Temple Gateway

Travel Log: Tipping Point

In America we tip for so many things. Someone brings you a cup of coffee. You tip them. Someone takes your bag to your room. You tip them. However, there are slight variations on these services where you're not supposed to tip. I've never quite figured out when and where these are. When you hire movers you're apparently supposed to tip them and/or the driver, even though you've paid for their services. At a fast food place they may bring you your food on a tray, but you don't tip them. If there is a set of rules for tipping, I've never seen it. Add to that trying to figure out how much you're supposed to tip for things. When I was younger the standard tip was 10%, which was for a good job. Now it seems that is considered being rude. Tipping 15-20% is pretty standard it seems, even though in a lot of these situations the person is simply doing the job that you've already paid for. Very confusing.

It's even more difficult here in Indonesia because the currency is so much different. An American dollar is worth over ten thousand of the local currency. So it's hard to know if 10% is reasonable or not. With taxi drivers we've tended to be a lot more generous because after seeing how they are forced to navigate the tiny streets here, a tip is really a thank you for getting us there alive and with all of our pieces still attached. We did learn though that sometimes, maybe most times, the taxi drivers have incentive to stop at certain places that tourists like. For instance a view point overlooking much of the hills and rice fields will have someone there with exotic animals or trinkets. The driver stops, you get your picture, maybe the guy at the stand gets a few dollars, and the taxi driver might get a split. I'm not sure, but I've seen money changing hands so something is going on. Most of the time this has been all very casual, with the option to politely refuse if you don't want something. The closer we got to one of the main holy temples in Bali, the more requests for money we got. Some of which didn't feel like requests either. As we stood on the side of a road taking a picture of the mountains, a man in a camouflage jacket rode up on a scooter and told us that we have to pay. When we asked what for, he simply said that lots of tourists come through here and we have to pay. He said this as cars and motorcycles kept whizzing by, more full of locals than of tourists. The taxi driver handed us some money and we paid the guy, who then hopped on his scooter and drove off. Apparently we were on some kind of toll road and didn't even know it. Our second toll came when we were stopped on the way to the temple. A woman asked our names and gave us a blessing. She then immediately held out your hands and said 'Now gimme money'. I'm not even kidding about that part. We both saw it coming, but were disappointed just the same. I don't think blessings can be contingent on payment. Either way, we gave her some money and were on our way.

Finally we arrived at the largest temple on Bali and were greeted by guides, who insisted we had to 'donate' in order to be accompanied by a local guide. We had read in our travel book that it simply wasn't true, but we had been riding in a car for nearly four hours and were exhausted. We 'donated' some money and walked with a guide into the holy temple so we could get some very expensive photographs. And at the end of the little field trip our seemingly nice guide held out his hand to ask for more money, to which we responded that we already donated and that he should take up his collection from the guy who had our holy offering. With that we left and decided that the other temple we had planned on seeing was off the list.

I get that people need to make money and I get that some people will run a scam if they think it will work. The part that bothered me was that they used what is supposed to be a holy place as a way to guilt people into paying. Maybe in the past tourists had come and treated the place like garbage by filling it with garbage. The locals, seeing a chance to earn some money from the loud tourists decided it's best to overcharge just in case because they will get money from both the good and the bad. Either way, it was the first part of the trip where it felt like we were being taken advantage of and it kept us on guard for a long while after that.

After all that, we managed to arrive at a small town that is built a reputation around scuba diving to a somewhat famous US Naval ship, the USS Liberty, which is sunk just off the shore. Never having done scuba before, it was kind of amazing having my first trip be to a sunken ship filled with tropical fish, barracudas, sea slugs, and manta rays. Granted I spent the first half of my dive focused on my breathing and simply not dying, but once I had gotten the hang of things, it was really amazing being in a place that the human body wasn't really supposed to be.

We've entered the last couple of weeks before we leave SE Asia and start making our way back home. I'm not sure what to expect. I am excited for what comes next though.

