Arak Kills on Bali

Arak is some pretty nasty stuff, but no matter your budget, avoid the stuff unless you want to take your life into your own hands.

Eight people are now dead and five are in hospital after drinking home-brewed arak believed to have been laced with methanol, Sanglah General Hospital spokesman Putra Wibawa said on Wednesday.

He said the first victim, who had been drinking arak in Kuta, died on May 16.

“Eight have died and five are still under treatment,” Wibawa said.

The victims came from all over Bali, including Ubud and Denpasar.

“The symptoms lead us to believe it is methanol poisoning,” Wibawa said.

Last year 25 people, including four foreign tourists, died in Bali and Lombok after drinking arak heavily laced with methanol to increase production.

Two men who produced arak at a small distillery near Denpasar were jailed for failing to apply health and safety regulations.

Dozens have also died in Java in the past two years.

Arak has become increasingly popular since the government raised taxes on imported alcohol, putting it out of reach for most Indonesians.

My Bali Phtos

I'm stil getting set up in my new apartment in San Francisco, but just to prove I'm still alive and will someday blog again, here's a few of my photos from Bali.

Bali Sari Club Terrorist Bombing Site

Thank God. The Sari Club will NOT be replaced with yet another disco nightclub, but hopefully will remain a place of remembrance with an appropriate space and memorial. Some type of business should be allowed on the backside of this lot, but it shouldn't be anything insulting to the Aussies and Balinese who lost their lives to the Islamic fundamentalist hated of days gone by.

Badung regency has rejected an application by a local businessman to build a nightspot on the site of the bombed Sari Club in Legian, saying the area must be used for humanitarian purposes, such as a proposed peace park. The decision paves the way for the West Australian-based Bali Peace Park Association to forge ahead with plans to turn the site in the busy tourist strip into a garden of reflection.

In August it was revealed that businessman Kadek Wiranatha had bought and fully paid for a 30-year lease on the land, from its Jakarta-based owner, and planned to construct a restaurant and bar at the location, with construction planned to start before the end of this year.

The site, where some preparatory works for building have already been done, is now being used as a car park. Previously it had been used only as an informal motorbike parking lot. On Thursday Badung Regent AA Gede Agung announced that permission would not be granted to build a commercial complex on the site. He made the announcement at a ceremony at the Australian Consulate-General in Denpasar held to mark the anniversary of the second Bali bombings, on October 1, 2005.

“There was an application for development of the land at the former Sari Club, but a [building] permit has not been issued and therefore I ordered that any building work be stopped,” he said.

Twin bombings of Paddy’s Bar and the Sari Club on October 12, 2002, killed 202 people, 88 of them Australians. The regent said he supported the construction of a Bali Peace Park “out of respect for the human tragedy that happened at that place.”

Contacted by The Bali Times on Friday, Wiranatha’s lawyer and business partner, Oka Semadi, said he could not comment directly on the news and was “seeking clarification from the regent’s office.” Regent Agung said it would take about three months for negotiations to conclude regarding the land ownership.

Bali Sari Club Site to be Redeveloped

The Bali Times reports on the latest news about the Sari Club in Bali, where over 200 people died in a terrorist attack in 2002. Another nightclub!

Businessman Kadek Wiranatha has finally revealed his long-suspected plan to build a bar and restaurant on the site of the bombed Sari Club. And he has made it clear he will proceed regardless of what critics of the proposal, including the Australian-based Bali Peace Park Association, which wants it reserved as a place of reflection and memory, might think.

Wiranatha, widely known for his penchant for expensive Jaguar motorcars, said this week – through his business associate and lawyer, Putu Oka Semadi – that six months ago he paid the owner, a Jakarta investor named as Sukmanto, the full value of the 30-year lease on the land as a business investment.

Semadi told The Bali Times: “Pak Kadek has asked the government for the right to use the land that he has leased. Legian is a tourist area, so there’s no problem building there.

“He has already held a (Hindu) cleansing ceremony at the location, to solve any difficulties regarding the site being declared sacred.”

Semadi said Wiranatha was not interested in discussing any arrangement to on-sell the lease to the association, which has been trying to raise money to create a further memorial to the victims of the 2002 bombings on the site.

