BALI STORY 2000   -   Day 8.
Friday 22 September 2000.



Day 7 continued –

If you thought yesterday’s diary ended quickly and in a funny way you are right.  As I’ll record later, this note taking is being influenced by ‘Bali time’, and I’ve just found a page of notes made way out of order, half a pad away from where they should have been. 

After our trip north we had arranged to meet at the Pantai for dinner. Claire and I were a bit late and when we arrived the atmosphere was tense and every one was either glum or angry. 
Nell and Jay had not gone north with us as Nell had decided to have a rest day and give Jay time to play with friends he had met and made at the hotel’s Mongolian Dinner the night before.  While they were off sometime during the day Jay had been ambushed in the stairwell by other boys who had plastic BB guns, replica pistols which were fairly commonly available from the local shops and which fired small spherical plastic pellets.  He bore the marks of a number of shots fired sufficiently close to leave red marks and bruises even under shorts and shirts.  Upsetting as this would be on its own it was compounded when a hotel Security Guard he asked to take him back to his room told him to go away and walked off leaving him to face further assault.  The real clincher was the attitude of the assailant’s parents however.  When approached and asked to take the pistols from their sons they initially laughed and eventually became abusive.  We were faced with the prospect of living in this atmosphere for another week! 
Eventually the hotel management intervened in some way and there was no further sight of pistols in the hotel, but there was a noticeable increase in the Security Guards who were far more active around the grounds and passageways. 

Despite the gloom I have to say that the food was great again.  The Chap Cay (does anyone really know how to pronounce this, or how to spell it?) (Later; Spelt ‘Cap Cay’, pronounced ‘Chap Chay”.) I had was slightly spicy and very tasty with cool and crisp salad bits on the side.  I couldn’t really complain about the Anker beer I had with it either. 

We tried to get to the Kodak shop to pick up some prints and leave another film but they were closed by the time we got there.  A cool walk back to the Inn followed by a leisurely swim in the warm pool led easily to bed and bliss. 


Day 8.

Each morning we have little presents for Wayan, Mistri and Adi on the beach.  Each morning I say to myself, ‘This is not necessary.’ but the next morning I’m glad I didn’t listen to myself.  There will probably be many who will read this and laugh at an old fool, or who will say that there is this cause or that cause that I should be supporting because they are worthier. 
And they may be, but this is what I choose to do. 
I’m not trying to change the world, well, maybe I would like to, but I find it satisfying to try to make some difference to someone some of the time. 
I don’t think that this makes me unique or even special in some way, it just means that I am able to do something for people or things, and so I do.  There are many others who do the same and many who do more.  I’m not troubled by those who can’t, because I’ve been there myself, but I do worry a bit about those who can but don’t.  And if you’re saying I shouldn’t judge then you’re right, and I shouldn’t preach either. 
But this is my diary, mainly for me, and a bit for my family.  It wouldn’t be worth anything if I didn’t truly say what I’m thinking. 

This morning Wayan brought us two small, peeled and vertically quartered pineapples from her garden.  We could eat them just like fat sticks of celery.  They were just as crisp and crunchy as celery, or apples straight out of the fridge, but the taste, the sweetness and the flavour . . . . . .  You would have to try them yourself because you wouldn’t believe me even if I could describe the sweetness. 
I’m sure that she, probably they, was/were really happy, more than just pleased that we so obviously enjoyed them. 

When any one in business takes a new step forward others in the same business must follow or their business is likely to collapse.  You would consider ‘keeping up’ essential in your business if the alternative meant that you and your family didn’t eat.  It’s no different in Bali when the business is massaging tourists.
Wayan and Misti each bought a thin foam mattress covered with vinyl over two years ago.  It was a significant step forward from massages on the sand.  The cost I can’t remember, it isn’t important.  The significant thing is that they are still paying for them and will be for at least another two years unless there is a miraculous change in the level of business, perhaps even longer if their business continues in the decline that it is now in. 
The interest rate on their loans is 30%, which has a severe effect on their family income. 
This situation vexed me and I know that it did Nell also.  Whatever the cost of these things either of us could probably have paid for them, certainly together we could have and not missed the cost very much.  But how to do this vexed us even more and we could not see a satisfactory and fail-proof method.  We could have simply given her the money but were not convinced that she would pay off the mattress but would spend the money on the family, particularly her children or grandchildren.  To pay the financier directly was a bit risky because he might have found extra ‘expenses’ if he thought a sucker was on the horizon.  In the end we gave up.  For every tactic we could devise we could also think of a hole into which we, the cash or Wayan and Mistri could fall, or which might embarrass them, and we didn’t want that.  I simply resolved never to haggle about the price of a massage.  It was easy the first time because all I had were Rp50,000 notes (A$10.75) which was a dead cheap massage when compared with costs at home.  The next time I found it just as easy when I’d been to the Changers the night before and only had Rp100,000 notes.  Still a cheap massage by home standards and, what I didn’t know then was what sort of massage you could get!  But I found out from then on!  Nothing funny mind you, just a mixture of careful and sensitive agony and bliss, superbly sensual, almost approaching sexual, with what seemed a total fixation on my smallest reactions.  Nails and soles of feet were included, potions, ointments and salves, pineapples, bananas and little sweet rice pudding things, home made I’m sure, tasting of dates (?) or nuts and wrapped in aluminium foil.  If this was what Salamat datang meant I was not going to resist. 

