Where Are Ron and Ellen?
Indonesia: 30 November 2010 - 15 March 2011
Ron as dragon, Makassar, Sulawesi, Indonesia, January 2012
Bali
9 March 2012
Afton, Virginia, USADear family and friends,
We may have had snow on Monday, but much of it was gone by the end of the day and the rest of it vanished on Tuesday - and the remainder of the week has been back to the warm weather. I did finally get my lettuce and spinach and tah tsai mustard seeds planted, and today a dump truck load of shredded bark mulch was delivered. Trees are starting to bud and the spring peepers are singing in full force.
Ron decided to go from Borneo to Bali. He had not planned to go there on this trip, but it is a nice place to be (we were there for a month in 2003), and I think he will enjoy it.
Love to all,
Ellen
9 March 2012
Poppies Lane I, Kuta, Bali, IndonesiaHello, my dear,
Peepers and buds and planting seeds in early March. The climate is changing. I look forward to coming home, and in time I will decide if I come early.
Because I was so bored and tired and wanted a beach to sit on and people to talk to, I had to decide between coming home early or going to Bali. I must admit, coming home to talk to you, to sit in the garden or work on the pond or play with the new tractor were very attractive choices, however, I decided to fly to Bali instead, since it was so close and I may never again be so near since it is such a long, long flight from home.
Buying a ticket on Lion Air [one of the Indonesian airlines] should have been easy, but it turned out to have some complications. Within 24 hours they will not take a credit card and the web page message to me after I had booked the flight was to go to an ATM and pay. They provided all the code and flight numbers for me to do so, and gave me a 4 hour window complete the task. However, when I went to the ATM and tried to figure out how to pay I could not do so. Perhaps locals use ATM cards to pay bills but I couldn't so I walked inside the grocery store nearby and looked for someone who spoke English. One of the clerks went and found a guy who could speak understandable English and he went with me to the ATM but he couldn't understand how to pay either. So then we went to his bank's ATM and he tried to figure out how he could pay the bill and I could pay him. For some reason, perhaps limits, he couldn't do it, so he put me in his car and drove me to a travel agent, who couldn't handle the transaction either, so then he drove me to the airport where we found a Lion Air booth open and I paid them. He then had to pick up his wife and then took me back to the grocery store and refused my offer to pay him. People are really kind and it was quite a good social experience, meeting him and his wife, seeing the airport for the first time, and a drive through the town, most of which I had already seen but allowing me to put a better mental map together.
The flight from Tarakan to Bali was not quick. I had to change planes twice, with a wait each time. Once in Balikpapan and then in Surabaya.
While I didn't think I would like Kuta, I decided to start here and then work my way north to Legian and Seminyak and then try the east coast at Sanur and perhaps a trip to Padingbai. The beach at Kuta is dirty and crowded - but better than any beach I have found so far.
I actually walked from the airport checking out places along the way and ended up on Poppies Lane 1, what appears to be the backpacker street. Crowded, not cheap but with a wide choice of accommodations and restaurants. I am now staying at the AP Inn for about $38 a night while I check out cheaper and better accommodations.
Yesterday, my first full day, I enjoyed meeting various people and having some good food and a rather unspectacular sunset. I have had a haircut and a pedicure and probably added a couple of pounds in a day. A woman came to the hotel while I was standing near the swimming pool and I heard her ask the for the room prices and she sounded like Thierry. I looked and her facial expressions were like him also. She had a three year old boy with her and he was experiencing his terrible threes. Later when I was walking down Poppies Lane on the way to the beach to watch a sunset I came upon her again. We talked and she decided to go with me to watch the sunset on the beach. She had some good information on cheaper places, so the information might be helpful later. Her husband was still in Malaysia shipping their van to Caledonia where they are moving. They drove it across land, and also used ferries. Their Web site.
Then later when taking a swim in the pool I met a couple who met each other working on an American cruise line. She was from Hungary and he was from Indonesia and they are on vacation in Bali. After my swim I met a young couple from Sweden and later by coincidence we met at the Havana Club Restaurant where we had dinner. One of my most expensive fish dinners of the trip, but also one of the better ones. $9. I know - you are saying, "Expensive?" Their Web site.
