Hummer H2 – for rent

Boxing Day – it’s just Sunday here and another grey, rainy day. I love it. The rain was so heavy outside I could hardly hear the staff in the restaurant at breakfast. Nice!

The pic above shows the hotel driveway – the rain makes a heck of a din on the roof above. How about that vehicle, eh? It’s available for rent. Just the thing for a drive up to Kintamani. Don’t worry about the roads – just take a shotcut straight up the mountainside.

The title of this post refers to my concerns about this hotel. I dunno whether to say anything or just let it slide, but that’s literally what could happen and it could happen to me.

There are so many dangerous things about this hotel that if I fall and injure myself, I would definitely take action against the hotel for damages. I’m afraid my legs have become very weak in the past year and I’m having to use a stick. But:

• There are about eight steps up from that Hummer level to get into the lobby. There’s a sloping ramp on one side, but it’s so steep that I have trouble negotiating that too, especially when it’s wet.
• When you reach the top of the steps, you have to go through a security scanner. But to get through it, I have to put my stick and bag on a table and sidle sideways with nothing to hold onto along a slippery tiled route no more than 400mm wide. As I do this, the steps are just behind me. If I slipped, I’d go backwards down the steps!
• Everywhere in the hotel is glossy smooth tiled, including the room. It looks great and feels nice, but if any water gets on the floor, for example outside the bathroom or in front of the fridge or after I come back from the pool, it’s a skating rink!
• I may have mentioned the shower floor, but I will again. It’s also smooth tiled, with not a single handhold to be found. Once soap gets on it, it’s like walking on glassy ice. I asked the hotel for a rubber mat and to their credit, I had one within two hours, but it’s a hard industrial mat and a bit hard on the feet. This morning I found that they’d laid it down with the spikiest side up! By turning it over, it’s not so bad.
  Hah! I whinge when it’s smooth and I whinge when it’s rough. But it’s not difficult to get it right. There should be those friction strips or similar in the shower, or just the simple suction cup white bath mats.
• The pool is completely railing and ladder free! There’s not a handhold to be found. I had a swim yesterday and getting out, up some underwater steps, as I stepped onto the paving I fell over. Not hard, but because I can’t get up again, and because there’s no railing, I had to slide myself back into the water and try again, successfully this time. No harm done, but…!
• To reach the pool, you open a glass door and are confronted by a set of cement stepping blocks for a pathway. They’re about 500mm square and about 400mm off the ground, with gaping gaps between. It looks sort of pretty, but it’s a disaster waiting to happen. Smooth cement, water, and big gaps. If someone doesn’t slip and break a leg or hip I’ll be very surprised. There’s no alternative – no way to avoid them. You’d have to step off, down about 400mm onto a muddy surface. No thanks.

In the room, the deficiencies are so glaring that although I’m quite enjoying my stay, I’m getting frustrated. The hotel Sales Director with the marvellous first name of Ulysses seems to have taken a shine to me, so I think I’ll have to write him a letter for when I leave on Tuesday. There are so many silly little annoyances that could be fixed at almost no cost, yet are spoiling my stay:

• No pen in the room (ball point pen, I mean) or note paper. There’s the usual folder of A4 paper and envelopes, but I just want a jotter, not a bloody letter.
• The soap is not replaced as it wears down. I had to ask for more soap!
• There are only two small glasses, and even one of those went missing one day.
• There was a plastic swizzle stick which had a spatula end that I used to make my coffee, but after I threw the used one in the bin, it hasn’t been replaced! I have to take a teaspoon from the restaurant, but I keep forgetting, as now.
• The packet coffee in the room was like leather it  was so old! It smelt like leather too. I had to buy Nescafe cappucino packet coffee – but you can’t get it without sugar.
• OK, so I bought powdered Bali coffee. But I’ve got no spoon or milk.
•  There was no creamer for the coffee. I had to ask.
• The fridge is inside a cupboard which has a door with no handle or even a finger recess. It’s one of those push-push latches, but it doesn’t work, so I break my fingernails opening the door.
• Being inside a cupboard, there’s no way for the fridge heat to escape, so it’s pushing sh..t uphill to keep cold.
• The ice cube tray is very small and I can’t get the ice cubes out! I’ve actually broken the tray while twisting and turning it to extract the ice. When I do get the cubes out, they fly out onto the desk and floor. Now, of course, when I fill it with water, it leaks on the floor, making the floor dangerous as I said.
• Again, being inside a cupboard, the ice is struggling to form overnight, because the fridge is so inefficient. Crazy!!
• There’s no bottle opener in the room. Luckily I’ve brought my own, but if I hadn’t, I’d be damaging the furniture trying to remove bottle caps.
• I’ve brought stainless steel wire rope cables for suitcase and laptop security, but there are absolutely no holes in the furniture to thread them through. I can’t use them. All I ask is some eye bolts or something to loop the cables through.
• There’s a small room safe, but it’s too small to take this laptop, and this is only a 13.3″ one.
• The desk chair is all fashion with white fake crocodile skin vinyl covering, but so uncomfortable!

