December 18, 2005 (Jodi)
Well, we rode our last leg in Bali today from Sanur to Kuta. We checked back into the same hotel that we stayed in our first night here because they agreed to hang on to our bike boxes for us until we returned. That was handy! So Kirk is currently in the shower scrubbing our bikes down before we box them up for their journey to Singapore tomorrow. Yes…the shower. The bathrooms here are one room that consists of a toilet, a sink and a shower head all off the same wall. The shower doesn’t have it’s own stall or glass around it which is actually a nice simple way to build a bathroom and has inspired some ideas for us on our house plans. A lot of the bathrooms also have an opening along the roofline to the outside with a rock like wall below it and plants in it. It makes it feel like you’re showering outside. It’s a very nice idea that we’ve grown to love since we tend to rate each place we stay based on the shower (another side effect of Pole). We also appreciate the way they use tile everywhere. It’s used for porches, throughout the room and it covers the walls and floors of the bathrooms. That’s why the Balinese sweep so much. The drawback to the nice feeling of tile is that it can be a little tricky when it gets wet. Kirk almost bit it while it was raining this evening. He went to the front desk to ask a question in his bare feet and was jogging back up to the porch and did a nice little foot slide. Fortunately he caught his balance, stayed on his feet and made it look like a dance move. I wasn’t so lucky the other day. We had just finished showering and I stepped out of the bathroom. I came back in to get something and put one foot on the wet floor and my foot totally slipped out from underneath me. I was lying on the floor in shock with a few new bruises forming, but realized no overall harm was done. Whew! My sister emailed me and pointed out that I seem to be accident-prone lately after falling off my bike on a few occasions and now on the bathroom floor. Let’s hope that pattern doesn’t continue throughout the trip!
Well after 3 weeks in this lovely place I’ve come to the conclusion that I could have easily spent at least another week here exploring the lovely landscape of Bali. However, I am grateful that we were able to see and experience so much here in such a short time. It’s always a good thing to leave somewhere wanting more. It gives us a good reason to come back in the future. Bali also served a good purpose for us. It was our training ground for the bigger portion of our trip in SE Asia. It served us well in that fashion. We learned so much about traveling by bike and what kind of riding vs. layover day schedule is appropriate to let our bodies properly rest. We’ve tested our endurance and strength and feel like we could easily pound out the miles if needed. The biggest lesson though has really been how to be a seasoned tourist. We’re not “seasoned” per say after only 3 weeks, but believe me the learning curve is fast. We had our fair share of people conning money out of us through different methods. After it happens once we laugh about it and chalk it up to another learning experience.
For example our first day at the airport we haggled with a taxi driver to take us to Kuta and he started at the equivalent of $20 USD. We got him down to $10 and thought we did okay until we realized the ride was only about 4km and a total of 5 minutes. We could have easily walked to a hotel right from the airport had we known better. So we paid the money per our agreement and walked away knowing that going back to the airport we wouldn’t be suckered again. Fortunately our hotel arranged transport for us tomorrow for $3. Now that’s more like it.