Anyway, it was just the kind of day I enjoy, sleeping late, walking on the beach, watching sunsets, meeting interesting people, telling travel stories and eating good fish dinners.
And now I am back sitting in the Havana Club restaurant eating pizza and watching all the lanky blondes walking down Poppies Lane. Are all Australians tall and blond?
I expect the reports for the next many days will be the same so perhaps I will just send a note with the words, "See last report again."
Love and miss you,
Ron
9 March 2012
Afton, Virginia, USADear family and friends,
The weather here is lovely and warm, spring has arrived in Virginia, and everything is in full bloom: pear and other flowering trees, redbud trees, spring bulbs, forsythia. Ron says it is his favorite time of the year, but I think by the time he returns on 30 March most of the blooms will be finished and he will have missed it. The lettuce and spinach seeds I planted about ten days ago are all up and doing well.
The tractor Ron refers to at the end of his message is a Kubota we are buying from my brother. He and my sister-in-law have had a house in West Virginia and one in Maryland, and have sold the one in West Virginia. Since they had a tractor at each place, they didn't need the second tractor any more, so we have bought it. It has a belly mower and a front scoop, and Ron is very excited about the fact that he will now be able to move dirt and rocks (and snow) with the scoop.
Love to all,
Ellen
19 March 2012
Kuta, Bali, IndonesiaHello, my dear,
At the moment I am sitting in a small restaurant along the South Kuta Beach enjoying my dinner of Pad Thai, outside of Discovery Mall where later I know I can go to Sour Sally's for a frozen yogurt with some fruits (Sally's bubbles and mango) for dessert after the sunset. Last night there was a terrific thunder storm lasting a few hours, the first thunder storm people here seem to remember, with strong winds and loud claps of thunder which kept me under shelter along the pool or in my room. Today has been cloudy, but this afternoon cleared and became quite bright on the beach, so I am hoping for a spectacular sunset since there has been very little color for most of the sunsets since my arrival in Bali.
The Pad Thai is different from the what I make, wide noodles, quite chewy, instead of my small ones, lots of small bean sprouts, eggs more scrambled than like my crepes. long slices of very hot red peppers (and I mean hot) and served very hot, but has the same general flavor (and the tails are still on the small shrimp). I will have to experiment when I get home.
Several evenings I have had fish at the Havana Club Restaurant on Poppies Lane I, which comes with either a small bowl of soy ginger leek sauce or a butter garlic lemon sauce. Since I am a repeat customer I have convinced them to give me little bowls of both. The grilled red snapper, 700 grams, a little over a pound and a half, was cooked quite well and came with a good selection of cauliflower, green beans, carrots, and sauteed browned potatoes, along with a salad of lettuce, tomato - and of course lime. Needless to say I am probably gaining back some of the weight I lost in my earlier travels even though I generally avoided the sweet drinks (iced lemon tea) and stick with cold bottled water. (However, tonight my iced lemon tea came with a lemon grass stalk as a stirrer). My dinner tab for my fish dinner came to around $12-13, expensive compared to most of my travels in Indonesia but perhaps mid-range for the possibilities here in Kuta.
As I wait for my dinner, if I am alone, I usually work a sudoko puzzle, trying to complete the Level 6 book before I return home. Near the back of the book they are getting more difficult, so there must be more to learn to eliminate some of the possibilities. Sometimes I join others and pick up travel tips and stories. I have found my days in Kuta and Padangbai to be the most international of any of my travels, ever. Around the hotels pools, restaurants, on the beach, walking down the street or on buses or boats, I have met more people from more places than ever before: Sweden, Finland, Norway, England, Canada, Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, France, Chile, Brazil, Switzerland, Holland, Germany, Italy, and many others. My impression is that there are more women from Europe than men, with the Australian men being the most frequent. I have only met one American, from Tennessee, who was working in Thailand and came for a vacation.
