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Natasha's Adventure
Hello everyone
Thanks for your messages! Daz and I like reading them.
Spent yesterday and today in Kuta, trying to master the shopping business. We're getting quite good at it. Yesterday we spent a while in Kuta but didn't buy anything, we just thought we'd get the hang of how it all works, and suss out prices so that we could come back. It was sooo hot there, and everwhere you go people are asking you to buy something, come to their shop, telling you you've won a prize, asking for your passport, transportation, bugging me for hair braiding/hair extentions/manicures with flowers, you name it. They call Darren 'Boss' or 'Sir' and me 'Lady'. It's pretty annoying. Yesterday we walked down to the end of this road and basically where the road ended was the beach. They build everything so close to the beach, its easy to see why so much gets wiped out with tsunamis. The waves were huge. Dad you'd love it, its obvious why so many surfers come to kuta. There are waves at our beach at Sanur but they're out at a reef which is about 1km out. We were standing on the beach and this woman started trying to get me to buy her sarongs, she was asking all sorts of questions, once she found out we were from Australia she said to me "What's your name?.. Danielle?" She was so desperate to sell something to me she wanted to swap a sarong for my bobbypin in my hair. We visited the memorial site for the Sari Club - there is a big memorial with all the names of people from each country that were killed and theres heaps from Aus. And a fair few people around having photos there. I think the actual site is now a carpark. Daz and I actually then started walking in the wrong direction for ages and got lost. It was so bad because it was so hot and the roads here are so dodgey. The footpaths go up and down and have holes in them - i have tripped so many times, and stubbed my toes everywhere. We ended up just getting into a taxi. It's amazing, the buildings here are so yuk, it's like they've said 'ok, its standing, that'll do'. But any buildings for tourists are perfect - clean and well finished. It's only their own buildings which are crappy.
Today we bought a few things, man they are so keen to sell you anything. The people here really live on the edge. The way they drive, the things they do for money, everything. They see Darren and the first thing they say is 'you aussie, you want billabong?' At one stage a couple of them took us to this building and up some stairs, i was starting to get worried because the further we walked, the more of them followed. We ended up up the top of some dodgey building where they were trying their hardest to sell us fake surf shorts and teeshirts. It's much nicer shopping in the normal shops in the high street, and the stuff is real and still fairly cheap. It's only if you can be bothered being hassled and if you can be bothered bartering with them that you go to the markets. We got quite good at the markets though, they would give us a price and Darren would look at me and say what do you think and id go nah you can get it cheaper somewhere else and he'd say yeh you're right lets go and theyd then get all jittery and drop their price. Anyway we bought a few things.
Right now we're going to go and get some dinner, Darren is working tomorrow so I will come back and tell some more stories.
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