Another example was near the Hot Springs after about 4 days in Bali. We stayed at a mediocre hotel and this group of guys engaged Kirk in a conversation when he went outside of the room. I came out 45 minutes later to see where he was and he was looking at a bunch of 8x10 paintings that one of the guys was selling. I figured Kirk was very interested because we talked about how we wanted to buy some art in our travels and he was out there for so long. So we looked through the paintings together and found a few we liked. The artist named “Zero” spoke very good English and told us that he used the lava from the volcano in these paintings. He also thoroughly explained the significance of the characters or symbols. Then he showed us a book where his customers, who were tourists from all around the globe, wrote a little blurb about his art and why they bought from him. We asked him how much and he said $10 USD for one or he would give us a better price for two or more. We tried to barter with him and he told us in a grave manner that, “This was not the market…this was art!” Kirk was ready to back out and just say no. He explained to Zero that we didn’t have a good means of carrying anything because we’re on bicycles, but Zero persisted. He pulled out a piece of cardboard that fit around the painting. We went in circles for a few minutes and I finally told Kirk to just go ahead and buy one. I thought it would be rude if we didn’t since we engaged this guy for so long looking and we did like a few of the paintings after all. Kirk reluctantly paid the guy $10 for one painting and then the rest of the guys that were watching this whole deal go down started in on us. One of them kept pestering us for transport for the next day and wanted to set up times and prices and he was very persistent. We tried to explain that we didn’t know our plans and if we needed transport we’d find it tomorrow. Kirk was about to explode under this guys sale pressure after being a little disgruntled about the painting, so I firmly told him “no” and we walked away. As we were walking back to our room he said “Okay, see you tomorrow”. Ugh! So we laid low in our room that night to avoid any other contact with these guys knowing that they saw we were willing to spend our money here and we were the only tourists they had seen for weeks. We snuck out of our room the next morning to anonymously enjoy our breakfast and this old man came and sat down with us. I was expecting him to talk to us about our travels and such as most friendly folks in Bali do, when he told us that his son sent him over to pick us up for transport today. We shooed him off pretty quick and were very disturbed that he would pull up a chair at our table and act like a friend. We quickly packed up to leave and as we were taking our bikes out of the room another guy approached us and asked us to look at his paintings. We told him we already bought a painting and rode as fast as we could out of there to our little oasis at the Hot Springs.
Looking back on it now, Kirk and I just laugh because we realized that Zero was an artist all right. A con artist! We later saw that these same paintings are sold everywhere for much cheaper than we paid and all of the people selling them say that they painted them. They also had similar books with testimonies from sucker tourists like us. There is no way to know for sure because I’m guessing that if they really are artists they probably learn the traditional methods, which is why their work all looks the same. Although Kirk made a good point that all of the paintings are signed on the matting and not on the painting itself. Who knows! It makes a good story though and we’ll always have that painting to look back on for a reminder.
Since then, we’ve had a couple more instances like that. All of which were frustrating after the fact when we came to our senses and realized what was really going on. The point is that it’s all a game where you have to learn the rules by trial and error and that takes time. We’re a little savvier now like in finding our transport up to Mt. Bratan from Lovina. We spoke to several drivers who wanted $20 to take us the short distance to the top of the mountain. We tried to talk them into $10 knowing that they would still make money on the deal. I even went to the lengths to explain to one guy the amount it would cost him in petrol calculated by the distance and that he would only burn gas on the way up. We’ve noticed that they all coast going downhill to save in petrol. He wouldn’t budge and tried to justify his cost by saying our bicycles made it more expensive (we’ve heard that one on several occasions, but they can’t seem to explain why that really is) or that he has to pay his driver (which didn’t calculate out either because I’m pretty sure his driver wouldn’t get paid that well). I asked one guy if he needed the money and he said “yes”. So I said, “Well, I’ll either give my $10 to you or to someone else who is hungry enough to take it”. He turned me down. This was completely silly to both Kirk and I especially after discovering that when we rode down the road about 8km to the bus station in a non-touristy town, someone offered to take us for $7.50 and he was very excited about earning that price. In the future we won’t even bother with trying to negotiate in a touristy area. We’ll go to where the locals hang out and find our bargains there.
Touristy areas like Kuta can be a little overwhelming for the first time, but coming back to it now we feel better equipped. The minute we walk out of our hotel onto the main road we are bombared with “Braid your hair?, Paint your nails?, Massage?, Transport?, Look in my shop?” Come to Eat?”, etc. etc. over and over and over. I’m sure you get the idea. This time we just ignored most of them and would have a conversation among ourselves as we walked down the road. Occasionally we would have to acknowledge them and say “no” several times firmly to get them to stop following us. For the first couple of days I felt rude if I didn’t at least acknowledge everyone who solicited us with a “no thank you”. Now I just realize that it just takes too much energy to deal with them all directly and I just don’t have it. Especially knowing that we’ll be encountering similar situations all through SE Asia. Better to harden up a little here in Bali before bringing our naivety elsewhere. Kirk has a little less tolerance for it than I do, but I always remind him that these people are just doing their jobs. They are trying to make a buck and survive and their survival depends on people like us. We’re just a little wiser to being overcharged now.
