And another one. Not another quake, another fall. Leaving a restaurant last night I turned briefly to answer someone who’d said “Bye” and didn’t see the step. Bang! Down I went on my left hip, knee and left forearm. I must have good bones because it was a hard fall on a tiled floor, but although a bit winded, the staff and V helped me up and after brushing myself off, I made a joke and walked away unscathed. I was still a bit shaken up when we got home. A stiff G&T helped.

The problem is this country is full of steps and level changes, from a few centimetres to 40cm or more, and rarely with handrails. My new glasses are making it very difficult for me to judge the heights down below. Oh well.

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An amazing coincidence: if you use Windows 10 you probably drooled over the opening welcome log-in photo this morning. There it is above.

Unfortunately they never provide any info on their log-in images, nor any way to download them or save them, so I did a Google search on Lembongan and there it was, but it’s Nusa Penida.

So I was admiring this beach shot this morning and wondering where in the world it is, probably California I thought. Then V wanted to show me a brochure on tours to Nusa Penida, just off Bali. Stap me, there in one of the brochure photos was the same shot! Nowhere near as well reproduced, but pretty unmistakable. What are the chances of that??!! Shut up Sheldon.

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We were at the Bintang Bali Beach Bar on the north coast where the LOVINA jetty is, and were treated to a spectacular sunset. It’s hard to realise that we’re facing west there, not north, so the sun sets over the ocean and Gilimanuk peninsula. The photo above was last year, but it was similar last night. Same sun, I think. I didn’t have my good camera with me, but I’m reliably informed there’ll be another one tomorrow night.

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It’s Indonesia’s Merdeka (Freedom) national day on the 17th and all the schoolchildren are out in their uniforms practicing their marching. It’s very colourful and the kids look real cute. There are masses of them. The scenes above were in Singaraja, the major city on this north coast and the former capital of Bali.

My friend doesn’t like the militarisation of the school kids, whereas I recall enjoying being in uniforms when I was a kid, Cubs, Scouts, St John Ambulance Brigades in primary school, then the army cadets at high school. It taught me a lot, including discipline, teamwork, leadership, pride and (phwoaar) how to fire real weapons, so shall we say we had to agree to disagree.

I was going to add some video, but I forgot that Indonesia blocks Vimeo. There’s a way to get around it, but I’ve been going for hours on this post and the pool looks inviting. 🙂