HECTOR'S DIARY Bali Advertiser, Jan. 25, 2012

Something in the Air

They’re always at it at Ubud, or so it seems; thinking about navel engagements, that is. A delightful piece by Marie Bee in the latest edition of La Gazette de Bali – the great French language monthly journal for the Francophone community – discusses what one can do when it is the saison des pluies and going out invariably involves getting wet.

     Bee, who is La Gazette’s Ubud scribbler, suggests that the answer is to study the Indonesian language rather than get out your poncho and rubber boots. And that seems fair enough to a dilettante like your diarist. Mlle Bee’s busy little voyage of discovery this time relates to the invisibility of the penis in the Indonesian-French dictionary of 1980 and its discovery (as an item of lexicographical interest at least) by 2001.

     These days, of course, they are ubiquitous in Bali. You can even open bottles with them, though why you’d want to is quite another thing.

     Anyone who reads French should definitely catch up with Mlle Bee’s engaging discourse in La Gazette.  It piques several of the senses. Among other observations, she notes that elements of the search for the lost penis would certainly have interested Proust. It’s on page 30 of the current edition and is headed En Quête du Pénis Perdu (it sounds much better in French, doesn’t it?).

     These are literary matters. And on that topic there’s a couple of interesting writers’ workshops on the books in Ubud. The first is a course, Write for Your Life, being held from February 5-11 with the participation of American penman Jeremiah Abrams. Details are available at www.writeforyourlife.posterous.com.

     The second is the work of Australian Jade Richardson, who should by now be well known to Diary readers, since she keeps popping up with revealing ideas.

     She’s offering four short courses for aspiring scribblers in February and March, under the broad subject heading Write Like an Angel: Creative Turbo-Boost is designed to inspire and energise beginners, blocked writers, stuck novelists, lazy poets and cathartic free-writers who want to learn finesse; Advanced Creative Writing in which participants will explore their own work for signs of genius; Travel Writing, for people who want to turn their notes, insights and adventures into travel stories fit for publication; and Erotica, where we assume the cerebral side of sex will get an outing.

     If you’re interested, contact Jade at passionfruitcowgirl@rocketmail.com or by phone on 0958 5727 0858. 

Surf’s Up

A friendly wave is certainly a long-standing part of Bali’s culture – along with the odd unfriendly one – and no more so than on the surfing scene, an invention (like so much else) of the faraway 1960s when the first waves of young riders appeared, appropriately from overseas.

     A whole industry has grown up from the first sprouts of mass foreign interest in the island and its culture planted by young people – like Hector, these pioneers were young in the 1960s – who flocked here to ride waves on bits of wood (they are now mostly artificial material).

     So the next exhibition at Ganesha Gallery (Four Seasons Jimbaran) is of particular interest. It features the work of Olli Fraenkel, the German aficionado of all things Bali. Like many others, he was attracted here by the surf and kept here by his fascination with the Balinese culture that he found when he wasn’t at the beach.

     His exhibition, entitled The 3-Dimensions of Asie.one, demonstrates his power as an artist of graffiti –Asie.one is his tag – and reminds us all, old fogeys and others, that art is a very broad church indeed and that the Renaissance painters, for example, were often the rebels of their  era.

     Fraenkel’s exhibition opens on February 9. It’s not to be missed.

     By happenstance Hector will be able a day or so later also to see the Bergamo collection (of originally outré and subversive Renaissance art) at the Australian National Gallery in Canberra. It is an opportunity not to be missed on a rare visit to the Australian capital.

Hey, Sucker!

A friend got a really interesting email the other day, from something called the Thailand Internet Lottery Organization of 88C Phetchamnork Avenue, Bangkok, Thailand. Director General Shompoo Prachapor sent his fonds regards – no, that’s not a misprint – and advised that the email address in question had drawn a prize of US$1,068,000.00 as one of two winners of the jackpot in the fifth category.

     Our friend was advised to contact lottery coordinator Prawatt Wensat, providing personal details etc (surprise!), to claim the money. Mr Wensat was expecting this response by the 30th of next month. Oh dear. February usually ends on the 28th though this year – apparently it’s supposed to be a Leap of Faith year – it stretches to the 29th. What a shame that’s still one day short of the notional deadline for the notional funds.

      Incidentally, shortly after this our friend got a much more interesting email. It came, it said, from the second wife – surely that should now be second widow – of the late and unlamented Libyan leader Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar Gaddafi. It offered to send US$40 million for investment and safekeeping because otherwise those who think unkindly of her hubby might seize the funds.

     This pitch was no surprise. What was a little surprising was the claim by Safia Farkash al-Baraasi, the said second widow, that she had found our friend’s contact details in Colonel Gaddafi’s email address list.

