Is Indonesia Safe? Crime, Scams, Health and Where to Be Careful

Violent crime is rare, but opportunistic theft is not, and the signature crime is the drive-by snatch: two men on a motorbike pull alongside a pedestrian or another scooter and grab a phone, shoulder bag or backpack, usually in Canggu, Seminyak, Kuta and Legian in Bali and in central Jakarta, at night or at dawn after the clubs close. Walk with bags on the side away from the road, do not use your phone while walking along the kerb, and never hang a bag from a scooter’s hook or wear a backpack while riding; put it under the seat or between your feet. Phones are also lifted from tables in beach bars; villa break-ins happen in Canggu and Ubud, so use the safe. Pickpocketing happens on crowded Jakarta buses and trains. Report theft at the nearest police station (polsek) for an insurance letter; the Bali Tourist Police on Kuta’s Jalan Pantai can help in English.

The common scams follow scripts you can learn:

• The money changer: a booth in Kuta or Ubud advertises a rate 5-10 percent better than the banks. The clerk counts your rupiah fast on a rigged calculator, or counts correctly then folds notes under the counter as he hands them over, or asks you to recount and palms a few 100,000 notes during the distraction. Use only banks or changers displaying the green PVA Berizin (licensed) sign, count every note yourself before handing over your money, and walk away from any rate that looks too good.
• Scooter damage: you return a rental and the owner points to a scratch that “was not there”, demanding IDR 1,000,000-5,000,000. Photograph and film every panel at pickup with the owner in frame, rent from your accommodation or a shop with reviews, and never leave your passport as a deposit.
• ATM skimming: card readers and cameras fitted to standalone ATMs in Kuta, Seminyak, Ubud and the Gilis; cloned cards are emptied weeks later. Use machines inside bank branches, cover the keypad and check your balance daily.
• Gili horse carts: cidomo drivers on Gili Trawangan quote one price and demand double at the end, or claim the price was per person. Agree the total out loud before boarding, or walk; nowhere on the island is more than 20 minutes on foot.
• Fake tour and boat agents: a stall sells a fast-boat ticket or Komodo trip that does not exist or belongs to an uninsured operator. Buy from the operator’s own office or app, or through your hotel, and get a ticket with a boat name on it.
• Tattoo, spa and nail bar bills: the UK Foreign Office warns of rising cases in Bali where the final bill is many times the quoted price. Confirm the all-in price in writing before any treatment.
• The drug sting: someone sells you a joint on a Kuta street, then police appear minutes later; the fine negotiated on the spot runs to thousands of dollars. The only defence is to refuse every offer.

Road crashes kill tens of thousands of people in Indonesia every year, most of them on motorbikes, and foreign tourists in Bali are over-represented: the island’s hospitals treat several injured riders a day, and deaths of visitors on scooters make the news most months. The causes repeat: no helmet, no experience on a bike, riding at night on unlit roads with potholes and loose gravel, dogs and chickens, trucks overtaking blind, and alcohol. If you ride, you need your home motorcycle licence plus an International Driving Permit (ASEAN licences excepted); Bali police run roadside checks on the Canggu shortcut, Sunset Road and the Uluwatu road, fine riders without them, and travel insurers refuse claims from unlicensed riders, which turns a broken leg into a USD 20,000 bill. Wear a proper helmet with the strap done up, cover arms and legs, drive on the left, assume nobody has seen you, and do not ride after drinking.

If you have a crash, stay at the scene, call 112 and let the police record it; foreigners are often expected to pay regardless of fault, so photograph everything and call your insurer early. On Nusa Penida, Lombok’s south coast and the Gilis’ neighbour islands the roads are worse than Bali’s, so hire a driver. In Jakarta use Bluebird taxis or Gojek and Grab rather than unmarked cars.

