The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
What is Bali doing about unruly tourists?
It seems that hardly a day goes by without a tourist offending local customs on Bali. There are bikini-clad yoginis doing “downward dog” poses in temple gateways and half-naked hooligans arguing with local traffic police. Why don’t the Balinese stand up and say, “enough is enough”?
One obvious reason is that these predominantly Hindu people are among the most welcoming and easygoing on earth – but finally, with patience stretched to breaking point, even they have put rules in place to curb bad behaviour on the island.
In May The Jakarta Post reported that 101 foreigners were deported in the first four months of this year – including 27 Russians, eight British and seven Americans – and I Wayan Koster, Bali’s governor, issued a list of rules for tourists to observe. Foremost on the list are reminders to dress and behave modestly at religious sites. Discussions are also under way concerning a “tourist tax” (perhaps as much as £80 per visitor) to prevent Bali from becoming known as a budget destination.
It’s not the first time laws have been put in place to reverse the perception of Bali as a party island. In 2015 there was a short-lived prohibition on the sale of alcohol away from major tourist spots and in 2018 the banning of bikinis made international headlines for a few days – and was just as quickly forgotten. More controversial was what the Australian press called the “Bali bonk ban” on cohabiting – ratified in December last year. A spate of cancelled holidays led to the governor clarifying that the new law would not apply to tourists.
In the wake of the pandemic, Bali became a haven for “digital nomads” and, more recently, tens of thousands of Russians flocked there. Videos of foreign motorbike riders arguing with police over their lack of a helmet (a law on Bali) went viral. Meanwhile, a group of foreigners made official complaints about the crowing of cockerels in a local neighbourhood. The foreigners – not the cockerels – were invited to leave.
Within the past year the surf town of Canggu and the yoga heartland of Ubud have seen unfortunate incidents involving tourists – such as Instagram influencers posing naked next to sacred trees, apparently unaware of their spiritual importance (or the fact that the resulting images could be defined as pornography under Indonesian law).
Such disrespectful behaviour is not new – but when the images are instantly visible to thousands of followers, the fallout can be serious.
Deportation is only part of the punishment offenders face. Indonesia has extremely strict anti-pornography rules and some well-documented cases of foreigners exposing themselves on camera have been met with threats of up to 10 years in prison.
Most of Bali’s inhabitants (whether islanders, expats or tourists) agree that the Island of the Gods would be a better place if the minority of disrespectful visitors could be deported overnight. Fortunately, that tiny, unruly minority tends to congregate in relatively small clusters and is easily avoided.
The recent scandals and clampdowns have been described as a storm in a teacup. One Australian who has worked for two decades in the tourism industry on a remote part of the island told me: “It will all blow over and Bali will return to being the wonderful place it has always been… minus a few culturally insensitive tourists who should never have been allowed in to begin with.”