April 4, 2006
Hello people!
I last wrote when I just arrived to Yogyakarta and the next day I went out to Borobudur and Prambanan temples which were built a little after Angkor Wat. On my tour I met "Steffen and Marcel" from Germany who are doing an internship in Indonesia and "Kate" from London who is teaching English in Indonesia. As we drove out to the site we talked about all the taxi rip-offs and shared experiences and it seems also that they met my little friend the "old guy" who gave them a similar "free" tour and then wanted $100,000 rupees from them. Obviously this guy hangs around the Independence Monument Park looking for white skinned tourists to rip-off.
We spent a couple hours at each site, then our driver wanted to take us to a silver shop where we could see silver made into very expensive things which they hoped we tourists would buy from them. We said "forget it" and weren't interested and then our driver asked if we were interested in a puppet show and we reluctantly said "OK" until we learned the puppet show was inside the silver shop and they put on a 10 minute show and then our driver wanted to leave us there for 15 minutes as he wanted to go to the mosque and pray and again we said "forget it! just drop us off where you picked us up". These guys get little commissions all over Southeast Asia for just bringing in tourists. The praying at the mosque was just the little tricks they use that we were all well aware of.
I checked into the Astina hotel and sat down at their restaurant when I peeked into the kitchen to see that it was bare with no food around but I ordered a small breakfast and I see the guy who just took my order jump on his scooter and take off and another guy comes out with my coffee and we have polite conversation talking about how Bali's tourism has suffered since the two bombings and he tells me I am the only customer at the hotel which has a bunch of separate cottages with a swimming pool and 20 meters from the beach. I see that he is talking to me and no one is in the kitchen so I ask how my breakfast is coming along and he says the guy just went out to the market to get the stuff and then the guy arrives with a woman on the back who I guess is the cook. The next day I made the mistake of just ordering a coffee thinking that would be easy for them but no, they had to go to the store again to get milk for my coffee. It was great to have the pool to myself and the whole place was like a beautiful garden with exotic plants everywhere.
This morning (Tuesday) I rent a scooter and drive all around the island aimlessly until I come to a police road block in Tulamben (North east Bali) and the police officer signals for me to pull over. Many Indonesians including Kim had already told me that the government including the police are corrupt and always "on the take" with bribes after they issue tickets and police are expected to give a portion of their bribe money to the superior officer like in a hierachy system with the higher-ups getting the lions share of the money like a mafia organization. I have no intention of even giving a cent to this guy as I pull over. The guy ahead of me that was pulled over by the cop moves behind his truck and the police officer looks at him and moves his fingers to signal that he wants money from this guy before he leaves.
He asks for my driver’s licence and tells me I am not allowed to drive a scooter without an international drivers licence and I tell him that I already asked the rental agency before I rented the scooter and they said it was ok not to have an international driver’s licence (which they did say). He tells me the rental agencies don't know any better and asks me if I am traveling alone. I instinctively said I was travelling with friends who were in Ubud (since I have heard horror stories about police picking on solo travelers who don't have help in their country to get money out of them including Indonesia that a Canadian couple in Phi Phi don had told me what happened to a friend of theirs).
The ferry to Bali was super slow and I am sure I could have swam across quicker. Once I got to the other side (Gilimanuk) I found out no more buses were leaving and it didn't seem like the public mini buses were going to fill up at 8pm so I stayed over at a hotel and the next day went to Lovina which is in northern Bali.
As I was half way up I had a funny and bitter taste in my mouth and once I got to the top the rain was stinging my eyes when I realized it was the sulfur from the smoking volcano. Bromo is an active volcano. Kim said the last time he was here at the volcano was 50 years ago! The next day we grabbed our separate buses and of course my bus to Lovina, Bali got cancelled so they put me on another bus and gave me back some of my money saying it would take me to the ferry then I was on my own to get to Lovina. The next day I got a minibus to Bromo where I met two other travelers, "Daniel" from Germany and "Kim" from Denmark. Kim was born and raised in Indonesia and remembers when the Japanese occupied Indonesia during world war 2 and he left to Denmark 50 years ago. It was a 10 hour bus ride to Bromo and we checked into the hotel and then got up at 3:30am for a 1 hour drive to the view point where you can see a few volcanoes from including Bromo but unfortunately it was very foggy and we couldn't see anything so then we drove to the Bromo Volcano where we had to walk 1 km up the volcano before coming to 250 steps to the top of the crater. Back at the Losmen Hotel (means cheap hotel), Haray whose family owns the hotel had recommended a restaurant that serves dog. He assured me that they didn't serve big dogs but the small yappy type so I seriously thought about it and was contemplating going in but I just couldn't. It just felt like cannibalism to eat man’s best friend.
I last wrote when I just arrived to Yogyakarta and the next day I went out to Borobudur and Prambanan temples which were built a little after Angkor Wat. On my tour I met "Steffen and Marcel" from Germany who are doing an internship in Indonesia and "Kate" from London who is teaching English in Indonesia. As we drove out to the site we talked about all the taxi rip-offs and shared experiences and it seems also that they met my little friend the "old guy" who gave them a similar "free" tour and then wanted $100,000 rupees from them. Obviously this guy hangs around the Independence Monument Park looking for white skinned tourists to rip-off.
