Denpasar Market

If you want cheaper than Kuta, then you need to head on down to Denpasar Market. It's crazy, it's busy, and they don't speak as much English, but the prices are cheap, wholesale prices pretty much compared to Kuta and other tourist areas.

There's 2 sides.. the food side, and the art/craft side as far as I could tell, they are the same place?

I was always being followed, and it helped to go with a local on one of the days and watch how he interacted & bargained with them. He translated what they said to me "she pay more, cos she's smiling".. I'll never understand why you pay more when you're smiling, but I couldn't stop smiling over there :)

Read below about my Denpasar market stories if you want to get a feel for what it's like.

But I do recommend going there, it's the place to go for pottery, masks, handicrafts, incense & giftware.

And opposite the one above is the strong-smelling Pasar Badung  - an open-air market for the Balinese. It's 3 stories of fragrant spices, foods, teas, snacks, flowers, meats, seafood. You can witness the daily life of the Balinese and the stench hehe!

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My Denpasar Market Story:

Slept in pretty late, I think I got up around 10am or so. Had fruit for breakfast (melon, grapes, and apple).

We then went to Denpasar market. We were only there for 1 hr which confused me a bit as I thought we were going for the whole day, but at least now I know what to expect if I decide to go later on my own or with someone else. Ama's advice was to not point at anything, and to only pay 30% of what they ask (not at the bit we went to which was more for wholesalers).

I bought 4 Lombok masks (Balinese masks are scary, Lombok masks are decorative and nice). I also bought some incence gift packs. All up, it costed around AUD $25.

We went across to the smelly food market. They are in need of some basic hygiene education and some refrigeration or ice. It was putrid. Ama bought some shrimp - he can eat 'that' by himself :)

About 12:30 we went to Marcus's place. He had his other daughter there who was 3 - although looks about 5 to me. She is sooooo adorable - a very beautiful and sweet child.

Ama and Ika cooked our lunch - Chilli Con Carne. And Joni went and got some boiled rice to eat with it.
We sat down and ate while Marcus and Ama swapped cheeky insults to each other - they are very funny and bounce off each other.

After lunch, we played Uno in the heat for hours. They are a bunch of sneaky cheaters :)

Then I got on the back of Joni's bike and we rode back to Ama's. Ama walked.

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