See what I mean? All these are simple, almost no cost items, but they annoy the hell out of the customer. Not to mention laying themselves wide open to liability and damages.

I dunno why they don’t employ me as a hotel consultant, flying all over the world checking out hotels and advising them of my assessment of their rooms. Oh, Mr Croft, we’re so grateful, have a week in this 5 star in Nusa Dua and tell us what you think. Ha!

Waffle on, can’t I?

Fried egg anyone? It’s the new, compact, easily packaged, stackable, non-runny fried egg invented in the home of convenience foods, good ol’ USA. It comes complete with holes for pegs on your plate to hold it in place while you eat. And “This side up” markings.

No seriously, it’s a new super efficient LED designed to replace light globes. It gives the same light as a 60W globe but uses only 11W. That’s just a liitle more than a compact fluorescent (8W), but with a theoretically indefinite life, unlike CFs which do wear out.

We are moving to higher and higher efficiency lighting. Even street lights can be LEDs these days, with far better efficiency and no burnouts. The installation cost is high, but the payoff is high too with no maintenance costs. And another lot of low skilled council workers lose their jobs replacing lamps. Can’t be helped, I’m afraid.

Christmas Eve in Bali. It seems unreal. First time I’ve ever been away at Christmas.

Here. there are signs of Xmas everywhere, with snow and trees and tinsel and Father Christmases and Xmas Sale signs. But tomorrow, on the day, it’ll be business as usual, and the same on Sunday. Why not?

Tropical Santa Bali 2010

 I waited around this morning for emails or texts from the estate agent or villa management, but nothing, so I took the hotel shuttle bus to Kuta. Again I’m the only passenger. If it’s so busy at Xmas, where is everyone? One taxi driver today lamented the lack of tourists – I was his first fare at midday.

Anyway, I went hunting for big camera shops, to Galeria first. Phew! Perth has nothing like this. All the big names are there, Dunhill, Gucci, Prada, Bally, etc etc. Big deal? But the range of clothes and furnishings even in the normal shops is huge, far better than we ever see in Perth. There’s just no contest.

And the rise in the middle class affluence is also obvious here. Yummy ladies in fashion clothes everywhere, with money to spend. Good luck to them. It’s good for everyone.

Anyway, taxi to another big centre to look for cameras, but nothing. A small Fuji Image shop confirmed that Denpasar is my only hope. OK, later.

Then I walked (note, walked KG) to Kuta beach and took some shots, then walked again all along the Kuta beach front path to the south toward Kartika Plaza. See Google view. It was about 1.5Km.

Following the yellow brick road, literally

But what a change there’s been in 27 years! It’s a mix of nice development of people facilities, rubbish strewn beachfront, gross hotel intrusions onto the beach and crowds! People everywhere. Many of my shots from 1983 and 1985 such as this:

Beach cremation Kuta, Bali 1985

were taken here, and it was just open sandy beach then. I’m pretty sure this was the same location. Turn left at Jl Pantai Kuta. Not now. There are some quiet shady spots, but it’s a bit grotty.

However:

Kuta boy, Christmas 2010

When your ship comes in… Kuta 2010

Kuta guard, 2010

I reached the Kartika Plaza and Centro shopping centre just about dropping from fatigue. Energy fadeout! But people assist – they move aside, and take your arm and help you up steps, not like at home.

