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SECURITY in Bali is
now very tight compared to the free and easy days of just
a few years ago when you could walk into the arrival hall
at the airport to meet arriving friends.
Without going into
too much detail a December 2006 security audit by Australian
company SMP reported "Bali has a visibly and vastly more improved security
situation than ever before."
NOWHERE IS COMPLETELY
SAFE as evidenced by the attacks in New York, Madrid, London
and Bangkok, the foiling of attacks in Australia, and Heathrow
and further attacks in London. Unfortunately we live in a
different world than before.
TRAVEL WARNINGS are
loaded against developing countries, are here to stay and
should be taken with a large grain of salt. On a scale of "exercise caution" to "do
not travel" the Australian government rates USA 1, UK and Spain 2, Uganda
among others 3 and Bali at 4 "Reconsider your need to travel" is lumped
in with the likes of other top tourist destinations like
Angola, Columbia, East Timur, Haiti, Pakistan and Syria.
Bali attracted 1.33million
foreign visitors last year, the vast majority of whom had
a great, safe holiday. Information on visitors to other countries
in this group is sketchy but it is known that visitors to
east Timur include several hundred Australian and New Zealand
soldiers on peacekeeping duties.
TAKE
GRAN TO BALI. A different travel warning!
Robert Pelton, (Discovery channel's host of "The worlds most dangerous
places") has a website where gives his own version of travel warnings at http://comebackalive.com.
His 4 step system ranges from "A vacation with Grandma" to "Could be
your last trip."
He gives a much more balanced view as he groups Indonesia, along
with the likes of Australia, EU nations, Malaysia and Canada
as great places to take dear old Gran. More interestingly this
safest of ratings is not given to the USA, which he rates one
step down,on a par with Brazil,India and Russia. Apparently Pelton
has some strange issue over the fact that there are a mere 20,000,000 firearms
in private ownership in the US and the crime-rate.
TIME MAGAZINE'S 4th
December 2006 cover story story "Why we worry about the wrong things" explains
how we ignore real risks to our lives like bad diet, lack
of exercise, overindulgence in drink or drugs to name but
a few that will definitely kill us before our time, while
we are paranoid about things that pose little or no risk
at all.
For example many people
have an irrational fear of flying and will avoid it if they
can make the same trip by other means. This is totally illogical
as around 500 times as many people die on the roads (and
many thousands more maimed) as are killed in airline accidents.
In the 3 months after the September 11 attack there were
an additional 1000 deaths on US roads and thousands more
injured because people shunned planes. In the same time there was not one
airline fatality. At that time security was so tight that the chances of
another hijack were zero so flying, the safest form of transport, had just
got safer. The facts were there but the irrational fear took control.
Terrorism is designed to strike fear in the heart out of all
proportion to the actual risks and as TIME explained, due to
the ancient structure of our brains, it works. The chances of
being killed or injured in a terrorist incident are roughly the
same as drowning in the bath and this doesn't increase much by
coming to Bali. The only real way for people like you and me
to combat terrorism is not to let them win. Take sensible precautions
but realise the risk is tiny and that life and holidays carry
on.
Those of us who spend
most of our year in Bali refuse to be intimidated and carry
on our lives the same as before and it works.
Bali is always
waiting. Come and enjoy.
Discover more about Villa Puri Indah - a truly outstanding Bali villa rental property.
"Villa Puri Indah - A Top Bali villa rental in the heart of Legian, Bali, Indonesia."
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