An abrupt transition

Wow, Indonesia is not Japan. I knew that was true, but did I ever feel it upon my entry.

An eight hour flight culminates at Bali's Ngurah Rai Denpasar International Airport. Immediately, I know I have traveled a long ways south. This is one of those airports without air conditioning, where everything has the rough edge of humidity to it. Indeed, from Tokyo to Denpasar is about the same as San Francisco to a bit past Guayaquil, Ecuador, latitudinally speaking.

I emerge from immigration, after the requisite stamp-stamp-stamp and pay for a tourist visa, to an arrival area just full of people. 11:30 pm and this looks like rush hour. The skies have opened up and it is pouring, pouring the kind of pour that only happens in places that get monsoons.

With flat-rate taxi secured, I wait for my ride. A handful of gents ask where I am going, I say Sanur. Oh, where are you staying there, they ask. I reply "Hotel Bali Rita". Blank stares. "Hotel Bali Rita?" I start to wonder if this hotel even exists. I had had an impossible to hear and even harder to communicate conversation with someone at the hotel via Skype about 12 hours earlier. Finally, one of these guys says the "R-r-r-r-r-r-rita?" Oh, do they roll their "r"s here.

About a half-hour later, my taxi driver and I are cruising the main street in Sanur, looking for the hotel. We go up and down, until I whip out my Rough Guide and we realize it's another half a mile south. We find it, drive down the driveway, and I mosey up to the front desk. It's empty. My driver helpfully looks around and finds the desk clerk slumbering away. He rouses, and we begin to talk. It's clear there is no record of my reservation, ugh. He says they have a room, that is 400,000 rupiah (about 10,000 to 1 USD). I deter, as I had been quoted a rate of 300,000, confirmed, when I phoned earlier. As we're talking about two nights, he says "800". I say no, "600" as I'd been promised. He says ok "750". I say no, "600, we're not negotiating". He leaves. He comes back 10 minutes later. "700?" No, "600". Finally, finally, he relents. He brings me my towel and I stagger and fall on to the bed. I will have to switch to negotiations style travelling!

At the end of that first two hours on Bali soil, Japan, with my rail pass, San Francisco weather, and fixed prices, could not be farther away.