Back to Kuta
We’re on a single mission today – shopping. The morning was still a little slow as we took full advantage of our last bit of time in the villa to catch up with the kids and soak a bit in the pool. After some breakfast and a quick move of stuff back to our regular room though, its game on.
Our main destination is Kerboakan, where we saw a long string of “factories” making furniture and other outdoor things. It’s about a half hour from the hotel, so we arranged for a metered cab to take us there. After talking to the driver a little, we changed the plan up a little and decided to keep him for the day for 350,000 rupiah (about 32 dollars), figuring it would speed things up a bit and probably not cost that much more than just the ride in and back.
Three hours later, we have a fist full of business cards and a bunch of pictures of some really amazing (and unbelievably cheap) things. For anyone wondering a few months from now why a 20′ x 20′ container is sitting in our driveway, this is where it all started. From teak furniture, to handmade mosaic tiles, to complete, hardwood gazebos, we looked at it all.
From Kerboakan, we headed back down to Kuta to a shopping mall Ang wanted to spend more time in. First though, we broke for dinner at a nice little restaurant on the water. The view was fantastic, and the food probably the best yet. It sat above a beach club that I’m sure gets hopping later in the evening and probably provides for some pretty good people watching on a day we could stay longer (there is a good story about a person I’ve dubbed EuroChad, but no time to tell it today), but with the clock running down on the driver, Ang is off to cram as much shopping as possible in 20 minutes and I need to find a bank.
Dealing with the money here presents an interesting challenge. Currently, a dollar get us about 11,400 rupiah, which, in practice, makes it hard to keep in some context. Prices for everything run in the tens of thousands, so you end up peeling off 50,000 notes like they were singles at the Deja Vu, and pulling a million out of the ATM is just a regular day. I guess its good practice for Vietnam, where a dollar gets 18,000 dong (a lesser man might jump on the cheap joke there, but today I’m sticking to the high road).
Tomorrow we’re headed for Ubud, which is the art and craft center of Bali. We’ve heard good things about it from people that have travelled here, so are looking forward to something a little different. It is also out of the reach of Starwood Hotels, so we’re flying by the seat of our pants when it comes to accommodation. The concierge here was able to get us booked at a place we found online that looked okay and had positive reviews. $50 for the room and breakfast, plus they send a car to pick us up (about an hour drive).