Publisher’s Letter
Cheerfully Ripped Off
For expats in Bali who work in the Tourism related industries (that would be 99% of us), it ’s very useful to sometimes be tourists ourselves, so we can experience what our go costumers go through. And, no, I’m not talking about going to Singapore for a week-end, were we stay in a five star hotel at a ‘mate rate’, have dinner at restaurants our friends have recommended and shop at Takashimaya. I’m talking about going somewhere we haven’t been before, don’t speak the language, we know nobody, and have little idea of what to expect, and armed only with our credit cards and a Lonely Planet Guide. After all, this is what most of our costumers do when they come to Bali.
To that effect ( well, it was also our honeymoon ), my wife and I recently went to Italy fir two weeks, and of course I couldn’t help comparing everything we did and saw with what we experience here in Bali. I will confess to a slight advantage; I speak fluent Spanish, only, well, gay, really. So by speaking Spanish, Applying a slight Liberace intonation and making gestures in the manner of Simon Cowell ( Oh, come on, you Know he is! ), I managed to make my self understood quite well, I thought.
We saw only a Fraction of that beautifully country; Rome, a few days in the Tuscan countryside, Venice, and finally Milan. And I am not of course comparing the breathtaking beauty and astonishing culture of Bali; you can compare apples with oranges. I’m talking about how you, as a tourist, are treated at tourism business like hotel and restaurants.
Despite my slight language advantage, I hardly pas for an Italian, and neither do my wife (who is Japanese). I am blond, dress badly (at least by Italian standards, where even the meter maids wear Gucci) and I don’t check myself in every mirror I pass, for starters. I guess the camera around my neck; the folded map sticking out of my back pocket, and the Lonely Planet guide firmly in hand might also have given a clue to my status as a tourist without a clue, ripe for the picking.
In my experience there are two ways of getting ripped off by tourism establishments whilst on holiday in foreign and unknown parts. The fist and most common, is whereby you contemplate entering an obvious trap; a canal side restaurant in Venice, say. You suspiciously eye the menu posted by the entrance, find that the pizza is only 30 Euros (cheap in Venice) and decide to enter. You are greeted by a singing waiter who elaborately shows you your plastic table in the manner of an art curator unveiling a lost masterpiece by Da Vinci. Your wife is complimented on her unsurpassed beauty, you on your rugged handsomeness, and everything you order is greeted with the sort of enthusiasm you usually only see displayed by game-show hosts when you get the answer right and win the deluxe washer-dryer; ‘Ah, bella signora, what a fantastica choica; il sphagetti Carbonara? Fantastico! It is how you say, il masterpiece of our chef Giovanni. He will be so happy you order tisha dishi! Is famous in all Italia! Recipe by Giovanni’s great grandmother, you never taste something so multo fantastico!’
And so on. The Chianti will be drinkable, at best and served as if it was a Cheteau Lafite 1961, and the Carbonara will be, well, a Carbonara. The bill will be 250 Euros. I kid you not. But you don’t MIND. You are charmed, swooned at, sung to, flirted with, hugged, promised eternal friendships, and send off by cheering crowd of waiters, busboys and chefs as if you were setting off to conquer Mexico, or strangle Celine Dion. So how does that compare to what tourists encounter here in Bali? Although I haven’t been to any Kuta Tourist-y restaurants for years, I imagine much the same thing happens there, but the bill will be a tenth of what you’d pay in Europe. They may sing a bit off key, but what the hell. You’ll have fun, and it’ll be cheap.
The second kind, which has never happened to me in Italy, actually, is the kind of rip-off which is normally reserved for, and patented by, The French; namely a very posh restaurant in the glitzier parts of town where you are about as welcome as pneumonia. Here, the surly maitre d’opens the doors and locks at you as if you have come to convert him to Scientology or inspect their tax returns, or both, and only lets you once they have triple-checked your reservation and inspected your passport. A menu as thick as Shanghai telephone directory, and about as decipherable, will be thrown on your beautifully decorated table (yours being between the men’s toilet and the fire exit, despite the restaurant being half-empty) and you are then left for half an hour to inspect the exquisite silver salt and pepper shakers (wondering if they will fit in your pocket) and smiling bravely at your wife with increasing desperation. You eventually order, the wine waiter sneering at you as you try to choose between the Chateau de la Chateau -96 and the Grand-le-Grand-82 without looking like a complete nincompoop (you will fail). The food waiter, the guy who brings you the bread and all the other guests will look at you with barely concealed contempt. You bill will be so enormous that you will spend the rest of your holiday at the Salvation Army soup kitchen, and sleeping under an (albeit beautiful, 15-century) bridge. This is a mandatory and daily experience for anyone visiting Paris, and many many other European cities as well.
Can you imagine being treated like that at the Ritz-Carlton, the Mozaic or Made’s Warung, here on the Island of the Gods? No, nether can I. Now, do please correct me if I’m wrong (no, not you, Mr. Johnson of Canggu, you really must get a life), but I have never, ever, been treated with anything less than genuine warmth and kindness wherever I have ever gone, eaten, drunk, shopped or slept in Bali. Whatever the establishment, from Warisan down, from a street vendor in Candi Dasa up, Bali offers us genuine, complete, and total hospitality. We may not have Venice, but I think Bali offers something much more valuable and, these days, truly unique.
Nils Wetterlind
Tropical Homes |
