bring my dog through this garden a couple of times.

The residents here can be the witnesses.

They say, "Now who is this crazy guy that comes down in the wee hours of the morning to look at his plants?"

You're not alone, I assure you.

-You are not alone.

-So that's how attached I am to this garden.

Wilson Wong's community garden is in itself wholly unremarkable,

but it's undoubtedly the best thing I saw in Singapore.

Although it might seem ordinary, it is filled with the passion and enthusiasm of one individual

bucking the corporate blandness that threatens to smother the rest of the garden city.

OK. To the Earth Walk, please.

OK, sir.

There's no doubt that Singapore is really eager, desperately eager,

to present itself as a garden city.

And I think it's completely genuine in that, to create what they call the city in a garden.

But that can only come alive if it is driven not by the state

but by the contrariness of individuals like Wilson.

Predictably, at the airport, there is a display of orchids under the harsh terminal lights.

Lush, exotic, beautiful, but completely artificial and rather depressing,

and I feel further away from my idea of a tropical paradise than ever.

But things are looking up, because my next stop is Bali.

And on top of its obvious attractions,

I know that gardens are completely central to the local culture.

Bali is an Indonesian island just off the east coast of Java,

and it is probably many people's idea of a perfect tropical paradise.

Wow! How about that for a view?

That is magnificent.

The contrast with Singapore is dramatic and exciting.

It feels as if the hunt for the ideal tropical garden is back on,

and I celebrate by buying a snazzy piece of local headwear.

Bali has a combination of three things that make one think they may well be gardeners.

For a start, it's a volcanic soil, intensely fertile.

Secondly, a long tradition of sophisticated use of land, so that they're growing things all the time.

And thirdly, this climate which is common to the region, where everything grows tremendously fast.

Put it all together, and it's perfect for making gardens.

To really understand that Balinese gardening tradition,

you have to know a little about the predominant religion.

Unlike the rest of Indonesia where the majority are Muslim,

more than 90% of Balinese practise their own version of Hinduism

which gives them a deep and ingrained respect for the natural world.

And if I really wanted to get under the skin of the modern domestic Balinese garden,

I was told that I should first go to a temple garden, and the best known of these is Pura Taman Ayun.

It was built in 1634 as part of the capital of the ancient kingdom of Mengwi.

A member of the local ruling family, Agung Prana, gave me the guided tour.

This is the central court where people usually prepare the offerings

and perform the ritual dances.

And what's the significance of the trees you have here?

Those trees are special frangipani that we use very much as the main part of the offerings.

And what's that tree there with the sort of scarf wrapped round?

It's also a holy tree that we use as part of the offerings.

Because, in the offering, the main part of the offering is flowers.

The flowers are practical.

They have significances, their symbolic significance.

-Yeah.

-What about the trees themselves, are they included in the...

sensation of reverence?

Yes. It is. We have the philosophy of life in Bali.

we have what we call Tri Hita Karana. We have to be friendly and in harmony with our God.

We have to be friendly and in harmony with our environment

and also socially with the human to human. And that's the balance of three, yeah.

Now this is the entrance to the next court, is it?

Yeah. This is the main entrance to the main part of the temple, is the inner court,

which is the holy part of the temple where prayer will be conducted.

-So can we go through?

-No.

Unfortunately people who are not praying, can only see it from the other side of the temple.

Ah! My word. So this...

I hadn't expected to see this.

Yeah. This is the inner court of the temple, this is the holy part,

and this part is surrounded by the water.

Lotus and water lily is very much used in the offering.

Beautiful looking, but also it is the symbol of the seat of our deities and gods.

We try to keep it in serenity.

So serenity, it has a religious function and it's to do with the gods, and it's just beautiful.

That's altogether.

Now explain to me the different functions of these buildings.

Those with the black roof, they are the shrines.

Those building with the grass roof, they are the place of the offering,

a place for the ritual singers,

and then also the place for the priest to conduct the ceremony.

I'll take my hat off. It's not the most flattering thing, but very good at keeping the sun out.

I'm overwhelmed by this place.

My reaction on coming here was fundamentally delight.

And, above all, this sense of balance and harmony that integrates

every aspect of life, whether it be plant, human, spiritual,

as one completely interwoven tapestry that you can't possibly unravel,

and I think very beautiful.

Now it is important to square both sides of the equation, of the spiritual and the normal human life.

And to get the humanity side of things...

Whoops!

Hello! I'm busy. In a minute. OK?

..I've taken myself to the Kumbasari, the night market in Denpasar,

which is about the busiest place I've ever been to in my life.

However...even in here, the spiritual is to be found.

