Poppie’s Lane restaurant, 1983. Open air cooking.

 Not that late, only 9.30pm, but …

• Just had a fantastic meal – bruschetta, superbly done, all olive oil flavour with really tasty tomato and garlic; salt and pepper squid, ditto; and three Bintangs. Total $19 including tips and tax. Replete.

• Surprising to see a woman (an Asian woman, at that) sit down at a table and light up a smoke. Not that I care (much) – but you just don’t see that at home any more, do you?
• I read the Bali edition of the Jakarta Post which includes the International Herald Tribune. I have no trouble deciding on my support for Julian Assange. Nomination for Nobel Prize in my opinion. How dare Vice President of the United States Joe Biden say he’s a terrorist, and in effect say, if he hasn’t broken any of our laws, we’ll pass new laws that will allow us to prosecute him!

  What!!!!??? Retrospective law? What happened to the First Amendment of the US Constitution? What happened to the rule of law? What happened to due process? What happened to presumption of innocence?

  The hypocrisy of the US is boundless. They have lost all my respect. They are no better than China, Yemen, Iran, Syria, all the deplorable regimes. Torture. Mass bombings of civlians and political assassinations. Capital punishment even for minors and mental defectives. Revenge, more like it. Cruel and unusual punishment is outlawed in their constitution for Dog’s sake. I am livid. As individuals, they’re OK, but as a country, I despise them. They’ve gone insane. Genocidal killers.

  I predict that Julian Assange will be killed, murdered, assassinated, executed, terminated with extreme prejudice, whatever you want to call it by the United States, that former bastion of freedom. I despise the country now.

Changing weather, Kintimani 1986

• One of the items in the paper was how bad the weather is in Bali at the moment – storms, torrential rains, flooded rivers, rough seas, pictures of piles of debris on the beach at Kuta. I’ve seen lots of rain, but I don’t mind. They mention part of the cause is the wild weather in WA (Carnarvon floods). Ooops, sorry Bali.
• Always mindful of security, I’ve brought wire cables and locks for the computer, suitcase and camera bag. But this room is so modern that there’s simply nowhere I can thread the wire cables through! Every surface is seamless and hole free. Huh! Luckily the door is solid and card operated and there’s a mini safe, but it’s too small to take much. Won’t take the laptop.
• Ditto for the fridge cabinet. There’s a fridge and mini bar, but there’s no handle or knob on the door of the cabinet. I just about break my fingernails opening the door!
• The bathroom is likewise super modern and super smooth, so much that the floor is actually dangerous. When there’s soap on the floor in the shower, I have to be super careful not to slip, BUT there’s nothing to grab onto. Crazy. I’ve told the desk and they very quickly sent a big rubber mat for the shower recess. But if I slipped and injured myself, I would seriously consider holding the hotel to account. It’s so obviously dangerous.
• Likewise, the towel rails/frames and the shower head. They are so high up that I nearly topple in reaching for them. Dangerous.
• Speaking of hypocrisy, I can’t claim innocence, but at the Perth airport duty free, there was a bottle of whisky priced at $2,999 awaiting a buyer. Having spent $50, I’m a hypocrite I suppose, but to spend $3,000 on a bottle of whisky when there is so much poverty … I don’t like it.

Rant over. Malam.

Aaaah, Peace At Last.

What a rotten night last night was. I won’t make that mistake again. You think a flight time of 8pm from Perth is good, but as I explained in the last posting, it meant I had to spend the night in the lobby here at the hotel, and it was awful.

I should have taken the room on offer, I suppose, but considering my booking was for $65 per night, and their “cut rate” for half a day was $72, you can see why I baulked. I managed to doze a bit, but I always wake feeling as if I’m choking – that’s sleep apnea.

I had a bit of breakfast when the restaurant opened at 7am, but the coffee was awful, the fruit was supposed to come with yoghurt but didn’t and although I pointed it out, they still charged the same price, and I didn’t qualify for the buffet because I wasn’t a guest yet.

However, by 9am I was pretty desperate and asked the desk when I could get my room. They said “one hour”, but soon after they came good and now I’m in room 204, same floor as the lobby, even though I feel as if I’m several floors above the pool.

The room is fantastic – this is a fully international standard hotel and even though it doesn’t feel Balinese, it’s very comfortable. I’ve got a huge velvet armchair – just what I like for reading and watching DVDs etc. The TV is an awful CRT set, but of course, with this laptop, I can watch anything, DVDs, even BluRays in HD, and of course streaming video from anywhere in the world.

Yes, the wifi works in the room and it’s quite fast, so I’m a happy man. It means I can post pics and video on this site.

It’s now 1.30pm and I’ve had about two hours sleep, so I’m feeling much happier. I might even order room service for lunch, something I normally never do, but I’m still in my jarmies and hope to sleep some more. Nasi Campur (mixed savoury rice) is $7.65 including the ++ (service and tax, the sneaky b…s), but what the hell, live it up!

I had a minute or two of sheer panic this morning though when I unpacked. I had all my CPAP gear, except one part of the mask, the important nose part. Aaaarrrgh! I thought I’d left it behind. Sheer panic! I nearly started making desperate phone calls to get someone to go to my place and find it and post it up here.

But no, I had put that part in my toiletries bag to protect it better, something I’ve never done before. Phew!

So the rain has finally stopped and although the sky is still grey, it’s brightening up, as am I.

Now to have some lunch and do a bit of exploring the neighbourhood. Unfortunately, this hotel is on a major “freeway” and I don’t think I can just walk down the street to eat. They run a shuttle bus every hour to Kuta and Sanur, so…

Selemat siang.