An Australian tourist in Bali received a bill from the restaurant where he had his birthday dinner in disbelief. It turned out that the meal was more expensive than his entire holiday – all because of a mistake in reading the price, which was given in an unexpected way.
The Australian, whose case was covered by the local media over the weekend, shared his story on the Facebook travel group Bali Bogans. The man, who did not give his real name, was throwing a birthday party while on vacation in the Indonesian island of Bali. While having dinner with friends, he decided to order a slightly more expensive than usual bottle of wine. “Due to the prices and mediocrity of the wine on offer, we usually don’t drink it during our stays in Bali, but this time I decided to grab a bottle, given the special occasion,” explained the tourist.
Wrong wine order
After reviewing the menu, he decided to order a 2004 bottle of Domaine Leflaive Chevalier-Montrachet. The price listed next to it was in Indonesian rupees and was “$RP1700.++”. The tourist assumed that the price was given in thousands and would pay 1.7 million rupees, or about 170 Australian dollars (about PLN 500). “It was definitely more than I would normally pay in Australiabut we were celebrating a birthday, weren’t we?” he stated.
After ordering, the man noted that the waiter gave him a confused look and asked if he was sure of his choice. Instead of taking it as a warning sign, the Australian took it as an insulting suggestion that he couldn’t afford a $170 bottle of wine. “I laughed at him and said ‘yeah, no problem’,” he says.
However, the request to confirm the choice of wine was not the only sign that the order was unusual. “We drank wine and ate a delicious meal. At some point (to our table – ed.) the chef himself came to introduce himself” – says the Australian. “Although I thought it was weird at the time, but I assumed it was just a nice restaurant and didn’t think about it again,” he continues. Not long after, the man paid the bill without looking at the amount and left the restaurant with the rest of the group.
Dinner more expensive than the whole holiday
It wasn’t until the next day, after logging into his bank account, that the Australian learned the true price of a bottle of wine. As it turned out, the amount stated on the menu was not in thousands, but in tens of thousands. So it meant 17 million rupees, i.e. almost 1,700 Australian dollars (approx. PLN 5,000). This price notation was not a fraud: in South and Southeast Asia, prices are often quoted without all zeros to facilitate writing large values, and in some countries local numbers are also used, other than the familiar thousands and millions. What’s more, there was a “++” sign next to the price. The first plus meant the need to add tax, and the second: a mandatory service fee. This notation is also widespread in good restaurants in this region.
In the end, the man’s account was debited with a bill of over 2,000 Australian dollars, or the equivalent of over 6,000. zlotys. “In the end, this meal cost more than my entire vacation. After a few hours of processing what happened, we laughed about it all (with my partner – ed.)” – the tourist described his adventure. “Needless to say, I’m not allowed to order anything now without my other half’s consent,” he joked, ending the post.
Main photo source: Shutterstock