Language lesson: I had another look at some fine leather shoulder bags. I asked the girls, how do you say “genuine leather”? After much discussion and giggling, it seems “kulit asling”.

Ah, OK, kulit means leather and asling means original, as in orang asling, the original men of the forest of Java.  I resisted the temptation to buy, I don’t know how, when I could smell real Italian leather in a Condotti shoulder bag, just right for my laptop and camera, but I did.

Back at the hotel, I was pretty knackered and thought I’d better lie down for a bit. Bang! Out like a light. More than an hour later, I woke and realised the room door wasn’t fully closed. Ah well.

Later still, I had dinner in the restaurant and took the opportunity to ask at the desk, if kulit means leather, how come “Wayang Kulit”, the traditional puppet play of Java?

It seems kulit actually means “skin”. So the wayang kulit is the projected puppet play onto a screen of skin/leather. Aha. And cukup, which I thought meant “full” as in full as a goog, actually means “enough”. So I asked about full, as in full tank of petrol? And he told me, and I’ve forgotten what he said! Besok.

Malam.

Here’s the video of Emerald Villa. It takes ages to find a compression scheme to get a reasonable file size, so I hope this works! It’s 25MB, which is pretty big. This is a Quicktime file, so it will open on the iPad, I hope.

I’ve just been chatting about the villa and yes, it’s completely open to the elements. The living area can’t be shut off. If it poured a torrent of rain, the spray would probably blow in. I guess you just take the chance.

Also, mozzies. I did ask about it this morning and they said the area is regularly sprayed. Again, I’ll just go with the flow. Electrostatic insect zappers are easy to get and DEET spray works well. I’d be scared of dengue fever, but…

I’m wondering if it might even be possible to get into this place by next week, thereby saving all my hotel cost for the next fortnight. Possible.

OK, it took about 10-15 mins to upload and played fine for me, so I hope it works for you.

Malam.

Visitors will be very welcome, of course. That’s the whole idea – come and stay. Two spare double bedrooms. I might have to take bookings!

As you can see from the title, I’ve been struck by lightning.

I came to Bali with the idea of looking at villas to rent, lease or possibly buy although I’m almost certain I don’t want to buy. Too hard to get out of the situation if you find you’ve made a mistake.

I’ve just got back from viewing the first rental villa the guy wanted to show me, and I AM BOWLED OVER. I don’t think I need to see any others.

It’s just perfect. I need to get a grip, because I can’t find a reason not to say YES to it at the moment. Here it is:

Emerald Villa bedroom 1

Living room, bed 2 and bed 3 (and pool, of course)

Living area and kitchen (pool is behind me)

Bed 1 of two same size. Bathroom entry behind bed.

So as you can see it’s two large bedrooms, each with BIG bathroom, separate shower recess and each with an outside open air shower in a small garden enclosure. I love that. In between is a large open combined living/dining with w-i-d-e kitchen. The RH bedroom connects with the kitchen for midnight snacks.

The third bedroom is off to the right, also en-suite, just a bit smaller. It has a full sized bath, too.

There were two ladies there who are staff. At least one of them lives in a small servants’ quarters next to the laundry. They come with the property and do the cleaning and cooking as required for an extra $70-80 pm. Gardening and pool cleaning comes with that. The whole coomplex is gated and guarded., included in the rent.

I’m back in the hotel to look at the photos and Google Earth to place it in my mind, and to think it through.
It’s called Emerald Villas and is one of a complex of 56 (!). But each is behind its own wall and you’re not even aware that they’re there. It’s here:

Here’s a closer view:

See the cars parked to the left of that big white tank? “My” villa is the first one above the cars.

They’re asking rental of US$28,000 pa. but this hotel’s sale director advises me to haggle! Of course. The rent is negotiated each year but the sales guy says annual increases are pegged at max 10%. Don’t know about electricity at the moment but it’s usually extra. They tell me the complex has a generator to cope with power failures.

I can’t think of a reason not to do it. I can arrange a bank transfer right now – I’ve had a redraw facility with the CBA for over 15 years and never used it!

It’s also occurred to me that by paying a deposit, I might even be able to move there next week from this hotel. That would save me about $1200 in hotel fees for the next two weeks, providing I can cancel the bookings without hassles.

