Tuesday, September 23, 2003

Prostitutes and My Birthday!

Up about 8:00. Greg has a hangover, he partied until about 4:00AM last night. I showered, and went for the huge buffet breakfast at the hotel (included with room...almost all accomodations include some sort of breakfast in INdonesia), then walked to the beach and walked all along it. Lots of locals trying to sell everything from sunglasses, rings and tattoos to marijuana, hash and "pretty ladies". They are always discreet with the latter ones. I ended up buying a pair of sunglasses, and paid way too much, 50,000 rupiah, about $8CDN. He started at $1, then I asked him how much rupiah, and he said 350,000, I tried telling him $1US is not 350,000 rupiah, then he replied, no $1 Balinese dollar (which doesn't exist, it's a gimmick) to get you look at his stuff for what you think is cheap.

Got back about noon, then watched TV for a bit (Greg still in bed), then swam in the pool for a while, the sat outside on our balcony and an "information" guy started chatting with me, trying to sell me tours and whatever.

Went in search of cheaper accomodations, because Greg was maybe moving, he wasn't sure. Cheapest accomodations I found was 30,000 rupiah, about $5CDN. It's certainly no 5 star hotel, but it'll do!

Used internet for a while, I had an e-mail from Kristin, her and Scott will be arriving in Bali on Friday about 4:00PM, so I'll meet them at the airport. They are booked into the Aquarius hotel.

Back to the room, Greg and Hayden (a good friend of his, also from Melbourne) were there, we sat around and had a few drinks (home made) in the room, then out by the pool, then we went for supper, had a gross hamburger (as all hamburgers seem to be in SE Asia), then went to a bar that was actually featured in the Australian version of 60 Minutes. What's special about this bar is it's pretty much a brothel, filled with prostitutes. Greg and Hayden decided that in the interests of Australian-Canadian relations, they would try and set me up with one of the hookers, and they would pay. The jackasses! So, we're having a drink in there, all the Indonesian girls (except the ones that have already latched onto the few other guys there) are looking at us. Finally Greg movies tables and starts chatting up two of them, and tells them it's my birthday today. I went along with it, then the two girls, and one more moved to our table, and each kind of picked one of us to be with. I'm kind of talking to the one sitting beside me, and finally she asks me if I want a massage. Now, a massage in this place is not a massage. It's a "massage". I tell her no thanks, she is persistent, trying to get some business, and keeps asking me why I don't want a massage, cheap for me, I keep saying no thanks, then she finally lsays, "You not like me? That why you no want massage from me?" I started telling her it wasn't her, and that I had a girlfriend coming to visit me in a few days. She starts apologizing, saying sorry, she didn't know. Soon after that, she ditched me for another guy that had just come in and was standing at the bar!

After that, we headed to the Bounty Ship, a BIG bar/dance club built to look like a ship. Very cool. All the workers (bouncers, bartenders, waiters and waitresses) are all dressed in captains uniforms. We started chatting with 2 chicks, Norwegian and Swedish, then the two girls and I went next door to Apache, a jazz club with a live band.

I ended up getting home about 2:30. Greg didn't make it home until about 4:00, he figured.

Greg had a credit card problem. He tried to withdraw money from a bank machine, but couldn't, it wouldn't accept his transactions. He tried about 10 times or something. Last night, he called his insurance company, and they gave him the 24-hour phone number of the bank he's dealing with, so he called them, and found out his card had been cancelled. Someone had got his credit card number and tried to charge $2000 dollars worth of stuff to it yesterday. He had some money left over from the last time he was in Bali, so he could go on that for the time being. Anyway, this morning, he called the bank again, and ends up, everything is ok. His credit card number was not stolen, the bank saw a charge to a company called balidiscover.com (where Greg had booked his hotel through), and they got paranoid, and when they saw a bunch of withdrawal attempts on his card, the stopped it. They told him he should have called them and let them know he was going to Bali, and he's mad at the bank, because he DID!

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