Falling Water

Travel Log: Australian Hawaii

It turns out going to Jakarta and not liking it wasn't all that bad of a thing to happen.  Because of it we've come to Bali earlier than originally planned.  The first stop was Kuta Beach, which in the travel book was described as where you'd experience the hedonistic beach world.  It sounded almost post-apocalyptic.  Then we saw what it was.  It was a street lined with resorts on one side and shopping and bars on the other.  In either direction from our hotel was a mall.  Apparently this area is very popular with Australian tourists, who come here on an annual basis.  There were several visitors who behaved like they had been friends with the staff for awhile, which either happens over several trips or this is a movie and they're the main character of the story and have somehow gotten close to everyone they come into contact with in a matter of a few scenes.  It must be nice to have something tropical so close...like Hawaii.  The downside to this though is that every white person is assumed to be from Australia so the 'Hey, Mate.  Shopping?' continues.  It was actually getting a little tedious not being able to walk more than ten feet without having to say 'no thank you'.  When everyone looks at you like a giant, white ATM with horrible taste it's hard to really relax and enjoy yourself.  It wasn't all bad though.  It was just something that took some getting use to.

After that we headed towards the town Ubud, which is known as an artistic area and a lot more relaxed.  On the main road, which is called Monkey Forest Road (spoiler alert monkeys) there are endless galleries of paintings, sculptures, souvenirs, good clothing, and wooden penis bottle openers.  And right at the center of this is the Monkey Forest, where gangster monkeys roam around waiting for a tourist to give them a park-approved banana.  If they get tired of waiting, they'll just climb onto you and see what's in your bag.  They have no fear and one little one even came up and bit us, just to show us that it could.  There is something very disarming about watching how they watch us.  'When she looks at you, you can tell she's working things out.  They remember.'

The town also has what is said to be the best tacos in Indonesia, which may be a bold claim or just a simple trick since they may be the only ones who make tacos.  Either way, we managed to come around the world and find damn good tacos.  Good enough that we ate there all three days we were in town.  Even on our last day when we only had an hour left before our taxi (taksi) came to pick us up for the next stop, we made sure to stop in for one last bite.  Before we left the town, we made sure to take advantage of some of the activities nearby, which included river rafting.  Rafting may be too strong of a term.  It was more like a water park ride with the safeties disabled.  Our guide was gracious enough to give us paddles and tell us to paddle a few times so we felt like we were white water rafting.  The best part was when we dropped off a twelve foot waterfall before we could continue on for a lunch break.

We've since arrived in Munduk, which is a nice little mountain village with a few resorts that seem to cater to the French.  The views are fantastic and we're basically staying in a movie.  Right now I'm on the side patio, overlooking the grounds while the cicadas go bananas letting everyone know that the sun is going down soon.  Once it gets dark here though most people don't go out as there is a local belief that the jungle may be inhabited by spirits or demons.  Based on the size of the spiders I've seen, I can see how someone would think it's a demon.  Either way once the sun goes down I'm staying in the light.  No need to find out if the locals are right or not.

Singapore Panda

Travel Log: Jakarta

Well it had to happen eventually. We found a place that we don't like. At first I thought it was just from being spoiled by Singapore, but it feels like it goes beyond that. Not a lot of tourists come through this city and it's not setup for visitors, so I can't really fault the city for not being travel-friendly. It's a bit like if someone from Eastern Europe went to visit Billings, MT and wondered why no one understood them. That said, we tried to do a few things here to make the best of our couple of days stay. It was strange though because people everywhere would stare at you. At first I thought maybe I had an alien face hugger attached to my face, but no, it's just because I'm a tall white person. After awhile it makes a person feel self-conscious to the point that I don't want to play anymore.

Originally this was supposed to be a jumping off point to the last part of our South East Asia leg of the trip, but after finding out how difficult it is to get out of the city to the areas we want to visit on Java we've decided to scrap the whole island and head straight to Bali, where it's more suited to our frame of mind at this point in our trip. From there we should be able to do some island hopping and maybe even see some dragons!

Cloud Garden