Certainty is a difficult thing to come by in a foreign country.
Seeking reassurance can often feel like an insurmountable task, particularly in places where you don’t speak the language and aren’t familiar with the customs. This is especially the case in high pressure situations, such as when you have a highly insistent fried-rice vendor yelling at you to try their questionable-looking stir-fry.
There’s a simple, yet sometimes overlooked solution: Google reviews. They’re accessible, aggregated, and provide a wealth of opinion from a diverse range of customers from across the globe. Generally, a high average Google rating is commensurate with a quality location.
This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t blindly accept a favourable average as scripture. The strict 5-star (no half-star) system can lack nuance that many of us appreciate to make an informed decision. Moreover, restaurants often pressure their customers to give a positive (5 star, no less!) review of their premises, knowing that tourists value their opinion so highly.
During a recent backpacking journey through parts of Indonesia, I found myself at the behest of the Google review ecosystem, using it as my on-demand source of guidance in unfamiliar territory.
This was especially the case in Ubud, one of Bali’s most frequented tourist hotspots. Upon stepping outside, you might find that something generally straightforward as picking a dinner location can be highly overwhelming, making it difficult to distinguish the good from the bad.
Emblematic of this utility is Coco Supermarket, a rather innocuous store that I wandered past on a rather innocuous street during a rather innocuous afternoon stroll.
As with all supermarkets that have ever existed, you can tell pretty well what to expect of it by simply looking at it from the street. If that leaves you unsatisfied, you usually enjoy the liberty of being able to wander inside and make further enquiries. Social custom suggests these rules apply to Coco Supermarket.
Why, then, does Coco Supermarket have over 2900 reviews on Google? Even the most popular of restaurants in the tourist-dense Ubud fail to exceed the 1,000 review mark, so why have so many people decided that this place is worth its time? How high can the utility of a rating be for something as ordinary as a supermarket?
A deeper investigation reveals the answer: apparently, a whole lot.
This isn’t to say, however, that the review section for Coco Supermarket is a blueprint of objectivity and journalistic integrity. As helpful as some reviews are, there’s only so much that can be said about a supermarket.
Let’s take Ida Hiriana, one of Coco’s many contributors, who tells her audience that Coco Supermarket sells “food & beverages, snacks, fruits, coffee… etc”. For those unaware, Ida has kindly explained the function of every supermarket on the planet.
A further read of other reviews similarly reveal a lot of nothing. According to Regy Pillai, “Coco Supermarket is a chain and can be found in Ubud, Bali”. I appreciate his loyalty to impartiality, and I did find this to be true during my visit to Ubud, Bali. It’s worth noting that Regu attached six whole photos to his hardline description, highly valuable to those of us who couldn’t be bothered to walk in.
Some seemingly use the review section as an alternative to journal writing, recounting the steps they took in their day to rectify a sub-par Coco experience. “I decided to go to the nearby popular supermarket. There they have fresh fruit and vegetables”. Sarcasm usually doesn’t translate well over text, but you can feel scorn dripping from every word.
Perhaps the greatest representation of the absurdity of a Google review section is Edwill Rivas’ stream-of-consciousness style recount of his experience. Despite the perfect rating, Edwill was disappointed that a worker who offers free samples seemingly ignored him every time he wandered past. In a shocking turn of events, however, Edwill admits that he was allergic to the food that she was offering, and he believes that the girl’s avoidance of him perhaps came down to her telepathic awareness of this allergy. “Maybe she knew”, he writes.
After spending so much time stalking the Coco Google review section, I gave myself no option but to experience it for myself. One sunny afternoon I found myself purchasing a 1.5L bottle of water to counter the heat. The experience was wildly unspectacular.
You might be wondering whether this experience prompted me to leave my own review. I’m happy to inform you that I didn’t, nor did I ever consider it. With the sheer volume of reviews that Coco has amassed, I felt that anything that could be said about it had already been said.
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