Can Bali Bounce Back? How terror took the top end off a tourist paradise
Friday, November 3rd, 2006 by ablteamBy Jonathan Kent
Newsweek International
Nov. 6, 2006 issue - Transport, sir?” Wayan Oka, 28, spends much of his day hanging out with his friends on Monkey Forest Road in the town of Ubud. Indeed, walk down the streets of Bali’s cultural capital, and in 10 minutes you’ll be accosted by a dozen or more young men like Oka, sitting beside the road and hawking their services as unofficial taxi drivers. “You’re my first job today,” Oka says. It’s past 9 p.m. and Ubud’s streets are dark and almost deserted. The restaurants have long since emptied, and the bars are quiet Oka is 28 and an economics graduate, but with business this bad, there’s no demand for economists. “My girlfriend and I want to get married, but I don’t have enough money,” he says.
Before Oct. 12, 2002, international tourists thronged to Bali, a Hindu jewel set in a necklace of predominantly Muslim islands strung through warm equatorial seas. Then came the awful day when bombs went off in the Sari Club and Paddy’s Bar in the tourist center of Kuta, killing 202 people and injuring many more. The first major terrorist attack since 9/11 raised fears that the war on terror was opening a new Asian front, one that would choke off Bali’s economic lifeline: tourism.
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