Grrrrr.     (C) PJ Croft 2016

I’m not sure if I’m pleased or bemused. I’ve been eating at a particular restaurant, the Warung Bali Bagus, every day for breakfast and often for dinner in the past six days. The food’s good, they’re very friendly and have treated me well, often adding little extras like fruit when I decline dessert. And the price is right. Full “American” breakfast: toast, juice, fruit, two eggs, bacon, tomato and coffee for A$3.45.

Last night they gave me a gift, a Bali singlet. But when I opened it up, it’s a walking advert for, you guessed it, the Warung Bali Bagus, complete with street address, phone number, email and web address. I’ve worn it this morning to show my appreciation, but I think it’ll be going out in the rubbish.

This morning I was driven to distraction and had to leave early by a woman with a cough at a nearby table. Uuurgh, every 30 seconds, coff, coff, coff, coff. It was OK to start with but I was silently wishing she would finish up and leave. In the end, I had to.

But, bloody hell, I’ve just discovered that she and her husband and small child are in the unit next to me! I saw him outside and I can hear her coughing through the wall. Now the baby’s crying. Aaaaarrrrgh. Thank goodness I’m leaving tomorrow morning.

_________________

Beach offering      (C) PJ Croft 2016

They sure take their offerings to the gods seriously in Bali. I counted six little shrines just in the Bali Bagus restaurant alone this morning, and one of the women came out two or three times to add flowers and rice and to sprinkle the holy water over them and everything nearby. You can’t walk along the footpath without having to step around these little baskets on the pavement. At least the birds can eat the rice.

___________________

They’re cleaning the pool at the moment, but in the whole time I’ve been here, six days, I haven’t seen anyone in it. I went in on the first morning after I arrived, but I haven’t been in since (because I have so much trouble getting out). But no-one else uses it either. Odd. The water’s not that clean.

I must admit I’m looking forward to leaving tomorrow. I’d like to have a nap, but climbing those stairs is daunting. I slept beautifully last night, almost unbroken, to make up for the previous night.

I brought my suitcase down almost empty yesterday, and I’ve been bringing my clothes down in plastic bags because I know if I fill the suitcase, I won’t be able to bring it down tomorrow. I’ll pack it here, downstairs. No problem.

______________

Reception on the downstairs TV has been horrible and I was forced to investigate. As usual, it was a very poor plug fitting on the antenna lead. I remade it and it’s brilliant now, but the slightest movement of the TV makes it go bad again. It needs  whole new lead. Now that I’ve got a strong signal downstairs, it makes me realise the upstairs ain’t so good either. Too bad about that one.

The TVs are old Samsung CRT sets, and they look awful compared with flat screen LCD sets. I’d forgotten how terrible analogue CRT TV was. The scans on these are adjusted so far out that there’s constant flashing white stuff at the bottom, the scrolling news headlines, but you can’t actually see them. It’s very distracting.

Really, all there is to watch is CNN and I’ve had enough of that. There are only a few topics – 80% is the US election stuff, and the rest is Business Traveller with that grating  gravel voiced British showman, a few news items, repeated endlessly, and commercials and promos. It is boring. The new hotel tomorrow has a flat screen TV and, I hope, a full range of digital channels.