Scam, scam, lovely scam*)
"Sumatra is a beautiful. Sumatra is beautiful". I have to repeat this to myself or otherwise the bad experiences with a very thin slice of its citizens will override the nice and beautiful things I have seen so far. Tourist numbers are dwindling in Sumatra, indeed in the whole region. Perhaps this is why people in the tourist industry are resorting to less than honest methods to earn their living? Or might it be the other way around: is the fact that people get hassled and scammed the reason that fewer people visit every year? I don't know, you judge for yourself. The following happened to me in 10 days of being in Sumtra. Does it sound like a good holiday destination to you?
One of the biggest tourist attractions in Sumatra, for foreigners as well as Indonesians, is the possibility to see semi-wild orang-utans in the jungle surrounding a place called Bukit Lawang. Unfortunately the only way you can go into the jungle is if you have a local guide who knows the tracks. Unfortunately every man between 20 and 40 that lives in Bukit Lawang calls himself a guide and tries to make (quite a lucrative) living taking tourists into the jungle. Needless to say, there are many more guides than groups that need guiding. Therefore they need to go to great lenghts to beat the competition and 'catch' the tourists. In the morning they go to the city of Medan, a very uncomfortable three hour busride away, only to catch the first bus back. In this bus they find unsuspecting tourists, who have quite often only been in Indonesia one day, happily anticipating an encounter with the orang-utans in Bukit Lawang. In the bus the young men make sure they get a seat next to a couple of tourists and strike up a conversation, not identifying themselves as guides initially. They just 'happen to go in the same direction', just 'happen to be very knowledgable about the area and the orang-utans', just 'happen to have a friend who runs a guesthouse', and buy the way, now that you are such good friends after two hours of chatting, he happens to guide trekkings into the jungle to view the orang-utans. So surely you will hire him as your guide tomorrow, won't you? Won't you? Won't you? Unfortunately for the guides who tried to poach me (there were at least four) I got in the bus in an extremely foul mood because I just got ripped off by the becak driver (=motorbike taxi) taking me to the busstation. So I growled, snapped and shook off all the insincere "How are you?"s and arrived in Bukit Lawang as a 'unclaimed' tourist: the hunt was on! Pretty soon two guides showed up at my guesthouse to discuss what I wanted. But I quickly discovered it did not really matter what I wanted: the guides' bread and butter is a two-day, one-night trek into the jungle and that is what they try and sell everybody. Easy enough to do, they just tell you that there aren't really any alternatives, and it is not like there are impartial tourist information centres or 'trekking shops' where you can go and compare what is on offer. I would have liked to go on a three day trek, but there were none going. However, they assured me that on both days I could hike my little heart out and at that at the end of day 2 there would be a one-and-a-half hour rafting trip down the river, back to Bukit Lawang. That sounded good to me. Off I went with a group of five that included a Dutch and a French couple as well. Unfortunately part of the guides' sales technique is just to tell everybody what they want to hear to get them to 'yes'. So the Dutch couple were convinced they were going on an easy stroll through the jungle (eventhough there is no such thing in any jungle) and a full day rafting on day 2. The French couple - like me- were up for some intensive hiking and wanted to see lots of orang-utans, something that did not worry me too much. One or two would be alright for me. So you can imagine what happened on day 2: the Frogs and I had to talk and plead and negotiate with our guide to do another hike, while the Dutch couple were quite anxious not to do any more hiking as they had come quite unprepared, not having the right shoes etc. It is this that the guides count and play on. Apparently normally they just load everybody into the raft after breakfast, sail down the river in one-and-a-half hour and everybody is back where they started before lunch! Luckily the Dutch couple could see my and the Frogs point and in the end we made a compromise that after the rafting our guide would take us for another 3 hour hike. Ooooh, was he cross or what! Reading this, it probably does not sound so very bad, but the whole atmosphere in which it took place made it quite unpleasant. An atmosphere in which you sense and experience that in Bukit Lawang the only focus is on getting the money and the tourists are annoying little details as soon as they have handed over the cash. There were two more groups out in the jungle on those same days - we met them - and an Utrecht couple in one of the other groups told me that everybody in their group had gotten violently sick from the food that the guides cooked. They, however, said that the reason that people were puking their guts into the river all during the night was because they were not used to walking in the heat.... When they were still throwing up two days after they had returned from the trip, they went to the doctor in Bukit Lawang, who prescribed them anti-biotics and charged them quite lot of money. Before they actually took the medicine they contacted a friend at home to check what they had been given by the doctor. It was ... stomach acid blockers. Another example? The day after the trek I discovered I left my glasses in the river-side camp. I contacted the guide, to ask if he had found them when sweeping out the tent, but unfortunately no. He said he would contact his friend who spent the next night with his group at the same site to see if he had found anything. I never heard from him again. I waited an extra day in Bukit Lawang until the groups came back from the jungle hoping that someone had found my glasses. Unfortunately I could not locate the guide who had been at my camp that night. I asked the owner of my guesthouse - who had not been particularly helpful so far - if she would be able to let me know should the glasses show up in the next couple of days. I mean, they have to be somewhere, don't they? I was really surprised when she said: "If you want I can ask around who has got them. I am sure some-one has them, holds them hostage so to speak, because people do that kind of thing here sometimes. Maybe I can convince them to give them back." Ofcourse I was really pleased with this offer, expressing my gratitude until she said with a scowl on her face: "Just a second, you do not really think I can do this for free, do you...? That is not how it works here. I will need money for a taxi to go and talk to people, I will have to give them money to make them talk and the person holding the glasses probably wants something as well...".
