Thread: Bali Schoolies shows its seedy side

An injured teenager stumbling down a Bali street interrupted A Current Affair's exposé of offshore schoolies celebrations.

NSW Central Coast teenager, Kirk, was disoriented and his foot badly injured after a motorbike accident when he passed the film crew and was taken to hospital.

"Oh mate, I've been looking forward to it for about a year now and now it's all been half flushed down the drain," he told reporter Ben McCormack.

"It ruined everything, yeah ruined just everything."

Kirk needed 20 stitches in his foot, and flew back to Australia once he was released from hospital.

McCormack said it was just one example of the trouble the crew found awaiting unsupervised graduates partying overseas.

"Walking from club to club, schoolies are constantly offered drugs," he said. "We were offered everything from heroin to cocaine and magic mushrooms."

"When something goes wrong you can't just call triple zero."

Bali "happy hours" involve free cocktails containing potent and unidentified mixes of spirits, and identification is rarely required to enter bars and nightclubs.

Security consultant Richard Flax told A Current Affair the number of teenagers heading overseas to celebrate schoolies had skyrocketed in recent years.

"Because it's cheap, it's fun, they haven't got anyone on their shoulders. They can do literally whatever they want," Mr Flax said.

Bali Schoolies shows its seedy side

Baffles me why you would fly home from your "dream holiday" because of a few stitches but I love how they fail to mention the kids who die in accidents in Australia going to schoolies, the rapes, the overdoses, the alcohol poisoning and fights here in Aust.

A tiny bit of supervision and accountability goes a long way in life.

I have NEVER been offered heroin or cocaine by someone on the street in Bali. Not even one single time.

Originally Posted by Adam

Hi Dude!

I have. Lots. Maybe it's just because I look dodgier than you lol. The offers of ecstasy and marijuana are far more common but the others are there, too. Worse place of all was the old 66 Club. That place was like the movies with the cliche 'bloke with a trenchcoat' hiding out in the dunnies with his jacket full of wares.

The feature did make one valid point though, one that I have wondered about for a long, long time. How is it they manage to pick up the westerners on drug charges so easy, yet these scumbags making the offers crawl the sidewalks of every single day of every single week? The other interesting thing I noticed from the 'fishbowl' perspective is how willing the locals are to fill the tourists full of grog yet how little (ie none) help was rendered soon as these idiots were legless. Even after literally hundreds of nights out on the seedy strip it was something I had never taken notice of before and was quite an embarrasment to the so called 'kind, friendly, helpful' nature of the Balinese. Helpful to the last rupiah, perhaps.

I've never been able to grasp the concept of 'schoolies week', probably never will. For a start, the majority of the kids are underage so there are no excuses for alcohol to be part of their celebrations. Period. I think the footage speaks for itself why the age limit is 18 and should be a lot higher. The parents who allow their children to take part in it need to be slapped or at least hit with some form of child abuse charge as it is irresponsible at best. Further, I truly don't understand what the big hoo haa is about finishing school and the need to celebrate like you've just won lotto. If they think school is tough they aint seen nothin' yet, the fun is just starting.

If nothing else at least it showed Bali as a schoolies destination in a negative light. The less schoolies that arrive in Bali the better, for everyone.

Hey Adam, i was spending a lot of time in a particular bar on the strip a few years ago.....drunk and having a good time.. Anyway, this same dude kept offering me drugs every nite, same guy. I decided to follow him one nite after he offered me, and guess where he went? To a police car parked down the street. Go figure

Originally Posted by Adam

Hi Dude!

I have. Lots. Maybe it's just because I look dodgier than you lol. The offers of ecstasy and marijuana are far more common but the others are there, too. Worse place of all was the old 66 Club. That place was like the movies with the cliche 'bloke with a trenchcoat' hiding out in the dunnies with his jacket full of wares.

Maybe you do look a bit dodgier than me. Or maybe they are a bit more afraid they might have to actually DODGE out of my way if they angered me LOL!

Anyways, sure I've had marijuana, mushrooms, ecstasy and ephedrine offered to me on the streets in Kuta more times than I could count. Not much experience with 66 either and a bit late for that now. Still though, I haven't had anyone offer me heroin or cocaine in my whole time here and while I'm sure it happens, it is much less frequent than the others and was just commenting as I thought those were added to the article for effect.

Amazing how many services one guy on a motorbike is able to offer though. Transport, mushrooms, young ladies, arak - these guys are like a party on wheels!

Originally Posted by goldminer

Hey Adam, i was spending a lot of time in a particular bar on the strip a few years ago.....drunk and having a good time.. Anyway, this same dude kept offering me drugs every nite, same guy. I decided to follow him one nite after he offered me, and guess where he went? To a police car parked down the street. Go figure

Hi Goldminer, (hope you're staying cool at the moment)

Doesn't surprise me in the slightest. I often wonder how less congested the party strip would be if the local cling-ons and loiterers would just bugger off. So many people just seem to be 'hanging around', occupying precious space with their person and quite often, motorbike. Similarly annoying are those doing 'boglaps' down Jl Legian in their clapped out cars, stereos maxxed out and distorting. Saturday nights are just chaos, not worth going out.

Still, the most shocking propositions I've had haven't been from drug pushers. I'll never forget walking home just before sunrise one night. I won't elaborate the full details of the experience but lets just say it involved an old local lady with no teeth, a sarong and no underpants. What remaining shred of innocence Bali still had for me was completely lost on that fateful morning. Wish I didn't have to see it.

Originally Posted by Adam

Hi Goldminer, (hope you're staying cool at the moment)

Doesn't surprise me in the slightest. I often wonder how less congested the party strip would be if the local cling-ons and loiterers would just bugger off. So many people just seem to be 'hanging around', occupying precious space with their person and quite often, motorbike. Similarly annoying are those doing 'boglaps' down Jl Legian in their clapped out cars, stereos maxxed out and distorting. Saturday nights are just chaos, not worth going out.

Still, the most shocking propositions I've had haven't been from drug pushers. I'll never forget walking home just before sunrise one night. I won't elaborate the full details of the experience but lets just say it involved an old local lady with no teeth, a sarong and no underpants. What remaining shred of innocence Bali still had for me was completely lost on that fateful morning. Wish I didn't have to see it.

wot a
sight

Originally Posted by calitobali

Still though, I haven't had anyone offer me heroin or cocaine in my whole time here and while I'm sure it happens, it is much less frequent than the others and was just commenting as I thought those were added to the article for effect.

I'm sure that's exactly what they were up to. Aussie journalism is absolute rubbish at best, with the possible exception of some stuff that comes from the ABC. Still, I think the more negative press 'Schoolies week in Bali' gets, the better. I kinda had wished that they reported crocodiles and tigers still roam the streets and haemorragic fever was in plague proportions.

I've been offered heroin, cocaine, LSD, even opium. I don't do any of that stuff, and even if I did, much of it would be fake.

More disturbing to me are the child prostitutes soliciting on the main streets. Never followed any to see if they hopped into police cars.

Originally Posted by JohnnyCool

More disturbing to me are the child prostitutes soliciting on the main streets. Never followed any to see if they hopped into police cars.

Possibly. More likely to be a business transaction than law and order though I'd imagine.