Bali Expat Forum - Bali Travel Forum

Froggy

Hearsay; do I read hearsay?

Froggy, I never gave a shit on hearsay or rumours – I hate this and I ignore this – always and everywhere!

We we're sharing the same table (Brian’s table) and your wife was eating the olives out of my Martinis, at least one other member of this forum was present, when you rode up and down with the scooter completely drunk, you drove your daughter up and down several times !

The one who has no idea what to talk about is YOU!

I would like to say, you never have a clue what you are talking about – but I will be polite and spare this!

PS: need some more fire?

Well, I dont remember you , so you must have not made much of an impression on me and you were prob. boring, Robin's sitting here and she says I was nowhere near drunk (a few beers yes), ! I have a bad memory even without alchohol... Like I posted earlier, if I was driving badly, I WAS SOBER! But nice to know that you would let drunk out of their mind guys ride around with their kids, if thats what you really thought.. So much for your bravado....

60 mill to be a cop in Bali, sign me up!! Tin's right you guys would be bribed for much more than that!!!! It would be a blast to be a western cop in bali... Where do I get an application.??? ADAM, I thought my grammer and english was bad. As bad as yours is, you shouldnt be driving anything, can you even spell STOP? Your killing me- just dont run your scooter into a bali gang? or whatever you meant.
You wrote: "My concern is not for me, if I break my own leg stiff bikkies. Its for everybody else on the Bali gangs and jalans that could be affected by my incompetence and I wish the other IDIOT tourists that think its clever to hoon around in anarchy " what the hell is "leg stiff bikkies" and "hoon around in anarchy"? ,,, you my friend should not have a licence, theres no way you passed the written test.....

Ok, lets look at this rationally - you go on holiday to have a good time, right?
Driving a motorbike is fun.

Those guys in the vid were breaking some law (couldn't get quite which one) so the cop, bent or not, was doing his job.

The guys on bikes got told what to do and the cop got paid for doing a shitty job (well and with a friendly attitude - if you don't agree don't ever get stopped in America).

Who was hurt? Don't give the b.s. corruption in Asia argument, cause it aint just there friend, and it aint keeping the economy down - not at that level, at least.

The guys rode off and minded what they were doing for the rest of their stay and probably had a damn good time and a story to tell when they got home - good for em.

Life is for having a good time, maybe there are some risks and some people have it all end in tears, for most of us it don't. - shit happens, don't take it so seriously.

I couldn't care less if someone is licensed or not. The important thing is they can ride. The licensing system is just another bureaucracy right? There are plenty of people who have a license who shouldn't.

I'm mainly concerned about the insurance aspect. If you aren't licensed to ride a motorbike then you aren't insured. A serious road accident will wipe out the average person financially. If you run into me you better make sure you can pay.

A lot of people also don't seem to be aware that even if you have an international license you aren't licensed to ride a motorbike unless you hold a motorbike license in your home country.

As an aside, just because something is reported in a newspaper doesn't mean it isn't hearsay. The poisoning of the Bali street dogs story is a case in point.

Don't give the b.s. corruption in Asia argument, cause it aint just there friend, and it aint keeping the economy down - not at that level, at least.

What the? What planet are you living on Astro Boy?

Allen, you have a good point on the insurance aspect, there are illegals driving all over this country with no insurance, millions of them, not just a few tourist but millions,, but when I rented my scooter I had insurance coverage through the rental shop (or did I?). I was told I did. But a scooter does alot less damage than a 1 ton truck pulling a load of lawnmowers full of mexicans drinking cheap beer and smoking weed!!! I would trade a few drunkin tourist with surfboards for millions of mexicans anydays. Anyone else want to cry about the horrible scooter drunkin tourist on Bali anymore,,, get real.... they have been there since the begining of tourism on the island and there going to be there from now on...even if the fines get real... If anything the law needs to get onto the rental shops , making sure they have insurance, I could care less if you have a "local " license...hit me and I better be paid for my damages....

