Bali Has a Way of Turning Expats Into Grumpy Old Men. I'm Watching Myself.

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]I'm back in Debasar once again and I really love exploring Debasar. I've been doing quite a bit of it over the past 6 months and today I'm exploring a road called Jalan Sutoto. That's where I'm going to start and it's what sort of unofficially called the flower street.

[00:00:13]Well, that's what I'm calling it anyway.

[00:00:14]I don't know anyone else calls it that but I call it the flower street because there are lots of flower shops here and I've bought flowers here before and the prices that you get are really really really decent because there's so much competition here. There are lots of different options for finding the flowers that you want at the price you want. Different quality levels as well.

[00:00:34]Uh different styles of flowers.

[00:00:36]Sometimes they're a little bit weedy and sticky looking. They're a bit cheaper.

[00:00:39]Or you can get the real sort of big blooms that cost a lot more, but still very cheap by western standards.

[00:00:47]This is what the shops kind of look like. These sorts of things. Yeah.

[00:00:51]Different uh types of flowers in each shop. You got roses there. You've got all I mean I'm not a flower expert so all I know is I know liies and I know roses. That's about it. Like I don't know the rest of them but there are heaps of them there. Like in that shop there's just like little um arrangements that they've got pre-made but you can also get arrangements done. And that's the other thing here is that you've got some people who are really good at arranging. Of course you might want to visit them instead of someone who's hopeless at doing it. Look at that. Look at those roses. Aren't they nice ones?

[00:01:21]Beautiful. Beautiful.

[00:01:23]Oh awesome.

[00:01:29]I was actually going to buy lilies today if I can find them.

[00:01:34]If I can find them because Susan's name derives from the word lily like in ancient times. So that's her flower. And I know that liies are associated with death in Australia or in the west, but in Indonesia it's totally different. The culture here is uh associates liies with a much more positive thing. You might even have them at weddings. It's a more uplifting thing to have a lily. That's sort of the um the thing that I sometimes struggle with cuz my my culture says it's a death wish. Susan's culture says, "No, it's really cool." And trying to get your head around it sometimes a little bit difficult. I mean, I've sort of just allowed myself to succumb to some of these oddities or what we we perceive as oddities over the years, and I now sort of accept them as just being normal here. But it's interesting when you first start seeing some of these things, you go, "No, you can't do that. You can't buy lilies." It's like you're going to a funeral. But over time, you realize that not that big a deal. Like these are just norms in our own countries, and they're not norms everywhere. The other confusing thing about this is that liies and a lot of other flowers have different names here.

[00:02:44]So, you got to try and learn all those like uh lily is bak apparently. Um this is a pretty big shop. Hello.

[00:03:05]Okay. Yeah.

[00:03:08]All right. Doesn't know if they've got them around here. They have kosong there. What kosong means. And that's an interesting one. The word kosong literally means like zero or empty. So many roses around. Red roses. They're cool, aren't they?

[00:03:23]Um, yeah. Kosong means sort of like empty or zero. But when someone says kosong at a shop, they mean out of stock. But it doesn't mean they ever had it in the first place. It's not like, oh, we usually have stock, but then there's none at the moment. It just it sort of like just means we don't have any. Sorry. So, when they say Kosong, it's sort of like quite a polite way of saying no, we don't have them. I've actually just sped past most of where those flower shops are. They're all concentrated uh further to the south near the Grand Lucky Supermarket. So, if you come up here, like the Grand Lucky Supermarkets close by. There's even a um a hotel called the Hotel Mir. Mir is one of those very floral terms as well that you'll hear around the place.

[00:04:10]But yeah, so I will go back there afterwards after I've made this video and had a bit of a walk around Deep. So I'll come back there and buy some flowers for Susan. Actually, I'm not going to get the liies it looks like, but I'll get something. Now in this area, there's also a place called Banar Gum. Now, that's a famous banar because they are one of the bananars that have the most famous ogo when it comes around. And I wonder if that's still got a Yeah. Oh, they do. They do. I'm just going to head in here and just have a look at this. Oo. Oo.