So how ’bout that? I’ll think hard about it, of course (grind, grind, crunch) and have a chat with a local AustIndo law firm I noticed on the road to Kuta. Being Xmas/New Year makes it a little fraught, but it’ll be OK.

Then I come back to Perth as planned, start a sale process on my place, start packing stuff up and start moving stuff up here. Amazing. Too good to be true? I’m having to pinch myself, hard. It seems too easy.

The sales pitch, Kuta Beach

As Catherine Tate would say, how very, very interesting.

I went to Sanur this morning to check out the real estate business and called in to the Ray White office. With a name like that, I figured it must be a good trustworthy Aussie firm. So I got talking to the rep and although he’s Jakarta born and bred, he’s spent more than a year in Toronto, Canada, and speaks English like a native, with a mild Canadian accent.

As I said to him, it matters to me that we fully share the subtleties of the language when we’re talking complex finance and legals. He was good. His name is Dedy. Bit of a charmer, but then he’s a salesman, isn’t he?

So we talked for quite a while and it seems to be quite easy to arrange things, so he’s now looking for some long term rental places for me to look at in the next few days.

That done, I walked along Jalan Tamblingan to the site of the Shanti Villas I saw last month. Construction is still in progress, but this time I walked right in for a closer look and realised I had misunderstood the layout of the block. It’s even better than I thought.

Although I say I don’t want to buy, I’m even more impressed with these villas now than I was. I realise now that the villas are deep into the block and are partially complete with the roofs on already. That long foundation is just for an access road, I think.

Shanti Villas block now, looking toward the beach. Jl Tamblingan L and R (panorama distortion).

That means the villas are further toward the beach and away from the main road, which means they’re much quieter. That worried me last month, that there’d be too much noise from Jl Tamblingan and the restaurants there. But not so. It’s nice and quiet toward the beach.

So I stood there for quite a while absorbing the atmosphere and it felt really good. Then I went into the Santrian Hotel and had a look there – very nice. Looks a bit expensive for me, but very traditional Balinese. They gave me their brochure.

Then I walked the path to the beach and although it’s a bit primitive, it doesn’t matter. It leads through some lush trees and undergrowth and opens onto Sanur beach:

The new villas are under that enormous round tree at bottom left. The beach path leads to the right of it, below centre, below the kidney shaped pool.

I sat for a while absorbing the atmosphere here too.

Sanur beach in front of Shanti Villas.

Then I walked north along the beach path right up to Jl Pantai Sindhu, another 1.2Km, so in total, I walked nearly 2Km. For me, that’s pretty good these days. I was knackered and wet with sweat when a guy asked if I wanted transport and after haggling a bit, I said let’s go. Rp40,000 or $4.50 to get back to my hotel.

I’m now so impressed with that location that I may reconsider buying one of these villas after all. There’s a long way to go, of course: what does 10 year option mean? What’s the standard of construction like? Is one actually available? Are they all the same price? I’ll find out in the next few days.

While walking along the beach front, a woman started talking to me and I mentioned that I might move here to live. “Oh, you need housekeeper? My name is Annie. I need work.” Etc etc. She looked quite nice and spoke well, but after a while it became clear she just wanted me to come and look at her shop! Bloody hell, they’ll do anything to get you engaged in conversation and into the shop. Oh well.

Nap time, 2pm. Siang.

Yes, 21 December — now the days start getting shorter. Brrrr! Not long to winter.
Ha! Is this crazy weather or what? So dry in Perth that we’re asking for shorter showers and sprinkler bans. Devastating floods in Carnarvon, “just up the road”. Snow in southern NSW – at Xmas?? Floods all over the eastern states. Wild storms and huge rains in Bali (last week). Global warming, anyone?

Quite a pleasant day today. Lots of rain, but I love it. Thunder, lightning, great. Quite cool, only 28C or so, I’d guess.

I took the hotel shuttle over to Kuta and I was the only passenger. It seems strange that the hotel’s near full, yet I’m the only one around a lot of the time. I’ve just had dinner in the restaurant and apart from one other Indo guy who left soon after I arrived, I was the only customer. Huh?

Poor old Indos. It was the classic failure again. I ordered Bruschetta again (I like it and I think the tomato, olive oil and garlic is good for me) as the appetiser, and a Bintang, to be followed by Nasi Goreng Seafood.

