Bali News / Island’s News Updates

The US has canceled its seven-year warning against travel to Indonesia. The US government deems the security situation to have improved and the Indonesian government has welcomed the move describing it as long overdue. The warning was imposed in November 2000 following sectarian conflicts and terrorist attacks. The worst of the bombings was a double suicide attack on Bali nightclubs in 2002 and the last bombing was in Bali in October 2005.

The ruling was lifted on Friday because of “objective improvements made by Indonesia in its current security situation” according to US ambassador Cameron Hume.

Travel insurance will now be far easier to come by for Americans and Indonesia’s trade minister Mari Pangestu believes the move will make Indonesia more attractive to US investors, holidaymakers and companies looking for meeting venues.

Regarding travel to Indonesia the UK Foreign Office advice is as follows: “There remains a high threat from terrorism in Indonesia. We believe that terrorists continue to plan attacks, which could be indiscriminate, including in places frequented by expatriates and foreign travelers. Terrorist attacks in Bali in October 2005 and October 2002 killed and injured a number of British nationals. You should take sensible precautions for your personal safety and avoid large crowds, political gatherings and demonstrations.”

Written by Rupert Murray
Published on TTG Live - ttglive.com

Jock Barnes was woken by a stranger running a sharp instrument along the inside of his foot. Terrified, he started shouting and struggled to free himself, but men held the Lennox Head surfer down grimly. The men were Indonesian doctors who were treating Mr Barnes at a hospital in the Balinese capital of Denpasar after he had fallen head-first off the third storey of the Okie House Hotel at Kuta.

Mr Barnes fell while he was sleepwalking, and his last memory before waking battered and bruised in the hospital was going to sleep in his comfortable hotel room. Incredibly, the 26-year-old survived the 10-metre drop, however, he fractured his C7 and T1 vertebrae, needed 17 staples in a gaping head wound, and suffered some minor bruising and scratching to the rest of his body.

As reported in The Northern Star last week, Mr Barnes was airlifted from Bali to the Royal Perth Hospital on May 10, one day after the fall. He returned home to Lennox Head on Saturday and is expected to make a full recovery. But the whole experience remains confusing for the former World Qualifying Series competition surfer, because he can’t remember how it happened.

Mr Barnes was on assignment for Australia Surfing Life magazine. “I left at 9am from Brisbane to Singapore and then to Bali, and I got to the hotel about 9pm,” he said. “I remember getting comfortable, laying down and going to sleep, and then waking when there was a sharp pain at the bottom of my foot. “I started yelling ‘Who are you and why are you in my room’, but the doctors held me down and said I’ve got a big laceration on my head and to stay still.”

As Mr Barnes lay in the Bali hospital his parents, Susan and Steven, called on former Lennox resident Karne Faint, who now lives in Bali, to check how their son was and how the accident occurred. “It wasn’t until he came to see me that I realised how serious things were,” Mr Barnes said. “He told me what happened as he had gone to the hotel to pick up my stuff and looked down from the balcony.

“It looks like I hit two pergolas on the way down. “I actually ended up in the neighboring property on someone’s doorstep. “It was loud enough that the neighbors came out and found me. “They told the hotel, who then bundled me into the back of a taxi to hospital.”

After some initial tests at Denpasar doctors feared Mr Barnes would never walk again, even though the part-time surfing journalist had movement and feeling in his limbs. His travel insurance company then flew in two doctors from Singapore, and their prognosis differed from the Indonesians. They then arranged for him to be airlifted to Perth. For three days Mr Barnes underwent further testing in Perth and there were thoughts he might need surgery.

But finally the good news arrived, along with his first meal in days, that he would just be in a neck brace for six to 12 weeks and should make a full recovery. “I was absolutely ecstatic to hear that,” Mr Barnes said. “Because everything had happened so quickly, and I didn’t have a single memory of what happened, it was hard to digest such a life-altering thing.”

Since his return to Lennox Head, family and friends have told Mr Barnes stories of his sleepwalking past. He believes his episodes are brought on by stress, or by sleeping in unfamiliar places. He hopes to manage the condition better in the future. Until he does, some friends have joked that he should tie himself to his bed with a leg rope.

“My mother is adamant that I’m not sleeping any higher than on the first floor of any building from now on,” Mr Barnes chuckled.

Written by Steve Spinks
Published on Northern Star - northernstar.com.au

A modern and permanent port for foreign cruise ships will be built in the island resort of Bali, chief of Bali Provincial Transportation Office Putu Sujana Cahyanta said here on Thursday. He expressed hope that after the completion of the port, foreign cruise ships passing by the Indonesian waters would take a few days of their time to make a port call in the Indonesian island of paradise.

“Luxury cruises ships carrying tourists from other countries to Singapore are expected to come to Bali as well after the modern, permanent port is ready,” Putu Sujana said.