I have walked north on the beach to Legian and south to where the beach curved out and had some large building that turned out to be a large Discovery Mall and some large resorts where I have seen more families with teenagers, mostly older and more difficult to meet, with a lot of them appearing Japanese. (There was another mall I found more inland with very upscale restaurants with meals costing more than I normally pay for my hotel and shops with very expensive merchandise. My sense was the customer base was Japanese, but perhaps it was for generally very rich Asians.)
While my first impression on Poppies Lane I (number one) was that most of the tall lanky blondes were from Australia, I was wrong. Probably more of them are from Northern Europe, mainly Sweden and Finland. Regardless, it is a pleasure to watch all the eye candy on the streets and beach. Now if only I was in my 30's again. It has become much more difficult for me at 71 to meet younger people, both men and women. Especially when there are crowds of people. In Padangbai, a small place with fewer people it was easier. But in any case I am enjoying my social life even if only sharing fleeting time with people who are going on to somewhere else or returning to Kuta to catch their flight.
I tried for a couple of days to make my reservation on Lion Air back from Bali to Jakarta with no success. It would clear the secure code page for MasterCard and then go back to the Lion Air site and give me a message that it could not get authorization for the card. I tried a Visa card with the same result. I tried a different browser and I even tried a different computer by going to an Internet Cafe. When I finally got to the Lion Air office at the Airport, they told me they only accept Indonesian credit cards on line. But if that was so, how did I get the original ticket from Singapore to Jakarta which I purchased from home before I left? I remember I had difficulty from home also, but think I finally was successful with my United Air Mileage Plus Visa card. At the airport there was no one to help with my complaint and they finally connected me to their customer service in Jakarta on their phone after the customer service kept cutting me off on my phone while they were trying to find someone to speak English. Customer Service in Indonesia, in my experience with FedEx and Lion Air is a black hole. Nothing comes back out.
Leaving the airport by foot to avoid the taxi Mafia, I met two young German women, perhaps 20-22 with large packs waiting on the side of the road near the airport exit. They had walked outside the airport to try to catch a cheaper taxi and would only use Blue Bird Taxis because like me they had read that the Blue Bird Taxis could be trusted not to rip you off. It was a pleasure to have the experience and knowledge to show them where to walk to catch a taxi and to help locate where they were trying to get to (near Poppies Lane 2) and figure out about how much the meter should read (my guess about 13,000 rp vs the 50-75K they were being quoted by taxis trying to get their business. We shared a taxi and I oriented them on the map, to the beach, the night scene, some restaurant info and of course about Padangbai.
The days are very hot and the evening are very pleasant to walk. I have been wearing out my shoes and have had to find some super glue twice to keep from losing my soles and have now gotten a very good sense of direction in Kuta, from the beach and from the roads. I know where to catch cabs for cheap rides vs where not to catch cabs which, because of the one way streets, have to circle way around to get to where I want to go. The minimum amount on the taxi meter is 5,000, about $.55 cents, and generally that minimum will get me to where I want to go if I walk to the correct place to start. If not then it may cost 20,000 because of the one-way streets. The traffic is terrible and sometimes I can walk as fast as the traffic.
There are lots and lots of touts trying to get some business from the tourists, and since many of the tourists are transient, they probably rip off a lot of people. All along the streets are signs for money changers with a list of rates for the various currencies. The rate today from the Internet is 9,050 rp per US dollar. However many of the posted rates are up to 9,799 per dollar. I know it can't be true and have learned never to believe things when my mind says it can't be true, but I have had fun walking up to their little money changing booths and bringing out my US$100 bill which they check out and then lay on the counter while they produce the Indonesian money using different methods to confuse the customer, such as small bills, 20,000's instead of the normal 50,000's or 100,000's. Then they never have the correct change and need something in small bills back from you. In the process they want to count the bills again, after you have counted, and then again after receiving the change, providing them several opportunities to palm or slip off some of the bills behind the counter top. But of course every time they touch the counted money I want to count it again and of course something is missing. At some point they give up and tell me to go to some other shop. Or I see them drop off some of the bills behind the counter top or into their lap and point this out to them. They are quite good and there must be literally hundreds of money changer booths with these outrageous offers. I wonder how many tourists get ripped off and I have enjoyed foiling and exposing their game.
