Thursday, November 13, 2008

Opposite Ends Of The World

Mandalay Bay Sunset

I'm speaking at Windows Connections in Las Vegas this week, and have been fortunate enough to stay at THEHotel, the upscale hotel that's an extension of the massive Mandalay Bay resort and casino complex. My room is extremely nice, and it's been great to stay here (especially because I've had to spend so much time in it tweaking presentations and demos). I can't help but contrast Vegas from my recent experiences in Bali, though. The comparisons are more obvious when you consider that the hotel has a strong Southeast Asia theme. (Mandalay is the second-largest city in Burma, though it has no bay; it's over 400 miles away from the ocean)

Simply put, Vegas is entertainment on a massive industrial scale, and is cold and impersonal. The decor is gigantic, oversized, and mass-produced. The heavily-recirculated air is scented with a special scent unique to the hotel.

Bali is small, personal, and very warm-hearted. Its decor is human-scale and handcrafted. Its air is tropical, open to the world, yet scented with incense everywhere. It's the original from which places like the Mandalay Bay attempt to imitate.

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Sunday, November 09, 2008

How Citibank World MasterCard Took Me For a Ride

Dear Citibank World MasterCard:

See that "World" in the title? You need to take this to heart, especially when it comes to your office hours.

I was in a teeny little village in rural Bali, in a family silversmith DSC_0439shop. Bali is well known for its craftwork, and silversmithing is  part of it. Trying to pay for my purchase with your CitiBank World MasterCard because it's more than I was carrying in cash, to my surprise the card was declined. When, with considerable trouble and help on the part of the shop owner, I was able to call the international collect number the operator told me that their customer systems were down for scheduled maintenance and nothing could be done for a couple of hours. It may have been late Saturday night for the States but hey! it was the middle of Sunday afternoon for me.

We'd wasted a considerable amount of time trying to connect, then being left on hold, and my last free day on Bali - very possibly for the rest of my life - was ticking away because of MasterCard service issues. Dewa Rai (my guide) and the shop people came up with the idea of getting me to a local ATM and maybe I could withdraw enough cash for it. Good idea - until I realized he wasn't going to drive me.

Instead it was the silversmith's son taking me on the back of his motorbike, one of probably 50,000 motorbikes on Bali. We're just starting to see more of these in the States with rising gas prices: less than a full-blown motorcycle, more than a moped, by all the major Asian manufacturers like Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki, etc. And they all have a little handle on the back for tall foreigners to hang on to for dear life.

We went zipping down the street, no helmets or eyegear, diving into traffic, taking narrow scooter paths and side alleys, passing slower scooters laden with everything from cases of soft drinks to chickens in cages. Once I accepted the inevitable, and stopped thinking about what it would be like to be injured in a helmetless cycle crash in rural Indonesia, it was great fun! I still haven't surpassed the story of my very blond niece pushing her bicycle through mud roads in the dangerous Southern Phillippines - nor do I intend to - but it's the unexpected, off-the-schedule trips that make the travel worthwhile.

For all that, when we arrived at the ATM it wasn't on my network! So back we went to report no joy. By now the MasterCard systems were back up, but you left one last wrinkle for me. Turns out my credit card was frozen because of some real fraud on it - good for you for catching it! For me to complete my transaction I had to talk to the security office - which was closed! Bad for you! It may be late at night in the States, but it's a WORLD MasterCard, remember? It was 2:30 PM on a Sunday afternoon for me!

We gave up. I put down a deposit on the jewelry with what cash I had, and the silversmith scootered into Ubud the next morning with the goods where I paid the balance (also in cash). That morning I was able to put my four day's hotel bill on the MasterCard by talking to the security office just before they closed for Sunday night back home. If I hadn't learned the office hours from the previous day's adventures, I would probably have tried to pay, missed the office hours, and had to suddenly scrape up the cash for the bill before dashing off to the airport.

So...when I see those "anywhere in the world" Citibank commercials, I now know better. And seeing as how you just announced you're laying off 53,000 people, I don't expect that I'll be seeing any improvements in office hours soon.

Regards,

Sean

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Friday, November 07, 2008

No, I haven't read Eat Pray Love

I specifically avoided it to get an unbiased view of Bali and its people. I'm curious, of course. I'm sure that whichever script writer for Star Trek: The Next Generation came up the pleasure planet of Raisa, they had visited Bali. I hadn't even been here at the time, but it made me think of this place.

I was fortunate enough to spend about three and a half days there. Very little time in all, but enough to come up with a sense of the people, Ubud, and a bit of the rural life. The fact I didn't go to Kuta and its surrounding areas has no bearing on my ideas, because they aren't the real Bali; they're tourist havens of hotels, discos and mini-marts.

To me, Bali's magic is a combination of

  • Its people. They really are kind, and friendly, and like to Dewa Rai, owner of Bali Nature Toursmake you happy. From the hotel manager right down to the guy sweeping the flowers off the stones, everyone calls out and says hello, how are you - and means it.
  • Their religion, which permeates everything they do, and even scents the air.
  • Its tropical, open-air sensibility - as few walls as possible, I would call it.
  • Its value. The US dollar goes a long way in Bali; you can stay in accommodations around Ubud that would be four or five times as expensive in, say, Hawaii.
  • Its handcrafted attention to detail. The tourist accommodations and restaurants around Ubud are beautifully designed, and everywhere you look there's handcarved wood, or stone, or thatch, or furniture. Sometimes it's overwhelming.

They're still a poor people of course; you can't blame them for trying to make a buck, er, rupiah, off of tourists that can afford it.

I've posted a lot of photos to http://picasaweb.google.com/sean.deuby, to add images to my descriptions.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

"All The Best On Tuesday"

The world is watching our elections. On this trip I've talked to Balinese, regular Indonesians, Australians, Lebanese, and Malaysians, and without exception they're very interested in the campaign and the upcoming elections. To a man or woman, they all hope Obama will win. More generally, they hope America will repair its reputation as a citizen of the world.

A Malay expressed his deep admiration for America, for it's creativity, its culture, its entertainment. He was pretty emotional about it. The Lebanese woman was surprised and tickled I was so frank about how badly we've represented ourselves to the world. (This is not a good summary of our 20 minute chat. It was lovely and positive.) And the Australians, well, they wished us all the best on Tuesday.

I hope Obama wins. I think this will signal to the rest of the world that America has reacted against (among other things) the damage the present administration has done to its reputation in the world. It's my understanding they'll hope we are returning to the America they knew, and give us the benefit of the doubt for a little while to prove it.

I'll be standing in line on Tuesday. All the best.