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SNOWING IN BALI

One night I had a call from a prisoner I’d met during the writing of Hotel Kerobokan – he was still in jail, although no longer in Kerobokan, but asked me to meet him at a popular café, the Bali Deli, for a drink. I arrived to find him, the prison boss, and four other prisoners all sitting at one of the deli’s cabanas. After drinks, we got into a government car, with its official red number plates, and drove the prison boss to his favorite karaoke club in Sanur. On the way he sat in the passenger seat singing along to a Rihanna music DVD playing on the dashboard. After dropping him off, we went to the stylish Potato Head Beach Club. At about 1 am the prison boss called, waking up the prisoner-driver who was asleep on a mattress near the swimming pool. The guys left, picked up the boss and went back to jail. The next week, that night’s driver was busted while out of jail, selling drugs, and quickly confessed that he’d bribed the boss to get out of jail. The boss was sacked, and the inmate had further charges brought against him.

The Bangli Prison warden accused of taking bribes to allow a convicted narcotics dealer out of his cell has been captured on video at a drug party with the prisoner and a prostitute, police said on Thursday. Police made the discovery after examining closed-circuit television footage from the Boshe VVIP Bali Club Bali in Kuta.

– Jakarta Globe, 13 May 2011

It is a good example of why the landscape in Bali is ideal for drug dealing. With cash, the laws are very flexible – although clearly it doesn’t always work – as Snowing in Bali will reveal.

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