The latest story of a foreigner getting in trouble with Ngurah Rai Airport officials is not over traveling with drugs or weapons, but condoms.
Australian woman Kim Gates said she was detained at the airport early last month for trying to bring 720 condoms into Bali.
Gates is the head of Australia’s Northern Territory AIDS and Hepatitis Council (NTAHC) and says the condoms were meant to go to an HIV organization in Bali because of Indonesia’s high number of HIV cases.
“I have actually travelled with condoms before so I was actually quite surprised,” Gates said, as quoted by ABC Australia.
Gates says officials demanded to know whether she had a permit for the condoms and said she did not declare them on her arrivals card.
“I was a little bit sort of scared. I didn’t know what was going on.”
Apparently bringing in condoms is like bringing in porno flicks.
“Then they advised me that it is actually in the category of pornographic material, which I didn’t think was the case,” Gates explained.
Thankfully for her, Gates was eventually released, but she didn’t the condoms back. Even after the harrowing experience, she advises Australians to bring their own condoms (just not in such huge quantities) while traveling overseas to practice safe sex and protect themselves against HIV.
“Take your own condoms with you. Maybe don’t take 720 [of them] but enough for personal use.”
Consul for Information, Social and Cultural Affairs at the Indonesian Consulate in Darwin, Ardian Nugroho, said officials were probably suspicious of Gates, thinking she was going to try and sell and the condoms.
Nugroho said people in these sorts of circumstances can request letters from the consulate to show Indonesian immigration authorities in similar future situations.
