Cambridge, UK 2008. Isn’t that nice?     (C) PJ Croft 2016

I think I’ll try the walk down Jl. Sudamala to the beach today. It’s a bit cloudy and nicely cool this morning.

I’ve just been watching an NHK doco on Japanese Mitsubishi sales of e-rickshaws in SE Asian countries (while my brekky digests!) and it was fascinating. These are trishaws with an electric drive and batteries. What a good idea. But there were two points.

First, it reinforced something I’ve noticed for a long time, the dominance of English as the language of the world. In everything we see, from Middle East wars to UN communications to many African countries, English is used. Of course, if it wasn’t used, we probably wouldn’t be seeing it on screen unless it’s important enough to require captioning.

But English has become the Lingua Franca of the world. There’s irony for you – Lingua Franca means “language of the Franks” from the old tribes in France, or Frank-land as it was known, Land of the Franks.

In this doco a Japanese salesman from Mitsubishi was working in Nepal trying to get the trishaw drivers to convert to his e-trishaws. He was getting a bit of opposition from the bicycle trishaw riders because they saw them as a threat. But in their meetings they were all speaking English. Between a Japanese and Nepalese. Wow.

Second, they showed the sales guy in a meeting back in Tokyo discussing sales and strategies, and he got so emotional that he was crying, sobbing. In a sales meeting! Amazing. Different strokes.

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I’ve been setting up Skype this morning and of course it uses the camera in the laptop to send my image to the viewer. But my image is terrible! It’s because the camera is set into the lower left edge of the screen, so it shoots me from below my chin. I hate it! I’m really not happy with this. I might have to get an outboard camera that feeds in by USB. How could Dell have made such a basic mistake?

The only way I could overcome this at the moment is to prop the laptop up high so that the camera is pointing down. How am I going to do this?

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 That was a good walk. I did as I said, I walked down Jl. Sudamala to the junction with Jl. Cemara and turned right. As soon as I got round the corner, it all became familiar territory. That’s the way I used to walk in 2010/11 when I was in the villa.

So I called in to see the Villa Frangipani, the first time I’ve been there in five years. All closed up, but looks much the same. NB: the door to the generator cabinet was unlocked and ajar. I suppose the ‘lektrik’ people need access to the meter? That generator would be a prime target for thieves, though.

Anyway, just as I was walking away, a van pulled up outside the villa and a load of Aussies got out and went in. So it’s rented, then. That’s good.

Back down the lane, and across and down the lane to the beach. (First time I’ve walked that lane. Shame on me. I should have done it in 2011.)

I noticed the nice restaurant, Mama Putuh’s was it? has closed down. That’s a pity. Gardenia is still going though.

Got to the beach and the breeze was beautiful. So many prahus!

Yoohoo, prahu. A forest of prahus.   All images (C) PJ Croft 2016

Walked to the left (north) and by now was feeling a bit bushed. I wanted to sit down, but it’s all private hotel seating! I wandered along, breathing and sweating and a waitress inveigled me in to the Prama restaurant. Just a coffee, I thought. A lemon juice, cafe latte, little biscuit, basket of Italian bread and butter, a BLT sandwich and chips later, I staggered out. I hadn’t had lunch! It’s OK, I won’t need dinner either.

I really have cut out one meal a day for many months now, and it’s working. My weight has really gone down.

That’s 1 Jan 2015 to 26 Feb 2016, 10Kg exactly. (The big drop was when I had a urinary tract infection. It was quite severe – I was unconscious for about five hours at one stage. I’ve managed to maintain that loss, though.)

I must ask the desk here if they have any scales they can lend me because with the extra walking, the sweating and the reduced food intake, I hope I’ve lost even more. my watch bands are loose.

By the way, I just placed the order for that Invicta watch. It’ll take two weeks to be delivered and I’ll be home by then. Sob!

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Anyway, back to the walk: it gets better. I got talking to the waitress, Suci (and pointed out that she sounds like Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar – she hadn’t heard of her but she has now). Anyway, ……….  it turned out that she’s not Balinese, she’s from Timor Leste. Isn’t that interesting. She walked me all the way out to Jl. Cemara through the hotel and we talked about Timor Leste – her grandfather was a king on the island. Wow. Her family has lost its status there now and she’s had to come here to find work. But landing a job at the Prama is a good start! She’s only been there a week.

I made the point that Timor Leste should be working flat out to get Aussies to come there for holidays instead of Bali. She says they all speak basic English, and they have beautiful beaches. But I never see any offers for holidays there. Pity.

The small meal at the Prama restaurant wasn’t any more expensive than this place, Rp.133,000 A$13.36. Suci persuaded me to book for a dinner Balinese music performance tomorrow night at the restaurant. For the buffet satay three course dinner with music performance, Rp.150,000 a bit over $15. Bargain. So I signed up. I’m looking forward to it.

Then walked back to the Taksu, not far, and that’s my exercise for the day. Very satisfying. I’m really glad I did it. The new camera/dilly bag worked well. I might have finally found my new bag.

By the way, it shows the improvement. Last Friday and Saturday I was virtually crippled. My sacro-iliac or whatever it was had me crying out in pain. But now, apart from a pain in the upper hip, I can just about walk normally. Good.

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That’s the good news. The bad news is that another lesion has appeared on my leg, making three. It’s all a bit messy, oozing. I have to clean it twice a day and renew the plasters. I’ve got the Betadine cream now and that inspires confidence. Hospitals always seem to like Betadine.

I’m taking daily photos of my leg to show progress, good or otherwise, but it’s too gory to show here. And even though the sparkling pool is only a few paces away, I can’t go in, bugger it.