In Reply to: anyone had bad experience with hawkers? posted by mcflurry on Wednesday, 9. February 2005 at 20:53 Bali Time:
I just got back a few days ago & found a lot of shop keepers to be aggressive & in your face. Had some Balinese woman start painting my nails as I was looking at bags in her shop & was promptly surrounded by 3 other Balinese women & 2 men. They wouldn't tell me the price of how much it was going to cost me & then when they finished was told that I owe them Rp 250,000??!! They got very nasty when I said I wouldn't pay that much & 50,000 is all I would give them. They said 50,000 per woman & in the end I felt very threatened & gave 150,000 for literally 5 minutes of a botch job having my toes & hand nails painted when I didn't agree to it in the first place. They became very nasty & kept saying that as I'm Australian I can afford it as we all have lots of money. Which is so not true as I'm a regular average person that works hard to save & go on holidays. I had a number of experiences like this from various Balinese, that we're Australian & we can afford it (to be ripped off)!! I found quite a number of them to be rude & talking behind our backs & treating us like we were stupid foreigners. I was always friendly to all Balinese I met along the way, but this kind of behaviour has put me off going back for a long time. They would be friendly as long as they thought they were going to get some money from us or make a quick sale, but as soon as that wasn't the case, they became very offensive & treated us like we were dirt. Have other people experienced this as all I seem to hear from everyone is how great Bali is & how all the Balinese people are so lovely? I definitely saw corruption at its best with everyone trying to con you in some way & it has left a bad taste in my mouth.