The biggest part of being a tourist is learning the value of $1 USD in the country you are in. Towards the end of our trip we finally figured out that we don’t need to pay a lot for anything here in Bali. We could easily eat a filling meal for the two of us at a local warung instead of a touristy restaurant and pay $3 USD vs. $12 USD. I know both figures sound cheap, and they are compared to U.S. standards, but we’re not in the U.S. So why pay higher prices than necessary? They still make money on you whether you buy a bottle of water from a hotel for $1 + or from a little shanty warung for 20 cents. In fact we discovered the warungs were more fun in the end and served more of a purpose in helping the general population. We could buy from them for cheaper prices than we’d pay at a store or hotel and you could tell that they were overcharging us (compared to what they charge locals) thinking they were getting away with something. It served both our purposes and we felt better knowing we probably fed a family for several meals by our meager purchases.
We found the hotels that we paid the equivalent of $25 USD for were no better than the family homestays or guesthouses that we paid $5 to $15 USD for. In fact the homestays and guesthouses were better because we were able to meet the families and interact with more locals that way. It makes for a much more pleasurable experience in our opinion. But that’s another reason that Bali is so great. If you like all inclusive resorts and you want a high dollar vacation for a fraction of what you’d pay in the U.S., come to Bali. You’ll find what you’re looking for. In the end this lovely little paradise really does have something for every kind of traveler. Sure it has some room for improvement, like the fact that there is just too much trash around Bali. I rarely ever saw a garbage bin except for in our rooms. I think it has always been part of their culture to throw their garbage on the roads, in front of their houses, in the irrigation ditches, the rivers, you name it. This method was probably fine when they just used palm leaves, banana leaves and other natural types of products to serve their household purposes. But now with most products being sold in plastics and other non-biodegradable materials, it just sits on the ground or in the water and probably will for ages. It’s no wonder they can’t drink the water from the tap with all the garbage floating around. I’d really like to see that change. These people deserve to drink right out of the tap just like we can in the States and then they won’t have to buy water in plastic bottles or take the time to boil their water everyday. Anyway, I’ll get off my soapbox now, but it sure made me realize how spoiled we are in our country and I wish I could do something to help these people have a better standard of living that I think we all deserve. Despite a few of the inconveniences to most Western people, Bali is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been and I’d sure like to see it stay that way.
Just a thought I’d like to add. We know that it seems like we focus a lot on the money aspect of traveling. We are quite aware that we do. It’s a big part of traveling when you are on the road for such a long period of time. The reason we figured we could stretch our travels out for so long was because we heard that a couple can easily live off $35 USD per day in SE Asia and we wanted to be able to travel for as long as possible on our overall travel budget. We also take it very seriously because every day that we go over budget it eats into our money that will go towards building our house back in Colorado. So I just thought I’d clarify that because believe me, I’m just like most people in that I enjoy the splurges of a normal vacation. However this vacation is definitely not a typical one and is very different than any one I’ve ever taken before. It’s a lot more work in many aspects but it also more rewarding than I could ever explain in words. So there you have it, our excuse for being cheap!! :)
Well after 3 weeks in this lovely place I’ve come to the conclusion that I could have easily spent at least another week here exploring the lovely landscape of Bali. However, I am grateful that we were able to see and experience so much here in such a short time. It’s always a good thing to leave somewhere wanting more. It gives us a good reason to come back in the future. Bali also served a good purpose for us. It was our training ground for the bigger portion of our trip in SE Asia. It served us well in that fashion. We learned so much about traveling by bike and what kind of riding vs. layover day schedule is appropriate to let our bodies properly rest. We’ve tested our endurance and strength and feel like we could easily pound out the miles if needed. The biggest lesson though has really been how to be a seasoned tourist. We’re not “seasoned” per say after only 3 weeks, but believe me the learning curve is fast. We had our fair share of people conning money out of us through different methods. After it happens once we laugh about it and chalk it up to another learning experience.
For example our first day at the airport we haggled with a taxi driver to take us to Kuta and he started at the equivalent of $20 USD. We got him down to $10 and thought we did okay until we realized the ride was only about 4km and a total of 5 minutes. We could have easily walked to a hotel right from the airport had we known better. So we paid the money per our agreement and walked away knowing that going back to the airport we wouldn’t be suckered again. Fortunately our hotel arranged transport for us tomorrow for $3. Now that’s more like it.
