My First Time as a Millionaire

Yesterday would probably qualify as one of my most unique Christmas days ever, so maybe it stands to reason that I ended the day as a millionaire (married to another millionaire!). For anyone new to this blog who is right now thinking “Wow, Santa really was GOOD to Rob and Betsy yesterday!”- I will explain. Our careers as a city planner/workforce manager and a school psychologist (respectively) have been very good ones and did bring us many blessings- including retiring relatively young-ish – but we are only millionaires specifically here in Bali. I did not know this until we arrived, but the current exchange rate for the American dollar to the Indonesian rupiah is about $1 to 16,750. So when I exchanged the $80 in my purse with the exchange lady, she handed me back over a million in rupiah. I reallllly thought the day I became a millionaire would come with more fanfare, like maybe a marching band and a confetti cannon and Oprah popping out to interview me on where I bought the winning Lotto ticket, but it actually took place in sort of crumbly shack on the side of a busy Jimbaran street while mopeds tooted their horns at me. Not quite as I pictured, but believe me when I say I walked back to my hotel from the exchange place hunched over my wallet like Golem guarding his Precious. So yes, dear friends, we are here, we made it to Bali (country/leg 4 of this 7 part epic retirement journey)!!!

‘Bourney Bye, Bye, Bye

We checked out of our air bnb condo in Melbourne yesterday feeling sad to leave, but excited for the next leg. We had a pasta lunch along the Yarra River, and were surprised to see just how many people were out and about in the city on Christmas Day, and in the airport! We returned our rental car, made it to the airport in plenty of time to catch our flight and eat a tasty 🙄 Hungry Jacks (aka Burger King in the USA) dinner, before hopping on our plane for the 6.5 hour flight to Bali, Indonesia.

Bali ‘Beaus

In one of the many serendipitous moments that make up our lives, we met a woman on our plane to Tasmania who had recently been to Bali. She and her family had used the driving services of a woman and been very impressed, and she passed the driver’s name (Nobita) on to us. I reached out to Nobita last week, and it turns out she was available for our dates (and very affordable by US dollar standards). Last night she met us at the airport with a little sign that read “Welcome to Bali Rob and Betsy LeBeau from the USA”. And she gave us hugs! It felt like being a superstar arriving to her waiting for us with that sign- maybe she knew we were shortly to become millionaires?!? 😂

Intro to Bali

We arrived at our hotel very late last night, and went to sleep about 3:30 a.m. Melbourne time. It was strange getting off the plane to see our phones filled up with lovely “Merry Christmas” messages and posts. Most of Bali practices a unique form of Hinduism called Balinese Hinduism, which blends Indian Hinduism with local beliefs, ancestor worship, and Buddhism, making it distinct from other Indonesian religions. This faith emphasizes daily offerings, maintaining balance between good and evil, and deep respect for nature. We definitely felt far, far away from a typical Christmas!

We got up this morning and had breakfast at our hotel, which is very nice and fortunately has great air conditioning (it was in the 90s today!). The menu had some foods that we’d consider standard (cereal, eggs, pancakes), but it also had some Indonesian foods that we decided to try out. It made for an interesting and yummy breakfast, since we were not sure what we were eating, but mine appeared to have noodles, sausage, scallions, chilll eggs, spinach, and not sure what else, but it was good! After breakfast we took a walk to the town area near us and to the beach. Unfortunately the beach by us is under what they call a “plastic tsunami” , which happens when debris from rivers and other areas of Indonesia overflow in the rainy season, and all the trash washes out to sea, where ocean currents push much of it ashore in Bali during the rainy season (December to March). The result is hideous mounds of wood, trash, and plastics on the beach that are far more than the sanitation department and clean up organizations can handle, so they just sit there in piles. I did not include any pics below because I don’t really want to remember this as my first “Bali Beach moment”, but if any of you are interested in what a trash tsunami looks like, message us and I’ll send pics. I should note here that this only happens in the rainy season and not all beaches are impacted by it, but ours certainly was. I can see why they wouldn’t exactly want to put this info on hotel or tourism websites, but I was bummed to know we will not be going to the beach by us while we are here. We DO have a lovely pool, though, and we change hotels in a few days, so we can enjoy the pool now and cross our fingers for the next beach to be better.

Having seen our dollar going quite a long way here, we treated ourself to dinner at a restaurant in the Ayana resort area tonight that was really lovely. They had a rooftop bar with a pool and a nice seafood restaurant. Great food in a beautiful atmosphere! We are already blown away by the hospitality of the Balinese people. They are so very kind and gracious and welcoming. Everywhere we go people want to talk with us and share things with us. It’s so nice! I mean, we loved Australia, but I can honestly say that “hospitable” would not be in the top 50 words I would use to describe the majority of people we met. “Funny, engaging, and straight shooters” would cover most of the country in the tourism areas that we met, with a little “salty” thrown in for the southern parts of Oz and Tassie.

Will post more in the upcoming days as we get out and about in Bali. Thanks for adventuring with us!