[00:04:38]Still sort of there.

[00:04:42]There it is. Wow. Look at it.

[00:04:45]Wow. That is crazy. Some kids in there.

[00:04:47]I don't want to look too weird by filming kids. It's just a huge big statue there that's got part of its sort of arms and legs still there, but that's pretty cool. Um, that's one of the famous ones in this area. I've actually just turned around cuz there is a cafe here that I wouldn't mind dropping into.

[00:05:03]And while I go past here, I'll just talk a bit about prices. So, there um they call a a bouquet. It's spelled like bucket. So, bouquet that starts from 35,000. I've bought flowers before that are enough just for a vase in the house for 50,000 and they're very beautiful and they last a while. So for 50,000 you can get something quite good. Obviously when you start getting into the more expensive flowers, better quality, maybe a bit of a floral arrangement, you might get up to 100,000 but it's pretty cheap.

[00:05:35]All right, this is a place I was looking at and it's closed. Dec open at 11. And I probably should have done my research and probably looked at it when I walked past the first time. So I'm walking back the other way again.

[00:05:50]Lucky the foot paths along here are pretty good.

[00:05:53]So outside the tourist areas, this is what the sort of the rubbish situation is getting like in some of these areas.

[00:05:58]Yeah. People just dumping rubbish everywhere. It's uh what they say in Joro. Yeah. Cot.

[00:06:05]Uh it's just Yeah. Really it's really poor form. I mean there aren't a lot of choices for people. Well, there are some choices and people are obviously take taking the easy choice now, but because rubbish isn't being picked up as readily as it used to be, it's really becoming problematic in some areas. I hope it gets resolved. I think it will. It'll have to get resolved, but I think it's going to be an ongoing issue for a while, at least until I don't know, they come up with some other solution. But there aren't too many good solutions to be honest, except to build a new dump.

[00:06:37]Like another big rubbish pile here. You won't see this in Sano because obviously it gets priority. Look at that. People are just making a makeshift rubbish dump on the side of the road. I mean, it's ridiculous. Yeah. Hello.

[00:06:52]I don't get too frustrated about it. I mean, it sounds like frustration. I guess it's more a um Yeah, it's more of a passion thing. I I think because I've experienced this sort of stuff before in in Java. Like it happens from time to time where the rubbish situation gets out of control a little bit or people are dumping it in the gutters and it of course floods. I mean that's what happens here in Indonesia with rubbish. It's just not controlled and never has been controlled. It can be okay. It can be handled okay but it's never been sort of western standard you know for for rubbish collection. But but nothing is is it I'm coming up to Jalan Hassan Nudin on my left and I know if I turn left here I bump into some coffee shops cuz I haven't had breakfast yet or a coffee. So I'm sort of making a be I actually have had a coffee this morning but my second coffee I haven't had that and I just need to go down there and get some like a little bite to eat if they've got something as well. I know there's some good cafes down there that I haven't visited before. Just getting back to the point about uh complaining about stuff. I've got to be very careful to sound make it sound like I'm not complaining because you don't want to be one of those grumpy old guys. And I don't really get frustrated with stuff, but I am passionate about it. And um one of the things is the first time I came to Barley, there were heaps of problems here and we sort of laughed them off.

[00:08:12]who was a bit cute, you know, and they are cute in some ways, but when they start impacting you day after day after day after day, it can be a bit frustrating for some people. And that's part of the the process of adapting to how things are done here in Indonesia.

[00:08:29]And some people never adapt. And I think that might mean that uh some people's lives are a bit miserable cuz they never adapt. And it means I mean I will never accept that it's a good idea to be dumping rubbish everywhere. I'll never accept that. But I'll accept that there are sometimes circumstances that occur here that make it very difficult for things to function properly and there's no one person to blame for it.

[00:08:54]I think that's the main story, isn't it?

