The girl with the Bracelet

I have now been in Bali for a few days now and have met some pretty incredible people already. But before I get into that, we have to talk about getting to my hostel. I didn’t get swindled from the airport this time! Thanks to all my accountability partners, I was thinking of you. I only paid 80,000 rupiah which is equivalent to about 6 bucks. A much better price for sure. I decided to book Puri Rama hostel by the beach, in Kuta, because…well that part explains itself. My flight got in around 1 am but I did not get to my hostel until 4 am. There is a pretty big club right down the road that had traffic at a dead stop for an hour and a half. I took a quick nap and got up to look around the area. Little did I know I was in a pretty tourist area, which is usually what I try to avoid. The second I stepped out of the hostel gates, people were flooding the streets trying to sell all kinds of things from bracelets to drugs. I’ve probably said ‘no thank you’ a million times since I have been here. I finally got to the beach and was excited to sit and watch the surfers, since it was supposed to be a pretty good spot to surf. As I got on the sand, I immediately felt better but when I lifted my head, I saw more vendors on the beach. I told myself to just walk through and find a spot to sit. A couple of younger girls came up to me and asked if they could take my picture. I gladly obliged and immediately regretted it. They then wanted to interview me and I was not interested. Looking down the beach, there were at least 50 more kids in groups, all walking around with smart phones and video cameras, stopping and talking to all the foreigners. This definitely brought me back to my China days when they just saw you as a creature and wanted to take pictures to show everyone that we are real. It’s crazy because I am the one in a new place, usually taking pictures of new things. I hate that the color of someone’s skin or hair has such an effect on people.

I sat on the beach for maybe an hour before I couldn’t handle it anymore. A new group of kids came up to me every 5 minutes. A local sat and talked with me for awhile and I would hope that his motive was just to make friends but he did try to sell me surf lessons as well, just didn’t push it as hard. It kind of sucks how guarded you have to be. Nobody is to be trusted and I am too trusting of a person but maybe this will be my lesson to learn (I did already get my flip flops stolen). Also more guarded as a solo traveler. He asked if I had a boyfriend or friends here, I had to say yes so that could be the end of the conversation and that I had to leave to meet up with them.

When I got back to the hostel that day, I met my first friends of the trip and since then have been hanging out with everyday. I was the only American, a very nice change. Our group has people from Denmark, Canada, South Africa, and the UK. We hung out by our super sweet hostel pool with a swim up bar for a couple days; a good excuse since the town of Kuta doesn’t have a lot of things to do besides buy things. We have pretty much turned into fish here because it’s too hot to be outside and not be in the water. Luckily I think Maui gave me enough of a base tan that I haven’t totally cooked out here yet. Fingers crossed that it only gets better.

We found a local food spot that had meals for less than $2! It was down a little ally, because that’s where the best food comes from. As we were waiting for our food, these two little girls came by trying to play a card game. Now I absolutely LOVE little kids so when I saw them holding bracelets and walking towards us, I had to look away because I would fold immediately if they gave me puppy dog eyes. These ones wanted to show us a card trick. They were magical and got our cards right every time somehow. So of course, when they showed us their freakishly good, mind reading card skills, they expected you to buy a bracelet from them. We did not want to but threw them a bit of money anyway and hoped they would move along. They kept wanting to play and at one point tried to take money from one of our friends when she said she needed change. At that point we were no longer happy because they were being dishonest and trying to steal. We got the money back and said no more but then they started fake crying and getting angry because we weren’t falling for their scheme anymore. They cussed us out in Bahasa, ran away and then stared at us from down the street. It was terrible to see that these young children, who had braces and bags full of cash, are already learning to con people. I understand that we make significantly more money than the people in this country but conning and pressing me is definitely not the way to my heart. After that fiasco, I don’t even show interest anymore and refuse to look at the cute little con children. I was ready to get out of that town.

My plans for this next week were to come to an island to the east of Bali, called Nusa Lembongan. It has much prettier beaches and is more of my pace with lots of in water activities, other than a pool (there are still plenty of those here too). Five of the friends that I had made decided to come with as well! We arrived yesterday and checked into a really nice hostel, called Nyuh Gading, for a mere $8/night, and are sharing a dorm with our 20 closest friends, right on the beach. It is an incredibly beautiful island with baby blue water, small dive shops, and restaurants right on the beach. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening playing frisbee and football on the beach, watching the sunset, playing with the stray dogs that are everywhere, and enjoying each others company. Quite the life we have!