15,000 to 1 - tidbits about Indonesia and Bali

No, not our odds of survival, that's Indonesian rupiah to dollars. This looks like a lot of money, right?

Each bill is 100,000 Rupiah (IDR) - in US dollars, that's about

... wait for it ...

...

7 dollars. Yikes.

Speaking Indonesian

Other tidbits about Indonesia. I learned how to say yes, no, and thank you. 

"Yes" was so easy - "Ya" 

I figured that no would be Na!?! But, no, the Indonesian word for no is tidak. huh?

Then there's "thank you" by the last few days of our visit I finally had it down ... Terima Kasih

Black and white checker skirts - we saw them everywhere, even wrapped around the base of light poles. Apparently the black and white checker symbolizes good and bad, kind of like yin and yan. 

From Google: 

Bali is a highly spiritual place. It is an island where East meets West and where Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism co-exist peacefully next to each other. Although majority of Indonesia is mainly Muslim, Bali itself is strongly rooted in Balinese Hinduism, which originated from Java as 'Agama Hindu Dharma'.

One of their festivals is called Nyepi. It is 6 days long and day 3 is the day of silence. It's a day of silence, fasting, and meditation for the Balinese. The whole island shuts down for a full 24 hours, and the streets are off limits to everyone.

I prepared for this trip by getting a special money card called wise.

Did not have a lot of opportunity to use my new wise card. We tried to use it to pay at Thalassa Dive, but it was denied. I figured it was because we had not set up a IDR acccount in the Wise card yet. It took me a while to figure out how to do that.

But we did get to use it at the ATM in Bali. Worked great. Got 1 million Rupiah! That's about $70. And, it didn't need to come from the IDR account. It used that up, then took the rest of what it needed from the USD account.

I also used it in the Turkish airport to buy snacks. I didn't have to set up anything to use Turkish Lira.  Here's the info from my account:

That was easy - it's great, but our Chase Saphire card works just as well. And, it's credit. With the Wise card, it's like cash. You add $ to the card direct from my bank account and it's taken when you spend.