[00:08:56]It's a bit unfortunate, but that's just the way it is. And we choose to live here and choose to holiday here. And uh those things that we thought were cute back in the day, maybe not so much now.

[00:09:06]The first thing I remember when I first came to Bali was getting off the airplane and they had an aero bridge and then you came off the arrow bridge and instead of going into the terminal, they made you go down the stairs and catch a bus, but the bus only went like 30 m. So you get on the bus, they load it up, takes about 10 minutes to load it up.

[00:09:24]Everyone got on the bus and they drove about 30 m and then you got off the bus back into the terminal.

[00:09:29]I remember everyone on the plane and they're probably barley regulars before I went there the first time started groaning and laughing. Ah, you know, this is just the way it is here.

[00:09:40]I think that's okay to have that attitude sometimes. Okay, this place is called Let's go in here. Hello.

[00:09:46]>> Hello.

[00:09:46]>> How are you?

[00:09:49]>> Good.

[00:09:54]Malasan capuccino large capuccino hot hot. Maybe the pastry there. That uh chocolate one. Yeah. Po chocolate.

[00:10:08]So this is a pretty cheap place. I'm getting a cappuccino and a pastry for 58,800, which I think is great value.

[00:10:16]Like that's really good value, isn't it?

[00:10:18]Um I mean that's the sort of uh differences you have here in Bali.

[00:10:22]There's just huge differences between the different places you go. Um, it's not just tourists versus local prices, but it's also location based as well.

[00:10:32]And even sometimes locals go to places that are more expensive than tourist places. So, it's not a really clearcut thing. Of course, it's more often that you get local places that are cheaper, but it it's not clearcut like that. Uh, but it's not always like that. But the big question is, is it any good? So, we'll check it out. Okay, here's my coffee. This is on the side of a really busy road. So, if it gets a little bit like wild in terms of the noise, you'll know why, cuz it's just that's what it is out there. I actually don't mind it, but for a video, it might be a bit ordinary. That goua gula literally translates to red sugar. If I see one of those on the side of my cup, I often think negatively about the coffee before I've even tasted it. So, let's give it a go. Temperature is good.

[00:11:28]I like it. That is a good coffee. I think for the price, very hard to beat.

[00:11:33]Yeah, good one. Bomb walking around here. In the future, I'll definitely come to Rumor again. Kazi.

[00:11:43]>> Yes. Panasia. Okay. Massi. All right.

[00:11:46]You up for me. Looking forward to this.

[00:11:48]This will be a big crunchy crispy one.

[00:11:51]Oh yeah, she's on. I mean, you don't really need to watch me eating it for a song, but here goes anyway.

[00:11:58]M.

[00:12:02]Okay, let's continue on. I'm going to walk down Jalan Hassani and I'm going to try and get across this road here, which looks like it's pretty difficult. So, there's a zebra crossing here, but that's nonfunctional in Indonesia. So, you got to do it uh a bit brave. Don't just charge across. So I I see a lot of people say just charge across but you got to be a little bit more careful than that.

[00:12:28]Like um yeah people say oh no the traffic will get go around you and it does sometimes it's not always like people get knocked over all the time. Just got to be a little bit careful. I mean I charged across it a little bit there and sort of had a look at what people were were doing but um yeah just be careful going across those roads. Just a word on those. Um I don't even know where I am now. What's this?

[00:12:52]Some sort of mall of some sort. I'll just go in there.

[00:12:58]Yeah, that getting back to the story about those zebra crossing.

[00:13:01]There is a rule that you're supposed to stop at zebra crossings if you're in a vehicle, but I've actually never seen them functional before except when some guy charges up with a flag, maybe at the front of a school or if there's a big group of people who huddle together and charge off in one big go and then the driver of the car is scared that the car might get damaged by hitting so many people at once. Otherwise, they don't really work like that.

[00:13:30]Hello.

[00:13:32]Hello.

[00:13:34]So, this is the gold street. All along here is these gold shops. Um, and they're really good quality gold. You can buy and sell. If you've got gold that you want to get rid of, you can come here and get it melted down like old jewelry or old heirlooms that don't really mean too much these days to you.

