Top Tens and Beer

First, here are a few Top Ten Lists that I have written that you may enjoy. These are all travel related.

You can also find these and other info on my Travel Tips page.

Top 10 Essentials For Your Pack
10 Things You Will Be Glad You Lugged Around
10 Things You Want to Do Before Kicking The Bucket
10 Weird Things We Saw Abroad
10 Reasons Nepal Is Better Than India: A Guest Post

Also, althought Kim hasn't posted her linky already, she is the host of: Grab a Beer and Look What I Did Last Week. So, pull up a chair, grab a beer and tell me: How was your week? (PS even if I don't get a chance to formally link up with Kim, I am here! I have a beer in hand and am waiting to hear what you did this weekend!)

- My week, as I think I also mentioned here, was very relaxing. I spent the week in Bali, scuba diving, getting ripped off, snorkling and relaxing.

I have a couple of things to say about that.

(1) I love diving. I am going to write a whole post about where you should go if you do want to dive, because there are cheap places, expensive ones, ones with clear water, ones where you are basically swimming in dirt. Okay, well -- enough. I will save it for a future post. However, Bali is an A-OK in my book. Even the snorkling was great!

(2) It was HOT. I mean HOT. 90+ degrees the entire time with no wind and a humidity of, oh, I don't know, maybe 97%. So, if you do go, maybe don't go when it is summer time. Or spring time. Or Fall. I don't know. Or just be ready to sweat your ass off, becuase there is no AC and it is hot!

- Other than that, we had a long ass (sorry about all the A words, g-ma!!!) flight from Bali to Seoul. Actually the flight itself was not long but the entire journey was a pain in the -- (here I go again). We were supposed to take a shuttle at 4:30 (the last one to the airport) which didn't leave until 6:30, so we sat in the car (in the aformentioned heat) waiting to leave for two hours. Then we got to the airport around 8 and our flight was not until...get this...

3:30 am.

So we couldn't check in until midnight, so we sat OUTSIDE the airport waiting for check in. Finally we checked in, then sat INSIDE the airport waiting for the flight to board. So. Finally we got to Korea and then it is Immigration and another bus into the city, which was an additional hour and a half. So from city to city with all the buses, it was 20 hours. Not the worst ever, and LUCKILY only a one hour time difference, but I am pretty cracky today, let me tell you!

One good thing (I know, you guys are going to laugh) is that it is 40 degrees in Korea (as opposed to a bajillion degrees in Bali). I put on pants. I never thought I would be happy about that. Also, we are back (still?) in the land of items on sticks. Hurrah!!! Today I had four sausages and a weird rolled up rice ball of fried fish tasting stuff on a stick! Sweet!

So, I hope you all had a great week and weekend! I know my family got snow at their house in Northern California! Is March going out like a lamb for you?

Dollars and Sense

source

Have you ever felt like you were being hosed? Cheated? Duped?

I have.

In fact, when traveling, you often feel ripped off, especially in poorer countries. But usually, no offense to any particular sort, but it is the locals who rip you off. Well, the day before yesterday we went diving. It was great! Beforehand we had spoken with an English lady who ran the shop and she assured us that the dive would be a certain price (in US dollars) minus ten percent, since we were two people.

So we dive, we get done and then I go up to pay. Well, first of all, let me tell you a little background. Right now, the Indonesian Rupiah is 8500 to 1 USD. So, our day of diving was supposed to be 85 dollars, which would be 722,500 rupiah. Well, I give her my credit card and not only were we charged an extra 3 percent to use the card, but we were charged at an exchange rate of 9200 rupiah which equals 782,000, which is ACTUALLY (in bank terms) 92 dollars. So, I KNOW this is only a difference of SEVEN dollars. You say, why bother with 7 dollars, but she knowingly duped me! And I trusted her. That bitch.

So later in the day, I went to get money out of the ATM. There is only one in the town we are in. My ATM card is a Visa/Cirrus card. We get in line for the ATM and the guard comes up to us and says, "what kind of card do you have?" and I said, "don't worry about it!". He insisted on knowing. I told him, "it's a visa". He said, "this machine doesn't take visa, only MasterCard." I said, "okay thanks, but I am going to try it anyway" (as there was a cirrus logo right on the ATM machine).

So I go into the little box. It's one of those personal ATMs where there is an airconditioned box to go into to use the ATM and only one person can go at a time. I am in the middle of using my card and he opens the door and says, "is it working?" I said, "can you please close the door?" He leaves, then comes back as my money is coming out of the machine. He says, "did it work?" I say, "yes". He says, and I am serious about this -- "How much money did you get out?"

Are you serious? Get out of my face! First of all, he tells me it won't work, and it DOES! Second he gets all up in my grill, third he has the balls to ask me how much money I got out! I couldn't believe it. I said, "get out, PLEASE."

He finally did and I left the ATM, the whole time looking over my shoulder to make sure he was not following me!

So yesterday was a strange day for monetary transactions.