Um...

All over the market, I found flowers and their petals for sale.

These aren't for decoration but, just as in the temple,

they are the ingredients for making offerings to the gods.

The completed offerings, intricate baskets that are said to represent the universe, are also made here.

Now traditionally, these would have been made from flowers from people's own gardens,

and I think a domestic home and garden is where I should go next.

But before that, I need to sleep.

It's another absolute scorcher today,

and I'm feeling a bit fragile because I spent the night without a wink of sleep, inflicted by...

let's call it "Bali belly".

But there's still lots to see and, having seen the way that temples

were laid out and all the ritual significances tied into plants, and how people use them,

now I'm going to visit a private house which is in a compound,

and an awful lot of Balinese people live in these compounds,

which are laid out in many of the same ways as a temple.

The temple gardens were clearly defined spaces,

yet their role and the role of the gardens and shrines in general, seems fused together.

A local resident, Bragies Warung, has offered to show me round this compound,

which is one of many in the village, each home to an extended family

and laid out in the same way, with individual buildings arranged within a large enclosed courtyard.

This is the house for living.

This is for the old men because they open bali.

-Bali means house, does it?

-Yeah. Bali means house in Balinese.

-Right. And this building here?

-This is, we call paon, in Balinese language. We call kitchen.

So the kitchen there, and then in the middle there's this area.

They use for all kind of ceremony, preparing the offering or cremation ceremony, wedding, whatever.

-And what are they making there?

-They prepare for the offering.

For offering for what?

The offering is similar to gift, something you give to God.

Now what we have here, looks to me like a little temple or a shrine.

Everyone, even in modern life, they have a small temple in the house.

-Can we go through?

-Yes.

-So you have plants inside.

-Yeah. This is hibiscus I think.

That's where we need the flower.

-You need the flowers.

-Yes.

-This, pinka we call. This used for...

-Do you have a plant for a bad tummy?

-For somebody have - what you call that - when they are pregnant, they have.

-No, I'm not pregnant.

-That's the one they have here.

-OK.

This called bale daja.

People just get married and they must stay a bit privacy here.

-So they have privacy, and pregnancy plants outside.

-Yeah!

-Absolutely. Altogether.

-Very useful.

-Yeah. Very useful.

-And also this plant...

-And does it have a use?

Oh, yeah. They use for the anti-mosquito actually.

And what's over there with those huge coconut trees?

Oh, this garden. Yes, the back garden.

-It's cool-er here, isn't it?

-Yes, it's quite cool, for us.

Well, quite cool. It's actually just roasting hot,

as hot as anything, but slightly less hot than outside.

Would people treat this like a place

-to come and relax in, or is it just for work?

-Oh, yes, also, also.

In the hot day like this time after they have plan, they have meal,

the children and the mummy and everyone, go to the backyard.

Are people making modern gardens in the spirit of this garden?

Oh, this garden is completely like here.

Wild, they grow wild.

But useful, yeah?

But modern plan is different and the concept of original Balinese garden, very different.

There is one big question that has to be addressed and that is, is this a garden?

Well, clearly it's fascinating and it's instructive and it's stimulating.

But I think the garden side of it was summed up for me by watching the women sitting where I am now,

making up the offerings from flowers they had grown,

little baskets from the coconut leaves,

and then going out and placing them with the relevant ritual. And that whole process, using plants,

sitting in the centre of the household, relating to their gods and balancing everything,

balancing their entire world through these plants

seemed to me the essence of what is happening here.

It's not something I've ever found in this way anywhere else in the world.

The intimacy of the people and their plants,

and the daily rituals of gathering the leaves and flowers

for the offerings and carefully making them into the beautiful little posies,

seems to me to be as much gardening as any of our own more familiar horticultural primping and preening.

But even in Bali, there is a distinct element of this belonging to the past

and I am curious to know how these complex and subtle traditions could be applied to a modern garden.

So, with that in mind, I go off to the Batajimbar Estate.

As Bali was opened up for tourism, first in the '30s and then more fully in the '70s,

wealthy holiday makers wanted their conveniently westernised luxury holiday homes

to be adorned with gardens with a Balinese feel.

Guests on this estate have included Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall and, it's rumoured, Princess Diana.

Already it's clear that there are elements of the compound here.

But, as you walk in,

there is a distinct aura...of money.

In contrast to what I've seen elsewhere in Bali,

the house is distinctly luxurious and the gardens are landscaped and grand.

But the real attraction, and something we haven't seen at all yet looking for this paradise, is this.

It's right slap on the sea.

The warm tropical sea, lapping just a few feet away from the edge of the garden.

