Blasts spark painful Bali memories

A surfer rides a wave near the scene of Saturday night's bomb attack on an outdoor restaurant at Jimbaran bay in Bali. Picture / Reuters

When bombs rip through Bali, Israel or Iraq, Patrick Shepheard knows all too well what the aftermath looks like.

Mr Shepheard, of Ngunguru, 22km northeast of Whangarei, was there when a bomb blew up Paddy's Bar in Bali, in September 2002. He helped badly burned people, and carries the memories with him like it was yesterday.

Hearing news of the weekend attacks on Bali brought back the painful memories of his own time caught up in a terrorist attack.

"It never fades," he said. "It's hard to imagine. After a blast everyone's in shock. For a couple of hours everyone walks around in a daze."

He knew of other New Zealanders who had been close to the 2002 bomb sites and had turned to drugs and whose marriages had failed because of awful memories.

"I can't watch the news any more because I can't handle it," he said.

He said he was sickened to hear of the latest bomb blasts in Bali.

"It gave me an instant headache just thinking about it. I really feel sorry for the Balinese most of all because people are going to stop going there," he said. "They haven't got a social welfare system. They're going to be hurting badly. The terrorists are just mindless."

Neither he nor partner Julia Warrington has been back to Bali since 2002. "I still would go back just for the Balinese' sake. They are special people. They're gentle people. This flies in the face of their whole society."

Meanwhile, the Foreign Affairs Ministry is urging people considering heading to Bali to defer their plans, but a couple of travel agencies have chosen not to pass the advice on.

Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Emma Reilly said the advice had been the same for the past three years, however it was essentially up to the individual to make the decision.

"But we would recommend that anyone going to somewhere like Indonesia read our travel advice," Ms Reilly said.

- NZPA