I looked for a money changer sign that was close or a minor bit better than the Internet rate and discovered the correct process. They bring out a calculator, show the rate, and multiply by the amount you want to change. Then they count out the correct amount onto the counter top without touching the money after they count out the bills. They you count and if it is the amount showing on the calculator (of course you have to verify that the amount shown is the correct amount) and you agree, they take your currency off the counter top.
But it is a reflection on the local culture that permits all of the obvious rip-off offers on every street wherever there are tourists. Just like they allow the taxi drivers to rip off people even when the taxis are equipped with meters. I generally have the feeling they have little respect for the tourists and are out to get as much as possible. But they do it in such a friendly way, smiling and being helpful with information and conversation. And they are so poor compared to the tourists. There is a general principal that something is worth whatever some one will pay for it. So prices are fungible.
Walking down the street, if I am not wearing my music ear plugs, I hear a constant stream of English words spoken to me from the stores, street or sidewalk to get my attention, usually with the upwards accent to make the word a question: boss, mister, transport? where you go? taxi? take a look? free, cheap, hotel?, room? lady? young girl? change money? restaurant? I figure most of them are working on commission or a scam, but in some cases of transport, trying to get me in their cab or on their motorbike, they drive rather than being a middleman. If I acknowledged and answered everyone who addressed me I would never get to where I was going.
But in many cases the Balinese people I have met on the streets, in the stores, restaurants, in the hotels or the beach have been very friendly and helpful, most can speak some English and have been a pleasure to talk to. I have even had some pleasant and informative conversations with some of the money changers while or after foiling their game.
I wanted to go to Lombok and spent some time in Padangbai talking to people about the fast boats and the ferries. The fast boats were rather expensive and I was never quite sure what the correct price should be since there were so many middlemen trying to sell me tickets, but I think the round trip price would be more or less a hundred dollars, close to the price of an airline ticket. The ferry was 36,000 rp, about $4 and would take 3 or 4 hours - or maybe even longer, depending on who to believe. Of course the higher estimates of the ferry time were coming from the people trying to sell me fast boat tickets.
The first day in Padangbai there were no ferries to Lombok because of the high waves. All the ferries scheduled were cancelled and there was a long backlog of trucks waiting that stretched way up the road out of town. It was not clear if the fast boats really went or if maybe went in the morning when the water was calmer. I experienced some strong storms while in Kuta so perhaps this is a stormy season. Finally one night when I went out on the docks there were a lot of people sleeping in the ticket area and on the walkway to the loading areas which were under cover. The ticket booths were all closed although the signs say open 24 hours. I asked a lot of people waiting and some of the security personal and a some people who looked more official and got lots of different answers on when, where to, prices, what time to come, etc and decided the next ferry was scheduled for 7 am the next morning and I knew where to buy a ticket, but not the price. The next morning I was up at 6 and to the ferry dock before 6:30, where I bought a ticket from the booth now open for 36,000 rp (about $4) and was directed around the outside of the building to the loading area. Following their directions I realized I was being sent to the front of the line. Then I started asking people and was told the ferry was going at 7 but it was full. It had loaded before I got there. And the next ferry would be at 10 am. So I returned to my hotel to get my free breakfast and then returned about 9, again to the front of the line where there was a large group of perhaps 15-20 tourists standing around near the gate. There was a range of opinions regarding when the ferry would go, if it would go, etc. But then the gate was opened and all the tourists were allowed in. At this point I realized the ferry had already been loaded and they were just letting the tourists on. I followed the crowd talking to some of the others trying to figure out what was going on, and eventually the whole group arrived at the front upper compartment of the ferry where there were seats and a door opening onto the front deck. We had walked through some crowded areas, stepping over people's feet who were sitting on the floor, to an area that had seats, where most but not all the people in this section appeared to be tourists.
