After my early morning ride on Sunday I am fully rested and at it again.
Looking at my organizer this morning I saw a note telling me to take my passport over to Arjuna immigration consultants in Kerobokan. I’m on a Business visa which means I can come in and get 60 days, then extend 4 times for 30 days apiece. My time is up in the first week in May so I wanted to get this in plenty of time. The ladies at Arjuna are familiar with me and I just sign on the dotted line and hand over the passport.
Before I could do that though I had to visit my safety deposit box at the BNI bank in Legian. I’ve had a box here since close to when I arrived and it’s a good idea to keep valuables here. I don’t own any valuables but I have paperwork I don’t want to lose.
I have a key to the box and so does the bank. When I show up I park in the underground lot, run upstairs though the back stairs, sign on my log in form and then go back to the vault and do whatever I have to.
I stopped by Internet Outpost on Poppies II today and checked my email. While there I figured out something really basic that I couldn’t believe I missed before. They have 14 machines and 3 of them have a USB extension that allows you to connect a camera cable of memory stick. In actual fact all the machines are USB enabled, they just don’t have the chord, so today I simply went around the back of the machine and plugged in…it worked fine.
After the immigration drop off I rode to Warung Gossip and sat out facing the rice paddies. A friend from New Zealand who has been living in Bali for 14 years joined me and we discussed things including the Iraq situation. Just to let the folks back in the US know, people outside the country are baffled by what Bush is doing and the way he’s going about it. The ‘made for tv’ lingo ain’t fooling anyone here. I think the folks in the Pentagon should stop studying logistics and ballistics and take a cultural awareness course, if the whole Arab world isn’t against America by now it will be by the end of the year.
While we were chatting a chicken and rooster joined us. They hovered curiously and took off when we paid them no attention.
My friend who is a wealth of information about Bali is on a ‘kitas’ visa which means he can stay for a year and conduct proper business. There are positives and negatives to kitas. It costs $1,200, you have to report to the police, banjar and immigration every month and pay ‘fiscal’ departure tax of 1.2m rp anytime you fly out of Indonesia as opposed to the 100,000rp I pay. They issue you with a selection of notebooks to record your check in’s with the authorities, which sounds like a pain to me. One of the things I don’t like about kitas is that you have to apply for an exit permit, meaning that as a foreign national you do not have the right to leave anytime you like. My friend had a situation at Christmas where he applied for the permit to go to the Middle East, the permit had expired by a couple of days and at Ngurah Rai airport he was told ‘you can’t leave until you get a new permit’.
Indonesia, as well as being corrupt has this ‘control complex’ mentality whereby foreigners are kept on a short leash.
I read an article today that said for all the arrival figures that show an increase, the actual level of spending tourists is still way down. I can tell you that from talking to every Balinese person I meet. I was in Candi Dasa on Sunday and that place feels like its empty, the north coast is deserted and most vendors are hurting…’business okay but not like before’ is the best I’ll hear. ( I know Barrie mentioned this but I had already written the article so you’ll get to read about it twice).
My hair was getting a bit long (yes I still have hair at 41, miracles will never cease) so stopped off at Monkey Planet on Jl. Seminyak opposite Cafe Moka for a haircut. Getting your hair cut in Indonesia isn’t like at home. First thing they do is give you a water, then a pretty lady leads you over to the lay-down shampoo area. Katut washed my hair very thoroughly and then gave me a head massage that had me shivering. A 30 minute session getting my hair cut by the male attendent was followed by more washing and another neck/head massage. I tell you I’m a piece of jelly by the time I leave.
The haircut, washing and massages cost 65,000rp.
Back at the house Wayan was outside with a couple of workers finishing off the wood preparation. Its impressive how they just show up with the raw materials and make everything on site. This lady was sand papering the wood by hand which would then be varnished. Yesterday a couple of guys were making dove-tail joints using a hammer and chisel.
Being outside my house all the time Wayan has been benefitting lately. Coming back from Mick’s loaded with alcohol I passed on a half bottle of London Dry Gin to her swami (husband), yesterday her daughter Kadek got a ‘Take It’ chocolate biscuit and today I passed on the colored pencils Andrea left behind. I reckon Wayan must be waiting for the day I have a ‘leaving grab’.
While at home my front door opened and a lady in Balinese costume strolled in. It was my cleaner Putu who had just been to a ceremony. She is a hard worker and didn’t want to waste time going home and getting changed. Nice change from the last cleaner who would just blow off cleaning the house altogether. Putu and I share about 20 common words and I always ask her how her kids are.
I just hit the night market in Seminyak for some ayam goreng (fried chicken) and brought a bag of pisang goreng (fried bananas) for the staff at Global Xtreme.
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Good one Bazza!!!!
Good one Bazza!!!!
I was in Candi Dasa for about three and a half weeks last August/September and the local people were really hurting, through shortage of visitors.
It’s a pleasant town, in an interesting area.
Next time you’re in Bali, it’s worth a visit.
There are plenty of accomodation bargains on offer, but don’t be too hard with the bargaining. They need the money!
G’Day Nick,
Yeah it must be nice to have hair at 41!. I can’t remember! (He, he…!). Lost most of my hair by the time I was 30. Still, the mossies have a ski-run on my noggin’!