Bad times for the Balinese.
Yeh not sure ,always been poor people in Indonesia.I live in Denpasar with my wife ,who is from Sumatra.Everyday life normal as ,recently in Sumatra sama sama.No doubt anyone in hock feeling it but credit re payments have been massively eased by government.Yeh Kuta ,Legian ghost towns but a lot more to Bali and Indonesia than that.Ada Sembako di mana mana.Weekends at Sanur beaches packed with locals as per usual.Everyone just rolling along.In Denpasar all throughout this you wouldn't know that anything is out of the ordinary.Business as usual.Indonesians are a pretty resilient people.I would not believe anything the media says these days.
"I would not believe anything the media says these days"
ha ha, me either
Thanks for your thoughts Horas. I've been out of the loop a bit RE Indonesia for about ten years for various reasons so it's good to have some on the ground insight into what's going on over there. I have always admired and liked the Indonesian people so it was with a heavy heart that I read the article I linked.
Yeah media can be a bit hard to trust and you could get those pics of bone skinny old people any year in Indonesia as there is a lot of poverty in Indo when you start really looking, but I'm still sure there is a lot of people really hurting even if you dont see it.
Some of my wife's family and some Indo friends are starting to do it pretty hard having basically no work or lost jobs, my wife brother was doing Ubur before Covid and earning about $50 a day which is really good money in Indo ($1,000 a month if work 5 days a week) but he hasn't been able to work since Covid hit Indo, the demand has totally dropped, so although he has family to support him, it's still stressful being bored and not knowing what the future is.
I guess it's no different to anywhere, millions of stories out there, but i guess the difference in Indo is much less government support, it's generally family and community that people fall back on.
If they are going to encourage that, hey really need to come up with a Visa that caters for for those that work online etc as currently its a very fuzzy area.
Some interesting different stories on there indo , not always the best reporting but gives a general idea what’s going on in Bali
From the Bali Beat - "Bali has most definitely flattened the curve, as the 7-day average continues its downward trend. It’s dropped 25% since its peak eight days ago, from 373 on Jan. 27 to 278 yesterday."
Have a read of this article: https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/300165800/covid19-bali-faces-its-bigg...
I hadn't given it much thought but they really are suffering over there. I wonder if the situation is lost on all those expats who are surfing up a storm atthe moment.