Lombok tourists blissfully unaware of recent riots

Lombok tourists blissfully unaware of recent riots

By Christopher Torchia

SENGGIGI, Lombok (AP): Standing in a swimsuit by the pool of a
beachside resort, an Australian tourist was nonchalant about
recent street protests in Indonesia. The riots, he mistakenly
said Monday, were happening far away in the capital.

"That's all in Jakarta," 59-year-old Warren Bailey said before
settling down on a stool at an outdoor bar. "I'm only on holiday,
I don't read the newspapers."

If he had glanced at a local paper a day earlier, Bailey might
have got a jolt. The Suara Nusa daily carried frontpage color
photographs of a riot Saturday in which two men were killed in
Praya, just 20 miles (33 kilometers) southwest of his luxury
hotel.

In Senggigi on Lombok island and other vacation spots, many
tourists are largely insulated from a spreading wave of violent
protests against price hikes stemming from Indonesia's economic
slump. Five people have died since Friday.

Tourism, a big money-earner for Indonesia, is likely to suffer
if the unrest continues, scaring visitors away. It dropped last
year when Indonesian wildfires blanketed the region in thick
haze, and many Asian tourists with their own financial woes have
stayed at home.

For now, there is no direct threat to tourists. Resort towns
generate employment, and suffer less from desperation like that
in the towns and villages where unrest has broken out.

And rioters are intent on targeting the ethnic Chinese
shopkeepers who were forced to raise prices of food after the
Indonesian currency plunged in value last year. Chinese stores
have been looted and burned, forcing owners to seek refuge in
police stations.

"For the Chinese, it's not safe at all," said tourist Hesham
Hafez, an Egyptian-born businessman who lives in Dubai.

Indonesia's dilemmas seem a world away from the palmtree-lined
beaches, curio stands and cappuccino bars of Senggigi, 1,000
kilometers (625 miles) east of Jakarta.

Whether reclining on deckchairs in the sand or sipping fruit
juices at outdoor cafes, many tourists said they had heard that
the unrest was only in Jakarta. Unemployment in the capital of 10
million is up, but the city has so far been quiet.

"We haven't seen anything here," said Yvette Debavar, a 60-
year-old retired teacher from Belgium.

Yet on Saturday, the day of the riot in Praya, police officers
blocking traffic near the troubled town waved away the tour bus
that Debavar and her husband were traveling in.

The passengers weren't told why the bus had to take a detour
to reach local villages where handicrafts were on sale.

On Monday, as European tourists splashed in Senggigi's surf,
extra police patrols strolled around Mataram, a town a few miles
(kilometers) south that is home to the island's main airport.

But Bailey, the Australian tourist, was more worried about the
supermarket he runs back home. He said his son telephoned him to
say the store had nearly been held up by robbers.

"There are disturbances all over the world," Bailey said with
a shrug. "No matter where you go, it's a gamble."