October 12, 2002
	A terrorist attack turns Bali's party town into a crucible of horror. A TIME report on the innocents who lost their lives—and the heroes who tried to save them
	By Brian Bennett Kuta
KEMAL JUFRI‹IMAJI PRESS FOR TIME Farewell: Candlelight and flowers at a vigil mark the passing of loved ones lost

The sun was out, the temperature was a balmy 32°C, and it was Saturday—although that didn't really matter because to the 1.6 million yearly visitors to Indonesia's most alluring tropical paradise, every day is a Saturday and every night a freewheeling Saturday night.

The surf was up too, which did matter to Chris Beirne, a 47-year-old nursing-home worker on holiday from Mermaid Beach, Australia. Beirne loves Bali so much he overstayed his visa on his first visit back in 1974 and was deported after four blissful months. He has returned more than a dozen times.

That day, Beirne rode the morning swells at Nusa Dua, where the hard-core surfers go. (By comparison, the surf at Kuta, the crowded party town that pulls most of the island's vacationers, is a gentler beach break.) He went with his pal Cooper from Maui, Hawaii, and a brand-new acquaintance from Zimbabwe named Pat. On the beach, the three guys met two girls from the Canary Islands, and arranged to hook up later that night at Paddy's Irish Pub in Kuta. "I caught one really nice wave that made me happy," Beirne recalls. "But I came in after a couple more. I didn't have much energy, and I thought, 'Oh, I'm going out tonight.'"

For businessman Kadek Wiranatha, Saturday was just another workday, although an important one. Kadek, 47, is the king of Kuta, the owner of many of the hotels and restaurants that cater to Bali's foreign guests, including Paddy's, a bar known for its straight-to-the-beer attitude. He employs 3,000 and works late into the night. So on Oct. 12, Kadek woke at his customary 11:00 a.m., in time for a lunch meeting to discuss his newest venture: Air Paradise, an airline dedicated to bringing tourists to Bali. The company had already sold 12,000 tickets, mostly in Australia, and service to that country was scheduled to begin Oct. 27—just 15 days away. "The planes were arriving in a few days," he recalls. "We were making plans for our launch party. The mood was very upbeat and exciting. We knew that Bali's first international airline was going to be a success."

When the sun is up, Kuta's narrow lanes wear a ramshackle, shabby and hungover look. But all that disappears at sunset, when the music starts pounding again from the tile- or thatch-roofed bars and discos and the backpackers and surfers in beach clothes start careening from bar to bar, beer bottles in hand. The main action is on Jalan Legian, the Sunset Strip of Kuta, lined with bars, restaurants and hawkers shilling knockoff clothes.

Paddy's is popular, but there's more action across the road at the Sari Club, which has three bars, a dance floor and a younger crowd. Putu Ayu Sila Prihanadewi, 21, was working the night shift on Saturday. She was one of two cashiers at the half-moon-shaped bar on the club's north side. She liked the job and was engaged to be married in November. Ayu was so busy ringing up VBs and Jell-O shots and fish bowls that she didn't realize the evening was getting on. By 10 p.m., the joint was already packed. A rugby tournament, the Bali Tens, was being played that weekend, and ruggers from Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Jakarta were converging on the Sari Club. Sun-drenched Australian teenagers in board shorts and halter tops bumped and ground to blasting house music. Surfy girls followed surfy boys into the bathrooms to get naughty. The Kingsley Football Club from Perth had just arrived. Corey Paltridge, a 20-year-old glazier, was the known life of the party, and he had cleared the dance floor for his favorite party trick: an air guitar impression of Angus Young, leader of Australia's AC/DC rock band.

A kilometer away, Haji Agus Bambang Priyanto was concerned that it was getting late. Haji Bambang is the head of the traffic and transport department, a position of some standing in a town like Kuta. At home with his wife, Haji Bambang became strangely agitated when he realized it was 10:30. His 15-year-old son Wisnu, who worked at a restaurant near the Sari Club, hadn't returned home. "Why is it your son is not here yet?" he scolded his wife. "It is late!" His wife told him to take it easy, and reminded him that Wisnu was getting old enough to stay out later, but Haji Bambang wouldn't relent. He had his wife send Wisnu's cell phone a text message: "Wisnu go home. Daddy is very mad." The son obeyed, coming home at about 11.

Naseema Theile, 30, had just wound up a dinner party at her vaulted, Middle Eastern-style home in Seminyak, two villages away. Theile was a beautiful German expatriate living on an inheritance with her two-year-old daughter Shana. Tonight she was entertaining a close friend from Germany, along with two buddies from the island: Deborah Lea Snodgrass, a 33-year-old American teacher, and Ecuadorian Ana Cecilia Avilés, a 46-year-old engineer. When dinner finished, Theile insisted the four go to the Sari Club for drinks. The women hopped on their motorbikes, arriving at the bar around 10:50.

Australians Tansen and Mira Stannard were also transplants to Bali: the couple had lived here for three years, ever since their guru in India died. Tansen, 57, is a doctor of alternative medicine ("an excellent acupuncturist," says a Bali expat), and 65-year-old Mira is a midwife who specializes in natural water births. On Saturday night they were in the center of Kuta's revel with their 25-year-old grandson Sai at the inauguration of a clothing store five doors from the Sari Club. The owners were friends from Brazil. That's the only reason they were there. The Stannards weren't into VBs and Jell-O shots. Jalan Legian wasn't their scene.

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