I'm talking about third party medical/public liability insurance. Sure Indonesians generally can't afford it and I've got no gripe with the bule who can ride and wants to self insure i.e. if they injure someone they will pay out their own pocket. Travel insurance will cover at least some public liability if you are licensed.

If anything the law needs to get onto the rental shops , making sure they have insurance

What, more bureaucracy?

Froggy, you of all people are questioning another persons grammar and spelling! Ha! LMAORAOTF! . As the manager of a major Research facility I can assure you my grasp of English is quite acceptable.

I do apolologize, there is some Aussie slang in my post which you might not have understood, namely "stiff bikkies" is a polite way of saying "stiff shit" and to "hoon" refers to behaving stupidly in or on a vehicle of some kind, something I'm sure you are familiar with. Surely you know what anarchy is?...

The rest is pretty self explanatory I think, apart from a few quick typing errors, so maybe I should dumb it down into redneck so you can understand it clearer.

I don't have a problem if people want to get pissed and drive/ride around like idiots or jump on the back of a bike without the neccesary skills whether licenced or unlicenced. But I don't want to be affected by it either so you can go as mad as you want in a farm paddock or similar but STAY OFF THE STREETS! I don't expose you to harm from my stupidity so why should I have put up with yours! Being on holidays is not an excuse, it isn't that hard to behave sensibly to avoid killing or injuring another person, drunk or sober. There really is no excuse for some of the behaviour that can be witnessed by bike riding tourists in Bali and you're wasting your time and words if you think it's acceptable.

Putting somebody elses safety at risk through blatant disregard and stupidity is inarguable in any context and it certainly doesn't add to the ambience one little bit in Bali, regardless of what you believe Froggy.

Slang, I was hoping so. Yes I know my grammer for an english speaking native is horrible. I do not find driving any vehicle drunk acceptable, but we have all been there once or twice, hopefully in our younger days, and not alot in our older days. But its going to happen in bali. I truely do wonder how many innocent bystandards are injured or killed by drunken scooters each year? Could it be that many? I know,i know 1 is too many. I also wonder what you thought of Dasha's fun little scooter ride in bali story? Come on Dash', jump in here, where have you been?

Markit wrote: Don't give the b.s. corruption in Asia argument, cause it aint just there friend, and it aint keeping the economy down - not at that level, at least.

So where exactly do you draw the line? Where does your ok corruption end, and where does the bad corruption start???? Are the kids at the lowest level who can't go to school because their parents can't afford to pay..is that ok? How about the guy who recently wouldn't let an injured expat fly to Singapore for emergency treatment without a large bribe because his exit visa had expired..was he on the ok??

If you don't think corruption isn't crippling this country you are not paying attention.

Ok, I'm not trying to be an apologist for all forms of corruption but my meaning was more meant to express my belief that corruption is endemic and part of the human experience that we all have to deal with all the time.

Not to get too philosophical but to use the example of the "corrupt" policeman; In our world police earn enough (more or less) to have a relatively nice life and be able to feed and educate their children to an acceptable level. This comes from taxation - people in the developing world, as a rule, don't earn enough to pay taxes - how do you pay for policing if there is no tax base? Teachers? Doctors? Bureaucrats? To my mind it's a case of "carts and horses". Once a society has reached a level of affluence where they can afford to pay taxes corruption then becomes less, automatically - I expect that if you were to ask the policeman in the film what he thought of corruption he would hate it too - but feeding his kids is more important, as it is to us all.

The idea that police in Bali don't earn a good wage is one often thrown around but it's simply, in Indonesian terms, not true. If it was such a shitty job, why pay Rp60m to get in the Academy. Starting salary is, I'm told about Rp1.200.000 per month plus a raft of benefits that others don't get.

Would the policeman hate it..I don't know. I sat with a bunch of my Indonesian friends and discussed this very topic. The advice I was given was that it simply so endemic, no one really sees it as unusual. Corruption from the top to the bottom is accepted.

The lack of collected taxes in Indonesia is nothing to do with that tax base being missing but is simply an endemic indicator of the corruption itself. The head tax guy in Jakarta doesn't have a tax number, as came out last week, and only 3% of people in Bali are registered. The tax system is structured so that people on low end incomes have no tax liability (until about RP1.400.000 a month), but the endemic corruption means that no-one pays tax, including those who can afford to.

