Despite the huge denominations, we’ve spent very little money here in the Ubud area of Bali, so logic tells us we should be staying here longer than the 5 weeks we’ve allotted. We’re staying in a guesthouse, Bella Villa, paying 400,000 rupiah per night. Sounds like a lot of rupiah. But for $44 per night, we have a 2-story villa with terraces upstairs and down, 1.5 baths, a sparsely furnished kitchenette, a pool shared with one other villa, free Wi-Fi internet, breakfast included (fruit plus a choice of eggs or pancake), regular offerings to the villa’s temples, and the services of Pandé, who handles our laundry, fetches groceries, and will give us a lift on his motorbike anytime we want.
We are about ten minutes walk from the center of town so that we can enjoy our view of the rice terraces and the quiet of the countryside, along with the busy city center. Our neighbors include native Balinese, a Canadian couple who now make their home here and are building a new villa, our host Maria (the Bella Villa owner is from Spain, and Spanish is spoken here) and Nyoman, the Coconut Man, who will cut fresh coconut from the trees to serve pedestrians along the rice trail, a nice one-hour walk looping north of town. It’s hard to believe we are in the fourth most populous country in the world.
So far the shopping has been a feast for our eyes and easy on the wallet. We haven’t purchased anything yet, but are on the lookout for a cool dress ($10-40), a hand-carved, wooden Buddha ($80-200 depending on size), a bronze or stone Ganesha (same), and a small painting or two (with hand-carved wooden frames $10-20 each). Our sarongs for temple visiting (later for pillowcases?) were $4-5.
For those who live here, it’s almost impossible not to collect stone carvings of various gods, hand-carved wood furnishings, bamboo accessories, palm leaf sculptures, textiles and batik, vibrant-colored paintings, mesmerizing ink drawings, and lush tropical plants to border the garden.
So far, our biggest expense has been at the U.S. embassy. We added pages to our passports for $82 each, in order to visit more of S.E. Asia. Oddly enough, they did not accept dollars there, only rupiah or credit cards. In fact, at the public square yesterday, vendors rushed in not only to sell me sarongs and cold drinks, but dollars! No deal. I’ll stick with rupiah, thanks.
2 responses to “Bali’s Bang for the Buck”
Ummmm. Cheap drinks. Let’s go.
suitable , I wish you great luck, nice post, keep writing