Just a heads up, as I imagine this kind of news is not reported so widely (if at all) in the USA media etc, but it is front page in our Sunday papers here today, simply as vast numbers of ozzies visit Bali each year. It is the overseas Cancun for youngsters from this country. Very inexpensive, and from here, a very close "overseas" destination and culture.

Gov't there has been having a really heavy anti-drug crackdown in recent months. One Australian girl Schappelle Corby ( google that ) has been in prison for around a year as they claim to have found a huge pile of marijuana they claim she was flying INTO Bali packed in her checked surf board bag (Huh - importing grass to Asia where it costs 10% of local price???) She just got a 20 year jail sentence, and claims (and most here believe her) she had never seen it before, and had nothing to do with it.

One Australian girl caught with just 2 ecstasy tablets in her carry bag in a club last week in a Bali club is facing 15 years prison in an Indonesian jail, and has been locked up since. The Govt' has made these kind of folks the un-willing victims of an enormous media circus, parading them to the cameras with smiles on the faces of the cops etc. Corruption of "evidence" etc.

If urine testing action action was only used against those CAUGHT with illegal drugs it would not affect anyone on FT I guess ( ) and at least be fair, but the Police have just announced random urine tests will be conducted on tourists at bars and clubs from now on:

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August 28, 2005
The Sun-Herald

Australian tourists visiting Bali's nightspots will face random urine tests under an escalating anti-drugs crackdown on the Indonesian holiday island.

Bali police drug squad chief Bambang Sugiarto told The Sun-Herald he would adopt the hardline tactic, controversially trialled in recent raids on Jakarta clubs, to stamp out the drug trade.

"We tried to use educative and preventive efforts," he said. "So, after doing that, and the people still use drugs, since we have laws to uphold then we have to take action like launching raids, arrests."

His men would now force clubbers to undergo urine tests, Colonel Sugiarto said. "We cannot go to every party but we go in at random and based on priorities."

Previously, only patrons apprehended carrying drugs were forced to provide urine samples.

Sydney model Michelle Leslie, 24, faces up to 15 years in jail after being caught with two ecstasy tablets in her bag as she entered a party at Kuta's GWK Park last weekend.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/ran...563063281.html

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Seems really oppressive and humiliating to me, and would take the gloss right off a fun vacation if it occurred I am sure. It may well be they will tone it all down by next year, but of course they may escalate it as time goes on, if they get as few media scalps. With Indonesia, who really knows, but just a heads up for anyone who has not read of this new and on-going blitz.

I'll hopefully be at the BNE Doo around the same time, and this post has nothing to do with that - it really is just to give you advance warning to be VERY careful, especially with how you secure your checked baggage.Schappelle Corby's 20 year sentence after having ganja planted in her baggage (IMHO) is at least a pre-warning to heavy plastic wrap your bags type deal if you can still do that (?) the way the aggressive TSA bags checks are ex USA. Or at least have a few extra TSA approved locks on thick straps around your bags.

Seems extreme precautions, and to most places you do not need to be so cautious, but Bali is one place I'd do it, for sure. Spending $50 for extra locks is better than 20 years in a primitive, crowded, rat infested prison after getting framed by the local Police to get headlines. A week in a Bali jail, even on remand, would be like a year anywhere else in the west from reports on TV here, and you really feel for these folks who seem to be media pawns by the Police/Government there lately for allegedly owning just TWO E tabs.