Often on these mornings I would take a pocketful of sweets and pass them out to little kids on the beach as I went.  One morning I had the remains of a packet of chocolate eclairs when I got to the girls and passed them out without thinking, simply to get rid of them before I lay down.  It created an instant mini crowd as the other sellers and even the Security Guards lined up for one.  It turned out that Adi has, or quickly developed, a weakness for chocolate eclairs.  Thereafter she always looked for one, happy but not content when I had something else.  On our last day when we simply gave them anything we had left and didn’t want to pack like toothpaste, shampoo, softdrinks and so on, we made sure we had a full packet just for her.  It was as though Father Christmas had arrived at the kindergarten with new bikes for everyone.  On another occasion I ran out as we returned to the Inn, giving out the last two sweets just before we reached the steps over the breakwater.  One last boy ran out of the trees behind us and I could only fumble in my pocket and come up with nothing.  The look on his face was heartbreaking and in desperation I called him back as he turned away and gave him a 5,000 rupiah note.  Although he could have bought a packet for himself he was barely consoled.  It was obvious he would rather have had a single lolly like his friends.  Next year I want to take over a pack of plastic spoons and see what sort of a riot I can create with a tub of Streets ice cream from Matahari’s. 

With the kids of all ages in Bali, you certainly get a lot of mileage out of the little things. 

My promise of recording relevant details each time I took a photo went by the board on about day two I think.  I’ll never be a professional, I get carried away by the vision of the moment too much. 
Similarly, the written notes I have been making so that I can write up this diary have also become much harder to maintain.  The notes are getting fewer and more cryptic.  There are single words on otherwise blank pages that just don’t ring any bells now.  They must have meant something at the time or I wouldn’t have written them. 
Ah, ‘Bali time’ again. 

The rest of the day was spent shopping in Denpasar.  Little Astini whom we had met and befriended at the Sheraton a few days back came to the Inn with her husband, who has a mini mini van, to drive us and be our guide for the day.  In passing we stopped briefly (I write in jest of course) at the Hero’s Department store made famous for its pure white, triple velcro sneakers in the Bali Saga ’99.  Readers who remember that epistle will of course recall this inspirational part of the tale. 
To the Tiara department store in Denpasar, a new provider to our girls who left no goods unturned in their hunt for items to fill the required number of plastic bags.  While this was going on I left to go to the computer software shops on Jl Teuku Umar (Platinum and Harry’s) and nearby Jl Imam Bonjol (pcMac, one of the very few in Bali – are there any others? - who can supply Apple Macintosh discs.) 
I suggest that when anyone thinks of all Balinese as third world peoples, and it happens easily, they should go and talk to some of these guys.  The breadth and the depth of their knowledge, and their willingness to share it with you, is astounding.  Very little is impossible and given only a little time, they will bend over backwards to fill your orders.  I found this particularly at pcMac where their business is hardware rather than software.  I was also very impressed with Platinum to whom I had e-mailed a base order.  All of the order that they had available was packaged and under the counter waiting for me. 
All material is pirate of course, and illegal outside of Indonesia, if not within it as well, and if Bill Gates was not a trillionaire I would certainly be concerned.  I now have several friends who are pushing the boundaries of their minds and their world using $10 programs that they could not afford to buy at many hundreds of dollars in retail price. 

I left to meet the others and a little tour of the Ramayana store followed. I picked up some games here for friends and a bit of educational resource stuff, while the girls did something or other else all over the store.  I am not a little surprised when it is declared ‘Panas, panas’.  Panas is hot, and anything repeated is more so, so a double panas was stinking and sweaty!  Mataharis is postponed for another day and we flee to the Inn and the pool before setting out to dine. 

Dinner is at the Kin Khao Thai restaurant on Jl Kartika Plaza right opposite our favourite Kodak money change where the rate is 4725 to the dollar tonight, the best we have had this trip.  Not surprisingly several of us find the need to cash up again before or during dinner.  Our only regret is that they have only old Rp20,000 notes and the thickness of $200 of these makes it impossible to fold a wallet over.  I wonder if there are any new Rp20,000 notes in Indonesia.  They certainly get a good life from their hard used currency and it will be interesting in future years to see how the new plastic 100’s stand up. 
The Kin Khao is good and can be recommended but I don’t think it is as good as we have found it in past years.  It has been my absolute favourite, except for the Viet-Thai in Adelaide, for crackling Spring Rolls.  This time they are disappointing, tasty still, with a sharp sauce, but lacking that snap in the pastry covering.  The barbecue cooked on a brass plate over a brazier of coals set into a hole in the middle of the table is great for those who order it.  As for the others, although it probably keeps the mozzies at bay, it is just uncomfortably hot on bare knees and legs. 
The quantity is sufficient for most but not generous.  It grieves me to say it but two days further on I find the meal is generally forgettable.  I think that the superb service of the past has also lost some of its spark but it’s still prompt and not intrusive.

A mini bus back to the Inn, with a quick stop at ENI tailors, a brief sojourn at the Pool Bar and another day in Paradise draws to its inevitably replete conclusion.

Its been a funny sort of a day I conclude, sort of busy but quiet too. 


14.10.00


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On to Day 9?  Day 9 takes us to Dolphins Leather again,
                     to the Sri Ratu to meet Si Badak,
                     and we try to get caps for Sammi and Sussi who keep the Forum Bar on Legian Beach.
                     We have dinner at Kori's.

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