He pointed out that at least 300 luxury cruise ships, each with 1,500 to 2,000 tourists, arrived in Singapore every year.

“Those floating hotels on their way to a number of countries in Asia usually pass Indonesian waters, and therefore they are expected to make a stop in Bali when the port is ready,” Putu Sujana said, adding that the facility was under construction.

He estimated that even if only a half of the 300 cruise ships made port calls to Bali, it would have a positive impact on the tourist industry in the province, as well as on the local people`s economy.

Putu Sujana said the modern port for cruise ships was under construction in Karangasem district with a financial support from the central government, Bali provincial administration, and Karangasem district administration.

The construction of the port is expected to finish in 2009.

At least 17 cruise ships with thousands of foreign tourists stopped at the old port in Karangasem in 2007, and 15 cruise ships in 2006.

One of them was Italian Costa Marina cruise with 496 tourists which anchored at Karangasem port for two days.

Putu Sujana said that before the Bali bombing tragedy, more than 20 cruise ships made a stop in Bali, and in 1995 alone 70 of them with hundreds of thousands of tourists arrived in the resort island.

News by ANTARA - antara.co.id

Whilst February allowed Bali to host over 18, 371 Chinese tourists, tourism in March has fallen 60.7 percent to 7,205 Chinese tourists. The first quarter of 2008 witnessed 36, 004 Chinese tourists flying directly to Bali, according to Jam Jam Zamachsyari, the head of the distributions statistics section at the Bali provincial statistics office.

Tourists from China are essential to Balinese tourism, as China ranked fourth in terms of foreign tourist arrivals in Bali for the first quarter of 2008.

With Japan as the apparent leader, delivering 94 456 tourists to the shores of Bali, Australia and Taiwan trailed with 57, 647 and 36, 933 tourists respectively.

Despite the reduction in Chinese patronage, the overall number of foreign tourists visiting Bali this quarter escalated 28.7 percent, from 346, 816 to 447, 566 visitors.

The improvement and multiplication of services connecting China to Indonesia ought to have a positive impact on the Chinese tourist numbers, Antara News reports.

“I believe the number of Chinese tourists visiting Bali will continue to increase due to the increasing number of flights from China to Jakarta and Denpasar,” tour operator Tjok Gde Agung said.

The Indonesian flag carrier, Garuda Indonesia, has expressed optimism regarding the future of Bali, proposing to achieve 22, 000 passengers between Beijing and Jakarta this year.

No doubt Garuda has taken into consideration the difficulty of competing with foreign airlines.

The current schedule allows Garuda to fly from Jakarta to Beijing three times a week.

The Ambassador of Indonesia to China mentioned that approximately 300, 000 Chinese tourists are expected to visit Indonesia in 2008.

News by e-Travel Blackboard - etravelblackboardasia.com

To garner more visitors for Indonesia’s tourist program dubbed Visit Indonesia Year 2008, the government should grant more foreign airlines increased flight frequencies into Bali and other tourist destinations, an industry leader said Wednesday.

“If the government wants to be totally committed to making (the program) a success, it should start wooing other foreign airlines besides Singapore Airlines,” Tengku Burhanuddin, Secretary General of the Indonesian National Air Carriers Association (INACA), said.

“Tell them that since our national carrier is banned by the European Union, we’ll give them (foreign airlines) additional flight frequencies into Indonesia.”

The Ministry of Transportation recently granted Singapore Airlines an increase in flight frequencies from four to seven flights per day to support the government’s tourism program.

Singapore Airlines provides flights from Singapore to Bali, Jakarta and Medan, and the flights increase could see traveler capacity rise to 15,000 per week.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla, along with Transportation Minister Jusman Syafii Djamal and Tourism and Culture Minister Jero Wacik, reached the decision upon learning that European tourists were having difficulties finding direct flights from Singapore to Bali due to a recently prolonged EU ban on Indonesia’s national carriers.

Tengku said the government should also grant European airliners direct routes to Bali and other tourist destinations, including Makassar in South Sulawesi and Surabaya in East Java.

“There’s no reason why the government can’t grant more flight frequencies to other foreign airliners. Let them build our tourism market for us and then, when we’re ready, we’ll slowly tap into that market,” he said.

Currently, only Singapore Airlines and Garuda Indonesia are authorized to fly the Singapore-Bali route, with Garuda operating one direct flight per day. Budget Indonesian carrier Lion Air has plans to tap into the route soon, and the ministry of tourism and culture has stated several foreign airliners have requested permission to operate it too.

A recent Ministry survey on European passengers found that 30 percent of those wishing to visit Bali were forced to switch destinations due to flight unavailability.

The government has also recently opened the Yogyakarta-Kuala Lumpur route to two airliners: Malaysia Airlines, which would use the 144-passenger carrying Boeing 737, and AirAsia, which would use the Airbus A 320, with 180 passenger capacity.

News by The Jakarta Post - thejakartapost.com