After returning to Bali, my daughter and I where excited to be back and see old friends and visit our favorite places. Ramayana Shopping Mall being one of those places, especially for baby clothes and shoes etc. When we arrived we seemed to be the only tourists there and we where not treated too nicely. We had two women walk past and spit at the floor in front of us. Where ignored by shop assistants and when we asked for help with a size or anything we where simply told "No". Not the shopping experience we were used to. We are easy going friendly people and found this a little hard to deal with.
We where just going to leave but thought we would find a toilet first before our drive back to Tuban. Only toilets where on the top floor. While up there though, we saw a new Reptile Pet Store. As my daughter loves snakes we thought a quick look wouldnt hurt. Big Mistake!!
My concern started when saw a huge snapping turtle in a small plastic cage in the front window, with barely enough room to lift its neck out of its shell. But on entering, and seeing baby alligators stacked on top of each other, as there was not much room for them to spread out. Snakes curled up in glass cages as no room to strech out my concerns grew. But then there where the little gerbils/hamsters in their cages with plenty of room, running on their wheels or playing happily, and the baby bunnies and guinea pigs. All with plenty of room and plenty of food.
My daughter, who is 16 was looking at a guinea pig when one of the staff in the store came over and started talking to her. She was saying how cute the guinea pig was and he said yes it was and took it out the cage for her to pet. He said a final, "You really like this one?" and my daughter said Yes. With that he tossed the guinea pig into a cage with a huge snake. The screaming began instanly from the guinea pig as the snake bit into it and started to twist around. I grabbed her arm and practically ran fromt he store. We could still hear it screaming as we where hurrying down the escalators.
I felt sick and my daughter was almost hysterical and was in tears. We left the store immediately and got a taxi back to our hotel where we where still shaking. I understand that "rodents" are fed to snakes in pet stores, but it was my understanding that you are not allowed to feed live animals to snakes, but the big thing was that he had done this diliberately. He picked an animal in a cage with a price tag on it, so was intended for sale not for food and that my daughter had taken an interest in. It was deliberte to freak us out.
When mentioning this to local friends and hotel staff that we had befriended. A number of them said that many tourists have had negative comments about the whole shopping centre. This really shook us both up and took my daughter a while to recover. I still feel kind of sick thinking about it to write this. Im not saying not to go there if it is something you want to do, as we did. But if you have kids, or are sensitive to things like this please keep this in mind.