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The beach at 530am is filled with passed out partiers and people not paying attention to their personal belongings

While the sunrise every morning was absolutely beautiful, the scene in front of it was not. As soon as it got light enough to see without a flashlight the locals came out in packs to scavenge. Lots of partiers had passed out on the beach and if anything had fallen out of their pocket it was quickly picked up and taken. Bags and fanny packs that were left unwatched or lost on the beach were fair game and Carrie even saw a guy thwart a Thai pickpocket.

Flip flops were another popular target of the scavengers, as the beach was full of lost and forgotten sandals. Unfortunately, not all the sandals being scavenged were lost. While watching the sunrise next to our group’s shoes a local man came by and quickly slipped off his cheap black flip flops, put on Karen’s expensive black ones and started to walk away. I saw him and said “hey, what are you doing?” He quickly said, “oh, sorry, I thought these were mine,” before quickly switching back and scurrying off to try somewhere else.

I can only imagine how much other shady things go on under the cover of darkness and alcohol. I saw a Thai woman walking around with a stack of empty alcohol buckets going around to a bunch of locals. Each of them would put a wad of bills in the bucket, she would look through it and give them their keep. Sometimes I don’t think it was all bills. Whatever they did to get that money, I doubt it was legal.

Whether it's fun puppets like these in Ubud, transportation or anything else, getting a fair price is very tough in Bali

As I mentioned earlier, one of our biggest frustrations in Bali was trying to get a fair price. A typical negotiation would usually go something like:

Us: Hi, we are interested in a room, meal, item in your store, etc. How much?
Them: What is your country?
Us: USA
Them: (eyes light up) Ahhh, very rich country. Your price is…[insert price at least double or triple what locals pay]

Sometimes we would try to avoid telling them our country but we never got a price until we said something. Other times they would just know from our accents. A few times we joked that we should go into a place separately and ask for the same thing. I would say I’m from the USA, Carrie would say from Czech Republic or some other country that they have no idea what to do with and see what happens. Maybe next time. All we know is thank goodness we’re not Japanese, as they pay nearly double what Americans do.

Verdict: Bali Way Low

Our room, if you can call it that, at The Overstay in Bangkok

Arriving in the capital of Thailand during New Year’s, we figured that Couchsurfing would be the best way to get a local feel for the celebration. Carrie must have sent out more than a dozen requests, but the only one to say yes came from the owner of The Overstay, a bar, who had lots of extra space for couchsurfers to crash. If we wanted to sleep on the floor without any privacy, we could do so for free, but he also had a few rooms available for $3 per night. Charging anything really goes against the whole idea of couchsurfing, but it was still cheaper than doing it on our own and we thought we might meet some fun people.

Little did we know upon arriving that the nap we took by the baggage claim carousel in the airport would be the best sleep we would get until we left Bangkok. We showed up at the Overstay at around 10am the day before Songkran started but the guests had already begun the party and were soaking everyone and everything in sight. The owner was nowhere to be found, but another guest showed us the one remaining room: a little box no more than 8×8 feet small with no light, window or door lock. Oh, and it was about a thousand degrees.

The Overstay may have been awful, but we met some fun people there to celebrate Songkran

With no other choice, we dropped off our bags and began asking the other guests what there was to do in the neighborhood and where the weekend market was. No one had any idea of anything except drinking at the Overstay or walking down the street to get some food. The general idea behind the place is that the owner offers cheap or free accommodation, a fun bar atmosphere and then charges bar prices for beer, that he brings in by the caseload every day. Guests don’t even need money; everyone gets a passport book upon arrival that they just stamp every time they take a brew.

The building itself is a six story fixer-upper in the most dire way one can use that term. A former whorehouse and home of at least two murders and one ghost, the Overstay would be condemned in the USA. The floors were beyond dirty and the dark hallway on our floor had a pane of broken glass pointing out so any drunken fool could just stumble into it. Our shared bathroom’s toilet did not flush and someone made a huge mess the first day that was still not cleaned up when we left four days later. Oh, and that was also where we had to shower.

The floor was a popular sleeping spot at The Overstay

Moving up, the next floor was a wide open room with a sink and bar area, none of which worked, and piles of CDs, art supplies, clothes and people sleeping out in the open. The bathroom had a better toilet, but the urinals drained right onto the floor and my feet. Gross! Moving up some more, the next two floors each had a few rooms, more people sleeping on the floor and more disgusting bathrooms. One of them actually had a usable shower, though the water came out in a trickle from a hose protruding from the wall.