[00:13:52]Um, but you can also buy a heap of stuff here as well.

[00:13:56]And you can either buy blocks, you can buy jewelry, buy simple necklaces. They can do everything along this street. So all along here there are shops. Now I don't have any recommendations about which the good ones are and which ones are not good ones, but it's fairly competitive and I reckon that most people are going to come up with uh something they're happy with at these places. I guess my only concern would be yeah like not getting ripped off with qual the quality because if we don't know how to test the gold, how do we know? But I mean it's probably the same everywhere anyway. How do you know? Um yeah, but I've got friends who come here to do their gold purchases. So they'll do things like they'll get a necklace and wear it for a couple of years and after they're sick of it, they'll come and get it melted down and buy a new one in a different shape or whatever. Just wanted to go back to that issue about the um straddling the east and west cultures and how we sort of sometimes live in two worlds when we live here in Bali and certainly being married to an Indonesian you straddle both worlds for sure and um and how that sometimes it makes it quite difficult to know which cultural norms you should take on board and which ones you should ditch. Like for example, there's a great one which is about wearing hats inside. And I know a lot of people on the uh video over over the years have sort of said, "Look, don't wear your hat inside." And um I still do and I still eat with my hat on and that sort of stuff. Not all the time, but I I don't want to argue with people in the comments about it because uh sometimes it's difficult to understand, but basically there is no culture here in Indonesia of taking your hat off indoors. And just because we think that's the right way to do it in Australia, doesn't mean that it's the right way to do it here. So it's not really offensive here at all. And it's not rude here. It's not even like an issue at all here.

[00:15:52]So that's why I would sort of do that here because we're in Indonesia. I'm married to an Indonesian. That's just the way we do things. Now, I do understand that for some people that's going to look a bit odd because you're watching this at home. maybe in a different country where where those cultural norms are deeply embedded. So that happens with a lot of different things by the way. Like you know in some countries like it's uh if you had a really tasty meal like you burp, you know. Um but if you did that in Australia, even though you're from that original country, people are going to look at you and go, "What are you doing?" Like that's so rude. But if you were in their country, like if you let rip a big burp after meal, they'd go, "Oh, this guy's fitting right in." You know? It's a it's a we it is weird because these cultural norms are are some how who we are is who we're made to be when we're growing up. We sort of live by these these rules and when they get sort of turned on their head by moving to a different place. It is quite well it's quite uncomfortable isn't it?

[00:17:00]I think that's why there's quite often friction between locals and foreigners in many countries, not just here, but even in Australia. When foreigners go to another country and act the way that they do in their own country, that's where real friction can sort of arise.

[00:17:17]All right, we're still going down Dan Hassan here. I've nearly got bumped off the road there because someone's put a pot plant in the middle of the someone put plants in the middle of the foot path and I smashed into it. Nearly bumped myself onto the road. So, let's get across here without getting run over. Here we go. All right. Gordon.

[00:17:36]Gordon is actually the word. There's a few different ways you can say that. And I think it's Dutch. It's curtain. Yeah, we can also say Gorden.

[00:17:45]Gorden.

[00:17:47]Obviously, one of those Dutch there.

[00:17:48]Heaps of Dutch words around. Like so many Dutch words. Like if you look at a car and all the parts on a car, most parts on a car are Dutch words.

[00:17:58]like literal Dutch words like snelling, writting, spool, steer, ram, like they're all they're words that were sort of made up while the Dutch were in charge of Indonesia. So, of course, Indonesians aren't going to come up with their own words. They're just Dutch words.

[00:18:21]There's also a bunch of um loan words that sort of well or not even loan words really words that were transferred across from Arabic as Arabic influence sort of permeated Indonesia uh from about well from a long time ago but really when the Islamic thing sort of happened in the 1500s and there a lot of them you can really easily tell by seeing the words KH together. If you see kh together in an Indonesian word, you can be fairly certain it's an Arabic sourced word. For example, there's a word a Yeah, a um you don't have to say it like that sound. You know that sound? You might get it for lock in Scottish or in Arabic they've got that real sound. You don't need to do that in Indonesian. You don't have to say a you say a and um and it means final. It's the root word.

