OVER the Easter holiday, our family traveled to Bali, Indonesia to take a much-needed break from the stresses of everyday Manila life. It was a time to just put our legs up, tune out from the world and basically just chill, as my son would often say. Being in medical school these days, he is one to chill out whenever he gets the opportunity, what with free time being such a precious commodity in his world.
Bali was genuinely a huge surprise. Having spent a lot of time in Indonesia (mostly in Jakarta and the other big cities in Java) in the past, I found it very clean, peaceful and orderly–things I cannot say for Jakarta and Surabaya, for example. But the most pleasant discovery of all was the reasonableness of everything in Bali. From the accommodation to the food, everything was priced more competitively than comparable offerings in the Philippines.
Just to confirm my observations, I looked up popular travel blogs, to see if tourists also felt the same way. I went to the popular site “Quora,” and found the following insights from a visitor, who has been to Bali, Thailand and the Philippines. I found his views very interesting indeed, to say the least. These were expressed as reply to the question:
“Why do tourists skip going to the Philippines and travel to Thailand or Bali instead when going to Southeast Asia?”
“Whilst Filipinos think their country is great the reality is not so.
Limited attractions of any quality, dirty beach resorts, filthy ocean in many places or difficulty getting to quality beaches where prices are super high, filthy streets, heavily polluted rivers laden with rubbish, plastic and waste especially in the cities, smelly drains all over the place, rubbish everywhere, people urinating in the streets at will, limited places with toilet/comfort room facilities, beggars everywhere, street beggars run by a police syndicate, many places not safe to go in Manila and other cities, overpriced accommodation, street food that will kill you, expensive local flights and of course bombs in the past exploding in churches and malls.
“Thailand, safe (except southern Thailand where the conflict is with Muslims and Thai, police do their job but are corrupt also seeking bribes where they can and colluding with the mafia, great climate, clean environment, well priced accommodation, street food that is delicious, cheap and can be eaten everywhere, safe to go anywhere, attractions all over Thailand including many first-class clean beaches, clean ocean water, (except Pattaya) some things are a little pricey, tuk-tuk, but not taxis, which are trustworthy and cheap.
“Bali is safe, clean, good accommodation, police questionable, no syndicates running beggars, no filthy drains or polluted rivers, many attractions, clean beaches, range of food, clean ocean water.
“In summary, the Philippines has friendly accommodating people but is totally unsafe, high risk of disease and harm, kidnapping in the south with beheadings (many foreigners have been kidnapped and beheaded by Muslims there) and dirty environment, expensive (overpriced) offering many unsafe places to go (travel warnings exist) and this is hard for tourists to accept or be enticed by.”
While the views expressed are depressing for Filipinos to hear, it is refreshing in that it tells us where we really stand in terms of our attractiveness as a tourism site. It confirmed what I personally felt and observed myself–that we really do lag behind as a tourism destination compared to our neighbors and our officials running the industry must sit up and take notice.
If there is a saving grace, it is–as the writer observes–the “friendly and accommodating” Filipinos. But we can’t let this be our only advantage because sooner rather than later, we will surely run out of visitors to share our friendship and hospitality with.