Another example was near the Hot Springs after about 4 days in Bali. We stayed at a mediocre hotel and this group of guys engaged Kirk in a conversation when he went outside of the room. I came out 45 minutes later to see where he was and he was looking at a bunch of 8x10 paintings that one of the guys was selling. I figured Kirk was very interested because we talked about how we wanted to buy some art in our travels and he was out there for so long. So we looked through the paintings together and found a few we liked. The artist named “Zero” spoke very good English and told us that he used the lava from the volcano in these paintings. He also thoroughly explained the significance of the characters or symbols. Then he showed us a book where his customers, who were tourists from all around the globe, wrote a little blurb about his art and why they bought from him. We asked him how much and he said $10 USD for one or he would give us a better price for two or more. We tried to barter with him and he told us in a grave manner that, “This was not the market…this was art!” Kirk was ready to back out and just say no. He explained to Zero that we didn’t have a good means of carrying anything because we’re on bicycles, but Zero persisted. He pulled out a piece of cardboard that fit around the painting. We went in circles for a few minutes and I finally told Kirk to just go ahead and buy one. I thought it would be rude if we didn’t since we engaged this guy for so long looking and we did like a few of the paintings after all. Kirk reluctantly paid the guy $10 for one painting and then the rest of the guys that were watching this whole deal go down started in on us. One of them kept pestering us for transport for the next day and wanted to set up times and prices and he was very persistent. We tried to explain that we didn’t know our plans and if we needed transport we’d find it tomorrow. Kirk was about to explode under this guys sale pressure after being a little disgruntled about the painting, so I firmly told him “no” and we walked away. As we were walking back to our room he said “Okay, see you tomorrow”. Ugh! So we laid low in our room that night to avoid any other contact with these guys knowing that they saw we were willing to spend our money here and we were the only tourists they had seen for weeks. We snuck out of our room the next morning to anonymously enjoy our breakfast and this old man came and sat down with us. I was expecting him to talk to us about our travels and such as most friendly folks in Bali do, when he told us that his son sent him over to pick us up for transport today. We shooed him off pretty quick and were very disturbed that he would pull up a chair at our table and act like a friend. We quickly packed up to leave and as we were taking our bikes out of the room another guy approached us and asked us to look at his paintings. We told him we already bought a painting and rode as fast as we could out of there to our little oasis at the Hot Springs.
Looking back on it now, Kirk and I just laugh because we realized that Zero was an artist all right. A con artist! We later saw that these same paintings are sold everywhere for much cheaper than we paid and all of the people selling them say that they painted them. They also had similar books with testimonies from sucker tourists like us. There is no way to know for sure because I’m guessing that if they really are artists they probably learn the traditional methods, which is why their work all looks the same. Although Kirk made a good point that all of the paintings are signed on the matting and not on the painting itself. Who knows! It makes a good story though and we’ll always have that painting to look back on for a reminder.
Since then, we’ve had a couple more instances like that. All of which were frustrating after the fact when we came to our senses and realized what was really going on. The point is that it’s all a game where you have to learn the rules by trial and error and that takes time. We’re a little savvier now like in finding our transport up to Mt. Bratan from Lovina. We spoke to several drivers who wanted $20 to take us the short distance to the top of the mountain. We tried to talk them into $10 knowing that they would still make money on the deal. I even went to the lengths to explain to one guy the amount it would cost him in petrol calculated by the distance and that he would only burn gas on the way up. We’ve noticed that they all coast going downhill to save in petrol. He wouldn’t budge and tried to justify his cost by saying our bicycles made it more expensive (we’ve heard that one on several occasions, but they can’t seem to explain why that really is) or that he has to pay his driver (which didn’t calculate out either because I’m pretty sure his driver wouldn’t get paid that well). I asked one guy if he needed the money and he said “yes”. So I said, “Well, I’ll either give my $10 to you or to someone else who is hungry enough to take it”. He turned me down. This was completely silly to both Kirk and I especially after discovering that when we rode down the road about 8km to the bus station in a non-touristy town, someone offered to take us for $7.50 and he was very excited about earning that price. In the future we won’t even bother with trying to negotiate in a touristy area. We’ll go to where the locals hang out and find our bargains there.
