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Sunday October 17th 2004 in Seminyak Bali

Today I learned more about the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Ika was staying over and that meant she had to get up at 4am and eat before 4.28am. After that she had to wait until 6.15pm for her next food and water.

Her brother Awang and sister Ningrum live in Kuta and they usually prepare food after getting up at 3am. This time around we picked up some nasi (rice ) from a satay vendor the night before on Jl. Legian. This particular morning as luck would have it my gas ran out (it comes in a big canister) and Ika’s egg was still still uncooked in the pot when I got up.

I did an interview with Ika this afternoon using my little tape recorder. There’s so much static and backgrond noise that I can hardly make the words but will try to be as accurate as possible when I type the rest of it up tommorrow.

This evening we both rode down to Jimbaran on my motorbike for the benefit dinner for Komang Arnawa, the Balinese bodybuilder who is going to the US for a month. I fould out today he’s the reigning Mr Australia and is apparently ‘all natural’ . Jimbaran in a beach strip south of Kuta with dozens of ‘on the beach’ restaurants. We went to Sharkey’s along with maybe 100 other people from the gym and other local businesses. We we arrived people were already eating and plates of food were scattered all over the long tables. I helped myself to rice, greens, snapper and ordered a large Bintang. Our ticket entitiled us to a ‘fish plate’ each so after about 30 minute we got another whole snapper each plus squid, prawns and a crab. Ika’s ticket was free and mine was 150,000rp so I got okay value.

Komang Arnawa made a brief appearance himself and helped with the raffle. Ika managed to win a Bali Hai dinner cruise so it looks like she’ll be buying me dinner for a change.

On another issue police have charged the spiritual leader of terror group Jemaah Islamiya with involvement in the Bali bombings. Let’s hope justice prevails.