Ask your self’s ?? If you found 1 years wages in a bag would you give it back ??
All who has been to Asian countries in general, would say they have all had hassle at some point:
- I got hassled to buy stuff I don’t want
- People tried to drag me into their shop
- I got hassled to take a Taxi ride every 10 meters
- No don’t need massage from all massage parlors one is enough
- The noisy traffic where all drivers hunks at you
- Taxi drivers driving the Looong way to get more out of the meter
BUT rarely travelers forget to mention all the things that makes BALI an awesome place to visit and live in, not just a trip advisor review on a specific service.
This is quiet remarkable story but it happens more than most people think.
On March 16 one of our DMTs left his bag in a bemo (minni van taxi) on their way home from dinner.
He came in the day after and was pretty down NO doubt he had just forgotten his brand new PADI Divemaster bag SOMEWHERE ???
In the bag he had:
Most Divemaster materials, Dive computer , IPad, few personal effects, wallet so worth a fair amount of money to put things in perspective that would be worth nearly a years basic wage for a person working as sales staff in one of the shops in Sanur.
He knew he had left it between the night market and the house which is about 2km stretch in middle of crowded Sanur but he wasn’t sure exactly where.
One of the following days he came across the bemo driver who was picking us up from Sanur Channel after a dive trip and he tried to ask him if he had heard anything 
about someone finding a bag in one of the bemos. He didn’t understand English so his attempt to ask the driver if the bag was left in any of the bemos went nowhere . After this he decided to translate a few sentences into Indonesian to help him communicate, that he had lost his bag. He tried calling Bluebird many times which is one of the taxi companies but they had not found anything , he went back checking at the night market stands and of course find the bemo driver that drove him on the night of the loss.
After a week of searching and calling around walking back and forth trying to locate the bag, he came across the bemo driver again who stopped by Crystal divers. He gave him the translation through one of the Crystal staff and he told us he found the bag and had been trying to find the owner of the bag. But he didn’t know where to look or how to find out where this person lived. The driver asked to get the written translation so he could show his son as proof that he had found the owner of the bag. He needed this because he had given the iPad to his son to play with while they tried to look for the owner of the bag. Which is great, since we got to assume it was to show his son that the owner had been found and that it was to show his son the proper thing to do in this case. Nice to see that parents are still instilling good morals 🙂 and live by them, them self’s.
He brought the bag the following morning and all of the belongings were still in it. He gave Made the driver a nice reward to say thanks, and this is something that does not always happen.
So if you lose something and someone gives it back, you really should reward the person who brings it back with 10,20, 30, 40 USD . What difference does that make if you just lost items for 1000 USD and got it back rather than having to buy it all new. But for them it makes a huge difference.
So what do we learn from this ??
1. Dont lose your bag !
2. If you do and get it back, give some finders fee !!
