Posted by Vikki on Thursday, 25. February 1999 at 09:17 Bali Time:
In Reply to: Swimming ? posted by Colleen on Wednesday, 24. February 1999 at 07:12 Bali Time:
I would like to quote Melody Kemp and Australian environmental health consultant based in Bali. "Anyone who goes and swims in the ocean here should be concerned for their health. Doctors are increasingly seeing people suffering from ear, nose and eye infections in addition to the usual Bali Belly"
Journalist David Lesser says, It's only when you get out of your deck chair long enough to poke around on the spongy edges that you discover the dark side of paradise, Bali sinking into its own mire. Then you will see the sewage oozing out of the soil on the banks of the sayan terraces outside Ubud. You will see it in the wet season, excrement spilling from the septic tanks of three and four star hotels into the streets of Kuta and Legian and then into the sea. You will see it in the rubbish dumps - legal and illegal - motorways close to hotels and restaurants. You will see it in the reports that the Indonesian Government has not published about the state of Bali's beaches - bacteria so far above the World Health Organisations's recommended standards that you'd have to be crazy, or just plain ignorant, to take the plunge.
The fact is, Bali is being dangerously overdeveloped and, with it, its environment and culture ransacked. Such is the hunger for the quick rupiah, the staggering lack of planning and basic urban infrastructure, and the level of cronyism and corruption within Indonesia, that the forces lined up against Bali look insurmountable. Hell, even Greg Norman has as good as given his imprimatur to the idea that rice sickles can be turned into golf clubs.
So polluted are the waters that environmental experts don't discount the possibility of a large-scale cholera outbreak. "it's not a very popular notion," says Rio Helmi of the Wisnu Foundation, Bali's only environmental organisation, "but I think the possibiliy exists of a very large-scale cholera breakout. We've had smaller incidents where people have been infected, but it's never been widespread. Every day the possibility gets bigger."
On a personal note I had to think long and hard about returning to Bali for another holiday when I discoverd what is really going on there (even if you allow for some exageration). The island and the people are probably being raped, but I decided that, now that it has gone this far, it would be a disaster for the locals to lose tourists and their money, considering so many farmers have been forced off the land to make room for more tourist developments. Sorry to be so long winded, but I really am on my 'high horse' here.
My reccommendation is to go to Bali, spend as much money as you can on the locals, and not swim in the sea.