Touristy areas like Kuta can be a little overwhelming for the first time, but coming back to it now we feel better equipped. The minute we walk out of our hotel onto the main road we are bombared with “Braid your hair?, Paint your nails?, Massage?, Transport?, Look in my shop?” Come to Eat?”, etc. etc. over and over and over. I’m sure you get the idea. This time we just ignored most of them and would have a conversation among ourselves as we walked down the road. Occasionally we would have to acknowledge them and say “no” several times firmly to get them to stop following us. For the first couple of days I felt rude if I didn’t at least acknowledge everyone who solicited us with a “no thank you”. Now I just realize that it just takes too much energy to deal with them all directly and I just don’t have it. Especially knowing that we’ll be encountering similar situations all through SE Asia. Better to harden up a little here in Bali before bringing our naivety elsewhere. Kirk has a little less tolerance for it than I do, but I always remind him that these people are just doing their jobs. They are trying to make a buck and survive and their survival depends on people like us. We’re just a little wiser to being overcharged now.
The biggest part of being a tourist is learning the value of $1 USD in the country you are in. Towards the end of our trip we finally figured out that we don’t need to pay a lot for anything here in Bali. We could easily eat a filling meal for the two of us at a local warung instead of a touristy restaurant and pay $3 USD vs. $12 USD. I know both figures sound cheap, and they are compared to U.S. standards, but we’re not in the U.S. So why pay higher prices than necessary? They still make money on you whether you buy a bottle of water from a hotel for $1 + or from a little shanty warung for 20 cents. In fact we discovered the warungs were more fun in the end and served more of a purpose in helping the general population. We could buy from them for cheaper prices than we’d pay at a store or hotel and you could tell that they were overcharging us (compared to what they charge locals) thinking they were getting away with something. It served both our purposes and we felt better knowing we probably fed a family for several meals by our meager purchases.
We found the hotels that we paid the equivalent of $25 USD for were no better than the family homestays or guesthouses that we paid $5 to $15 USD for. In fact the homestays and guesthouses were better because we were able to meet the families and interact with more locals that way. It makes for a much more pleasurable experience in our opinion. But that’s another reason that Bali is so great. If you like all inclusive resorts and you want a high dollar vacation for a fraction of what you’d pay in the U.S., come to Bali. You’ll find what you’re looking for. In the end this lovely little paradise really does have something for every kind of traveler. Sure it has some room for improvement, like the fact that there is just too much trash around Bali. I rarely ever saw a garbage bin except for in our rooms. I think it has always been part of their culture to throw their garbage on the roads, in front of their houses, in the irrigation ditches, the rivers, you name it. This method was probably fine when they just used palm leaves, banana leaves and other natural types of products to serve their household purposes. But now with most products being sold in plastics and other non-biodegradable materials, it just sits on the ground or in the water and probably will for ages. It’s no wonder they can’t drink the water from the tap with all the garbage floating around. I’d really like to see that change. These people deserve to drink right out of the tap just like we can in the States and then they won’t have to buy water in plastic bottles or take the time to boil their water everyday. Anyway, I’ll get off my soapbox now, but it sure made me realize how spoiled we are in our country and I wish I could do something to help these people have a better standard of living that I think we all deserve. Despite a few of the inconveniences to most Western people, Bali is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been and I’d sure like to see it stay that way.
Just a thought I’d like to add. We know that it seems like we focus a lot on the money aspect of traveling. We are quite aware that we do. It’s a big part of traveling when you are on the road for such a long period of time. The reason we figured we could stretch our travels out for so long was because we heard that a couple can easily live off $35 USD per day in SE Asia and we wanted to be able to travel for as long as possible on our overall travel budget. We also take it very seriously because every day that we go over budget it eats into our money that will go towards building our house back in Colorado. So I just thought I’d clarify that because believe me, I’m just like most people in that I enjoy the splurges of a normal vacation. However this vacation is definitely not a typical one and is very different than any one I’ve ever taken before. It’s a lot more work in many aspects but it also more rewarding than I could ever explain in words. So there you have it, our excuse for being cheap!! :)
posted by Kirk & Jodi Roberts at 6:29 PM
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