Interview with Jay Bishoff: Post Bali Bomb tourist-part V

Baliblog: I've heard that a common scenario that occurs to people moving to Bali is that for the first 6 months they are flying in the clouds, everything is wonderful. Then after a series of let downs everything is negative, then after a year or so they reach a balance.

Jay: You get to that point of balance. Then you have to decided does the balance lean of the positive side or does it lean on the negative side? If it leans on the positive side maybe you can have many happy years in that place.

Baliblog: My attitude is that I have so many positive interactions with local and I know other expats who don't like the Balinese. But you can have little magic moments with people. I have them about 20 times a day. The thing is all those little moments occur whether they are in Seminyak or up in the mountains, in situations where money is not an issue. All the sticky stuff, all the unpleasant stuff is all around money, houses, cars etc. You start getting into that stuff and that's where you could get into the unpleasant stuff. So as long as you live here, this is my game plan, don't flash a lot of money around, talk to the people and don't try to build a Trump Plaza in the middle of the rice paddies, and you'll probably be alright.

Jay: They can feel where you're at, they're pretty intuitive you know. They can tell where you're at if you make an effort to meet them. I mean it's their island. These people who come over trying to recreate the USA or Australia often don't get it.

Baliblog: I tell you a pattern I see and its so freaking regular. I'll meet an American who has been here for the first time and they say this the whole time, "Well I've looked around and I kinda like it, thinking about moving over here and buying some property." "Thinking about relocating for about 6 months a year and I think I'll buy about 40 acres because I can put up a big house really cheap." That kind of thing, 'I'm going to buy this land, build a compound and a palace'. I hear this stuff so many times even from young guys in their 20's and I'm like 'that's not the way to go you know'.