Why Grab and Gojek drivers fear Bali’s ‘no-go zones’
An unseen battle between ride-hailing giants and traditional village councils is forcing tourists to pay inflated rates – or walk
“I cannot come to you,” Katie Williams was told, seconds after her Grab driver had accepted her request for a ride in Canggu. “I cannot come to you. You need to come meet me.”
Williams, an Australian tourist in her mid-thirties, explained through the app that her elderly parents struggled to walk very far in the hot Bali sun. The driver’s reply was blunt: “It’s too dangerous. I cannot come.”
After two more cancellations, she eventually relented and paid a local driver twice the original fare.
Williams only discovered afterwards that her hotel sat inside one of Bali’s informal “no-go zones” for app-based drivers: invisible front lines in a transport war that most tourists never see coming.