Singapore cranes (C) PJ Croft 2015

Hooboy, walkin’, walkin’, tired. I’ve walked nearly 3Km today. Many people would say, “Is that all?” but for me it’s hard going and way beyond normal. I slept well last night and that helped, but I soon tire, within 5 minutes.

I walked from the hotel off Jl. Bakung Sari to Discovery Mall on Jl. Kartika Plaza, looking for an SD adapter that will let me get my pics and video off the Panasonic camera. No luck, of course. I even tried an Apple computer store in case the all powerful Macs might do it, but, nah. Therefore, sorry about the relative lack of new Bali pics, but at the moment I can’t access them.

Then about 1345 I asked at the Kura Kura (KK) bus counter when the next bus was. Ooops, just missed one, next one is 20 mins away. OK, I’ll go and sit down in the mall.

15 mins later the girl came and found me to tell me the bus was there. Wow, very pleased with that service. That’s the thing here, everyone wants to help, to be polite and friendly. I wish there was more of that at home. One Perth airport woman bordered on the sarcastic to me last Sunday morning. It wasn’t friendly and polite at all.

________________

I caught the KK bus because I wanted to do a big loop as a sightseeing tour. Good plan, but 2½ hrs later  I just wanted to get home. The tour was instructive, shall I say, but we were just bogged down in heavy traffic all the time, travelling at walking pace or less. The seats were small and hard, the vision was obstructed by a low window line and the KK music was repetitive and boring.

I was amazed at the Legian/Seminyak areas. I had a mental image of um, “normal” width roads and relatively widely spaced shops and hotels. After all, it’s 35 years since I was last up there.  Instead I saw narrow, traffic choked streets, Kuta mark II; endless shops jammed side by side all selling the same things; tens, no hundreds of thousands of motorbikes both on the streets and parked, like rows of sharks teeth; and traffic jams. It’s almost impossible to get around. Oh well, seen it, that’s enough for me.

Had a chat with an elderly Dutch couple on the bus. He’s driven a camper van from Sydney to Melbourne, then to Uluru, then flown to Cairns, all on a holiday. He knows Australia quite well. He learnt to drive in Surinam, a former Dutch colony in South America, where they drive on the left. Curious (about driving on the left, I mean). Japan does too, and here in Indonesia, and Malaysia, and India, and Singapore, and the UK and Australia. So take that, USA.)

______________

Singapore yellow (C) PJ Croft 2015

Ooops, 7pm and I nearly fell asleep. Time to walk out for dinner. There’s a restoran right next to the hotel entrance.

I bought a Blu-Ray movie today, Lone Survivor, just to see if they’re really Blu-Rays. I can play them on this laptop. The price was Rp.50,000 or $5 approx. Plus two normal DVDs, Left Behind and Last Knights. I’ve belatedly realised that I think I’ve seen the latter one. Oh well, at $1, too bad.

I can’t be bothered finishing San Andreas. What a waste of good plastic.

____________