Ika Bali tour

Ika came to me the other day and asked my opinion about doing a Bali tour. ‘Sounds great’, I said. She meant doing a tour herself for other Javanese people.

Often I don’t appreciate that Bali has many levels of tourism, foreigners, high spending Indonesians from Jakarta, school groups and locals from Java. The way these small local tours work is that someone organizes a bus, hotel and itinerary, then gives people in the same town / village a few months to save up for it.

Domestic tour tours often follow a breakneck pace, with a 4 day trip meaning 2 of those days traveling to and from Bali. Once in Bali they’ll hit 10 points of interest in 1 day. I told Ika she should slim it down to a couple of things and let the people who never get to enjoy a beach, have a few hours on the beach.

Ika told me her mum will talk to all the locals in their part of Semarang and see if there are any takers, once the itinerary and price have been worked out. I won’t be taking any part in this, as I can’t see myself offering much to a group of Javanese people who can’t speak English. The price for their tour will probably be in the range of 1m rp - 1.5 m rp.

For a Javanese person that’s a chunk, and taking the family requires saving for several months. Hope it all works out for them.