Australian vacationers have expressed their dissatisfaction at other visitors for acting rudely toward natives in Bali.
Tanieka Monti and her companion had travelled to the well-known vacation spot for a special retreat.
The Victorian resident said that unruly visitors interfered with her enjoyment of the exotic sights and culture.
She said on Facebook, “I cannot handle one thing and that is rude Australians.”
I’ve been known to give groups of Australians the death gaze and comment on how disrespectful and completely disgusting it is for them to treat the local Balinese population in this manner.
Ms. Monti expressed her concern that the rudeness of certain visitors might cause locals to assume that all Australians are unpleasant.
It disgusts her to think that they may just see a small percentage of horrible Australians when they think about Australians, she wrote.
Social media users have responded en masse to her article by sharing their own experiences with unpleasant visitors.
One commenter said, “Yes, I saw two people being really disrespectful to a handbag salesperson.”
“This is our second home,” I was told when I called them out. I’ve heard the phrase 30+ times, but I’ve never been really offended by it.
“Just being there a lot doesn’t grant you any special rights; particularly bad behavior!” No matter how many times you’ve been, this is the Balinese people’s home.
One more person said: “It’s really humiliating.” I saw an elderly man eating lunch and drinking beer at a restaurant yesterday. Do you really find it difficult to put on a shirt, man? Gross.’
Other social media users said that the majority of Australians were really well-behaved and that just a tiny minority displayed the poor behavior.
One person remarked, “Thankfully they are the minority and the locals love and admire Aussies and vice versa.”
“That is regrettably the bad side of ‘people’.. it tells more about who they are than where they are from,” a second person said. Positively, there are some ‘people’ out there who are actually gorgeous.
Her remarks follow demands for the imprisonment of intoxicated and rude Australian visitors who act out in Bali, according to an Indonesian organisation with Australian roots.
In the past, the Perth-based Institute has encouraged local authorities to imprison unruly tourists after a series of alleged offenses rocked the vacation island.
Ross Taylor, a representative for the organisation, says misbehaving Australians should go to jail to learn their lesson.
Give them a long vacation in Bali and maybe one to six months in Kerobokan Prison, he said, and some of these individuals could become enlightened.
Michelle Roberts, the police minister for Western Australia, said she was “embarrassed” by some Australian visitors’ manners but didn’t believe prison time was the answer.
No matter how early in your vacation you are in Bali, she added, if you act in an undesirable way, you should be sent home. “Incarceration carries with it a whole variety of additional concerns,” she said.
Bali is a popular vacation destination for over 1.2 million Australians annually, the majority of whom observe local customs and regulations.