karma beach — Adventures Abroad

It all went down when Chantal picked the golden ticket in the Seminyak streets. Me, being in sales, thought it was a total scam and that we shouldn't even waste our time checking it out. She was really pumped about it so we made it a priority the next morning. Googling Karma, it seemed like an upscale place and we wanted to dress the part to pretend that we "fit right in". Chantal had a beautiful, bright, yellow dress, and well, all I had was a collared shirt. (Sorry I didn't know we were getting roped into a timeshare coming to Bali).

The drive to Karma Jimbaran was pretty short, so I couldn't complain about that, but when we arrived in the sales office filling out paperwork, I knew it was about to go down! The hotel paired us up with an American representative who took us to a huge room filled with tables of other suckers getting pitched. There were some pros to the morning though. We had free coffee, chicken sandwiches, and assorted fruits while talking to our representative, Matt. He was an upbeat guy from New Orleans who was asking questions to get to know us on a deeper level.

An hour passed by and all I could think about was, "We just want our 7 night free stay in this magical beach villa, and we want it now!" Matt was a very nice guy and very friendly, but he kept saying, "Don't worry, we are getting there." I have been in sales for over 5 years and I know how all this works. They butter you up, they get you to say "yes"to all their questions and then they drop it hard on you at the end: that is exactly what happened.

Our one hour obligation quickly turned to four hours and then they were asking for an upfront cost of over $1,000, maintenance costs, and monthly fees to be able to have a getaway vacation to over 100 countries whenever we wanted. Chantal and I both looked at each other and said confidently, "Nope, we don't have the money to do it." It could have been no more then 10 seconds later when they turned cold and dropped us like a lead balloon out the back exit.

They threw us in a small office where we actually collected our prize.... 4 hours later. Chantal did win the 7-night trip, so sometime this year we'll be enjoying Karma Vietnam, Germany, India, or Thailand. Thanks Karma. Sorry Matt.

Our stay at Canggu (pronounced CHAN-goo) came to an end and we set off on our way home, but not without some classic stops. South of Canggu is Seminyak, where we had an epic brunch at Sisterfield, rated one of the best restaurants in Bali but completely unassuming on its corner. Swanky and hip, the wifi password was “UlookGoodInBikini”- maybe not after eating there!

My fried eggs had dill in them and between that and the smashed avocado I was in Heaven. As if that wasn’t enough, we stumbled into MadPops ice cream shop and couldn’t resist their coconut ice cream on a cone. More Heaven. Later, we ducked into speakeasy-esque coffee shop, Revolver, hidden down an alley and it was like slipping into another time and continent.

Seminyak has a hipster vibe to it, remixed with Bali classics like the fish pedicure. Jay couldn’t resist that one. We had some fun in the shops, pretty much said “yes” to everything, and had a perfect, casual Thursday afternoon. Jay handled the crazy traffic like a local, performing a new trick that I call the “foot slap”- slipping between the curb and aggressive traffic, the bike becomes unstable during the weaving and the best way to combat this is to stretch out the leg closest to the curb and slap the flip-flopped foot repeatedly against it as you pray through the madness. “Foot slap” makes a noise that I will not soon forget, but got us to Kuta for a great ramen dinner (we’ve been craving pho and found a great spot at Kuta Beach Walk) and home safely back to Uluwatu.

First small detour worth mentioning: On our way to Kuta we realized that the 3D Museum was close to us. (If you’ve never used maps.me, it’s an AMAZING app that downloads maps and then navigates without wifi- we use it to get everywhere, and it’s perfect about 75% of the time. Nothing a few “foot slaps” can’t handle, and it reveals interesting places like the 3D Museum.) I know what you may be thinking…this sounds touristy. Aren’t you the tourists who hate tourists? Yes. To all claims. They took our shoes, so barefoot and ticket paid we forged on. And the first few rooms were terribly lame. The art is incredible, don’t get me wrong, but the poses are mostly ridiculous and the employees there to frame your photos seem about as excited as the Chuck-E-Cheese workers in America (without big furry mouse heads to hide their lack of enthusiasm inside). However, we decided to go with it and ended up laughing hysterically and loving the goofy, terrible photos. The optical illusions are pretty spectacular on some of them, and when you watch other tourists lay on the floors to get the shot you pretty much have to up your tourist game. Done and done.

Another small detour worth mentioning: Before leaving Seminyak, a promoter stopped us. He was wearing a Karma Beach shirt, which I recognized from beach parties advertised around town. Jay had just gotten his feet exfoliated by fish, so we must have looked boujee. He handed us sealed promotional cards, which we opened to reveal “prizes”. Jay won two t-shirts, but I got the golden ticket: a 7 night stay at one of the Karma Beach Villa Properties (Bali, Vietnam, Thailand, Germany, or India), a GoPro, or 2 million rupiah ($150 ish cash). The only catch was that we had to scratch off the official prize AT the Karma Beach Jimbaran property, after a “short” presentation.

Jay said scam, but I think he was just bitter with his two t shirts. So he humored me the following morning. See next blog.