Scoot scoot, oh shoot!

Here is a NEVER GIVE UP story for you:

We rented a scooter the other day to zip around to a few places.  When we got back, we went up to our room and started packing a few things up. It was about 10 minutes later that I realized that I left my phone in the front pocket/cup holder of the scoot scoot!

I ran back down to grab it, but someone else had rented the scooter already!  It was somewhere in the city with another tourist with no way of contacting them.  Most of my apps were shut off so I wouldn’t use data as we were on a pretty limited plan – so there was no way to track where it was.  We thought it was toast.

BUT, instead of giving up, I jumped on a different scooter and went to all the beaches looking at the parking areas for my run-away phone.  “That scooter had a broken mirror, how hard could it be to find?!” (for those of you who haven’t been to Indonesia, this place is the land of scooters – it was literally like looking for a needle in a haystack.)

Here is the best part – after about an hour of looking at random parking lots, somehow, someway, I found the very scooter with that broken mirror – BUT THERE WAS NO PHONE TO BE FOUND!

Again, instead of giving up, I parked next to the scooter and went to look at the beach.  I figured that I would just try and feel it out, you know, Jedi style! I actually had NO idea what the new driver looked like – the lady at the hotel described her, in broken English, as “a short hairy French girl” – we assumed she meant “short haired French girl”, but who knows, maybe she knew exactly what she was saying?

As I walked down the beach, I began to get a little discouraged.  I didn’t see anyone I recognized (not that I really had anyone in mind).  About halfway down the beach, I thought, “maybe I should just go wait at the hotel.”  I went to turn around and then thought, “well whatever, I will at least go to the end of the beach.”

I got to the very end of the beach, and I saw a man that I had accidentally bumped into on our way up to our rooms!  He was a bigger dude with dark facial hair.  He was sitting with a girl his age, and I figured this could be our hairy rental client.  I went up and asked if they were staying at our place and they were hesitant to answer.  I explained the situation and the girl in a thick French accent said, “Oo my!  It iz yourz!?  I saved it here in my rucksack!  I did not know who’z it waz and planned to take it back to ze desk when I returned.  How did you find me?”

I didn’t really have an explanation as to how I found her – I just said it was lucky.  And that is pretty much all it was – luck and a little determination.