[00:19:18]It means final. But I can say and it means finally.

[00:19:24]Or I can say and it means most final.

[00:19:28]Oh, what's that?

[00:19:31]Little um clips. Oh, little handiccraft type things like all these little things here like hair clips. But that's 20,000 for a bag of those. It's pretty cheap.

[00:19:40]Lots of little knickknacky type stuff.

[00:19:42]There's another word. It's cous. Yeah.

[00:19:46]Cousus. You say cousus like that. You say cousus. Basically, you you're probably supposed to say the h a little bit, but it's pretty hard to say a word like that where you've got K at the start, second letter is H. What are you supposed to say?

[00:20:04]I mean, I think if you're Arabic, you would be doing theus thing, but Indonesians sayus, it means special, not normal. And you can say if you say especially, it means especially. Yeah.

[00:20:20]So, I really like tomatoes, especially the red ones.

[00:20:33]young.

[00:20:35]A lot of the times with these words, you can get into arguments with people about them because sometimes there may be an official way to say it. There might be a real like a has a really specific way that you're supposed to say according to the government dictionary maybe, but the way people say it on the street might be different. And that's part of the thing about Indonesian language. You've got the the formal way, the correct way that is taught when you go to a language school, but you've got the language on the street, which is reality. And you need to know both of both of them. Um, and the reason you need to know both of them is because without knowing the real proper way to say it, taking those shortcuts can often lead to problems when you're speaking to different people.

[00:21:25]And an example of that would be if I'm speaking to the president, I'm going to be using the best language I've got, using all those formal words and not really delving into my street language at all. There's a good one.

[00:21:38]It's a hairdresser. Hello.

[00:21:46]Yeah, there you go. 20,000 to get your haircut now. That's cheap, isn't it?

[00:21:51]Just spotted a market over here. It's called Pasar Pasa Butan.

[00:21:56]Let's have a look. It's this place over here.

[00:22:00]Never heard of this one before. That haircut's pretty cheap, isn't it? First time I was getting haircuts in bundle, it was costing me $7,000.

[00:22:07]And um every time I went there, like one side be shaved really short, the other one was a bit longer and quite noticeably so. Like the guy was a really old guy and he was just giving it a lash, you know. Have a bit of a look through here.

[00:22:22]So like a big shed which is uh formed as a market. Yeah. So it was pretty funny.

[00:22:30]I mean I used to go to this guy cuz he was cheap and a nice guy.

[00:22:34]Hello. Oh, look at all those ones. All the different tubers that you can get.

[00:22:40]And then you've got a lot of I don't know what those are.

[00:22:44]Lots of different tubers. And then I don't even know if that's a t tuber or a ryome.

[00:22:49]I probably should learn because I'm doing a lot more of these videos where I'm wandering through markets. I should learn what each one of those things are.

[00:22:56]Pretty cool though. Pretty cool. Love that.

[00:23:02]>> Hello.

[00:23:02]>> Hello.

[00:23:04]Yeah, pretty cool. These markets are usually where you can go to get cheap uh uh you know, fruit and veg. So, I actually don't go to a traditional market for my fruit. I do it from a shop. It's only a local. It's not the supermarket. So, it's a little bit cheaper than a supermarket, but it's not as cheap as the market, that's for sure.

[00:23:22]I know. Um Oh, hello. You're cute.

[00:23:28]Hello. Oh, you're so cute.

[00:23:33]Market cat.

[00:23:35]I know that um Kelly, who I interviewed not so long ago. Oh, cake shop.

[00:23:43]Hello. Oh.

[00:23:48]What?

[00:23:50]>> Yeah. Pan. Yeah.

[00:23:58]>> Basan basa. Basa. Jaj.

[00:24:03]>> Lots of different little snacks here.

