Dealing with annoying ‘guides’ in Bali

Bali is a small island with 3 million people. Its is also a major tourist destination, meaning that sooner or later, people figure out their best bet is to make a living off of tourism. No worries, I’d do the same, but sometimes it can be a little bit of a hard sell.

Probably the worst example of this is Gunung Batur, where local ‘guides’ will not let you near the mountain without a hefty fee, even using threatening behaviour. I have heard Pura Besakih, Bali’s Mother temple, has a touch of this. BaliDiscovery reports that the Chairman of the Bali Guide Association (HPI), Drs. I Made Sukadana, is angry about the behaviour of guides at Besakih. Basically what happens, is that locals decide the ‘tourist object’ in their back yard, ‘belongs to them’, and you have to pay them to see it. That sounds laughable, but when there is an angry mob its not so funny.

My advice is to avoid Gunung Batur, there are many other volcanoes you can hike in Bali, for free and not even see another person. As for temples, I have had good experiences visiting Bali’s temples. Usually tour buses will ruin everything, so look for temples that are not super famous, and not on the main road, if you want to avoid crowds. Most people at the temples are polite and helpful, even if they do get a lot of visitors.

One scenario that can happen in Bali, is a local will follow you on a hiking trail, even without being invited. At some later time they could ask you for money, for ‘showing you around’. In my experience this has not happened, but rather a local will tag along, hoping for a small amount of cash. If I actually have questions, such as where a trail leads, what route to take, is the route safe, etc. then I feel good about handing over some cash. On the occasions where I know I won’t need the person, and that they are hunting for money, I politely tell them I would prefer to hike alone.

If a local asks you if you need a guide and you say yes, he is expecting cash. If you don’t agree that first, you could have someone ask you for 300,000rp, a couple of hours later. This happened to a female tourist I met. The situations I most enjoy when hiking, are meeting Balinese locals, who are clearly just going on their way. In that situation its great, as we can chat, share a joke and say farewell, glad to have met. Finding a middle ground between getting followed for money, and meeting cool people can be frustrating, and is often more a question of location than personality.