Now, as a gardener, it's astonishing that you can have a garden like this so close to the sea.

So that's unusual.

But I think the key here is it's fulfilling all the fantasies

of what we westerners, we tourists, want when we go on holiday.

The ceremonial house is handsome,

and the banyan tree is by far the most striking example I've seen on the whole of this trip.

And the shrines are genuine. They're in the north-east corner of the boundaries of the garden

but, there's none of the mess, there are no chickens walking around in it. It's very sanitised.

This is a wonderful tropical holiday retreat.

But I don't need a holiday.

I'm in pursuit of the authentic tropical garden, and this is not it.

The Batajimbar Gardens represent the beginning of a modern Balinese gardening style.

But they were laid out over 30 years ago and so now, I want to see how modern Balinese design has evolved.

My last visit in Bali is to a man called Made Wijaya.

In fact, he was born in Australia and called Michael White,

but he came to the country 30 years ago, fell in love with it, stayed here and made a beautiful garden.

Others admired it so much that he made gardens for them, and quickly became established

as an internationally renowned garden designer, specialising in tropical gardens.

So what I want to know from him is how he's taken all the culture

and ritual and spirit of the ancient Balinese style of garden

and turned it into a thriving garden design business.

Made arrived in Bali in 1973 by, at least according to his version,

swimming ashore after first jumping ship during a violent storm.

And whilst perhaps this is not the whole truth, the story seems to fit his larger-than-life persona.

Somehow it's not surprising that this garden started off

as a commission for someone else, until he realised he liked it so much he had to keep it.

When you began to create gardens using Balinese courtyards and traditions, did you have to jettison

any of the Balinese cultural history and how much did you have to bring in to put on top of it?

Having grown up in Sydney, which was a sub-tropical paradise with artful natural English design trends,

it was easy for me in my work to introduce a more natural look.

But I was very influenced working with the Balinese gardeners and living in a Balinese society,

by the fecundity, the wild colours, the incredible statuary,

the peopling of the gardens with all of these shrines and things.

So, in one way, I've been trying to keep the shrines and the idea of a spiritual garden,

without it becoming too kitschy or cheesey or Disneyland.

I'd like you to talk me through your garden here because, clearly, it's based on a compound,

but the compounds I've seen have had almost no aesthetic consideration -

that seems to be incidental to the practical uses. Yet this is primarily aesthetic.

I wanted it to be first and foremost a little mini history of all the different Balinese landscape trends.

So I chose red brick shrines, and then I had water features that I'd seen in the palaces of east Bali.

I've tried to collect ornamental courtyard trees and shrubs

that you find in Balinese temples and palaces.

And the last one is a sand garden, which is a homage to the old sand gardens of the temples of Sanur,

the coastal gardens.

Made's garden is a complex series of interconnected courtyards which at once feels

authentically Balinese, and yet also thoroughly modern.

How do you feel that westerners coming to Bali, seeing the light and the lushness and the fecundity,

and then trying to recreate it back at home in grey London, or Paris or New York?

I mean, do you think that can work?

It really doesn't work.

I'm forever being led into houses all over the world, "You must see our Balinese garden."

And it's like the anti-Christ! It's horrible, cultural prostitution almost.

But it's also very bitty and nasty.

I think you always need to have cultural and geographical reference in a garden, it's better.

How much of that is going to be lost as the culture changes, as it's going to?

Bali has a way of surviving. So it's survived Islamification.

It's survived colonisation. It's pretty much survived mass tourism.

Will it survive the real estate boom, which is putting the garden down? Let's see.

Made's garden was not what I had imagined would be the goal of my journey, but I loved it.

I'd found a truly creative garden using local and, to me, very exotic planting,

as well as being deeply entrenched in a local idiom, but making something new from it.

I set out on this trip to find the perfect tropical paradise,

the garden that was the prototype

for all those tens of thousands of jungle gardens that are made at home.

But I've come to the conclusion that it's a fantasy.

It's a figment of our holiday imagination.

And what we're trying to do is store that experience, so that we can feed off it like a battery.

Nevertheless, over the 2,000 miles I've travelled throughout south-east Asia,

I have seen fascinating things along the way, all suggesting some kind of tropical ideal.

There were the practical, busy gardens of the klongs in Bangkok.

And the wonderful compounds in Bali.

That overwhelming lushness and fecundity right across the region,

and the modest but intense passion of the new gardeners in Singapore.

All these had elements of the idealised exotic garden.

But as for that real tropical paradise?

Mankind will always be looking for that Shangri-la, that wonderful place.

And actually it exists within you.