We spent a couple hours at each site, then our driver wanted to take us to a silver shop where we could see silver made into very expensive things which they hoped we tourists would buy from them. We said "forget it" and weren't interested and then our driver asked if we were interested in a puppet show and we reluctantly said "OK" until we learned the puppet show was inside the silver shop and they put on a 10 minute show and then our driver wanted to leave us there for 15 minutes as he wanted to go to the mosque and pray and again we said "forget it! just drop us off where you picked us up". These guys get little commissions all over Southeast Asia for just bringing in tourists. The praying at the mosque was just the little tricks they use that we were all well aware of.
I checked into the Astina hotel and sat down at their restaurant when I peeked into the kitchen to see that it was bare with no food around but I ordered a small breakfast and I see the guy who just took my order jump on his scooter and take off and another guy comes out with my coffee and we have polite conversation talking about how Bali's tourism has suffered since the two bombings and he tells me I am the only customer at the hotel which has a bunch of separate cottages with a swimming pool and 20 meters from the beach. I see that he is talking to me and no one is in the kitchen so I ask how my breakfast is coming along and he says the guy just went out to the market to get the stuff and then the guy arrives with a woman on the back who I guess is the cook. The next day I made the mistake of just ordering a coffee thinking that would be easy for them but no, they had to go to the store again to get milk for my coffee. It was great to have the pool to myself and the whole place was like a beautiful garden with exotic plants everywhere.
This morning (Tuesday) I rent a scooter and drive all around the island aimlessly until I come to a police road block in Tulamben (North east Bali) and the police officer signals for me to pull over. Many Indonesians including Kim had already told me that the government including the police are corrupt and always "on the take" with bribes after they issue tickets and police are expected to give a portion of their bribe money to the superior officer like in a hierachy system with the higher-ups getting the lions share of the money like a mafia organization. I have no intention of even giving a cent to this guy as I pull over. The guy ahead of me that was pulled over by the cop moves behind his truck and the police officer looks at him and moves his fingers to signal that he wants money from this guy before he leaves.
He asks for my driver’s licence and tells me I am not allowed to drive a scooter without an international drivers licence and I tell him that I already asked the rental agency before I rented the scooter and they said it was ok not to have an international driver’s licence (which they did say). He tells me the rental agencies don't know any better and asks me if I am traveling alone. I instinctively said I was travelling with friends who were in Ubud (since I have heard horror stories about police picking on solo travelers who don't have help in their country to get money out of them including Indonesia that a Canadian couple in Phi Phi don had told me what happened to a friend of theirs).
The ferry to Bali was super slow and I am sure I could have swam across quicker. Once I got to the other side (Gilimanuk) I found out no more buses were leaving and it didn't seem like the public mini buses were going to fill up at 8pm so I stayed over at a hotel and the next day went to Lovina which is in northern Bali.
As I was half way up I had a funny and bitter taste in my mouth and once I got to the top the rain was stinging my eyes when I realized it was the sulfur from the smoking volcano. Bromo is an active volcano. Kim said the last time he was here at the volcano was 50 years ago! The next day we grabbed our separate buses and of course my bus to Lovina, Bali got cancelled so they put me on another bus and gave me back some of my money saying it would take me to the ferry then I was on my own to get to Lovina. The next day I got a minibus to Bromo where I met two other travelers, "Daniel" from Germany and "Kim" from Denmark. Kim was born and raised in Indonesia and remembers when the Japanese occupied Indonesia during world war 2 and he left to Denmark 50 years ago. It was a 10 hour bus ride to Bromo and we checked into the hotel and then got up at 3:30am for a 1 hour drive to the view point where you can see a few volcanoes from including Bromo but unfortunately it was very foggy and we couldn't see anything so then we drove to the Bromo Volcano where we had to walk 1 km up the volcano before coming to 250 steps to the top of the crater. Back at the Losmen Hotel (means cheap hotel), Haray whose family owns the hotel had recommended a restaurant that serves dog. He assured me that they didn't serve big dogs but the small yappy type so I seriously thought about it and was contemplating going in but I just couldn't. It just felt like cannibalism to eat man’s best friend.
Then the officer shakes my hand saying "I give you no problem" and he shakes my hand 6 times in about 4 minutes with a big smile like a used car salesman would use when he is trying to sell you a piece of junk. With everything he is saying I know he is hinting very carefully that he wants money because he keeps telling me he will let me off and I play the dumb tourist that doesn't understand the bribe system (And I certainly will not give any money to support this bribe system). He then asks me if I will be back to Indonesia and I tell him I will and then he strangely says "Then you will bring me back some perfume from Canada, ok?". I am confused by this and with a hand signal pretending to spray I say "Perfume???". He says yes you bring me back perfume. I say sure, ya whatever and before this conversation continues I shake his hand and tell him thanks and abruptly take off on my scooter as I pass 6 other police officers.
As I drove down the road I thought about the strange perfume comment and realized that I brought my eternity cologne and although I have hardly used it, I did spray myself with it this morning so he smelled my cologne (Obviously he thought I smelled pretty good and wanted some for himself haha!).
Anyhow this internet place is expensive compared to others charging me around $4 US an hour so I won't proof read this email and will write in another few days or week. Hopefully I can send out some pictures from Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia over the next couple weeks.
Kevin
As I drove down the road I thought about the strange perfume comment and realized that I brought my eternity cologne and although I have hardly used it, I did spray myself with it this morning so he smelled my cologne (Obviously he thought I smelled pretty good and wanted some for himself haha!).
Anyhow this internet place is expensive compared to others charging me around $4 US an hour so I won't proof read this email and will write in another few days or week. Hopefully I can send out some pictures from Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia over the next couple weeks.
Kevin
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