A nice pair of balls. (C) PJ Croft 2016

Sorry, not posting as often as I’d like to, just very busy. That’s a good thing!

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“The course of true love ne’er did run smooth” –  Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

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We’re back in Sanur now, for my booking at the Astana Pengembak Hotel. I booked this way back in February, and it was a pre-paid, non-refundable booking for eight nights, A$44 a night, pretty good. That was before I met my new partner, who’s with me now.

The room is proving to be a little small for the two of us, but it can’t be helped. It’s a strange hotel: the rooms are arranged almost like a flat, with a small, nicely equipped kitchen to the side as you walk in, a large couch facing the wall with a TV, then the double bed. But the bathroom and washbasin, behind sliding doors, take up a disproportionate amount of space, making the rest of the room feel a bit small. But for eight nights, hey…

The room opens directly onto the pool, which is about 25m long and only 1.4m deep, so it’s ideal for water walking. I did a little yesterday morning and the water was quite cold, being shaded from the sun. Nice.

Off Semawang Beach, Sanur, with Lembongan Island in the distance. That’s a fish scarecrow, to keep the fish away. 🙂   (C) PJ Croft

I felt quite an achievement yesterday, Wednesday, because I went out into the ocean at Semawang beach up to my chest, and swam. I haven’t been able to do this for nearly ten years because I felt my legs were too weak, and if I fell over in the surf, I wouldn’t be able to stand up again. But there’s no surf here, so I had a salt water swim. It was good, even though the water is not too clear and the ground is strewn with coral. Very hard on the feet! Nonetheless, I’ve done it, got back in the water. Yah!

Looking satisfied. Semawang Beach.

Kids showing how it’s done.    (C) PJ Croft 2016

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We came over from Pemaron on Tuesday, up and over those mountains. It’s a long drive, twisting and turning, ever upwards for about an hour, until finally you come to a short plateau with a view over the lakes at Bedugul. From then on, it’s a long, long downhill run through increasing traffic towards Denpasar. The trucks, although a necessary evil, are slow and block the road. The average speed of driving is very slow, rarely exceeding 60km/h and usually a lot slower. I’ve done that route so often now that I’m starting to recognise parts of it.

And you thought coconuts grew on trees?  (C) Veronika 2016

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About a year ago I swapped using my TomTom GPS navigator for a Navman in my car at home, because the Navman has a forward facing recording camera. I like it a lot and never went back to the TomTom.

But The TomTom has SE Asia maps, including Bali, so although I’m not the driver here, I was using it to follow the route. It reminded me of how good the display is. It’s much more contrasty and clearer than the Navman, and it has the marked advantage that when you deviate from the shortest route, it doesn’t nag you to get back on the original route, it just quickly re-plans and shows you the new route. The Navman can’t seem to grasp that many times, I don’t want to follow its suggested route, but it nag, nag, nags so much, I have to turn it off. I like it, but it has drawbacks.

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I’m totally frustrated and angered by my backup software. I bought Acronis True Image some years ago as it won all the magazine tests, but boy, it’s hard to use! Before I came on this trip, I did a clean, version 1 backup of my desktop PC onto a 2TB USB drive so that I could access any needed files.

But the damned software said, “Cannot find previous version. Accept/Ignore” or something like that. I chose Ignore, and that was the end of it – I cannot access that backup no matter what I do. I’ve sent an email to their Help section in California, but I’ve had no reply, of course. Waste of time. They won’t help.

So, Acronis, I am finished with you. This backup software is a heap of crap. I’ve had trouble at various times before, but I hung on, thinking I was using the best, but this is the finish. You cannot rely on this rubbish software, so what’s the point. Acronis True Image – stay away from it.