INDONESIA including BALI

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 Travelling to Indonesia & Bali

Indonesia in general and Bali in particular is a place of intense beauty, populated by a mostly gentle and caring people. It should be one of the world’s most profound tourism paradises.

Naturally Indonesians have, like any other sovereign country the unquestioned right to exercise justice and impose laws of their own choosing. Lately however we have become convinced that their justice system is not conducive to holiday makers. 'Reasonable doubt' seems replaced by 'beyond a shadow of a doubt' thereby turning 'innocent until proven guilty' more into something akin of 'guilty until proven innocent'.  

Furthermore a legal argument seems to prevail, asserting  that 'in possession of drugs' does not necessitate the accused to actually know that they are in possession - in other words, if someone were to slip drugs into your bag and the police found them, you could be considered guilty - even if you had no inkling of where these drugs came from.

This can obviously make it a very uncertain place for holidaymakers.

Particularly the ‘Schappelle Corby’ case is a frightening experience and is vividly demonstrating the possible dangers for the traveller to Indonesia. – even to distant bystanders like us.

It is the story of an Australian beauty therapist who is accused of smuggling marihuana from Brisbane, Australia to Bali. While we in no way assert the innocence or otherwise of this young woman, it appears strange to say the least that she is to have smuggled marihuana from a country with high street drug costs to one with comparatively cheaper prices. We have heard no convincing explanation for this.

Most disturbingly to us, whether innocent or guilty, Ms Corby would have to be an extraordinarily strong woman to ever overcome the happenings of her experience in Indonesia. She is likely to continue suffering for a stupidity/crime - whether committed by her or not - that in Australia and most other western countries, would have fetched little more then a slap on the wrist.  A nagging doubt about the lady’s guilt, who has already spent a long time in jail, remains.

This coupled with - to most Westerners at least – very draconian punishments which range from very lengthy incarceration to life imprisonment in gaols that defy acceptable western standards or even firing squad, compels us to recommend

that potential tourists stay away from Indonesia and Bali until solutions have been found that make conditions more tourism friendly again.

For this reason and with great regret, we have removed all links to Indonesia from our travel library.

We hope that this will be temporary and that the Indonesian people and their government will work towards solutions that will make their Archipelago once more the tourism dream destination that it deserves to be.

PS. Since the original posting of the above, Ms Corby has been sentenced to 20 years in a Bali prison - The prosecution considers this too lenient a sentence and has lodged an appeal. Ms Corby has done likewise.

From the (restricted) information available to us, more than 'reasonable doubt' of her guilt remain.  

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