Tuesday: the day has come for some serious shopping.
We visit Made, the Mercure's resident wood carver to order some work. We've watched him making plaques from scratch - intricate and individual. There are similar designs in the markets but Made's are exquisitely carved. He helps us - as do all the hotel staff - with our Indonesian and Balinese phrases.
Whenever we try to speak Indonesian - it brings forth huge smiles from people. They realise that we are trying - and they always offer assistance. One of the waitresses in the mornings greets us with a new word or phrase every day ... which she translates into English for us so we can use it a little more confidently - and we do.
Piegirl is the champion already having fledgling conversations with people. And the locals love it. The Indonesian phrases are well received, but when we try Balinese we are so popular! And the smiles grow wider! All the hotel staff have advised us to say Jalan jalan - walking walking - when we are just strolling, and lihat lihat - looking looking. With these key phrases in mind we head off for some Serious Shopping at the Kuta Art Market.
As we wander down the beach we are immediately mobbed by sellers of everything in the world. A few sarongs and necklaces later and we continue on our way.
On arrival at the first row of stalls we see none of the Billabong and other brands copy shirts that we saw on open display in Thailand. But the jalans and lihats seem to be working ... there are plenty of smiles and not too much pressure. We're getting pretty good on the Apa Kabar(?) and the baik baik as well which certainly helps our cred. And we can even manage a sampai jumpa lagi at a pinch too.
From time to time we get the inevitable Aussie Aussie oy oy cry as well. Pieboy has a cure for this too - but you'll have to keep reading ...
The Pieboy hears the magic words: 'I have Billabong - come with me!' And we're off. And sure enough, he has Billabong or someone does because it is clearly not his stall - this dude is a tout and stock starts arriving from everywhere. The items are good copies - double stitched, tags and almost like the originals.
Everyone joins in the discussion and numbers are bandied about - US dollars, Aussie dollars, rupiah. We bring the conversation back to rupiah and put together a deal on 10 hats for 90,000.
A deal on t-shirts is going out the window - the woman has started way over a million for 5 shirts and is not keen on dropping. The problem is that when the starting price is ridiculous the response has to be equally ridiculous. More and different stock appears ... and suddenly we're talking 15 shirts - and the prices get better and a deal is done. 'Good for you, good for me.'
Now the King Kong size shirts - another stall - another seller - shirts appear from under the counter and again they are great quality!
Piegirl negotiates a price - but we need more cash - I volunteer to hit the ATM leaving Piegirl as collateral. There's a Commonwealth ATM about half way between where we are and the Discovery Mall. No more than a five minute walk but it is hosing down! My own personal Balinese monsoon and by the time I got to the Commonwealth I was soaked to the skin. But the ATM worked, I got the loot and got back to the stall. By the way, if you bank with 'Which Bank' and use their ATMs you'll only pay $1.50 per transaction.
But that's not all today.
Martha Tilaar. Matahari Department store suggest (with a sniff - only partially because they missed on that Estee Lauder sale) that we try downstairs in the supermarket. No luck. It has to be Supernova. We walk ... in the late in the afternoon down JL Raya Kuta hoping we're on the right street. Surprisingly enough, we are.
We find the Supernova counter - and yes, they have the Martha Tillar range. To see the girl trying to explain that the top row are for - shall we say younger skins - is really rather amusing. She has to be careful not to offend the customer of course, and doesn't really have any English to speak of to dig herself out of any holes she may create. She manages to describe the bottom row of product as for 'less young people'. She used great effects to show tight young skin without ever using the word 'wrinkle'. She makes the sale and everyone is happy.
Next stop the DVD man whose name no-one dares write. The 'H' word. We had a list ... No problem says the quietly spoken 'H' man. We picked up the disks up later in the week.
Run Piepersons run! Ok, walk.
All the way to Bubba Gumps for dinner. It certainly wasn't the cheapest place we ate at but it had friendly and fun service ... and the food was yummy. The waiter's name was Wijaya and he did card tricks as well as being attentive, fast, witty, and he taught Piegirl some more Balinese - we can now say Matur suksme instead of terima kasih!
You may remember that I mentioned that our German ploy worked every time except once. Well, living somewhere in Bali, and bailing up tourists by Discovery Mall, there is a man - a giverawayer of timeshare stuff - who busted us. He hit us up with his spiel, and Piegirl whacked him straight back in German ... but he knew. He knew. He followed us saying 'You not German. You Aussies. You not German. You Aussies.'
How the hell did he know?
Piegirl reckons that she said 'Guten Tag' instead of 'Guten Abend'. And the smart bugger twigged just like that. We denied his claims vehemently of course ... nein nein nein but he knew.
And we kept walking to the nearest Bluebird taxi. (I hope he got at least one sale that day.)
... still to come ... Searching in Seminyak. And Pieboy Pays the Price (almost) ...