Bali Warnings Or Dangers Tips by Wild_Orchid

Mischievious Monkey Business @ Uluwatu

Having paid 3,000 Rupiah to enter the temple grounds, I stopped for a minute to read the notice board's warnings on mischievious monkeys. I guess I was confident that no monkey would get the better of me, & that the warnings was just there to inform tourist to be careful. How wrong I was!

Hang on tight. Upon the wall at the periphery of the cliff, there were a few monkeys, & the small ones were cute & had rather innocent faces. I stood next to the wall for my photo to be taken with the charming monkeys, & suddenly my daughter shouted out because the monkey had reached out to grab my pearl necklace. Instinctively, I moved away, but then there was a tug on my hair. A monkey again! Fortunately it was only a small monkey & it didn't pull hard enough to break my necklace.

I quickly walked away and put my earrings, necklace & hairband safely into my handbag, and clutched on tightly to my belongings. Nevertheless, I wasn't safe yet. A monkey came behind me & pinched a tourist leaflet that was on the outside pocket of my bag. I was certainly caught by surprise by the little critter.

Learn from your mistakes...or maybe not
My mum who was seated far off from the monkeys was surprised when a large monkey came from behind & grabbed her spectacles off her face! She was helped by a local lady who gave the monkey a piece of cucumber, and the monkey then dropped the spectacles to pick up the cucumber.

While we were there for 45 minutes waiting for the famous Uluwatu Temple sunset, we saw no fewer than 5 monkey snatchings-two cameras from the hands of their owners, 2 spectacles, and 1 hat.

The monkeys here are cute, but certainly mischievious. Be careful!

%c*Each time the local lady was there to help the owners get their stuff back, and each time she would be rewarded by the owners, or she would ask for a tip. This makes me wonder whether someone actually trained the monkeys!?
Footnote: Tourists may want to bring their own supply of cucumber pieces...

Porterage at the Airport-they don't ask first

The sign at the Ngurah Rai Airport (near the baggage reclaim area) says 2,000 rupiahs for porterage. I am not sure if this means per bag, or per person.

The thing that bugs me is this - they don't ask first ! After we had collected our bags from baggage reclaim, and went to queue to buy a coupon for the taxi, a couple of guys came over to help us with our bags, without us asking for their help. Assuming one of them was our taxi driver, we let them handle some of the bags. It was only when we were crossing the road from the airport towards the car park when the real taxi driver materialised and then we realised that the first guys were porters, and were not in fact "helping us"! Of course, it was too late by then. Once they loaded the bags onto the cab, they asked for payment.
I didn't have any small change and pulled out RM2.00 (about 4,500 rupiahs) and they wouldn't leave until we gave them another 5,000 rupiahs.

While crossing the road, I noticed an older Caucasian guy whose bags had been grabbed and when he told them that he could manage, they muttered f*** you, to which he replied F*** You too.

The old Bait and Switch trick!

Street vendors who hang around at car-parks near major tourist attractions may tempt you with wood carvings or batik cloth or pencils or whatever at such cheap prices that you are simply amazed. In fact, they "attach" themselves to you as soon as you get out of the car! You sometimes you may just make a purchase to avoid being hassled any further or out of goodwill, especially when the vendor is a little girl of boy. (If you know what you're doing, and why, then it's fine. That's your good deed for the day.)

However, be careful when offered an ivory carving or wood carving or something more valuable than a bunch of pencils when you have little time to examine the merchandise. At Kintamani, outside a major touristy restaurant, my husband was tempted to buy a small wooden carving, and when he handed over the money, the guy gave him the carving in a black plastic bag just as we were about to drive off. When he looked into the bag, it was not only completely different from the one that he had been shown, but also much poorer in quality and finish.
To our alarm when we protested, the guy walked off with our money, leaving us with the inferior carving, but later returned with another one, which we also turned down and finally, we got our money back and left without making a purchase.

Caveat Emptor!

Unscrupulous newspaper sellers @ Traffic Junctions

Once we were in a Kijang taxi that had come to a stop at a traffic junction (at Jl Raya Ngurah Rai ByPass, in Sanur area), and boys holding newspapers offered us newspapers. My husband wanted to get a international paper, and they had the Weekend Australian, The Age and several Chinese and local Indonesian papers. We choose the Australian and bargained the price down from 35,000 to 25,000 rupiahs and handed him the money as the lights turned and he handed us the newspapers.
As we drove on, we pulled out the papers from the plastic wrapper and found that we had been given a stack of old newspapers, some dated 22 Oct, others dated 1st Nov, and others dated 5 Oct. A thick stack of old newspapers for 25,000 rupiahs (over US2.00)...what a clever trick for the unsuspective and naive tourist.

I would say this -better to buy your papers from a shop and check the dates before handing your money over.