All of the rooms in the place were teeny and hot. There were no beds: only foldable mattresses that offered no real difference from sleeping on the floor. Some rooms had mosquito nets: ours did not. Some of the higher up rooms offered a break from the pumping bass of the bar’s music that pumped until after 5am. Ours did not. One night we even tried moving rooms to one with a window. We literally got no sleep that night as our chests vibrated from the music that just never ended.

This disgusting bathroom was the cleanest at The Overstay

And the dirt. Dirt everywhere. Every day the bar was cleaned by a local woman who never made it past the fist floor. My feet were completely black when I didn’t wear shoes and it had to be the most unsanitary place I’ve ever stayed.

Perhaps the most amazing part about the Overstay was just how happy other people were there. We checked the owner’s Couchsurfing profile and guests just raved about how much fun they had. Sure, we met a few other disgruntled surfers, but for the most part people loved it. Every morning the floors, couches and entire bar area was filled with passed out people. Even the owner rarely made it to his own room. To each their own, I guess. You better believe we were very happy to get out of there!

Our book warned us but nothing could have prepared us for the great disparity between the local price and the foreigner price. Carrie and I have traveled a lot in this world and have become used to, if not accepting, of attempts to rip us off. Sure, they are frustrating and sometimes leave me fuming, but the occasional double charge is a reality of life. However, in Sri Lanka it is more egregious than anywhere I have ever been.

Galle fort

While I understand that even living the shoestring lifestyle we have more money than many people we encounter ever will, I still maintain that we deserve the same treatment. The craziest example of this was when we arrived at an Internet café in Galle. We knew from the past few weeks that the price should be 50 rupees per hour, but since it had air conditioning we figured it might be a little more. Unfortunately, when I asked the price I had my camera around my neck and, after staring at it for a solid five seconds, the man said four rupees per minute: 240 rupees for an hour.

This caught both Carrie and I by surprise and after telling him that we knew that the price should be 50, we asked a local using a computer what he was paying. He replied 50. The café owner said yes, but our price was 240. At this point another local in the shop chimed in and said that 50 was the local price and we had to pay the tourist price. Flabbergasted I asked him how he thought this was fair, to which he replied, because that’s the way it is. I told him he was a racist and stormed out to the café next door that charged 50, but had no AC.

A barber for foreigners. Do you think the prices there are fair?

Another example was buying bottled water as we went. First off, mineral water is clearly a tourist product to begin with, as the locals are all acclimated to the tap. Still, prices are pretty fixed and the MSRP is even written right on the bottle. This means nothing, however, as shop keepers still took one look at us and made up whatever price they wanted. Sometimes they justified a nearly 50% increase over MSRP by saying it was a “cool charge” for keeping it in the fridge. Other times they just shrugged and repeated their obnoxious price. When desperate, we paid. Usually we walked out and looked elsewhere.

Don’t even get me started on how tuk tuk and taxi drivers try to rip you off.

Also don’t get me started on how we have to pay hundreds of rupees to enter temples, monuments and the botanical gardens while locals only have to pay 10 or 20.

Our hotel in Kandy required taking a bus from downtown and the price was always different. We paid 6, 8, 9 and 10 rupees on separate occasions for the exact same trip.

Despite the fact that I know it does no good and is always met with a blank stare, I still try to explain to the folks ripping us off how they can’t do that and how it’s not right. Maybe one day I’ll stop trying, because it usually just fires me up more and they will just do the same thing to the next person.

The train we met Rodney on chugs its way through the Hill Country of Sri Lanka en route to Kandy

Our time in Kandy was also marked by our experience with Rodney, the owner of our guesthouse. Rodney first found us at the Colombo train station, fresh off the plane and looking to head to Kandy. He was very nice and helped us buy our tickets, explained what the local foods were and gave us all sorts of info on Kandy. We kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and it did when he sat down next to us on the train and told us that he had a guesthouse.

We sat on the train, waiting for it to leave, as Rodney continued to pester us. He proudly handed us comment books filled with glowing recommendations from other people he cornered at the same station, but we stood our ground and kept saying no. Desperate for business and not wanting to wait hours for the next train and hope to find other tourists to sweet talk, Rodney agreed to our price requirements moments before the train left the station so we finally said yes.

The sunset from our balcony in Kandy

The guesthouse turned out to be beautiful, had a sweeping view of the mountains and the nicest staff ever. Rodney, however, continued to be a thorn in our side throughout our stay there and by the time we left I was glad to never see him again. Some examples… He had Internet that we could use, but it was on his personal computer so he wanted to know full details of what I would be doing.

