In Reply to: Just Back Report Jan 2005 posted by angieteh on Wednesday, 26. January 2005 at 18:01 Bali Time:
Dear all,
1. I mean no insult to anyone, and certainly no racism is intended. I am of an Asian origin, and I am accustomed to smaller hotel rooms found in Singapore, Malaysia, HK, etc. If an American (for example) previously claimed that a hotel room is small, I can never tell for sure if he/she is more accustomed to the relatively large rooms found all over USA. So by Asian standards, since I am already accustomed to small rooms all over Asia, and yet I can still complain that it is small, then a reader will have a better indication of its size.
2. Again I have to stress that I am from Malaysia, and my opinions of Ubud can be ignored by most readers in this forum. This is because I have no interest in rice terrace fields, or bird parks, or the quaint little shops all over the place - it was too much like home. If one had not experienced this before, then yes it would have been very enjoyable, quaint little community with plenty of shops and markets to choose from.
3. The bargaining was very exhausting. Take my place-mat examples again. Since I had gone to Denpasar market, and know it costs Rp7000 only, I thought "maybe" I could get one for Rp10,000. When I was initially offered Rp60,000, I started bargaining in a friendly manner (I spoke in indonesian). Her very last price was Rp20,000 and when I told her I wanted Rp10,000 - she actually made a face at me. I felt really bad if I made any of the vendors angry at me, but a lot of them were not willing to let me leave once I started asking for the price, but yet they really could not give me what I was after. So I stopped asking for prices after awhile and gave up.
4. A reply to bunbury gal.
At the Denpasar Art market, I knew they were wholesale because most of them sold in bulk. And they had price tags on them, and no amount of cajoling could make them drop the price, even by Rp100. A 10% discount is given only for total purchases above Rp100,000. This shop is called Hawaii if you happen to find it. And the market is actually a 3 storey building, 3rd floor for craft, 2nd floor for clothes and 1st floor for food items. They probably close sometime in the afternoon (not sure) but I went at 10am.
I wrote the JBR to provide as much information as possible(especially on prices) to first-timers to Bali. I previously could not get a clear indication through 3 months of research on the Internet, for prices that I had provided. This was my very first time to Bali, and I did enjoy my trip overall. Once again, I apologise to all if some thought my remarks were snub, but i truly didn't mean to.
angie.