by Eric.

For our first dinner in Denpasar, we went to a Chinese place. It was a good introduction to restaurants here. There are many restaurants for tourists which are easy to spot. Other restaurants are sort of like a bunch of tables set up in someone's garage. Don't get me wrong. They're clean. But instead of a door, there's just a wide, two-car garage sized opening. Sometimes people ride their motorbike right on in.

We walked right by this place without realizing it was a restaurant. Finally it dawned on us. They seemed surprised to see us. The food was fine. We probably ordered what would later become our old standby, nasi goreng ayam (chicken fried rice). It's amazingly similar to our favorite dish in Costa Rica, arroz con pollo (chicken with rice).

In the morning, the Two Brothers losmen served us toast with fruit salad and tea. It appeared on our table without us even asking. We talked a bit to Wayan. He has two kids, ages 16 and 20, but he didn't look old enough for that. He's 39. The older kid worked for Wayan's boss's brother's Suzuki dealership.

We rode around Denpasar all morning, mostly looking for internet access. We asked a lot of people who sent us all over the place. We saw the sights. The first place we found charged 5,000 Rp. a minute. Way too expensive. Finally we found email at the post office for about 10,000 Rp., or $1 at that point, per hour. It was a good connection, cheap and with air conditioning!

We went to a shopping mall after that. A strange thing to do on your first whole day in Indonesia, but we just wanted to change money. But when we arrived at the exchange place, they were out of Rupiah. (Editor's note: The Rupiah was plunging at the time; it was January, just four months before Suharto was ousted amid major rioting). At 10,000 to the dollar, they do tend to disappear quickly. They said it would be a couple of hours before they got more. So we decided to shop for some clothes to wear here.

The main dept. store had many many young women in cute uniforms standing around everywhere you looked. They did not come up to you and ask if you needed help. But if you asked them they were friendly, and then went back to their huddle of friends and giggled. I can't believe how many young women this store employed.

I bought a short-sleeved collared shirt for just a couple bucks, but there was a lot of paperwork involved. Joan bought a great dress for a little over a buck. We got a couple of donuts at Dunkin' Donuts before we left. When were we going to see another Dunkin' Donuts in the next six months, we thought? It turns out they're all over the place.

The donut shop had a sign apologizing for the price increase resulting from the plunge of the Rupiah. We paid an outrageous 15 cents for each donuts. They had been 12 cents.

We also tried to get a SIM card for our mobile phone. (A SIM card is a little card you stick in your digital phone that identifies your account every time you connect to the system). Since we're not residents of a country that offers roving digital phone service (many countries do, the U.S. is the oddball here), the only way we can use our digital phone outside the U.S. is with a special prepaid SIM card. We saw SIM cards in Australia (good only for Australia) but they weren't available on Bali. The salesman assured us we could get one on Java or in another month, on Bali. This meant for the time being, we couldn't use our Newton to fetch email.

The next day, after checking out of the Two Brothers, we ran even more errands, the content of which escapes me. It seems that if you put us in a city, we find a million little things that absolutely must be done. We fill each day with little tasks that are essential and especially difficult if you don't speak the language. In the end, we don't remember what they were. (Joan: Eric doesn't remember, but these meaningless tasks include changing money and figuring out the local postal system). We checked email again. Then we went back to the mall to change money because they had a pretty good rate. We got a couple of giant wads of cash. The largest bills, 10,000 Rp. notes, were worth $1 at the time. We changed $150 and got 1.5 million Rp. It took a few minutes to count.

I have been struggling a little about what to call the Third World. Third World has the assumed hierarchy that seems a little rude. Developing or Undeveloped would imply that the rest of the world has already developed. I thought about Poor World, except you could easily argue that they have a rich culture. So I thought about Cash Poor World, except that even a guy with only $1 worth of Rp. could have 100 notes each worth 100 Rp. He's poor but he's got a lot of cash. I've lately been considering The Noisy World With Lots of Chickens.

So far I'm sticking with Third World unless someone comes up with something better. Please email me with your suggestions.

We tried to take lots of photos in Denpasar. Everything is so different you can't take enough pictures. Unfortunately we are shy photographers. We got a lot of pictures of the backs of people's heads. We saw a bicycle carrying about 100 Welcome mats. (These mats are quite a thriving industry here. They don't say Selamat Datang, the Indo phrase for Welcome, they say Welcome. We see them everywhere). The mats were piled in two columns, each about four feet high on the back of the bike. We stopped to take a photo when a young guy ran up yelling probably the only English he knows: "Money for me!" We told him "Not worth it" and rode on without a photo.

We got some lunch and started our ride to Ubud around noon. Getting out of the city reminded me of riding out of Manhattan, although I've never done that. I think Manhattan would be quite organized by comparisons. We executed amazingly aggressive maneuvers for two people on heavy touring bikes. Being cautious or tentative throws everyone off and puts you in more danger. In the right suicidal state of mind, riding through Denpasar could be a lot of fun.

After about 20 kilometers, we got off the main road and things got a lot quieter. We stopped at a warung (roadside eatery, like a soda in Costa Rica, or a small diner in the rural US) for a cold drink. Joan bought a batik shirt for me from an old lady. Those were the early days. We were still suckers then.

The whole ride that day was only 34k. The first half was constant city. Nice symmetrical government buildings with red tile roofs; lots of wooden shops with a wooden bench in front of a glass display case with soda bottles lined neatly on top; official signs with lots of words; banners everywhere also with lots of words. Don't banners in America just say things like "Cigarette sponsored Jazz Festival, July 10-12?" These banners go on and on like a Russian novel. I have no idea what they say, except the one short banner we saw: Aku, picture of a heart, Rupiah. or quote, "I love Rupiah." (Part of the government's campaign to get people to use the Rp. instead of the dollar. Some fancy places charge for things in dollars here, but most every place does charge in Rp.)

We passed a lot of places that sell motor bikes and a lot of places that fix them. Also they have lots of little sheds that sell gasoline in glass bottles, two liters at a time. These sheds often have very faded, dirty banner for American fuel products like STP, although the most common American icons on Bali are probably Coca-Cola and Kodak.

Next: we arrive in Ubud.

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