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."