You can imagine I was not enthousiastic about giving her money without any guarantee that my glasses would actually show up in the end (actually without any guarantee that she would do anything at all!) and I said so. To which she replied:"Don't you trust me?". Me: "Uhhh..."
In the end I signed a travelers cheque and tore it in half. I gave her one half saying that if I found my glasses at Poste Restante in Jakarta's main post office at the end of September I would send her the other half. She would send me a text message if she had 'found' them. So far I haven't heard. Surprise surprise...
One of the biggest tourist attractions in Sumatra, for foreigners as well as Indonesians, is the possibility to see semi-wild orang-utans in the jungle surrounding a place called Bukit Lawang. Unfortunately the only way you can go into the jungle is if you have a local guide who knows the tracks. Unfortunately every man between 20 and 40 that lives in Bukit Lawang calls himself a guide and tries to make (quite a lucrative) living taking tourists into the jungle. Needless to say, there are many more guides than groups that need guiding. Therefore they need to go to great lenghts to beat the competition and 'catch' the tourists. In the morning they go to the city of Medan, a very uncomfortable three hour busride away, only to catch the first bus back. In this bus they find unsuspecting tourists, who have quite often only been in Indonesia one day, happily anticipating an encounter with the orang-utans in Bukit Lawang. In the bus the young men make sure they get a seat next to a couple of tourists and strike up a conversation, not identifying themselves as guides initially. They just 'happen to go in the same direction', just 'happen to be very knowledgable about the area and the orang-utans', just 'happen to have a friend who runs a guesthouse', and buy the way, now that you are such good friends after two hours of chatting, he happens to guide trekkings into the jungle to view the orang-utans. So surely you will hire him as your guide tomorrow, won't you? Won't you? Won't you? Unfortunately for the guides who tried to poach me (there were at least four) I got in the bus in an extremely foul mood because I just got ripped off by the becak driver (=motorbike taxi) taking me to the busstation. So I growled, snapped and shook off all the insincere "How are you?"s and arrived in Bukit Lawang as a 'unclaimed' tourist: the hunt was on! Pretty soon two guides showed up at my guesthouse to discuss what I wanted. But I quickly discovered it did not really matter what I wanted: the guides' bread and butter is a two-day, one-night trek into the jungle and that is what they try and sell everybody. Easy enough to do, they just tell you that there aren't really any alternatives, and it is not like there are impartial tourist information centres or 'trekking shops' where you can go and compare what is on offer. I would have liked to go on a three day trek, but there were none going. However, they assured me that on both days I could hike my little heart out and at that at the end of day 2 there would be a one-and-a-half hour rafting trip down the river, back to Bukit Lawang. That sounded good to me. Off I went with a group of five that included a Dutch and a French couple as well. Unfortunately part of the guides' sales technique is just to tell everybody what they want to hear to get them to 'yes'. So the Dutch couple were convinced they were going on an easy stroll through the jungle (eventhough there is no such thing in any jungle) and a full day rafting on day 2. The French couple - like me- were up for some intensive hiking and wanted to see lots of orang-utans, something that did not worry me too much. One or two would be alright for me. So you can imagine what happened on day 2: the Frogs and I had to talk and plead and negotiate with our guide to do another hike, while the Dutch couple were quite anxious not to do any more hiking as they had come quite unprepared, not having the right shoes etc. It is this that the guides count and play on. Apparently normally they just load everybody into the raft after breakfast, sail down the river in one-and-a-half hour and everybody is back where they started before lunch! Luckily the Dutch couple could see my and the Frogs point and in the end we made a compromise that after the rafting our guide would take us for another 3 hour hike. Ooooh, was he cross or what! Reading this, it probably does not sound so very bad, but the whole atmosphere in which it took place made it quite unpleasant. An atmosphere in which you sense and experience that in Bukit Lawang the only focus is on getting the money and the tourists are annoying little details as soon as they have handed over the cash. There were two more groups out in the jungle on those same days - we met them - and an Utrecht couple in one of the other groups told me that everybody in their group had gotten violently sick from the food that the guides cooked. They, however, said that the reason that people were puking their guts into the river all during the night was because they were not used to walking in the heat.... When they were still throwing up two days after they had returned from the trip, they went to the doctor in Bukit Lawang, who prescribed them anti-biotics and charged them quite lot of money. Before they actually took the medicine they contacted a friend at home to check what they had been given by the doctor. It was ... stomach acid blockers. Another example? The day after the trek I discovered I left my glasses in the river-side camp. I contacted the guide, to ask if he had found them when sweeping out the tent, but unfortunately no. He said he would contact his friend who spent the next night with his group at the same site to see if he had found anything. I never heard from him again. I waited an extra day in Bukit Lawang until the groups came back from the jungle hoping that someone had found my glasses. Unfortunately I could not locate the guide who had been at my camp that night. I asked the owner of my guesthouse - who had not been particularly helpful so far - if she would be able to let me know should the glasses show up in the next couple of days. I mean, they have to be somewhere, don't they? I was really surprised when she said: "If you want I can ask around who has got them. I am sure some-one has them, holds them hostage so to speak, because people do that kind of thing here sometimes. Maybe I can convince them to give them back." Ofcourse I was really pleased with this offer, expressing my gratitude until she said with a scowl on her face: "Just a second, you do not really think I can do this for free, do you...? That is not how it works here. I will need money for a taxi to go and talk to people, I will have to give them money to make them talk and the person holding the glasses probably wants something as well...".