And he said development of the new entertainment venue, which is directly opposite the official Bomb Memorial in the nightclub precinct on Jl. Legian, would go ahead as soon as Wiranatha had planning approval for his plans from the Bali government.

“We will definitely build there, as soon as possible. But we can’t say when yet because we don’t yet have building permission. Hopefully we can start building in December or January,” he told The Bali Times.

“We already have permission from the Legian authorities but not from the government of Bali, because there is a lot of interest from other parties in the land,” he said.

News of Wiranatha’s proposal has angered the peace park association, whose principals include survivors of the 2002 terrorist bombings of Paddy’s Pub – owned by Wiranatha – and the Sari Club.

They say they have an agreement with the Bali government, the Badung regency and other authorities to create a garden and place of remembrance on the Sari Club site, where most of the 202 people killed in the attacks died. Eighty-eight Australians were among the dead.

And they say that patrons of any new entertainment place on the site will be “dancing on their mates’ graves.”

But Balinese officials, including Governor I Made Pastika, who support the memorial concept in principle, are understood to be running out of patience because the site, in the heart of Bali’s Kuta’s nightclub district, has been left vacant for nearly seven years.

The association is struggling to raise money. It blames the refusal of the Australian government to grant it tax-free charity status to raise charitable donations or to provide any direct funding.

It is notoriously difficult in Australia and other countries to raise money for charity if donors cannot offset their contributions against tax.

“It’s very disappointing. I thought the government would have come on board by now,” Phil Britten, a member of the foundation board, said from Perth this week.

Britten was in the Sari Club with fellow members of Perth’s Kingsley Football Club, when a massive car bomb was detonated outside just after a smaller bomb exploded in the Paddy’s Pub premises across the road.

Seven members of the club died, just a few hours after they arrived in Bali for an end-of-season trip. “This is sacred ground. Who would want to drink and dance there? Personally, I would never go there. It would be dancing on my mates’ graves,” Britten said.

But Wiranatha – who is understood to have signed a long-term lease for the land late last year – remains unmoved. He is reported to have refused to meet the peace park organisers to negotiate a price for the land.

Semadi, speaking for him, told an Australian newspaper, the Melbourne Age, he had written to the peace park association on August 11. The letter said: “We inform you that we would like to build a bar and restaurant on the land of the former Sari Club.”

He told The Bali Times this week when asked to comment on protests over commercial development of the site:

“Why is the Australian media so interested in this story? It’s only a place to have an ordinary business.”

The Kuta village chief, I Gede Suparta, has confirmed that an application was lodged this month to build the nightclub complex, although it had not been processed yet due to incomplete paperwork.

Although he too supports the peace park concept, he said he was in a difficult position.

“We would like to see a more concrete detail of what the Bali Peace Park Association has in mind, other than the idea of a park. We have never actually been shown a proposal or plan for the site,” he said.

Wiranatha, whose business interests include Ku De Ta at Seminyak, rebuilt Paddy’s Pub further down Jl. Legian – reportedly without waiting for a permit to do so – and the former Paddy’s site is now another bar-restaurant establishment.

Early in 2005 he started Air Paradise, of which Semadi is a director. Air Paradise, which Wiranatha promoted as “Bali’s own international airline,” flew to Australian and East Asian cities but shut down precipitately after the 2005 bombings.

Wiranatha then spent many months trying to get money from the Bali government to restart the airline. Its operating licence automatically expired this year under international air transport rules that state an airline must actually operate to keep its licence.

Wiratha is also a director of wine importer Indowines and proprietor of the fortnightly advertising tabloid Bali Advertiser.

Indonesia Hearts and Minds

Part One begins with a look back at the Bali bombings, then an interview with Bashir and revealing look at his radical school near Solo, finally a short interview with Sydney Jones.



Part Two starts with coverage of a charismatic young Muslim preacher named Jeffries (?) who is interviewed in a taxi, then a modern, liberal Muslim wedding, followed by an interview with Nassir Abbas, a former fighter from Afghanistan who now works for the government to reform JI members, then a visit to a bookstore filled with radical literature, and finally, a meal with Ali, a committed JI member.



Part Three starts with a look at Suharto and the riots of 1997, Sidney Jones again, music from the modern pop Islamic band Gigi, a visit to a drug addiction treatment center based on Islam and herbal concoctions, and a look at one of Indonesia's most powerful Islamic groups, NU, martial arts included.



