On Kuta Beach

I refer to the letter by Horst Geerken in The Jakarta Post, Dec. 20, titled Filth and sloth on Kuta Beach. He said that many tourists in Kuta are complaining about the "unbearable" situation.

Have the Balinese people not suffered enough!

I am here again for Christmas and find the beaches quite beautiful.

How dare you say you see "the local people sitting around talking and talking and not cleaning the beach".

Is it their job to clean up the mess, the majority of which is contributed by Westerners?

I am glad to hear that you would rather visit Thailand for your next holiday. Because it is people like you who expect to be waited on hand and foot, and who treat the Balinese people like the rubbish you see on these beaches.

Holiday, or no holiday, Westerners are a large source of these beaches being "unbearable". Do not kid yourself. I am more than sure you have done your fair share of littering the streets and beaches of Bali with garbage.

Instead of complaining and writing about it, why don't you do something different for a change and pick up after yourself, or aid in the process of cleaning these beaches you find so "unbearable".

JOLIE E. DOREY, Jakarta