Methanol is the most serious everyday danger in Bali, Lombok and the Gilis. Bootleg arak (palm spirit) and counterfeit spirits cut with methanol end up in bargain cocktails, free welcome shots, buckets and some bars’ “vodka”; tourists have died or gone blind every year for two decades. Methanol cannot be tasted or smelt, and symptoms (headache, blurred vision, vomiting, confusion) arrive 12 to 48 hours later, when people think it is a hangover. Drink bottled beer or wine opened in front of you, order spirits only in reputable bars and never the IDR 50,000 cocktail special, and if anyone in your group has vision problems after drinking go straight to a hospital such as BIMC or Siloam and say the word methanol. Drink spiking linked to sexual assault has been reported in Bali, Lombok and the Gili Islands; keep your drink in your hand and go home with people you know.

Bali belly, a day or two of diarrhoea and cramps, affects a large share of visitors in their first week. Tap water is unsafe everywhere in Indonesia; drink bottled or refilled filtered water (most hotels and cafes have refill stations), and factory ice with a hole through the middle is safe while chipped block ice is not. Eat at busy warungs where food is cooked to order, carry oral rehydration salts (Pocari Sweat and Pharolit are sold at every minimart), and see a doctor if you have fever, blood or more than three days of symptoms. A clinic visit costs IDR 300,000-600,000.

Dengue is present year-round across Indonesia, including Bali’s towns, and peaks in the wet season from December to April. The mosquito bites by day, so use repellent with DEET or picaridin from breakfast, wear long sleeves at dusk and sleep under air conditioning or a net. Fever with headache and joint pain after a week in the country needs a blood test the same day; avoid ibuprofen and aspirin until dengue is ruled out. Malaria is a concern only in Papua, parts of Maluku and East Nusa Tenggara and rural Kalimantan; it is not present in Bali, Java or the Gilis, so most visitors do not need tablets.

Rabies has been endemic in Bali since 2008 and is present on Lombok, Flores, Sumba and much of the rest of the country. Street dogs are everywhere and the long-tailed macaques at Uluwatu, the Ubud Monkey Forest and Lombok’s Pusuk pass bite and scratch tourists daily when they reach for food or sunglasses. Do not feed or pet dogs or monkeys, keep bags zipped and glasses off around the monkeys, and treat any bite or scratch as an emergency: wash with soap and running water for 15 minutes and get the first rabies vaccine dose and immunoglobulin within 24 hours at a major hospital (Prof Ngoerah/Sanglah and BIMC in Bali, Siloam in most cities). Check that routine, hepatitis A and typhoid vaccinations are current, and expect haze from land fires over Sumatra and Kalimantan from August to October in dry years. Medical care in Bali, Jakarta, Surabaya and Yogyakarta is good at private hospitals; in Flores, Sumba, the Togeans or Raja Ampat it is hours or days away, which is why insurance with evacuation cover matters.

Indonesia has about 127 active volcanoes and several erupt every year. The Centre for Volcanology (PVMBG) grades each on four levels: Level I Normal, Level II Waspada (advisory), Level III Siaga (watch) and Level IV Awas (warning), each with an exclusion radius you must not enter, published on the free MAGMA Indonesia app and website. Volcanoes you may actually visit, such as Bromo, Ijen, Rinjani, Merapi near Yogyakarta and Bali’s Agung and Batur, move between Levels I and III, and guides and park offices close trails accordingly. In late 2026 Semeru in East Java (Level III, 5 km exclusion plus a 13 km sector to the south-east), Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores (Level III, 5 km) and Sinabung in North Sumatra (Level III) were among those on raised alert; ash from Lewotobi has repeatedly cancelled flights to Bali and Labuan Bajo, so check the airline the night before.

Indonesia’s drug law is among the harshest in the world. Trafficking carries the death penalty, and foreigners have been executed; possession of even a few grams of cannabis, ecstasy or cocaine brings four to twelve years in Kerobokan or other prisons, and cannabis, CBD oil and medicinal marijuana are all illegal. Police run undercover stings in Kuta, Seminyak and Gili Trawangan, raid clubs with urine tests, and a positive test is grounds for arrest. Prescription medicines that are legal at home (codeine, some ADHD and sleeping medications) can be controlled here; carry the prescription and a doctor’s letter, and declare them on the arrival card.

