In Reply to: Declining travelers, help needed. posted by Bapak_ken on Saturday, 21. January 2006 at 10:15 Bali Time:
are obviously the very best intentions for helping the needy, sadly, these 'intentions' are NOT shared by all Indonesians.
There is a posting above wherein the poster says something about many readers only wanting to read the 'shiny' side of the Bali story. This is sad & silly.
About 2 1/2 years ago, we assisted with the shippment of a very large quantity od donated goods to help people in Bali. This shippment arrived at Denpasar only to be "quarantined" pending payment for whatever reason. It took over 12 months, a fair few dollars and a lot of effort by many good people to finally get MOST of this shippment released to those who needed it.
The lesson?.. personally, I would NEVER send donated goods to Bali ever again, instead, I would carry the goods as personal items and distribute them when I arrived. I stress that this is a PERSONAL opinion/decision based on experience, and will NOT apply to many, especially those wearing rose coloured glasses.