There You Go

One joy of the modern age – there are a few: digital music and books among them – is that you can keep abreast of your interests, of whatever provenance and in a timely way, and of the people who provide this essential life-preserving service. The Diary is a great fan of Sarah Crompton at the Daily Telegraph newspaper in the UK, for example. She writes a weekly email – you have to be on the DT’s list to get it – that is just as eclectic as she. In the fine newspaper for which she scribbles, Crompton writes about art, film and other cerebral matters; and she writes a sports column too.

     In  one recent weekly email – apart from reminding the Diary that leaving was a mixed blessing, by reference to all manner of things that could be enjoyed were it not for the fact that London got a goodbye wave in 1969 – Crompton noted that she loved an odd fact (don’t we all?) and mentioned a couple.

     Did you know that carrots – which as wortel are an important element of Indonesian cuisine – were originally purple and were turned orange by genetically manipulative Dutch growers to secretly show their support for William of Orange, the Protestant princeling who was instrumental in chucking the Papist Spaniards out of the Low Countries? Neither did Crompton; nor your diarist.

     But her favourite fact for that particular week was that the Alsatian film star Rin Tin Tin – a dog, not a Deutsch-Lautsprecher from the west bank of the middle Rhine  – died in the arms of the Hollywood star Jean Harlow.

     It surely cannot have been after this sad event that she famously said, “When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.” But Harlow – who as we say in today’s tediously socially aware language was “sexually active” – was certainly no dummy, blonde or not. She also noted: “No one ever expects a great lay to pay all the bills.”

Keep Jogging

Lombok Hash, the fun running group of which Walter Jamieson of Windy Beach Resort – and originally from the Shetlands, magic islands off the north of Scotland whose inhabitants are more Norse than kilted caber-tossers – is a leading light of very long standing, celebrated a milestone on January 20. Its regular run that day was on the 27th anniversary of its first ever event and was held in the same area – scenic Batu Layar just south of Senggigi.

Holey Cake

We are indebted to something called WhatsNewBali.com, which alleges it has “The Most Complete Events and Listings in Bali!” – the initial capitals and the exclamation mark are apparently important – for a delicious little heads-up on the plush afternoon tea for those with fat wallets who fancy dropping in at the St Regis in Nusa Dua.

     It says, of this extravagance, that the Classic Afternoon Tea on offer at that establishment is born of a distinctive legacy, since afternoon tea was a hollowed tradition at the original St. Regis New York.

Pun Run

Hector has an old and dear friend, a former Australian senator who now lives in what passes for retirement (Stan is an active chap) in the delightful hinterland of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.  In idle moments, he – like Hector – loves a pun. And the other day, being a fine fellow, he sent along a small compendium of them.

     Several had instant appeal. But this one, for some reason, struck your diarist as being particularly apt in present circumstances hereabouts.

     Here it is:

     An anthropologist was recording folk remedies with the assistance of an Amazonian tribal elder who indicated that the leaves of a particular fern were a sure cure for any case of constipation. When the anthropologist expressed doubts about this – apparently in South America it is important to be quizzical rather than gullible – the elder looked him in the eye and said:

    “Let me tell you, with fronds like these, you don't need enemas.”

Hector's Diary is in the print edition of the Bali Advertiser, out every second Wednesday, and on the newspaper's website  http://www.baliadvertiser.biz/ . Hector is on Twitter (@ Scratchings) and Facebook: Hector McSquawky at http://facebook.com/wotthehec.

HECTOR’S DIARY Bali Advertiser January 11, 2012

Super Idea

Proposals for a redenomination of the rupiah which have resurfaced from Bank Indonesia are essentially sensible and should be welcomed. There is however one difficulty with the proposal – insofar as the details are known – to knock three zeroes off the currency under which Rp1000, Rp2000, Rp5000, Rp10,000, Rp20,000, Rp50,000 and Rp100,000 would become Rp1, Rp2, Rp5, Rp10, Rp20, Rp50 and Rp100.

     This is because by reducing Rp1000 to Rp1 you lose the capacity to divide below the primary number. Rp1 would therefore become the minimum available currency value. It would mean no one could mark up prices by Rp500, for example. Or reduce a price by the same sub-unit amount (assuming there was ever a blue moon).

      The central bank could reintroduce the sen (cent) of course. But we have heard of no plans to do so. And in any case, it would then be better to strike four zeroes off the face value – converting the current Rp10,000 into the new Rp1, divisible into 100 sen.

