White racists on KF would always bitch and moan about foreigners misbehaving in their countries, while turning a blind eye to all the white people misbehaving when they themselves are on vacation and far from home. Can you imagine these white influencers taking their clothes off at their local park to take a lewd of themselves hugging a local tree?
It seems that hardly a day goes by without reports of another tourist offending local customs on Bali. There are bikini-clad yoginis doing ‘downward dog’ poses in temple gateways and half-naked hooligans arguing with traffic police over their lack of a crash-helmet. While the world asks what’s caused this sudden rush of inappropriate behaviour, travellers who know the island well are wondering why it’s taken so long for Balinese to stand up and say, “enough is enough!”
In 1972 the iconic surf-movie Morning of the Earth showed a naked hippy teaching elderly Balinese fishermen how to smoke cannabis. Four centuries after deserters from a Dutch ship called The Amsterdam became what might be referred to as the island’s first sex-tourist expats, the alleyways around Kuta Beach were a favoured hangout for gangs of drunken louts, prowling for magic mushrooms and young Indonesian prostitutes.
Long-term expats say that it’s amazing that tempers hadn’t already frayed decades ago but the predominantly Hindu population of this island (lying at the heart of the world’s largest Muslim country) are among the most welcoming and easy-going people on the planet. Finally, with patience apparently stretched to a breaking point, rules have been put in place to curb bad behaviour on the Island of the Gods.
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In the wake of the pandemic Bali became a chosen haven for ‘digital nomads’ and, more recently, tens of thousands of Russians flocked to the island. Economic strain has led to growing resentment from the islanders when it was perceived that these new arrivals were poaching local jobs.
Videos of foreign motorbike riders arguing with local police over their lack of a helmet (a law on the island) went viral and there was even a road-rage punch-up during a tailback caused by a religious procession. Meanwhile, a group of foreigners made official complaints about the crowing of cockerels (an unavoidable part of many Hindu ceremonies) in a local neighbourhood. Fortunately, it was the foreigners (not the cockerels) who were invited to leave.
“We need to remember that those misbehaving tourists are a very tiny minority,” Lucienne Anhar, Indonesian owner of Hotel Tugu Bali in Canggu, points out. “Most of them are from a younger crowd who are unaware of the authentic culture of Bali…except for the superficial one-second shots for their Instagram feeds.”
Within the last year the surf-town of Canggu and the yoga-heartland of Ubud have seen unfortunate incidents involving ‘social-media influencers’ or ‘life-coaches’. There have been several instances of Instagram influencers posing naked next to sacred trees, apparently unaware of the spiritual importance of what they considered to be sexy backdrops for their feeds…or of the fact that the resulting images could be defined as pornography under Indonesian law. Such thoughtlessly disrespectful behaviour is not a new phenomenon but when the incriminating images are instantly visible to many thousands of followers the fallout can be serious.
Deportation is only part of the punishment that 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 imprisonment. Balinese Hindus were horrified when the summits of Agung and Batur (two of the island’s most sacred volcanoes) were used as backdrops for selfies by naked foreigners. CNN subsequently reported that, at the end of May, Bali’s governor formally announced a ban on all recreational activities on all its 22 mountains.
Bali is trying to regain control of its tourists by closing mountains and banning ‘bonking’
It seems that hardly a day goes by without reports of another tourist offending local customs on Bali. There are bikini-clad yoginis doing ‘downward dog’ poses in temple gateways and half-naked hooligans arguing with traffic police over their lack of a crash-helmet. While the world asks what’s...www.yahoo.com
