There's a large group of Indian couples waiting in the first-class lounge of the Ngurah Rai airport at Denpasar on the island of Bali in Indonesia. The men are casually dressed but smart: slacks, sport-shirts that bulge over the waist and expensive un-scuffed trainers. The wives are immaculately groomed, tossing waves of exquisitely streaked and tousled hair from left to right. They laugh and joke in a mixture of Hindi and English, shouting at the same time into their mobile phones as they talk among themselves.

"Where's the boy?" One swears in Hindi. "I asked for chai. He's forgotten the hot milk."

"Hot milk, please," the man barks before continuing to his friends, "It's the training. Our people used to be just the same until we trained them properly." The Balinese serving staff merely lower their heads and go about their work. The visitors are much larger and noisier than their diminutive, sarong-clad hosts.

Watching the group surreptitiously, I couldn't help but think that their confidence - both cultural and economic- reminded me of another nationality, Americans. Before the invasion of Iraq, some Americans used to stride the globe with a similar attitude even if many travelled with a deep curiosity about the countries they were visiting. As one of my Indian friends explained in her languid, fluent English of this increasingly ubiquitous traveller across south-east Asia, "Darling, we're here now and we're here to stay - it's our very special 'two fingers' to the world."

Similarly, I remember a group of wealthy Indian artists who stayed in a lavish villa above the town of Ubud in central Bali, overlooking a spectacular gorge. Reluctant to stray from their villa and accompanied by their own chef (who'd been specially flown in from Delhi with his supplies of besan , or flour), they spent most mornings not at the temples but devising their menus - kadi and pakoras - before turning to their canvases.

Fifty years ago, long before India was awash in IPOs, outsourcing and cable TV, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, was deep in the fraternal embrace of Sukarno, Indonesia's first president, who like Nehru had liberated his country from colonial rule. Nehru memorably described Bali as "the morning of the world". In those days, we were all brothers (and sisters) in poverty. Times have changed.

Still, it's hard to disagree with the Indian prime minister's poetic words - the island's dawn is extraordinarily beautiful. I will always delight in the first streaks of sunlight slicing through the mist across the lawn in front of my house. There's a gentle bustle of activity as Ubud - where I live - comes to life: staff shaking off the sleepiness from the night before as they set to work preparing the morning's temple offerings, the chickens beginning their day-long scramble for food, the dogs stretching, yawning and then flopping down in the direct sunlight, and the gardeners sweeping up the leaves and fallen frangipani flowers.

But Ubud, the princely and artistic enclave high above the traffic jams and honky-tonk of the towns of Kuta and Seminyak and the vast bed-factories of the Nusa Dua peninsula, is an anomaly even within Bali. With its rich volcanic soil, fast- running streams, rice-terraces folded into the landscape and temples and shrines, Ubud remains relatively unchanged, despite the encroachment of yoga centres, spas, villas and luxury hotels. For Ubud has managed its entanglements with modernity better than others, the town's cultural practices fiercely defended in the face of a constant stream of visitors.

Or so it seems, because in the years since the first Bali bomb blast in 2002, the island has experienced a deep economic slump as potential visitors fearful for their security deserted its beaches and temples. During those years, as the Americans, Europeans and Australians retreated to the Caribbean, the Mediterranean and Queensland respectively, other tourists - predominantly Asian - began to make up the shortfall, bringing their own particular demands.

Admittedly visitors from India are still only a small fraction of the island's tourists, trailing the Japanese and Koreans by a long way, but they bring with them a sense of dynamism and raw energy that stands in marked contrast to the self-effacement of the North Asians.

Certainly, Indians can be demanding guests. Yet on Bali, a Hindu island adrift in the world's most populous Muslim nation, the spirit of place exerts itself on the subcontinental sojourners. The warmth of the welcome extended by the Balinese to fellow Hindus despite the many differences in religious practice make the island a very special place for visitors from India.

For Indians going overseas for the first time, Singapore and Dubai with their endless shopping and dining are more attractive destinations. For some Indian tourists the exposure to Bali's village life is too close to home to be enjoyed as a holiday.

But it's reassuring to see even the most hard-nosed of Indian investment bankers and other businessmen donning the ritual sarongs and outfits of the Balinese to follow them in their prayers and ceremonies with palpable excitement.

Indians may well be the "new Americans" but in Bali among fellow Hindus their softer side emerges amid the surprising capacity of the island to adapt to changing forces of global culture, faith and economics.

Karim Raslan is a writer and consultant, who divides his time between Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and Ubud and is the author of 'Ceritalah: Malaysia in Transition'