So what happens? The Nasi Goreng arrives first, followed about 3 mins later by the Bruschetta.

This happens so often. They can’t seem to grasp the idea of the order of dishes, even though the menu says Appetisers. It seems trivial but it spoilt the meal for me. The Nasi Goreng was hot and spicy, but the mixture with the Bruschetta was just wrong. I was going to complain/explain, but the waiter was so friendly that I just didn’t have the heart.

Anyway, there was a pianist and singer there just for me, so I had to show appreciation. But in the middle of the meal, she decided she needed to do the “Check, one, two” PA routine. Not just once, but over and over again for 3 minutes or more. Pleeeease.

Gamelan orchestra jamming, 1985

I”m watching and listening to CNN at the moment, with the Aussie female newsreader. Analogue CRT TV seems so awful now after digital that I can hardly bear it. But I’ve just bought some DVDs (Love actually – Hugh Grant; Krakatoa, The Last days; Earth 2100; Green Zone; Centurion) so I don’t need to watch rubbish TV. I can watch rubbish DVDs instead.

I hope to talk to a real estate agency in Sanur tomorrow to see what’s available in long term rentals and what the process would be. I’ve had a substantial redraw facility on my CBA account for years and never actually used it before. It seems to me that if it came down to it, I could quite feasibly take out a 12 month lease on the spot just by using my ATM card. I’m not going to be rash, but anything seems possible these days with international and internet banking.

On that theme, I was at the computer about 6pm this evening and an email came in from Expedia.com confirming a hotel booking. Five or ten minutes later, my mobile phone rang and it was the Police & Nurses Credit Society credit card fraud officer in Perth asking me to verify this transaction! How about that? I was very happy to let him know I’m in Bali and thanked him very much for being so on the ball. Wow.

I was also at the hotel desk today and chatting to a guy I think must have been the manager. He seemed to know everything anyway. I said I’ve brought wire cables and padlocks to tie things down in the room for security, but the furniture in the room just doesn’t allow it. There are no holes for me to thread the cables through – it’s all so modern, smooth panels etc. He seemed bemused but said, just trust the heavy door locks. And use the room safe. Yeah, OK, but my camera bag won’t fit, nor will my laptop. Oh well.

Now for a DVD. Let’s see what a $4 HD DVD looks like on my BluRay drive.

Malam.

Poppie’s Lane restaurant, 1983. Open air cooking.

 Not that late, only 9.30pm, but …

• Just had a fantastic meal – bruschetta, superbly done, all olive oil flavour with really tasty tomato and garlic; salt and pepper squid, ditto; and three Bintangs. Total $19 including tips and tax. Replete.

• Surprising to see a woman (an Asian woman, at that) sit down at a table and light up a smoke. Not that I care (much) – but you just don’t see that at home any more, do you?
• I read the Bali edition of the Jakarta Post which includes the International Herald Tribune. I have no trouble deciding on my support for Julian Assange. Nomination for Nobel Prize in my opinion. How dare Vice President of the United States Joe Biden say he’s a terrorist, and in effect say, if he hasn’t broken any of our laws, we’ll pass new laws that will allow us to prosecute him!

  What!!!!??? Retrospective law? What happened to the First Amendment of the US Constitution? What happened to the rule of law? What happened to due process? What happened to presumption of innocence?

  The hypocrisy of the US is boundless. They have lost all my respect. They are no better than China, Yemen, Iran, Syria, all the deplorable regimes. Torture. Mass bombings of civlians and political assassinations. Capital punishment even for minors and mental defectives. Revenge, more like it. Cruel and unusual punishment is outlawed in their constitution for Dog’s sake. I am livid. As individuals, they’re OK, but as a country, I despise them. They’ve gone insane. Genocidal killers.

  I predict that Julian Assange will be killed, murdered, assassinated, executed, terminated with extreme prejudice, whatever you want to call it by the United States, that former bastion of freedom. I despise the country now.