I took my motion sickness pills, put in my headphones connected to my Nano, brought out my netbook and started reading. My seat companion was a native of Lombok working in Bali returning to see his family and could speak enough English to communicate if we worked at it. If I remember correctly he said it should be about a 3-4 hour trip depending on the weather. When we had been underway for around an hour and a half or slightly longer, there was a lot of discussion and movement of people on the deck, and finally I understood the boat had turned around and was heading back to Padangbai because of the high waves, which didn't seem particularly high to me. My seat companion later said he was amazed that I was not mad and upset. I explained that as a traveler I just expect this kind of change and roll with the whatever comes. When we got back to Padangbai some people thought they were getting off on Lombok. Many of the tourists had come with tour packages including transportation from the airport or Kuta or Sanur or Ubud and there were a lot of directions to follow people to an area to wait where there were discussions about options, such as returning to Kuta and flying that day or the next to Lombok. There was talk about no ferries before March 20. I finally realized I didn't need to wait with these tour groups, and perhaps I could get my $4 back if I went to the right place and waited for an unknown time. But I decided to just walk away. I met a couple of others from the boat and at lunch pulled out my netbook and checked out the flights from Bali to Lombok. They then tried to figure out if they took a bus back could they get to the airport in time. I suggested a shared taxi might cost more than a bus, but would be quicker and less than double the cost of the bus if we shared. Then we realized to buy air tickets we needed to get to the airport in time and wondered if there would be any tickets left when we got there. I gave up the idea, and eventually they did also.
I took my time in making my decisions and decided not to go. If I went from Bali to Lombok I would then need to book a ticket from Lombok to Jakarta instead of returning to Bali and the day of March 23 is a day of silence in Bali. There will be no buses, no planes, no restaurants, nothing open and nothing to do on the 23th. I decided that would be an interesting experience but have now discovered I can not even leave the hotel on that day to walk to the beach. I don't know what is true or not true, and will report later. But this day affected the availability of flights before and after. Through procrastination and choice, I just decided to stay in Bali and avoid more weather complications. Today I met some others who could not get to Lombok and picked up one story about one of the fast boats experiencing waves so high and strong that they broke the front window on the boat. Stories. Being on a big ferry would be one thing, but I am glad I was not on a small fast boat.
Back in Kuta I have moved from hotel to hotel trying to find some place I liked staying at a price I wanted to pay. Since I have booked a flight from Bali to Jakarta for March 24, I have made a reservation for the 22nd and 23rd at the AP Inn where I stayed on my first night. I know they have a restaurant for the day of silence, and will have a pool and hopefully a lot of interesting people to spend the day with.
One of the more interesting places I have stayed at is Tune Hotel. They had a special for 200,000 rp ($22) including towel, soap kit and 12 hours of air conditioning (which had a timer keeping track of the hours used). It is a compact hotel, the room is very small but had a single bed with a fold down table at the end of the bed in front of a window, a bathroom with a tile shower with hot water and good flow with glass doors, a working toilet with paper, a sink with hot water and a strong shelf for my toiletries. The lighting in the small room was the best I have experienced in Bali, with a good reading lamp beside the bed, a strong overhead, smaller lights and in the bathroom good lighting to shave by. I make a lot of the lighting because most of the places have such low wattage lights it is hard to read or shave. So this was my cheapest and perhaps the best considering the quality of the working components. But it was small, no pool, no breakfast, and harder to meet people.
My favorite place to stay so far has been in Padangbai where I got a very nice upper story front room for about 350,000 (around $39) with a patio overlooking the sea, beach and small boats. What a wonderful place to sit and look and read. Worth the splurge.
Every night I go to the beach and watch the sunset. Tonight's was a zero. No color at all and I expected a good one. But I continue to love the water and walking along the beach, even if it is crowded and littered.
