General info on current situation in Bali and Java

[cboyum]

Hello everyone. Thought I would send out a heads up that Bali and G-land have been very uncrowded recently. I think this has a little to do with the bad press on Indonesia recently. Honestly it has felt pretty safe and most of those news stories are blown out of context. I have lived here for 15 years now and never have felt a serious threat to me or my family. Anyway, it is a good time to head here in the early season to get some nice waves.
Aloha,

Cyrus Boyum

[borneng]

I agree with you totally. Although I do think that it's kind of nice the fact that Bali has been uncrowded for reasons such as; the hotel I was staying felt like the place was all mine to myself or better surf conditions because there weren't too many people lining up for the waves; but I genuinely feel sorry for the local people with the slowness of their tourism business or income.

Bali have got good weather, good food, good surf and friendly people. These are more than enough reason to go there.

Those nasty publicity about Bali will not stop me from going back there or even getting a little surf shack of my own

[HitAndRun]

Forgive my ignorance, but what happend there? i would love to travel to indonesia sometime, but wont go until i get all my facts together.

[borneng]

You're not being ignorant at all. There's nothing really going on in Bali apart from the place being not-crowded as it used to be. I was there for 2 weeks and absolutely loved it and can't wait to go back (I still think there's some kind of positive side to the fact that its not crowded. Really gives the paradise feeling)

I suppose many people are still very worried about the terrorist and their bombs (My friend's parents thinks Bali is way too dangerous to go that they ruled it out of their holiday destination).

Many people asked me whether or not I'm worried about the terrorist when I was leaving to Bali last February. Of course I was a little worried. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't. But then again, there are a lot of other things I'm worried about too. But I try not to let these fears stop me from doing things and especially the thing I love most. I still went surfing in Lanzarote or Florida despite my great fear of sharks (I might be going to Newport Bay, CA in April), or take the airplane to travel despite my great fear during landing and taking off. Or even staying under scorching sun for hours despite my extraordinarily sensitive skin allergy against UV which leaves me a stronger candidate for skin cancer (I seriously have to cover up my skin and look silly most of the time though).

The thing is, yes of course there's always dangers in every where you go or what ever you do. It really depends on each person how far these fear will limit the person's life.

Indonesia is a pretty big country though. If you think Bali is too scary to go like majority of people think then maybe go to G-Land or Mantawai even. I heard that they've started to have many local surfer in Mentawai area and they are friendly people and just happy to see other surfer. And since these are not heavily commercialised tourist area perhaps the terrorist might not add it to their "to bomb" list.