Technology adaptation in Bali

 For our recent trip to Bali, all the planning was done by Sandhya and I just went as on the tour.

It was a great trip, people were friendly and entry and exit process at airport was smooth and hassle free. There is no tip culture, yet the service is out of this world. I come from India and I can vouch the hospitality in Bali was much better. There is no tipping culture, only experienced once during the whole trip. Of course we stuck to the religious and scenic parts of Bali, Ubud and south Bali.

They are not kidding when they say traffic is bad in Bali, 2 lane roads and lots of tourists and there is no public transport 😊.

Considering the island has 70% population of Hindu’s, but the main diet is pork and meat. They have temples in every household and every village and reserved only for locals. There is no entry for foreigners. One can hire a Balinese and go to the scared areas as their guest.

Believe me, Sandhya managed to book the drivers in Bali through Instagram and WhatsApp. That’s right, the primary form of communication in Bali is WhatsApp and with Apps like Klook one can buy data plans even before landing in Bali and in our case worked seamlessly the whole time.

I used to think Thai food is spicy and Indian food can be made spicy but after tasting Balinese food, I have changed my mind. The spice levels were so high that I could not even put the thing in my mouth without gulping few liters of water.

What amazed me was the amount of technology penetration that has happened in Bali, case in point was the river rafting videos. While we enjoyed the rafts and rapids, there were drones flying at different locations capturing us and also the guide was making pit stops to collect the recordings which were transferred to their servers and downloaded to our phones while we enjoyed the food. I learnt a lot about IOS thanks to Bali trip. Another occasion is the Bali Swing, they have an efficient operation setup with men and women and all photos taken on your mobile and there is no editing and all such but end of the day beautiful pics.

At the end of the day, they are an island blessed with beautiful tropical weather. The island depends on tourism and I think that’s ingrained in the people and making it a perfect travel destination.

Ps: for the first time ever in my life and maybe last time, I stayed at a suite with a name instead of number.

Pps: we didn’t spend our time in party areas of Bali, one tip if I may give you is, if there is plans to visit water falls in Ubud, start as early as possible. Negotiate, negotiate and negotiate.

Dyson service

 I have been owning Dyson Vacuum cleaners for a decade or so now for they are amongst the best in Vacuums out there. And we own 2 of them, one corded and one cordless. Off late our work horse corded one was having issues and I being a "DIY person" I looked up on YouTube and did some cleanup to get performance back or at least I thought so.

A few days later I was told it is still broken or rather not up to mark. Now a quick visual inspection showed few more things broken and it seemed more involved than my simple DIY to replace them let alone finding the required parts.

There were 2 options, spend money and get a new one or see if there is an appliance repair person to fix this. The conservationist in me could not fathom throwing away such a powerful motor.

Thus began the search, I was hoping to find a local mom and pop shop who can repair vacuum cleaners and to my pleasant surprise I found an official Dyson repair shop here in Austin. The reviews seemed encouraging and hence took a chance and did the drive across the river to the shop.

There was another surprise waiting for me when I found 3 other people waiting before me 😊. The service definitely was courteous and cost was also not too much and service was very quick. They even had the spare filters which I couldn’t find anywhere else on the web. All in all a win and win and our beloved Dyson lived to see another day or lived to do more vacuum.