The dilemma of taking pictures at several tourism sites in Indonesia

About several kilometers from Pondok Lawu in Cisarua, there’s a natural tourist attraction site called Curug Cilember (Cilember Waterfall) in Desa Cilember (Cilember Village). Altogether, there are about 7 of these ‘curug’s. This particular closest one to the villa is curug number #7. The waterfall is located within a preserved park which is often used by schools or the boy & girl scouts as camping sites.

To visit the waterfall inside the park, one must pay about IDR 6000 (US $1 = IDR 11,000-12,000) per person. Last week I visitted the curug with a group of fellow travelling lovers who also love photography as a hobby – the majority of us were carrying SLR cameras and several other photography equipments. Of course, we never had any intention on publishing the pictures commercially, everything was only for our personal passion of photography. I volunteered as a model to make the pictures more interesting – complete with full make-up while wearing a modern version of a kebaya (Javanese traditional clothes of tank-top and see-through, long-sleeved buttoned shirt on the outside).

We got stopped at the entrance.

They asked for us to pay IDR 300,000 for “commercial photo shoot or a pre-wedding photography or a magazine photo shoot,” roughly quoted from the ticket officer at the entrance to the park.

My friends and I were annoyed.

No wonder a lot of Indonesian tourism sites haven’t been exposed or developed enough. One would think that if the photo session were actually meant to be for a magazine, they should’ve let the photographers (and any journalist coming with them) in for free – since that means their site of tourism interest is going to be promoted & publicised without them spending a penny for an advertisement – thus resulting in more people coming to visit their site… but no… they actually asked us to pay on the spot.

This is the problem a lot of people encounter with many tourism sites in Indonesia. Too many people (usually around villages or places where many tourists visit) in Indonesia live with this kind of “aji mumpung” (making use of the chance you’re given in a usually negative way) philosophy.

“Oh look, a foreigner with an SLR camera taking pictures of me while farming, let’s ask them for money!” You won’t believe how many people actually are with this kind of thoughts in their head while encountering a tourist – especially a foreign one.

Curug Cilember was actually worth visitting (although it was a bit too crowded during the weekend). In the end, after ensuring the park “guards” that the photo shoot was for personal use, they let us in with the normal paying rates. Of course, this was after arguing for about 15 minutes at the entrance with them.

Don’t let this discourage you from visitting the many different tourism sites of Indonesia, though. There are still plenty of places you can visit without encountering this kind of similar problem.

Of course, not everything of Indonesia is negative like this. Many people in other places will generally be happy and helpful when you want to immortalize them or their places of interest in a picture – be it for commercial use, or for your own personal purpose. A lot of the times the children will actually be running towards your area of picture-taking and ask you to take pictures of them in action. Indonesia, after all, is famous for its people’s friendliness. I guess the rant above is just one negative point that one may encounter while travelling in this beloved country of mine.