Bali after 10/12

I’ve always wanted to go to the two places hit hardest by terrorist bombings. And so last year, I did – New York City, where we went last October, and Bali, which we visited last December. The bombing of the World Trade Center towers in New York is other- wise known as 9/11, a numbers combination now feared by all. Does this mean that we call the one in Bali 10/12 as it happened on October 12 last year? But I won’t dwell on this. Knowing the Pinoy’s penchant for conjuring things mystifying and aping Nostradamus, someone might just pass along text messages that the world will end 11/13 this year.

Many people said that my husband and I were crazy to want to go to Bali, but a few said that it was now the safest place on earth, what with the heightened security. More important, who would want to bomb a place twice? Actually, anyone can bomb a place twice or even 10 times, but it’s your luck, or bad luck, to happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Besides, the joke is, after having lived in the Philippines since birth, how could you still not be used to bombings?

I thought that no one would be in Bali last Christmas, but to my surprise, it was full of tourists! The plane from Singapore to Denpasar, Bali was packed with Europeans with small children, so all you could see in the plane were feeding bottles, toys and coloring books. I’m sure the kids were ready to jump into the sea. When it comes to swimming, you can trust the Westerners to let their kids fend for themselves in order to learn. Unlike us Pinoy moms – the reason it takes so long for our kids to learn is that half of the time we’re praying that they don’t drown and the other half, we’re screaming at the swimming instructor.

Back to the trip. It would have been interesting to write another travel piece, but what is more noteworthy was how Bali got back on its feet so fast and was able to bring back the tourists after that terrible bombing incident at Kuta which left close to 200 people dead. The flight stewardess told us that flights to Bali started to pick up first week of December, which was just two months after the incident. Our hotel, in fact, was packed not only with Europeans but Asians as well, mostly Japanese and Indians. The waiter at our hotel said that right after the incident, the occupancy rate at this hotel dropped drastically.

"It was 11 p.m. and I was cleaning the restaurant when I saw this big flash of light," said the waiter (our hotel was at Jimbaran Bay and you could see Kuta from across the sea). "My companion thought that a hotel at Kuta had caught fire. We didn’t know until a few hours later that the Padi’s Club and Sari Club were bombed. The next day our guests left the hotel in droves and the occupancy rate dropped to 10 percent."

"But now they’re back!" he said, smiling.

On the other hand, it’s been two years since the Abu Sayyaf hostage taking at a resort in Palawan, and the bombing incidents have been few and far between, and yet we can’t seem to get those tourists packing in. If you’re talking about white sand beaches, nothing beats the white sands of Boracay and Palawan. Bali has a wonderful culture and the infrastructure to boot, but sorry, their beaches are simply not as good as ours. So it amazes me why we can’t get the tourists the way Bali does.

Maybe Bali tries harder.

For example, you know the government is pushing to get tourism back when you see hundreds of colorful banners in the streets that say, "Bali. For us. For the world." Even the international dailies have picked up Bali’s comeback. In the December 30 issue of The Straits Times of Singapore, there was an article entitled "Year-end swarm of tourists a shot in the arm for Bali." Goes the article, "The holiday season has brought new hope to Bali’s ailing tourist industry, as thousands of domestic and foreign visitors have again booked flights, hotels and bungalows to celebrate the coming year-end festivities. The Indonesian national airline, Garuda Indonesia, has also increased the number of flights to the resort island, whose image was badly hit by the October 12 bombings."

And what do we see right below this article? "Couple kidnapped in Philippine south." Something must be wrong with our nation’s PR campaigns.

Is the government solely to blame? I think not. We are also partly to blame.

If you talk to the Balinese, they are very proud of their culture and heritage. When you ask them what there is in Bali, they can give you an endless list of sights to see. The first thing they would recommend is their beautiful Hindu temples, followed by their woodcarving and handicraft centers and if you have enough spare cash, their art galleries at Ubud. If foreigners ask us what they can see in Manila in order to appreciate the country, the first thing that comes into our mind is to take them shopping instead. We can’t imagine taking them to Fort Santiago or Intramuros. Not because I’m in the shopping business, but just like most Pinoys, we do not know our culture and history. If we don’t appreciate our own culture, how do we expect other people to appreciate it? I’m sure the last time we saw a close look at the monument of our national hero at the Rizal Park was when we were in Grade 2, and many of us have never stepped foot inside the National Museum. Probably the only Juan Luna painting that people recognize, aside from "Spolarium," is "Parisian" – as a famous brand of shoes of a department store and not as a Luna masterpiece.

When foreigners decide to stay here for a long time, instead of saying, "You’ll like it here," we would say, "Are you sure you want to live here? We all want to leave and you want to stay here?" If you talk to any Balinese, they would say that the Kuta bombing incident is a thing of the past and Bali is back in business. Well, if we want to get back in business, the first thing we should do is to do a Gloria. I am proud of President GMA’s recent decision to ditch her presidential bid in 2004, which I learned while I was doing my aquatonic exercise in Bali from my good friend at Agence France Presse. I suddenly remembered Cory. What a sacrifice! It can only take a Pinay to do it.

Note, "Pinay" with an "a."