In Search of Happiness.

I am not sure why… Maybe it’s my bald head, maybe it’s the fact that everyone knows I am a single father of two kids, I don’t know. But I get many interesting messages on social media. Many of them are from single women, which is not a surprise. I do not hide the fact that I am single… While that makes me an expert on absolutely nothing, I guess I could be looked upon as a father figure.

I get many pleas for help and advice.

I will often meet people for business and the fact that I need content for my blog. I have written many articles on the lost souls of Bali. By lost souls, I mean people who come here to find themselves and get further lost in the idea of living in Bali. These are as much foreigners as they are locals. So strap in for this short series cause it’s a good one.

This is not investigative journalism.

It may as well be, however, the information comes to me, and I do not go out looking for it. I have had messages from both young and old. The consistency is, that they got lost in the search for happiness. 

Anything from personal advice to business, investment, and of course many questions on how to find a Bule or white husband.

Some I can help, some I can advise, and some… Well, I would, could, or should give up on. So what exactly am I talking about? Let’s take my top 3 most interesting cases. Names, places, and privacy will be ensured and I doubt any of my interviewed individuals will read this. I could be wrong, but either way, I have permission to use the stories.

Chasing The Dream

This is the same for all of the individuals. Everyone in the world searches and hopes for a better life. This is a common theme. So how does this work? After TikTok and then Instagram messages I kind of decide who I want to talk to further. 

A bit of context to all this and how the dream is broken down monetarily. 

Wages in Bali are not high for most types of work. Salaries are about $300-$400 (CND) per month. This is 3-4 million Rupiah per month. A Kos, or a small rental unit is about 500K to 1.5 million depending if it is furnished or not and if it has air conditioning. Up to half the monthly salary could be gone for living accommodation. A phone plan can be had for about 100k so about $10 per month. Most of these individuals cannot cook and even if they can, it is cheap enough to eat at small vendors. Assuming they spend as little as 50-100k per day, $5-$10 a day adds up. As little as $5 per day will eat up the rest of the salary, no pun intended. Electricity costs even at a minimum will be 300k or $30 per month. Then there is transportation and entertainment and the salary is poof, gone. So get where we are going with this.