A video showing several foreign tourists wearing bikinis while bathing in the Aiq Kalak hot spring in the Mount Rinjani area, Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, has gone viral on social media. Many netizens believe the tourists’ actions violated the ethics and customs of the Lombok community, who consider Mount Rinjani a sacred area.
The Instagram account @rinjaniindonesia uploaded the video on Friday, 15th of August, and has attracted significant attention from netizens since then. It has sparked a variety of comments, with many expressing their dismay at the tourists’ behaviour.
“They should have respected Indonesian culture. At least there are decent swimwear [that they could have worn], right?” wrote one Instagram user in the comment section of the Instagram page.
Another wrote, “[Aiq Kalak] is not just a hot spring, but also a place of worship for a handful of people, especially the elders of Torean. Even we, the Lombok natives, bring a white cloth when we bathe in the hot springs there — because it has its own meaning.”
However, some netizens have also remarked that the foreign tourists‘ choice of clothing should not have caused such an uproar.
One Instagram user commented, “Even if the [foreign tourists in the video] had to follow the rules, they must have been warned first by the local people there. In this case, [it seems like] no one had warned them, which means it was allowed and there was no problem.”
Another Instagram user called for clarity from the local government, writing in the comment section, “The government should make regulations regarding more modest clothing [in the Mount Rinjani area] in order to maintain the culture.”
Similarly, one Instagram user remarked, “In my personal opinion, there should be strict regulations.”
In response to the viral video, the West Nusa Tenggara Tourism Office stated that foreigners wearing bikinis at Mount Rinjani’s hot springs do, indeed, constitute deviant behaviour.
“This is deviant. In our standard operating procedure, we even involved the Sasak Traditional Council to balance and monitor the behaviour of tourists [at Mount Rinjani] so that they do not deviate from the Sasak people’s customs,” said Mawardi, Head of the Institutional Division of the West Nusa Tenggara Tourism Office, on Tuesday, 19th of August.
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