Changing weather, Kintimani 1986

• One of the items in the paper was how bad the weather is in Bali at the moment – storms, torrential rains, flooded rivers, rough seas, pictures of piles of debris on the beach at Kuta. I’ve seen lots of rain, but I don’t mind. They mention part of the cause is the wild weather in WA (Carnarvon floods). Ooops, sorry Bali.
• Always mindful of security, I’ve brought wire cables and locks for the computer, suitcase and camera bag. But this room is so modern that there’s simply nowhere I can thread the wire cables through! Every surface is seamless and hole free. Huh! Luckily the door is solid and card operated and there’s a mini safe, but it’s too small to take much. Won’t take the laptop.
• Ditto for the fridge cabinet. There’s a fridge and mini bar, but there’s no handle or knob on the door of the cabinet. I just about break my fingernails opening the door!
• The bathroom is likewise super modern and super smooth, so much that the floor is actually dangerous. When there’s soap on the floor in the shower, I have to be super careful not to slip, BUT there’s nothing to grab onto. Crazy. I’ve told the desk and they very quickly sent a big rubber mat for the shower recess. But if I slipped and injured myself, I would seriously consider holding the hotel to account. It’s so obviously dangerous.
• Likewise, the towel rails/frames and the shower head. They are so high up that I nearly topple in reaching for them. Dangerous.
• Speaking of hypocrisy, I can’t claim innocence, but at the Perth airport duty free, there was a bottle of whisky priced at $2,999 awaiting a buyer. Having spent $50, I’m a hypocrite I suppose, but to spend $3,000 on a bottle of whisky when there is so much poverty … I don’t like it.

Rant over. Malam.

Aaaah, Peace At Last.

What a rotten night last night was. I won’t make that mistake again. You think a flight time of 8pm from Perth is good, but as I explained in the last posting, it meant I had to spend the night in the lobby here at the hotel, and it was awful.

I should have taken the room on offer, I suppose, but considering my booking was for $65 per night, and their “cut rate” for half a day was $72, you can see why I baulked. I managed to doze a bit, but I always wake feeling as if I’m choking – that’s sleep apnea.

I had a bit of breakfast when the restaurant opened at 7am, but the coffee was awful, the fruit was supposed to come with yoghurt but didn’t and although I pointed it out, they still charged the same price, and I didn’t qualify for the buffet because I wasn’t a guest yet.

However, by 9am I was pretty desperate and asked the desk when I could get my room. They said “one hour”, but soon after they came good and now I’m in room 204, same floor as the lobby, even though I feel as if I’m several floors above the pool.

The room is fantastic – this is a fully international standard hotel and even though it doesn’t feel Balinese, it’s very comfortable. I’ve got a huge velvet armchair – just what I like for reading and watching DVDs etc. The TV is an awful CRT set, but of course, with this laptop, I can watch anything, DVDs, even BluRays in HD, and of course streaming video from anywhere in the world.

Yes, the wifi works in the room and it’s quite fast, so I’m a happy man. It means I can post pics and video on this site.

It’s now 1.30pm and I’ve had about two hours sleep, so I’m feeling much happier. I might even order room service for lunch, something I normally never do, but I’m still in my jarmies and hope to sleep some more. Nasi Campur (mixed savoury rice) is $7.65 including the ++ (service and tax, the sneaky b…s), but what the hell, live it up!

I had a minute or two of sheer panic this morning though when I unpacked. I had all my CPAP gear, except one part of the mask, the important nose part. Aaaarrrgh! I thought I’d left it behind. Sheer panic! I nearly started making desperate phone calls to get someone to go to my place and find it and post it up here.

But no, I had put that part in my toiletries bag to protect it better, something I’ve never done before. Phew!

So the rain has finally stopped and although the sky is still grey, it’s brightening up, as am I.

Now to have some lunch and do a bit of exploring the neighbourhood. Unfortunately, this hotel is on a major “freeway” and I don’t think I can just walk down the street to eat. They run a shuttle bus every hour to Kuta and Sanur, so…

Selemat siang.

Sanur, Nusa Peneeda, 1986

[I’d like to add more pictures to this post, but I’ve been waiting 5 minutes for this one to load and it just took ages, so sorry, no can do.]

Oh my Dog,  that was a bit harder than I expected.

I’m now in Bali again, sitting in the restaurant of my hotel at 1.30 in the morning. I can’t check in until 2pm, so I have a while to wait.

