I am back!

I am finally back!!! Feels so good to be home!! Although it was a short week away from my crib, it felt like I was away for years.. Now, I really understand what Dorothy meant when she chanted "There's no place like home, there's no place like home". There really is no place like home!

An apt depiction of what I feel about Bali

About Bali... Sad to say, I honestly hated the place! It would have been a great holiday spot if not for the series of unfortunate events that just began pouring on me from day one! I honestly hated my Bali holiday. I remember watching Memories in Bali and thinking that it seemed like a nice place to go to, the beaches seemed perfect, and everyone said that Bali is like heaven on earth. All I can say now is, really? Didn't seem that way to me, maybe heaven went on holiday while I was there and left me with hell..

Bali is seriously full of scammers, there are people out to scam you everywhere! Be it the local vendors to governmental officers, everywhere you turn is a shark waiting to bite you to pieces. I managed to get a few good bargains at the local night markets, but they seriously seem to think that foreigners get their brains fried in the sun or something. I managed to haggle a pair of really nice embroidered shoes for like 30,000 Rupiah a pair so I figured I might as well get a couple and bring the price lower. The woman was like "No, No Cheap Cheap for you already. Not making money! Give you cheap for good luck!" My mom tried haggling a bit more, and she was like "No, Madam, cannot. I will give you 3 pairs for 100,000 Rupiah, very cheap for you". Like HELLO!! 3 pairs at 30,000 Rupiah is 90,000!! 100,000?? I did do Math in school you know!! I just balked and said "I don't need 3 pairs, 2 is fine. Besides, 3 pairs is 90,000 and not 100,000." Needless to say, she just took the 60,000 and kept quiet.

Then there was this guy who approached my parents and me and asked us to pry open this sealed coupon thing, and then claimed that we won a prize and wanted to bring us to a hotel to claim the prize. I was totally against the idea, but my parents were game (seriously, don't ask me why they went). I got into the cab with them, took out my cellphone and kept my hand on the door handle, all prepared to jump out if things went wrong. I was thinking throughout the whole way, my sis is so going to kill me for getting into the car, she's going to call me an idiot. And guess what.. when we reached the hotel, the first person I saw when I walked in through the door was my sis.. Anyways, the trip to the hotel was legit, they didn't trick us into going to a place and suddenly attacked us and reaped us for organs. All they did was try and scam us into joining this travel club, where we can supposedly enjoy fantastic rates for 5 star hotels all over the world. All we'd be paying is a management fee AND a joining fee.. Which was about USD 12,000.. My parents rejected them, and they got rather unpleasant at our lack of enthusiasm to jump at the golden opportunity. The blasted Philippino guy began giving my dad attitude when we said that we were not interested, and we just got up and said that we wanted to leave. And guess what our free prize was? A free week's stay at one of their hotels. Which isn't really free coz we need to pay like USD100 to confirm the room and some other crappy thing, plus we have to add on another USD200 to get a bigger room if there are more than 2 adults. Talk about a scam job!!!


The thing that really told us that this was another money cheating scam was that the registration place seemed really dingy, nothing like what an international company would offer. Plus they were pulling people off the streets, which is DEFINITELY not something an established company would do. The only silver lining in this cloud was that we got a free ride to a tourist spot and we had a safe adventure in Bali. I have never been scammed before, so this was an experience for me! By the way, the name of the holiday club is Royal, so everyone! Watch out for them! Oh, and we got free T-shirts as well, which we are all gonna use for washing our cars. And for wiping our feet..

I seriously think that there's something out to get me in Bali. I was nearly hit by a motorcycle while I was crossing the road, the damn motorcyclist decided to overtake a car that had stopped to give way to traffic and nearly killed ME. I sprained my ankle, and the next morning my ankle had swelled to the size of a golf ball.. On top of that, no matter what plans I made, they were always cancelled due to the horrible weather. I wanted to go snorkelling, the waves rose to 5 meters high.. I wanted to go on a tour to the mountains, the rain just started pouring and pouring.. I wanted to have a nice Indonesian meal and I was served with something that they probably serve everyone who hates eating food. The forces were really against me while I was there. Really against me.


But the worst thing that happened to me was when I was taking my flight out of Bali. I had lost my departure card, and the guy at the check in counter gave me another one, and said that if I explained that I lost my card, they'd let me through. So I went up to Immigrations. And was stopped. The fugly guy started questioning me like a criminal when he asked me where my card was. I told him I lost it at the hotel. Then he started telling me that I wouldn't be able to clear immigrations coz of the difference in entrance code and all, basically trying to scare the wits out of me. I just looked at him and said "Well, I lost my card and there's no way I can get it back. What do I do now?" Guess what his solution was. Money.


The fink asked me to pay a fine, which I was ok with. Then he told me how much. 100,000 for a lost card! 100,000!!! Never mind. I opened my purse and counted all the Rupiah I had, and I only had 80,000. I asked him if I could pay him in RM. And he was like, yea you can. Give me another 30 RM. I looked at him and said "No. That means that I am giving you more than 100,000. I've already paid 80,000. An extra 30 RM is like an extra 80,000!" I was starting to get a bit loud and everyone was asking my dad what was happening. I said out loud to my dad "This man is taking me for a ride, he's trying to cheat me". Then he got a scared at the scene that I was creating and quickly said "It's ok. 80,000 is fine. Just don't do it again". The effing fink! Blackmailing visitors into bribing him and then acting like it's all our own fault! I just grabbed my passport and stormed off. The only reason why I paid was coz I couldn't wait to leave Bali, and I didn't want to risk being unnecessarily detained and missing my flight for a measely 100,000. But what really got to me was the way everyone there see foreign visitors as cash cows. What was initially a fun holiday for me just ended up giving me nightmares.


Bali just hates me. And now I hate her too. Grrr...


But the trip wasn't a total waste. I did take some nice pics and bought loads of nice stuff. You just gotta take the good with the bad I suppose. I'll post up pics from my trip in my next post, took loads of random ones ( just have to love your camera phone!) and some really good pics of the view. But Bali is seriously overrated. I think that the scenery in NZ and Australia was loads better than the scenery in Bali. And it was so humid there that I literally bathed in my sweat everytime I walked out of the hotel! Not nice at all..


The weirdest thing is that lots of people thought I was from Taiwan.. Care to explain that to me anyone? Coz I sure don't get why.. Taiwan??