One time he just walked into our room without asking permission to talk about tours. Another classic was when he told us that he had a washing machine that we could use for 250 rupees a load, then when we gave him our pile of more than 20 pieces he gave it to his employee to hand wash for 50 rupees an item. We didn’t know until Carrie saw him washing them by hand and he told her the actual price.

Rodney’s favorite subject was tours, though it’s partly our fault because we had asked about them. After first quoting us a way too high for us price we spent hours trying to find a way to make it work and keep everyone happy. It could have been a simple negotiation, but he tried to add money to every single aspect of the trip from admission tickets to hotel rooms, meals and gas. In the end we wound up making a decision that we regretted at first, but wound up being glad we did: hiring a private driver to take us around the Ancient Cities.

Sigiriya, one of the Ancient Cities in Sri Lanka

Sigiriya became the final stop on our Ancient Cities tour after we visited the front gate on our first day and were told we could only climb halfway up due to a hornet infestation atop the fortress. It seemed that some school kids threw rocks at their nests 10 days ago and the hornets were still flying around all pissed off.

When we arrived the second time, there was some confusion amongst the guards, but it seemed that the top was still closed. Oh well, at least we could see the paintings, ruins and some of the view…and still try to get atop. One thing was for sure, we were sick of being bullied into tours and would not take one here.

Signs warning of the hornets at Sigiriya. In English, Just like all the other signs

Shocker, shortly after entering the compound we found ourself with a tour guide who assured us that he would try and get us to the top, so off we went again. His actual tour was useless, as most of the information he gave us was literally reading a nearby sign and telling us what it said (the signs were in English), pointing out different animals he noticed running or flying by and giving us the same information from our book. Does he have a copy of Lonely Planet too?

When we arrived at the halfway point we had to wait for other tourists to be turned away from climbing to the top of Sigiriya before he asked us if we really wanted to proceed. His stories of people being carted away in ambulances due to a hornet attack did not deter us. Neither did his demonstration of what to do if we were attacked: cover our ears and run like hell. So up the stairs we climbed, past the hornets nests that looked completely intact and through air containing no buzzing.

Carrie and I atop a hornet-free Sigiriya

When we got to the top the view was absolutely spectacular. We could see for miles on end and literally had the place to ourselves. I could have spent hours just relaxing and taking it all in, but he began to freak out that we might get in trouble, so as fast as we came up we had to scurry back down. I was not happy about this, so while he and Carrie started the descent I ran around the top trying to snap a few more pictures before joining them. About halfway down the stairs I looked down and saw them yelling at me to hurry up and run down. Yeah, right, run down metal stairs and twist my ankle? There better be a swarm of hornets behind me!

Needless to say, when I reached the bottom there was not a single hornet to be found. Rather, a group of tourists was heading up and the guards didn’t want them to see me coming down. So, I handed the guard a bribe for letting us up, paid the tour guide and we went back down on our own wondering what kind of guide would end the tour at the top. One hoping to get money from more tourists about to be tuned away from the top, perhaps? Our conclusion was that there were no hornets and it’s just a massive scam to get guides some extra money. We may be completely wrong and our very lives may have been in danger, but somehow I doubt it.

An auto rickshaw, which is the most common type of taxi we travel in

For the final bit of fun after our 31 hour train journey, Carrie and I found ourselves with the unenviable task of finding cheap lodging near the world famous (who knew!) OSHO Meditation Resort in Puna during a festival. The first few guesthouses we saw were too expensive and we were exhausted so we decided to go with a rickshaw driver who said he could find us something in our price range. These guys are notorious for only showing you places where they get a hefty commission. Still, if all goes well they do the legwork for you and you get a cheap room.

At our first few stops, we waited in the rickshaw while the driver got out, talked to the owner and returned saying that they were full. When we finally had our first vacancy it was far from the center of town, the side bedroom in a family house and double what we were trying to pay…even after haggling. Back into the rickshaw we went and as our search passed the hour mark Carrie and I concluded that we were being duped an enough was enough. Despite finding us nothing, the driver still demanded money for his effort while maintaining innocence. We gave him a pittance and moved on.

Our eventual hotel in Puna

Our final resort was to ask the first pair of white people we found where they were staying and how much it cost. The first couple we found said they were around the corner and paying exactly what we wanted from the beginning but our rickshaw driver convinced us was impossible.

How surprised were we when arrived and it was the very first one we looked at with our driver. I guess the owner didn’t want to pay commission so the driver lied and said it was full. When we finally checked in it was on our own accord with no help from the driver, yet two days later the owner of the guest house was forced to pay a commission. And that’s the way it works.