🇮🇩 Will a tax curb Bali's bad tourists?
A happy and safe Idul Fitri to all those that celebrate 💖
Hello friends!
Jakarta has emptied out and I have Lebaran FOMO. While I am not of the face, I’ll take Jakarta’s lead and lay low, enjoy blue skies and eat heaps of great food this weekend. Happy Eid to all those who celebrate!
We’ll check in on the Thai election tomorrow and then be back on track next week.
Thanks!
🇮🇩 Speaking truth, or at least complaining, to power
Enormous story this week after Bima Yudho Saputro, a student from Lampung currently studying in Sydney, criticised his hometown on TikTok. He said: “poor infrastructure, systemic corruption and nepotism, and poor education to be among the problems holding back progress in Lampung,” as per Coconuts. A local filed a complaint with the police while local lawmakers, including the governor, laid in on the young fella. Police have since said there are no grounds for any criminal charges.
This could’ve been just one of those weird viral stories that fizzle out, but it has taken over the country (it was independently brought up by friends twice yesterday and already once today). It speaks to a larger concern that the space in which citizens are allowed to criticise leadership is ever shrinking. I do not think this is strictly Indonesian or even a Southeast Asia thing, but dang it’s a good case study!
Bali is talking about a tourist tax. I would be stunned if it happened so we won’t spend any time on it, but, as Rebecca Ratcliffe here at the Guardian notes, it’s directly linked to the increasing tiredness with some tourists’ behaviour. It comes as immigration authorities in Bali deported a Russian woman on Monday. She had caused an outcry after posing nude in front of a sacred 700-year-old banyan tree on the island.
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