Part Four concludes with a East Java village, home to two of the Bali bombers (Muklas and Amrozi), a look at their gravesites and short clips of their funerals, Bugis religious rituals which combine Islam and animism (Bissu), plus transvestite priests, and a positive end that concludes the Indonesian Islam is tolerant and the radical will not rise.

SFO to SE Asia Deals on Singapore Air

This Singapore Air Website has some outstanding deals from San Francisco to many, many places in Asia. Bangkok is just $679 and that includes all taxes. You can also play with the site to find fare deals from Los Angeles, Houston, and New York. The formatting got messed up when I did a copy and paste, but everything will look fine at the original website.

Origin Destination
All Origin... Houston Los Angeles New York (JFK) San Francisco All Destination... Adelaide Ahmedabad Bali Bangkok Banglore Brisbane Brunei Chennai Coimbatore Colombo Delhi Dhaka Frankfurt Hanoi Ho Chi Minh City Hong Kong Hyderabad Jakarta Karachi Kathmandu Kochi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Lahore Manila Melbourne Moscow Mumbai Penang Perth Seoul Singapore Sydney Tokyo Trivandrum Go


Origin Destination Price Travel Class Mileage Accruable Remarks

San Francisco Hong Kong US$579 Economy No Book by 6/28

San Francisco Seoul US$579 Economy No Book by 6/28

San Francisco Singapore US$679 Economy No Book by 6/28

San Francisco Bangkok US$679 Economy No Book by 6/28

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San Francisco Penang US$679 Economy No Book by 6/28

San Francisco Ahmedabad US$879 Economy No Book by 6/28

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San Francisco Lahore US$879 Economy No Book by 6/28

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When in Bali, Don't Drink the Arak

Bali has a booze problem. There's a shortage of wine and booze on the island, thanks to a monopoly which can't figure out how to get legal spirits in the hotels and restaurants. This problem has led to many Balinese and tourists resorting to the moonshine known as arak, which has now killed over 20 citizens. Until the government solves this problem, don't drink the arak.

Alcohol poisoning in Bali is being blamed for the death of 20 people and the hospitalization of scores of others. Authorities first became aware of a problem following a party on Saturday, May 23, 2009, at which a punch made of Pepsi Blue, fruit juice and two bottles of locally produced arak api were consumed. Shortly after consuming the beverage used to celebrate a friend's birthday, partygoers became highly intoxicated and nauseous, with several losing consciousness. The victims where rushed to the Denpasar Sanglah General Hospital where an initial 12 young people died from what medical authorities cite as a high concentration of alcohol and ethanol.

The mixture of alcohol and ethanol combine to form a highly toxic substance akin to formaldehyde, a toxic chemical used to preserve human corpses.

Among those still hospitalized from consuming the liquid are a number of your people listed in critical condition and some who have suffered blindness and kidney failure.

Police have traced some of the lethal arak to a local producer, closed the production facility and apprehended the owner and workers of the distillery for further interrogation. Police have also launched crackdowns on street side warungs where home-made arak is known to be sold.

On Saturday, May 30, 2009, the circle of those killed by the contaminated arak grew by two, bring the total deaths to 20. Among the latest victims is a 59-year-old Englishman, Alan Colin and a 31 year old Indonesian, Bernadus Darmawan, both of Canngu. Both men became ill after drinking arak and died a short time later.

According to the Bali Post the continuing stream of people hospitalized with alcohol poisoning have refused to cooperate with police in telling where they purchased the illegal beverage. Meanwhile, families of the dead victims have refused to allow autopsies to be performed which might provide more information to the authorities investigating the case.

The inability to isolated a single brand of affected arak has caused some health workers to urge absolute avoidance from consuming any of the popular drink, readily available on the island including its sale even at Bali's airport and all local supermarkets.

Bali Discovery

Jack Daniels Interview from Bali

Anyone involved with Bali tourism probably knows about the dapperly dressed gentleman above, Mr. Jack Daniels, who co-owns Bali Discovery Tours and publishes the highly useful, weekly, Bali Update. I've mentioned Jack several times before, and haven't met him yet, but he's probably among the most informed Westerners in the world on the current status of tourism in Bali.

Bali News Interview with Jack Daniels