I found a good grocery store and purchased a lot of fruit: one like a grapefruit but with a very thick peel, rambutan, tangerines, little bananas, along with some mango juice (mangoes are out of season), yogurt, peanuts and a small chocolate bar. And I have found a restaurant on Poppies Lane I that serves Thai and Vietnamese food which was very good and tasted authentic.
I watched another sunset with my French friend and her three year old son and it turns out she has French citizenship but her parents are Hungarian. And my friends from Finland were really Russians living in Finland. So as I continue to peel back the onion there are more surprises.
Now I have still not gone for my frozen yogurt at Sour Sally's and it has started to rain. I am under cover in the restaurant with the front open to the sea and rain. I wonder how long I will be here until the rain stops.
So this is much like my first message from Bali: I am just walking around meeting people from all over the world, enjoying good fish and Pad Thai, walking on the beach, watching sunsets and experiencing the crowds in the tourist ghetto of Kuta. Perhaps if I were in my 30's again I could find good friends and this would be paradise. But I look forward to coming home to family and friends, my home and bed, your cooking as well as mine, the garden, the new tractor, finding a solution to the algae clogging up the pond filter, and helping with the garden - and being away from the madding crowds of Kuta.
Love you and mis you - see you in a couple of weeks,
Ron
27 March 2012
Afton, Virginia, USADear family and friends,
A brief message from Ron, who is now in Jakarta, moving towards arrival home this Friday, 30 March.
His memory about the beach in Sanur is correct - when we were there in 2003 they were hauling in truckloads of sand to build up the beach, and they had just finished construction of some stone jetties to help retain it. What I can't remember is whether the beach loss had been gradual, or sudden, in a huge storm.
I look forward to his arrival home!
Love to all,
Ellen
27 March 2012
Jakarta, IndonesiaHello, my dear,
Tomorrow morning I leave for Singapore and yesterday and today I spent shopping, not very successfully, for some gifts. Yesterday I was sent to a shopping center in Indonesia Plaza and along the way I watched a very very long line of police vehicles departing a large complex. There were trucks loaded with police, buses and buses loaded with police, armored vehicles or maybe there were water cannons, cars, jeeps. The went by for quite a while. I would estimate up to a thousand. Watching the news it appears there were demonstrations in the morning near Indonesia Mall, so I missed them. They were somewhere else in the afternoon.
Indonesia Plaza Mall was full of major brand stores offering nothing I was interested in other than the food court which had a Vietnamese restaurant offering Vietnamese beef soup. Next I got back on the Bus-Way and went to the mall at M Block, at the southern end of the Bus-Way. Coming back north to China Town (Kota) at rush hour was quite an experience with the crowds. It stormed while I was in the mall buying some Toraja Coffee to bring home for gifts.
Today, after having my Chinese noodle soup at my favorite soup shop I got caught in another storm in between changing peti-petis and took refuge in the Sheraton Hotel where I worked a couple of Sudoku puzzles while I waited for the storm to pass before continuing on to the Mangga Dua Mall in Chinatown. As I was leaving the mall I found a string of Chinese outside restaurants along the way on the SE side and had a wonderful 600g grilled fish along with a grilled egg plant for my last dinner in Jakarta ($7-8). The fish and eggplant were great but the shopping was a waste of time.
I still owe you a report on my time at Sanur Beach before leaving Bali. It was quiet compared to Kuta, and the people were older, more couples and families. I walked along the beach and checked out the large resorts on the southern end, including the Regency Hyatt. The resorts are right along the beach with wonderful gardens, plants, pools, restaurants, etc, providing the closest match to my image of a dream Bali vacation compared to the places I have been staying, away from the beach for about 15% of the cost. The sand on the beach seemed artificial to me, like sand hauled in to mix with concrete for pouring a cement foundation. Courser. My memory is still vague, but I seem to recall there was not much of a beach when we were there in 2003 and I have a vague memory of trunks hauling in sand to build the beach up. Do you remember any of that? But compared to Kuta it was a very clean beach.
Now I need to pack.
See you in a couple of days. It will be wonderful to be back home - again.
Love you,
Ron
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Last updated: 22 May 2012
