Destination: Indonesia
Tsunamis Bring Out the Best in Travelers
by Jim Benning | 01.30.05 | 7:03 PM ET
In much of Asia, Western tourists are best known for frittering away time on beaches and haggling over the price of $4 hotel rooms. But when the tsunamis struck, Jim Benning writes, many visitors proved worthy guests.
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Yahoo! BuzzTravelers: “The New Rapid Reaction Relief Squads”
by Jim Benning | 01.04.05 | 10:20 PM ET
Like many, we spent time over the last week glued to reports of the damage caused by the tsunamis in South Asia. Our hearts go out to everyone affected: the countless locals who lost loved ones and whose lives have been turned upside down, and the friends and family members of travelers who perished. The news has been overwhelming. But we have been heartened to see the response from the online travel community, as well as from travelers themselves. Lonely Planet has created a board on its Thorn Tree section for those seeking news of friends and relatives, and it looks as though some information is getting back. The Ethical Traveler has posted a list of aid organizations who could benefit from donations. And there is news in the Independent of countless travelers who, instead of fleeing devastated areas, have actually sought them out, offering to help in any way they can. According to the report: “Hundreds of holidaymakers have arrived…But they’re not planning on lazing by the pool. They are so appalled by the loss of life that they have become the new rapid reaction relief squads. Reports of similar mini-invasions of traveller volunteers are coming in from Thailand and parts of Indonesia. But nowhere is this trend more evident than in Sri Lanka…From the hotels of Colombo a steady stream of helpers make their way to the headquarters of aid organisations and emergency relief groups.” The news from South Asia is devastating. But out of such a disaster can come some good. These travelers are one small example of that.
I Heard the News Today
by Danielle Brigham | 01.27.03 | 9:57 PM ET
Australian Danielle Brigham always lamented that she couldn't find news about home while traveling abroad. Then came October 12.
On Bombs and Backpackers
by Jim Benning | 12.16.02 | 4:20 PM ET
Time magazine’s Michael Elliott has crystallized our thoughts perfectly. In an eloquent essay in the Dec. 16 issue, he laments the chilling effects the latest terrorist attacks in Kenya and Bali could have on global backpackers. “Few modern social developments are more significant and less appreciated than the rise of backpacker travel,” he writes. “The tens of thousands of young Australians, Germans, Britons, Americans and others who wander the globe, flitting from Goa to Costa Rica, from Thailand to Tasmania, are building what may be the only example of a truly global community.”
But the bombs targeting tourists threaten all that. Elliott himself discovered Europe 30 years ago by hitchhiking around each summer. “I learned more from those trips than from years in school, and I’d begun to look forward to the day when my daughters would light out on their own ventures—to go see their relatives in Australia or hike in Tibet or do things in Bali that they wouldn’t want to tell Dad about,” he writes. “So add one more reason to hate what the terrorists have done: they’ve stolen our dreams.”
State Department Warnings on Bali: Confusing
by Jim Benning | 10.29.02 | 1:30 AM ET
Few predicted that Bali would be struck by the kind of violence that killed 180 people recently. But in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, writer Jane Engle suggests that the warnings were there. “When they bombed paradise on Oct. 12, nearly everyone was surprised—except, perhaps, those who had carefully read the travel safety announcements issued by the U.S. State Department,” she writes.
Engle notes that the U.S. State Department issued a November 2001 warning for Americans to avoid visiting Indonesia, and that two days before the bombing it issued a worldwide caution urging citizens to avoid places where Americans hang out, such as clubs and restaurants. “Taken together,” she writes, “the Indonesia and worldwide statements said, in effect: Don’t go to a club in Bali frequented by Americans. But you had to read both to get the full picture.”
I don’t believe that the travelers injured or killed in that Bali nightclub or any other tourists in Bali at the time were acting irresponsibly—that if they had only done their research they might have avoided the place. Sure, Bali has long been surrounded by troubled islands. But the fact is that before the bombing, Bali was said to be generally safe—by the State Department and many others. A couple of months before the bombing, while researching a travel article, I called the State Department to question the agency’s contradictory statements about Bali. (As Engle later notes, the department’s consular information sheet for Indonesia both warned that the country was dangerous and stated that Bali was largely free of disturbances.)
Should I really be writing an article suggesting Bali was safe, I asked? Is it responsible? Not to worry, a department official told me. Bali had a safe track record, hence the caveat about the island being free of disturbances.
So there you go. State Department warnings and statements, however well intentioned, often raise more questions than they answer. The department’s statements about Bali were contradictory and confusing. Fortunately, Engle urges travelers to tap other sources of information about potential destinations beyond the State Department.
On that point, I couldn’t agree more.
On Bali, Fear and Imagination
by Jim Benning | 10.18.02 | 7:44 PM ET
The terrorists who killed backpackers and others in Bali see tourists as symbols of materialist culture. With their murderous act, they want to reverse the trend of globalization, but Andrew Lam hopes they don’t succeed.
“While I mourn the deaths of those killed in Bali, I remain optimistic that human movement will continue,” he http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14309” target=“_blank”>writes in Pacific News Service via Alternet. “The world is too interconnected, too integrated, after all, for that trend to be reversed by fear.”
Lam sees travel as a radical act that challenges orthodoxy, and he won’t be deterred from traveling. “The idea of a static world immobilized by fear is one where the imagination dies,” he writes. “That is far more terrifying to me than any terrorist bomb.”
We couldn’t agree more.
R.I.P. Bali Bomb Victims, Bali Tourism
by Jim Benning | 10.17.02 | 7:48 PM ET
The terrorist bomb that killed hundreds in Bali has touched travelers the world over. Jason Gaspero, for one, knew he’d never be the same when he heard about
the explosion from his home in Hawaii. Gaspero spent years teaching English in Bali, and he was a regular at the Sari Club, the site of the explosion.
“The Sari Club was, in my opinion the finest international vortex of hedonism and decadence in the whole wide world, and I say that after much consideration,” he writes on Lonely Planet Online. “I mean, you could find people from everywhere in this place: Australia; Canada; Sweden; New Zealand; South Africa; Denmark; Norway; England; Argentina; South Korea; France; Germany and dozens and dozens of other countries. It was the United Nations of drunken, sweaty, sex-crazed glory, and it was all in fantastic fun.” Gaspero insists that his will to travel will not be diminished.
Meanwhile, shaken British tourists are returning home. Australians are trying to make sense of the devastation in their backyard. And Southern California surfers, at least a few of them, say they won’t be deterred from visiting Bali, where great waves promise to be less crowded than ever.
A Time of Living Dangerously?
by Chuck Newman, Chris Dickson | 10.18.01 | 12:55 AM ET
Stories of unrest in Jakarta run almost daily on CNN and BBC. Chuck Newman and Chris Dickson, however, aren't yet ready to flee.
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