But that’s not the problem. The problem started when the plane (AirAsiaX again) arrived, on time, at Denpasar airport. It was raining heavily and for some reason, the aerobridge didn’t come. So imagine standing in the aisle of the plane for 15 minutes, crushed by all the people around you, waiting for them to open the door. Not fun!

Finally it opened and I was one of the first out, being in seat 3C. But the walk to immigration seemed endless this time – we must have arrived at a different gate to November’s arrival.

Anyway, eventually I got the Visa on Arrival paid and joined the queues for Immigration.

This was where the real delays started. I thought maybe lightning had knocked out the computers, because we just weren’t moving! None of the queues was moving, not just mine. My back was killing me and I was pretty tired, so I was getting increasingly frustrated and shifting from foot to foot to try to ease the back ache.

It was not helped by a little Chinese kid who was staring at me, then pointing, then pulling his dad’s sleeve and pointing some more. Eventually his mum snapped at him and told him not to point, but I was pretty pissed off about it.

However, cinta Indonesia! (Love Indonesia, it means.) An airport guy in uniform saw my distress and pulled me out of the line and directed me to another queue for Indonesian passports! Yeah.  But not only that, he then directed me to go to the very front of the queue!

I was amazed and so pleased, I can’t tell you how much. I apologised to the people I’d bypassed, saying I’m sorry, I didn’t ask for this. Luckily, they were young and Aussies and they said don’t worry about it.

So after a short delay, I was through. This is respect for age, you see. You don’t get that in Australia, but here they recognise it and treat you nice. Noice!

My passport seemed to take far less time than other people’s, so I didn’t hold the queue up for more than two minutes, so it was great.

OK, then it was bag collect time, and at 1245am I was pretty tired. Annother porter saw this and took care of me, getting a trolley, collecting everything for me and putting it all through the Customs inspection. OK, it was probably a scam but I gave him Rp20,000 (about $2.50) as a tip and he seemed satisfied, so honour was served.

Then it was taxi time. Still raining heavily, I bought a taxi voucher and waited a few minutes. Once again, everyone helped me put the bags in the boot and we were off.

But the taxi driver had never heard of my hotel! It’s Harrad’s Hotel and Resort, a big hotel on the Sanur “freeway”. I spelt it out for him, tried every way I could pronounce it, but nothing did any good. He asked for the address. I had Late Rooms booking form, but it didn’t include the address of the hotel (or so I thought).

OK, stop and ask someone. Hmmm, not at 0130 in the morning in heavy rain. Phone number? Aha! Yes, I had one, but he dialled repeatedly and kept getting it fouled up.

So we drove slowly in the direction of Sanur and eventually he got through to the hotel. Aha, discotheque!

Huh? Apparently they’re building a new discotheque next to the hotel and this he recognised.

So after a petrol stop, we weren’t far from the hotel, and now, at 2am, with a beer and a bruschetta inside me, I’m feeling a bit better.

Unfortunately, the hotel wants Rp650,000 for a half night charge for a room! That’s $73! I said, “No way”, so that’s why I’m in the restaurant. Boring, but …

Anyway, I’m here to enjoy Bali and to look around for long term rental places. I talked to my friend about his place in Seminyak and I’ll go there and have a look at the area asap.

I actually have two hotel moves in the 24 days I’m here, but that’s OK. I have to move out of this Harrad’s on Tuesday 28th, and I’m booked into the Aston in Denpasar for 6 nights over New Year. It’s a pretty snazzy hotel, by the look of the web page, so it should be good.

Then I had a stroke of luck and found the Puri Dalem, which I stayed at twice in the 1980s, had a room from 3 January to my departure on the 12th, so that’s where I’ll be. I’m really pleased at that, because it’s where I got some of my absolute best beach shots in 1986 or so. I gather it’s been remodelled, but it’s still only $53 a night, so I’m happy.

Well, I hated to leave Minnie this afternoon, but I’m sure she’ll be OK. Next door are very good with her and I phoned my friend Edna Gracey, who also loves Minnie, and she’ll drop in and check on her.

So now I just have to wait the night out. OK so far at 0215! Crazy. Wow! If it was raining before, it’s bucketing down now. So loud I can hear it in the restaurant. Send a bit our way. In fact, what about a pipeline from bali to Perth? No crazier than Ernie Bridge’s scheme.

Malam.