Experiences in Indonesia-

I realized very recently I should have begun my character thinking about details of my trip to Indonesia and the many things I got to experience and do.  I’m going to elaborate on some below. 

Motor Bike Taxi Ride in Bali- My second cousin Fiona was really excited to have us take a motor bike taxi through the  main streets of Bali. She said it was an experience we had to have. We were all skeptical because motor bikes were the ones dangerously driving between cars to escape terrible traffic.  We used the Go-Jek motor bike service on Fiona’s iphone. She ordered them and a nearby driver would be alerted and show up to our location. We ordered six. One for me, Fiona, Kerrie, Tanner, Dylan, and Ava. Arifin , Rosita, and Wilhelmina said they were too old to be traveling on the bike. So they picked us up at The Kartika Plaza Hotel and took us to Seminyak Beach where we sat at a restaurant in bean bag chairs on the beach, complete with live music. The motor bike taxi only cost 10,000 rupiahs which translates to under a dollar US. Anywhere you go on the motor bike is 10,000 rp.  

That night we sat in those bean bag chairs eating pasta and drinking iced tea listening to a young man singing american songs with his friend on guitar. We kept requesting music most of the night. I remember him playing Lucky by Jason Mraz. They sounded great. Then Fiona bought a floating lantern from a man walking around the beach selling random toys for kids and lanterns. Fiona and I opened the lantern and he lit the bottom of it and it inflated. We held the ends of it together until it was able to take flight on its own and we watched it take off into the night sky for a short while. Then it fell farther down the beach and Fiona and I took off running to catch it and lift it back into the sky.  I stood in that exact spot in the sand and waited until it got so far into the sky I couldn’t see it anymore. The light shined for a long time until it was gone.

Out on the street by our hotel were little tourist shops that were open for bargaining. We should have waited for the Aunties to come with us that day we tried to bargain on our own. But instead we went alone, our Indonesian not reaching farther than “Mahal” which means expensive. One of the store owners wouldn’t let my brother leave. He was casually looking a t-shirt and the shop owner kept going “Discount. 350,000,” which we knew was a “tourist” price. My brother politely said no thank you to which the man kept putting the shirt back on my brothers shoulder. Dylan would say no thank you but the shirt would be put directly back on his shoulder. “He said he doesn’t want it” I said exasperated. I had to escort my brother out , making sure I placed the shirt back into the owner’s arms. Later in another shop, a man actually pushed our little cousin into the shop insisting he buy one of the knock off soccer jerseys. We learned that we never go to bargaining shops like that without our Aunties who know how to get good prices and not “boulai” (white) people prices.