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Published: October 9th 2008
Ok, I'm a millionaire in Rupiah, but we can get to that in a minute.
Indonesia. As of yet we have only seen Kuta, the touristy area in Bali. We flow in on Tuesday night and stayed at a hotel where we had made a reservation only to find out that it's pretty isolated. We spent Wednesday morning walking around looking for a hotel more in the heart of Kuta. We found a lovely hotel (Beneyasa on Poppies II). It has an amazing pool and our room with a private bathroom and large balcony overlooking the pool is only about $10 a night. There are about 10,000 rupiah to the US dollar, which makes figuring out how much things cost pretty easy if you remember where to put the decimal point. The first thing that we noticed after being in Australia is that Indonesia is CHEAP. So we pay $5 each a day for the hotel, a 22oz Bintang beer (somewhere between a budweiser and a coors) is $1.50, a meal is under $2, a massage is about $5/hour.... as you might have guessed, we're in heaven.
It was pouring when we arrived but it has been nice since then. Disapointing is the beach - it's filled with trash, there are big machines working on it (I assume in preparation for the 1st Annual Asian Beach Games next week, whatever that is). We spent about 15 minutes at the beach today before deciding that the pool was more our style. IT's pretty hot during the day, but nothing that hours in the pool won't cure.
First impressions...
Traffic: Lane lines are a mere indicator of the direction that the road goes in. Two lanes generally means 4 lanes of traffic. Passing is fine regardless of what is coming. No need to look before you merge into traffic. Stephanie and I rented a scooter (I drive, she rides on the back) and she sings in my ear the whole time "To the left, to the left," (by Beyonce) to make sure I stay on the correct side of the road. The scooter has seen better days and every ride is an adventure, but luckily traffic makes it so we can't go very fast.
Religion: I love the Hindu culture. People here make offerings every morning which consist of little baskets of flowers and inexplicably crackers and mints (I assume that they are feeding their gods and then helping them freshen their breath...?).
People: People here are super friendly. A lot of the time they are trying to sell you something, but sometimes they really just want to talk. Everyone swears that you're special and they are going to give you a special deal and they truly delight in bargaining - they even tell you that you are allowed to bargain with the price they give you.
Scams: Today we stopped at a book store to buy some new books to read by the pool and before we left these two women were like "free gifts for you" and gave us bracelets. Fine, right? No. WE basically got attacked and they did our nails and then insisted that we pay them 450,000 rupiahs. Ha. THat's about $45. I offered them 100,000 which I thought was plenty generous considering I didn't want my nails done and finally had to strong arm them to get out of the store. I told them they could take the 100,000 or I was walking away with it and they cussed me out and snatched it out my hands. MOST of the people are not like that.
Tourists: All Australian. Drunk and loud. All surfers.
So, in closing, I will write again soon with pictures. We are going to be here a few days and then maybe see more of Bali and then move on to Lombok and some other islands. After that, Malaysia. Indonesia is quite enjoyable and I highly recommend it. Okay, off to cool off. Maybe a dip in the pool?
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Nadine
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katrinaland
So, to boil down your post you have been stealing religious breath mints and spending 8 hours a day being massaged? Sounds exactly how you spent 2007 in Seattle. I am just jealous that those oiled up hands aren't mine.