However the depth of corruption means that those people who can least afford to are paying taxes in the form of graft.

No, the core issue is the corruption itself and making excuses for it simply accentuates the problem. I can't accept your argument I'm afraid.

Markit wrote:Once a society has reached a level of affluence where they can afford to pay taxes corruption then becomes less, automatically - I expect that if you were to ask the policeman in the film what he thought of corruption he would hate it too - but feeding his kids is more important, as it is to us all.

Do you seriously think this ?

We have a saying here: The fish stinks first from head

The cop has to bribe one first to become a cop, to get into a job you have to pay first – like I said before money beats competence!
This system you will find on every level of the society, how can you expect honesty from a simple cop, when this guy knows that everybody above him is corrupt too, up to the Government, judges, whoever, he is simply part of the system and may think it’s not so bad to make some money extra, when everybody else will do the same.

What to expect from the people, when over decades the property of the nation was treated like a family business?
Why is Indonesia a poor country with all its resources – they are sold out in very long term contracts to foreign companies, Indonesia is even importing oil.

Corruption is selfishness, it is not the need which will get somebody corrupt, it’s simply the opportunity and don’t think compassion for others would ever stop corruption – the victims of the tsunami in Aceh have seen only a few bucks of hundreds of millions U$, Euro, Yen.
SBY wrote on his banner to fight corruption, but how can you be ever successful when all around are corrupt too?

Why the hell should anybody pay taxes in this country, in the knowledge nobody pays them?
How can you change the mind and the behaviour of a whole nation – who should start first to become non-corrupt and why?

When leadership on every level of the society is founded on corruption and not on competence, who do you think should bring this nation forward?

Ina and I had an unfortunate run in with the police recently. It was Ina's first night ever in Jakarta and we were in a taxi on our way back to the hotel when our taxi was pulled over at a police check. One officer opened Ina's door and asked for our id which we had left in the hotel. We were just around the corner and Ina said they could come to the hotel and check our id there. The officer looked rather bemused and responded by ordering Ina out of the taxi and proceeded to question her about who the bule was and what she was doing in a taxi with a bule, out late at night with a bule etc. The obvious inference being that Ina was a girl of ill repute.

Meanwhile another officer had opened my door and proceeded to tell me that I had to carry my passport with me and that all Indonesians had to carry their KTP. He was dead wrong about my passport and we haven't been able to get a definitive answer from anyone about KTPs. It's certainly Ina's experience that she has never been made aware that she should carry her KTP with her everywhere. While I'm speaking to this officer in my broken Indonesian, I can hear Ina outside the taxi by this stage screaming "He's my husband! He's my husband!". At that point my officer leant over and said in a soft voice "Bisa membantu?".

Knowing Ina's absolute disgust at any hint of corruption I told him I couldn't "help" him because if I did my wife would be extremely angry. The officer looked a bit bewildered by this and called over what must have been another more senior officer judging by the amount of gold he had pinned to his shirt and his girth. Ina was back in the taxi and I told her they wanted a bribe. Ina went ballistic and started yelling "We are tourists and this is my first time in Jakarta and you want to steal from us. Harus begitu? Harus begitu?". I thought she was going to explode. I had never seen her so angry.

My officer was telling his superior that I didn't want to pay because I didn't want to make my wife angry. His superior looked incredulous and said to me that if they had to take us to the office things would get a lot worse. I pulled out my wallet and stuffed a hundred thousand note in the first officer's hand and pulled my door shut and the driver took off. The driver later told us we got off cheap and that others had had to pay three hundred thousand.

It took Ina days to calm down. She swears she never wants to go to Jakarta again. I asked her if she thought the police had to ask for bribes because they are underpaid. Her reply, "Mereka bisa cangkil di sawah!" (they can go and work in the rice field).

I totally agree with SG. Police are already in a privileged position and exploiting the citizenry is just adding insult to injury. Given their generally corpulent bearing most of them aren't short of a meal.