[00:24:06]And they would be beautiful. I know.

[00:24:08]That would be beautiful.

[00:24:10]Yeah. Keep walking. I know Kelly, who I interviewed uh for my video a couple of weeks ago now. Uh she does her shopping for lots of those uh fruits and vegges.

[00:24:24]Um I might go down here. I'm going just wandering wildly now. She does all her shopping at the local market, which is interesting because she can get much better prices there than she can get anywhere else. Now in Sor the different places that you can go for fruit and veg are Pasar Inalan which is the big market the main market in the area and then there's also Pasar Synindu which is the one that most people will be familiar with that has a little night market there um near the main road basically at the northern end of town. I met a lady who told me that she reckons the prices at Pasad Synindu are better than they're at than they are at Pasadan, which I find to be quite strange cuz Inadan's got a lot more competition, a much bigger market, a lot more customers. So, but she's a local, she knows what she's doing. So, that's also something to um but that's also something to keep in mind as well. All right, what do we got here?

[00:25:27]Oh, ble bottle beer. So, you come across these things, these little places. It's just a beer seller and they'll sell all these cases of beer. They might even deliver them to you. And uh wonder what the price is. I can't see it. Uh but yeah, that they often do things like um they'll do like that place does gas and water as well at that place. They'll often do that and they'll um give you a a lower they'll give you a cheaper price if you return the bottles. So, what most people do when it comes to beer here, they'll get one carton delivered at the start, which costs full price. And then every carton after that, it'll be a swap over of the old bottles and getting new one. And because you're giving the old bottles back to them, you get a much cheaper price. Okay, we're coming up here to a bunch of coconut husks being dried on the side of the road. I dare to say that they may be used for burning and then cooking food on top of. You get that really nice coconut husk smell and flavor sort of absorbing into your food when you do that when you're grilling things like chicken on it. I've seen that done a few times on the side of the road and it's Yeah, it smells beautiful.

[00:26:40]Always interested to see these waterways, see what they look like.

[00:26:43]There's a little bit of rubbish in there, but it's not bags of it.

[00:26:47]I reckon if it rains though, there might be a few bags coming down there. I love it down here. I don't even know where I am. I love it. It's really quite central to Tempestar because I know that I just come down Hassan, which is a main road in town, but now I'm on this little side road. It feels just so nice to be in one of these local areas again. It's funny because when I first moved to Bali, one of the things I was going to do was move to an area like this. That was one of my plans because I'm more familiar with the local way of doing stuff around here. I sort of I wanted to be out of the um area where there's lots of foreigners and into one of these areas. As it turns out, I ended up in an area with quite a few foreigners outside of this sort of area where it's more locals. But I'm really loving it.

[00:27:30]So, I'm glad I've actually got the place I've got. I don't regret it one little bit. And I know some people that have lived in Indonesia a long time will often say things like, "Don't don't live there. too many foreigners. It's not local enough. And yeah, I get it. But I love it. Love living where I live in Sanor. And it's probably got the right balance for me at the moment. I could easily live in a place like this. That wouldn't bother me. Oh, hello. What are you doing? Hello.

[00:27:57]It's okay. Little scared dog there.

[00:28:00]Well, I better get back to those flower shops. Oh, there's a flower shop there.

[00:28:03]Better get back to that flower shop or the flower road. Look for some flowers for Susan and bring them home to her. It won't be Lilies, I don't think, but it might be something like Gerberas.

[00:28:12]They're pretty cool, aren't they? Thanks for coming along for the ride today here in Deasar once again. And thanks for watching. Make sure you hit that subscribe button to keep up to date with all things Sonora and the rest of Indonesia. I'll catch you next time and sa little postcript of my video. Got myself some flowers. Nice little bouquet there. I just went into a a random shop and asked a guy, "Look, can you make me up something for 50,000?" He did it. I got that. I've got four roses, five roses in there and a bunch of other flowers just to make it look pretty good. And I think Susan's going to be pretty happy with that.