If you've ever been to a Southeast Asian country or other third world nation, then you probably have experienced this: you're walking down the street and everyone and their brother is clawing, pawing, blocking your path, or virtually assulting you in an attempt to sell you something; anything; everything! You try to be polite and say "no" or "no thanks", but they just try harder and follow you down the street and around the corner trying to get you to buy their wares.

Oh my God, it was so annoying. That happened to Adelle and I everywhere in Bali. We were so sick of it by the first afternoon. The people are so desperate for money that they'll try almost anything. It was truly a bad experience for me and Adelle coming from Japan, where foreigners are asked to buy something once at best or shunned when entering a shop at worst. We hated arguing about price with those people, and we hated it even worse when people would just come up to us and ask us if we wanted to buy this or that and then not taking "No, thank you" for an answer.

One little girl who was about eight years old tried to sell us some the same postcards we just bought from someone else not two minutes before. When we showed her the cards we just bought, so she came back with this gem: "I have no money for school," delivered with her best 'pity me' face. They start them real young in Bali. And that's probably the only English she knows too. The pity I felt for her was real. We shook our heads one final "no" and walked away. You have to be cold like that or they'll just keep coming at you.

They are ruining people's vacations by being so pushy. If they would just let people alone and offer inexpensive goods with price tags on them so I didn't have to haggle, then they'd probably do more business. They think they can con everyone. They are getting what they deserve: subsistance living in ghetto squalor.