Bule Situations: First Timer Blues

By Wombat | February 16th, 2006 | 10 Comments »

Here it is folks!. The long-awaited Lesson Number One from the intrepid traveller and creative writer, Sara Bradbury. This should bring back memories for a lot of people!.

‘Ok so you have already heard about my poor old brother Danny and his lesson Number Two with the bike incident. Well, lesson number one happened in the first hour that we arrived in Bali and is a little less physical and a bit more embarrassing!.

We had just arrived in Bali staying at the Bounty Hotel and of course the first thing we wanted to do when we stepped off the plane is change our clothes!. Especially if you have come from a freezing cold August morning in Sydney with jeans and jumper!. Now I know a lot of people that travel to Bali for a holiday take hand luggage with only the clothes they have on, and just buy clothes when they arrive to Bali, and it makes sense as it is so cheap to buy clothes in Bali… well it is if you know how to bargain…

And that is just what my brother Danny did!. No clothes to change into so of course he needed to go and buy a pair of shorts and singlet as he was already jealous at the rest of us swimming in the pool!. This was the first time Danny had been to Bali, and overseas for that matter, so I told him “Ok, make sure you don’t get ripped off!, straight away half the first price in your head and then bargain lower or higher depending on the item and what their first price was”. Well its not always like that but it was just a basic outline to start him off, oh and I forgot to tell him not to pay any more than 40,000rp for one pair of boardies!. Whoops!.

So off he went out onto Poppies lane 2 while we were all sitting relaxing with a Bintang at the pool bar and already made friends with all the people in the pool!. Danny was gone for about half an hour but he soon returned and stopped off at the pool to tell us about his bargains!. He was so proud with his bags of shopping and wanted to let us and every other guest know just what he bought!.

“Hey Sez, got myself 3 pairs of shorts!!, and, got a bargain too!!”. So me being really proud of him being his first time and all, I say ” Oh nice one brother!. How much did you pay??” and poor old Danny says “450,000rp!, bargain ah!!”, and it was at that moment when everyone in the pool and at the bar started laughing!. I couldn’t help laughing either but I said to him “WHAT!!, don’t you remember what I told you???” he said ” Yea you said to half the price that they give you or something like that”, and you could just see he was starting to get really embarrassed!. Everyone was cracking up and shaking their heads at the same time as if to say ‘you poor bugger’!.

So after the embarrassment of announcing his rip off, he went to get changed into his new boardies!. As for me I bought most of my clothes from home so I had a couple of pairs of boardies myself, I had a couple of short ones and a couple of the guy ones. It wasn’t even ten minutes later when Danny came back to the pool still not changed and quietly whispers to me ” Hey can I borrow a pair of your boardies?”. “But you just bought some and bloody expensive ones too”, and just to make it worse he says ” Yea but they don’t fit, too small!!”. Ahhhhhhh Danny boy your such a goose!!. I couldn’t help but laugh!!. So 450,000rp later he ends up wearing his sister’s bloody shorts and ends up with 3 pairs of boardies that don’t fit!. Deary me Danny boy!. I suppose it is half my fault as I should have gone with him knowing it was his first time, but there is only one way to learn right?. Don’t worry, by the end of the trip he was the champion bargainer and never got ripped off again!.

But let this be a lesson to all, if you are going to spend that much on a pair of shorts at least make sure they fit!!!.

If you look at the pic, that is Danny on the left just trying to relax with a Bintang and just thinking about what he did….. and Benny on the right, still laughing on the inside about Danny!.’