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Published: February 17th 2008
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My New Dentist And Crew
Had 3 visits. Hired a driver for $20.00 each time we went to Denpasar. Got a tooth extracted and a new bridge for $970.00. A third of what I would have paid in the USA. Dental and medical tourism is very popular now. Pretty much as soon as we arrived in Bali we needed to locate a dentist for William who had a cracked tooth that happened shortly before our departure of the U.S. The right side of his face was swollen up along with his gum in that area, not to mention some pain.
We found a clinic in Denpasar, the largest city of Bali, that looked good from what we saw on their website.
It wasn't quite so impressive and modern as it looked in the photos but overall, pretty up to date. There was one common waiting area with reception and working rooms for 6 or 7 dentists around that. Each dentist seemed to have his own room. The (dead) tooth came out quickly and easily and then William talked to the dentist about cost and options for dealing with the space.
The dentist he got the appt. with spoke some english but it was not that easy to understand everything he said and patience was required.
While William was in the dentist chair ~ and the rooms are similar to what you would find in a dentists' office in the U.S. ~ Adam and I were in the waiting
Our Driver
Adam with our driver Made. room/reception area. We got into a conversation with an Australian guy who is married to a Balinese woman. They spend more of their time in Australia but also have a home near Ubud. This turned out to be a good connection for us as since this time we have hired the wifes brother to be our driver and he speaks relatively good english and has offered to help us negotiate deals on purchases and other services. We do pay him for his time of course but he gives us a fair price...
Talking with Blake the Aussie I wanted to know about the water in Bali. This has been a bit tricky for us to sort out. The tap water looks clean, smells fine (no detectable chlorine or other smells) but we didn't know of its source. Blake said: "Do not drink the tap water or even put your tooth brush in it! Don't eat the meat here". Well, of course we wouldn't use it as our drinking water but this seemed like a dire warning! Later another ex-pat woman living in Ubud said something similar about the water.
In Ubud many restaurants also advertise that they wash their produce in "Aqua" filtered water. This was reassuring to us at first.
Later we found out from another Aussie guy who is a specialist in waste treatment and travels around Asia doing that as his work, that it has been customary throughout Asia for many decades that people do not drink the tap water. Perhaps it is a habit from when their systems we not as good.
He didn't think that we needed to worry so much about it that we would not put our toothbrush in it.
The only problem is that sometimes the water pipes break and it is a breach in the system that lets ground contaminants in. We didn't get any details about their water treatment here... wish I had asked him that.
After talking with the second guy we weren't so concerned about the water and we have been eating meat like chicken occasionally. We haven't gotten sick from eating salads and other things in the restaurants so the public eating establishments have it down pretty well.
But, I did eat a little Balinese food with some pork and jack fruit (something I never eat, and jack fruit I do not care for). But this was special feast food that was offered to us at Sania's so we felt we should at least try it. Adam didn't have any.
After that I got very, very sick for a few days and had to go to a healer to help get over it.
I won't go into the details but I will tell about the experience with the healer in another entry as this was a unique experience for both William and I.
The other foreigner who told us to be very careful about the tap water even had a protocol for washing her dishes which involved using water boiled for 10 minutes to rinse the dishes after washing. And she recommended not drinking tap water unless it was boiled for 10 minutes.
Well, you know where we stay the kitchens have no hot water and the dishes seemed to be washed in cold water so.... I don't know.... at some point you have to stop thinking about it and let go of what you can't control as in so many situations in life.
But we pretty much keep our own cups and sometimes plates or bowls when we cook our own food and wash them ourselves in the hot water in our bathroom. This makes me feel a little better.
As far as water they serve us for tea at Sania's house, it is filtered.
Anyway, it took us several weeks to sort out all this about the water and get more comfortable with it, as I was trying to get over what ailed me in our first week here.
Since our initial visit to the dentist we all went back for some teeth cleaning (and that is the day that we also said goodbye to Adam and he flew out of Denpasar to S.F. the next day). I do miss him!
The dentist I went to for cleaning was a happy sort of Asian man with some spaces between his teeth and pointy canines more noticeable than most. He was very easy to talk to and had an amused way about him, laughing easily.
That was o.k. for me and set me at ease though for someone else it might have had the opposite effect!
He was easy going and friendly ~ an Indonesian born of Chinese parentage raised on Java. His name is Haris Wibowo which is a very interesting name I think.
When he told me I should brush my teeth more lightly because I was wearing away the enamel near the gum line he was kind of laughing. (This is not the first time a dentist has told me this!).
The dentists and all the assistants wear rubber flip flops or something like crocks. It is a strange and funny sight. When Adam was getting his teeth cleaned his dentist even had the sandals off. Other than this they all looked very professional. This kind of thing is something you get used to here after awhile.
But it still makes me laugh!
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