#186 Thursday 3 March 2011

Hi all
The internet is proving hard as usual. First stop on arrival was Indosat and the local sim for iPad & iPhone is cheap .... but it worked for a few hours and by evening had stopped .... and I can't get it working again. Says its connected but it won't talk!

The phone side of the SIM is fine though. As long as the 'kredit' is over 100k rp, then it doesn't expire .... so I just need to top up before leaving and the SIM will be ready for us when we go on our next adventure.

Wednesday was mainly getting living arrangements sorted .... lots of little finishing things have been left undone .... doors don't quite fit so you can't lock it ..... a drain is blocked.
It was a battle to find all the light switches! Komung (the housekeeper) showed me in the end.
Then shopping for essentials like toilet paper (I found the coffee!) Then wander round the villa making a list of stuff to buy .... toilet roll holder, towel rack, a chair!, a clothes rack.

The villa is lovely and its wonderful to be able to jump out of bed and into the pool. I'll have to ask Pete what he wants me to do to prepare ... if only the internet worked! There's a spa next door with free internet ... I'll ask if I can come in anytime for internet if I have a massage each day!

John has escaped Nyepi by going to Singapore for a week .... so I won't meet him on this trip. I have not met Yudi yet ... he was in the temple yesterday. Wiwin is a lovely person .... heart in the right place .... spent her recent 22nd birthday helping in a school for children with disabilities. Yesterday I was met by Agunk (Yudi's BIL) and he did a terrific job of finding all the things I needed.

It's breakfast at Mama Putu's - just outside the villa entrance. Brought my own kopi.

Later: I've had an interesting afternoon. As I was enjoying nasi sapi at Mama Putu's, Yudi arrived in his 1981 Landcruiser ..... it is a work in progress and the exterior looks great but the missing runs roughly ... and it appears that Toyota dumped their remaining 3 speed gearbox vehicles in Bali while the rest of the world had 4 & 5 speed!

Yudi and I have had some long talks about life, the universe ..... personal values and philosophies. People in Bali are so open in comparison with our European based culture in Oz. Instead of waiting till all the stars align ... so that the signs are right to be open and sharing .... in Bali, the norm seems to be to be open & sharing first ... then if basic values are in alignment then proceed to friendship.

The way this works in practice can be disconcerting .... it is alien to Western style relationship building. This would probably be one of the difficult things in international diplomacy .... the western diplomats would be looking for the hidden agenda ... the deceit that is the norm in our relationships. Maybe I'm too trusting and naive? Maybe Balinese relationships don't work that way at all? I'll look forward to being able to discuss it and to get the view from the Balinese side.