If you have holidayed in Bali (or other South East Asian countries for that matter) you will recall the experience of running the never ending gauntlet of taxi drivers that inhabit every thoroughfare. ”You want taksi mister?”, “Hey, taksi?”‚ “I have taksi for you”‚ "You want taski tomorrow?", “TAKSI!”‚ et cetera.
This time around, I adopted a new strategy to ensure that I would get the best taxi price. I learnt the local words for “No taxi, thank you”, then I'd walk past a phalanx of drivers, manneredly apologising for not wanting a taxi this very minute and for not having changed my mind within the last 3 seconds (which is the duration of time since I was last asked for a taksi). I’d then get a couple of meters down the street and yell “TAXSI?”.
Now in my mind this would immediately trigger a driver bidding war, the outcome of which would get me the cheapest price without having to haggle, saving me having to drive an already low price to an even lower one. I was ready to be swamped with offers, I pictured myself as an auctioneer but taking bids in reverse, fending off drivers left right and centre.
In reality it was more like one of those auctions where nobody shows up except for the nosey neighbours. The drivers had apparently seen this strategy before and were not about to leap to my clarion call. One of them simply sauntered up with a wry look on his face, “You want taksi now Mister?”. “Yes” – Maybe I am a travel snob?
Once inside the taksi there is the invariable small talk, which includes a range a topics, including but not exclusively, “where are we from”, “how long are we here”, “have we been to Bali before” and how the driver is trapped in an unhappy marriage, forever estranged from his true love. No really.
There is also the question I’ve been hoping that we would avoid, “Have you seen the Balinese/Cultural/Special/Big/Bird/Peacock(substitute any of these words) Dance?”
Now don’t get me wrong. I am a culturally sensitive guy and I’m trying to instil these values in my sons. We like to get into the cultures we visit, so that when we leave we take away more than just a few thousand photos and a couple of hundred trinkets (which are soon to break into a million pieces or spill out onto the aircraft floor upon takeoff or both). However it’s the thought of the “Special Cultural Dance” which always strikes fear into my heart.
I always stumble over my reply to this question,
"Um, ah no, it's not our thing",
"Mister, it is very good, you should see it", is usually the reply
"Ah, no, the boys would not like it, they’re not into dancing”,
“No, they would enjoy the dancing”,
“Um, we've seen it before"‚
“You have been to Bali before?”
“Ah, mmmm, yes, a long time ago…. We can get out here I think!”
What I am not saying to the driver is that having seen these dances performed in a few countries, I have found nothing exciting or interesting about people performing what is best described as a cultural precursor to the "Birdie dance".
Yes the costumes are often fantastic, the music interesting, but when it comes down to it, at some point during the performance, a performer makes a sock puppet shape with their right hand and puts it up to their mouth, while the left hand also makes like a sock puppet and covers their butt. You know what's coming next. Yep, they start to peck across the stage (culturally speaking, of course)!
This is generally when I start to laugh out loud and convulse. Often my efforts to not draw attention to myself (and away from the cultural extravaganza) lead to little globules of spittle and/or snot escaping the hand that is covering my mouth and shoot out, landing on the back of the head of the person in front of me. It’s at that point I then make for the door crying.
I acknowledge that by avoiding these cultural events I (and my family) may miss some of the regional nuances of the Funky Pidgeon, however I think in the interests of cultural harmony, we'll pass on this one! Perhaps I am a travel snob?
Finally, I’ve decided to make a suggestion to airlines about cabin seating for aircraft returning from Bali. I think there should be a new cabin class established: Braided Class. This would be an exclusive new area at the rear of the aircraft for people with braids, people who are related to people with braids, and people who have even thought about braiding their hair while on holiday.
Now on the aircraft we travelled on recently, this new seating advance had not been implemented and sadly passengers in Braided Class were distributed throughout the cabin and they seemed to be in real discomfort. They seemed to be suffering from DBT – Deep Braid Thrombosis.
This child may be suffering from DBT - Deep Braid Thrombosis
A particularly concerning case was that of a family where the children were clearly suffering an acute case of DBT, while the parents had acquired some form of passive DBT. Passive DBT causes a combination of deafness and blindness in parents, such that they are unable to see or hear their children throughout the course of the flight. Most concerningly the parents were not aware of the discomfort their children were suffering. These kids’ deafness was so profound that they were unable to use normal earbuds, having to resort to listening to their iPads at full volume throughout the flight. And their convulsions were not limited to the legs, but also had progressed to the upper body, with simultaneous kicking of the seat and pulling of hair of the passenger in front.
I strongly believe we need to help sufferers of DBT. I believe this is best accomplished by gathering them all together on the aircraft, ideally at the rear. Some might say that this is the most unsafe part of the aircraft. I prefer to believe that DBT sufferers’ need to visit the toilet frequently, outweighs this argument.
So that’s why I’m calling for Braided Class to be established. Or maybe even a separate airline…? Yep, I’m a travel snob.
