In Reply to: why would you need more hand luggage? posted by cliff on Monday, 20. June 2005 at 01:39 Bali Time:
on this occassion I can see I need to take you shopping with me. We come home tonight, and... so far our onboard luggage consists of...
2 large Loius Vuitton overnight bags( one for my sis-in-law). They are full, one with 4 brass carriage lamps, similar to what the dokars have. The other has all of our other breakable type stuff.
We have been then given by friends, 2 enormously heavy silver framed pictures of borobodur. God alone knows what they weigh, they are very heavy. This doesn't include what our Indonesian sister will have to give us tonight!
The irony of all of this is the fact that we were congratulating ourselves on the lightness of all of our purchases etc, until we got given these 2 massive wonderful pictures.
They must have cost a mint.
It's the first time we have really had the opportunity to see up-close the immense differences in wealth here. All of our friends, by luck, are middle class, but they have worked immensely hard for their money, and like all of us, are very cluey, and hang on to it for dear life. (Just as I do). These new friends are in a position where money is no issue- they travel extensively overseas annually, and are quite open about their good fortune. I asked Warsi, my INdonesian sister, about it, and she said that they are extremely wealthy. I just can't imagine money being no object!