The new criminal code (KUHP) took effect in January 2026. It makes sex outside marriage and cohabitation offences, but only when a spouse, parent or child of one of the people involved files a complaint, so unmarried foreign couples sharing hotel rooms are not affected in practice; hotels in Bali, Jakarta and the tourist areas do not ask. Insulting the president, state institutions or religion is also an offence, which includes social media posts. At temples, wear a sarong and sash (lent at the gate), do not climb on shrines or sacred structures for photos, do not enter when menstruating (a rule you are expected to self-police), and keep your voice down during ceremonies. Since 2023 Bali has deported tourists for posing naked at sacred sites and has published a list of do’s and don’ts for visitors that includes a ban on climbing its sacred mountains. The island is relaxed about dress on the beach and in bars; cover up in villages, at Tanah Lot and at any ceremony.

Government advisories are consistent. The United States, UK, Australia and others tell their citizens not to travel to Central Papua and Highland Papua provinces, where armed separatist groups and security forces clash and foreigners, have been targeted; the UK describes the security situation there as unpredictable and notes it has no consular presence in the Papua region. Coastal Papua (Jayapura, Biak, Sorong and Raja Ampat) is calm and visited by divers every day, but internet shutdowns and sudden demonstrations happen, and foreigners need a travel permit (surat jalan) for the highlands. Aceh is safe for visitors but enforces sharia law: alcohol is banned, unmarried couples should not share rooms, modest dress is expected of everyone, and public caning is a punishment for Indonesians and in principle for foreigners for gambling, alcohol and sexual offences; Banda Aceh and Weh Island are welcoming within those rules. The UK also advises extra care in Palu, Poso and Tentena in Central Sulawesi and on Ambon and Haruku islands in Maluku because of past communal violence. Everywhere else carries only the standard “normal or increased caution” rating; check your government’s advisory before you book, because levels change after eruptions and unrest.

Solo women travel all over Indonesia and most report nothing worse than staring and the occasional “hello mister”. Dress covering shoulders and knees outside Bali’s resort areas, especially in Java, Sumatra and Lombok, both for comfort and to limit attention. Avoid walking alone at night on Gili Trawangan’s unlit back paths and on Canggu’s shortcuts, where assaults have been reported, use Gojek or Grab rather than unmarked taxis late at night, and watch your drink. Homestay families, women-only dorms and the strong community of long-stay women in Ubud and Canggu make it an easy country for solo travel.

Same-sex relationships are legal in Indonesia except in Aceh, where they are a sharia offence punishable by caning, and the new criminal code does not criminalise them. Attitudes outside Bali and Jakarta are conservative, however, and police have raided LGBTQ+ gatherings in Jakarta and other cities, so discretion in public is the practical rule. Bali has an open scene in Seminyak, and Jakarta’s is active but low-profile; hotels nationwide accept same-sex couples without comment.

• 112 general emergency (works from any phone, English operators in Bali and Jakarta)
• 110 police
• 118 or 119 ambulance
• 113 fire
• 115 search and rescue (Basarnas), for boats and sea emergencies
• Bali Tourist Police: Jalan Pantai Kuta, Kuta

Good private hospitals: BIMC (Kuta and Nusa Dua) and Siloam in Bali, the public Prof Ngoerah (Sanglah) hospital in Denpasar for rabies shots and serious trauma, Siloam and Pondok Indah groups in Jakarta, and Siloam branches in most provincial cities. They expect payment or an insurer’s guarantee before treatment; keep your insurance card and policy number on your phone. Buy travel insurance that explicitly covers motorbike riding (valid only if you are licensed), scuba diving to your certification depth, trekking to 3,800 m for Rinjani, and medical evacuation, because an air ambulance from Flores or Raja Ampat to Bali or Singapore costs USD 20,000-100,000. Keep a photo of your passport and e-VOA in the cloud and save your embassy’s emergency line.

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