You can imagine I was not enthousiastic about giving her money without any guarantee that my glasses would actually show up in the end (actually without any guarantee that she would do anything at all!) and I said so. To which she replied:"Don't you trust me?". Me: "Uhhh..."
In the end I signed a travelers cheque and tore it in half. I gave her one half saying that if I found my glasses at Poste Restante in Jakarta's main post office at the end of September I would send her the other half. She would send me a text message if she had 'found' them. So far I haven't heard. Surprise surprise...
After Bukit Lawang I went to Samosir Island, a lovely place in the middle of a big crater lake called Toba. I spent a few days and booked a ticket for the night coach to my next destination, a place called Bukitinggi. The lady that sold me the ticket said that when I got of the ferry the agent for the bus comapny, a guy named Samuel, would pick me up and take me to the bus. So he did. I had tought he would take me to a bus or coach station, to make sure I got on the right bus, but no, we went to his office in the middle of town. There we waited for the bus. And waited. And waited. After an hour - by now it was six o'clock and it started to get dark - I said I was quite curious to know where bus was and if it was going to turn up any time soon.
"Ah!" he said "Let me ring the driver straight away!".
Unfortunately Samuel was not a good actor. He pretended to ring the driver and when he put down the phone told me that
"Oh no! The airconditioning of the bus broke on the way here and they are repairing it now."
(This is when I realised I was being scammed: as if any bus in Indonesia would ever stop for an 'emergency repair' on the airconditioning! Honestly!).
"The driver does not know what time he may be here. It could be several hours. But you are in luck because in 30 minutes the 'super executive coach' to Bukittingi, the last bus of the day, will drive past this office and if you pay a little extra for this luxury bus, I may be able to get you on it...".
Great. Obviously the frustrating thing about being caught in a scam is that you cannot get out of it without great disadvantage to yourself - not even if you realise you are being scammed! My proper bus was probably well on its way to Bukittingu, had probably left right on time from the bus station or some such logical place. What to do? Stay over-night and 'try again' tommorow? That would mean the extra cost of accommodation and a valuable day lost. I decided to go with the scam, but try to keep the costs as low as possible. So I started to complain to Samuel, saying that 'I thought this bus company owed me a big apology and a free seat on the bus as they provided such poor service, that I had no intention at all of paying a lot of money for an up-grade I did not want and that I would be happy to wait for the rest of the evening until the 'repaired' bus showed up, and surely he was going to be there waiting with me, wasn't he?' This made him just a little uncomfortable, and after some serious negotiating I ended up paying 15.000 rupiah (about 1,25 euro's - not a lot perhaps, but still the equivalent of two evening meals).
Ofcourse the money is not the most important thing about being ripped off. Converted back to euro's these are very small amounts indeed, and obviously I do realise (some of) these people need it much much more than I do. The unfortunate consequence however is that it does not make for relaxed traveling; you have to be alert all the time and sometimes even that is not enough, as in the 'super executive scam'. How am I to know where a coach leaves from? You are putting your trust in people in a sitiation that is unfamiliar to you and they quite happily use this to their advantage to rip you off. Welcome to Indonesia... It is very upsetting and seriously distracts from the good time that you otherwise might have.
It so affected my mood, every little thing threatened to set me off, that I was ready to start beating up Indonesians. (Small ones. But not children ofcourse. I would never beat up children. At leat not well-behaved ones. Or big ones. Anyway.) I decided that it was time for some extreme self care and pampering in order calm down. Maybe get a sense of fun back. So that is what I am doing now. In Bali. Dis I mention there is a Starbucks here? I think I will be alright.
posted by Caroline @ 8:49 pm
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