      That’s complicated. There is another way to simplify things and reduce the confusion wrought by zero-overload. That is to superscript the zeroes on banknotes and the Rp1000 coin. Like this:  Rp1⁰⁰⁰; Rp2⁰⁰⁰ ;Rp5⁰⁰⁰; Rp10⁰⁰⁰; Rp20⁰⁰⁰ ; Rp50⁰⁰⁰; Rp100⁰⁰⁰. Leading retailers already do this in stock display signage. It would also need only a minor redesign of banknotes and existing lower denomination coins could remain in use.

Dig it, Dig it

According to Lombok Network, the online site that’s widely regarded as probably the best source of information on the island and its attractions, the forested slopes of 3726-metre Mt Rinjani, Indonesia’s second highest volcano, perform a vital task (hitherto unsuspected: read on).

     The website says that Mt Rinjani is so high it creates its own weather. They mean it rains a lot up there, in other words. This benefit is then multiplied because the well-timbered and therefore un-eroded slopes “act as water-collectors for the hole of Lombok.”

     We think Lombok’s a magic place. It’s not a hole at all.

Mopping Up

This is the time of year for whimsy. Well, Hector enjoys it anyway, even though what has been exercising his mind is more Stephen Donaldson than Tolkien. From the constant cacophony endured at The Cage over several long days (and even longer nights) recently, he speculates that Santa’s latest attempt to annex Bali has been defeated, a cheering thought for everyone who’s utterly over fat little men in silly red suits.

     But judging from the noise around the Bukit that began before Christmas, including what seemed to be a massive fire-fight on the night of December 31-January 1, mopping up the raiding parties of elves and Kris Kringle lookalikes that General Jollygent peppered the place with is proving to be a long and arduous process. It went on at full pelt well into the New Year and may indeed not yet be over by a long chalk.  Perhaps the new Dragon will manage to end it all on January 23.

     We’ve been a bit worried at The Cage, because some of the firing has seemed pretty close. We’ve been sending out our own patrols during lulls in the combat just to make sure the immediate surroundings are clear of elves. They have been so far; and no reindeer have been seen trying unlawfully to befriend the local cattle either.

     We made inquiries, of course, as we do every year, about this annual insurrection. The local Banjar tried to tell us it was only people letting off fireworks.  Yeah! As if anyone would believe that fairytale.

Top That

Being fair-minded, the Diary dropped back into Pepito Express at Bukit Jimbaran after writing an item (Hector’s Diary, Dec. 14) that rather castigated the place for having recently acquired the ambience of a trade store.  We wanted to check whether we’d been unkind.

     We hadn’t.  There was indeed insufficient room in the aisles to swing a tikus (rat), let alone a small cat, although it should be noted that on this occasion the fresh greens – which on the previous visit had been as limp (and as inviting) as dirty wet socks – actually were fresh.

     It was Christmas Eve, however, and our mood, already buoyant, was given an immediate lift when at the check-out we found that a very svelte young creature was present to relieve us of our money. She had managed – doubtless under management direction – to team her invitingly revealing Kebaya and very clingy sarong skirt with a lovely pair of antlers.

     Things looked up even more keenly when she blushed very prettily after we said: “Itulah topi yang indah yang Anda kenakan” (“That’s a lovely hat you’re wearing.”)

     We were being polite in our best dictionary-derived Indonesian, of course.  We could have just said “Phwaar!”

Do Drop In

We love wildlife. There’s so much of it at The Cage, for one thing. But there’s also too much of a good thing sometimes, and so it is with the geckos (big and small) that are quite deaf to suggestions that they should respect the space of the frighteningly huge creatures that also live in the house, play loud music and, even more scarily, seem to run around on two legs.

      These thoughts are currently at the forefront of the collective mind at The Cage, since some of the larger geckos seem to have adopted the habit of defecating from a great height upon the stairs linking the living level and the bedroom suites.  We don’t really mind if that’s their real opinion of us, and indeed might even be persuaded by reasoned argument that this is to be understood.

      But the results are tedious.  Lately Hector, normally a mild-mannered chap to whom an accusation that he was being uncouth would be tantamount to a death sentence, has been heard to mutter as he (again) gets out the brush and dustpan: “These geckos are giving me the shits.”

Chilling

Another good reason to visit Ubud has emerged, traffic permitting. It’s the Chillout Lounge in Jl Sandat off Jl Raya Ubud in the middle of town. Lloyd Perry, chief chill person at the establishment, tells us it’s been open for business for three months. He has some theme nights on the go, including something called Giant Twister, on the first Tuesday of every month, which is for the yoga adherents of Ubud and involves them in trying to outstretch each other.

     This might not suit everyone, especially your diarist. It sounds more like a dead-set way to seriously dislocate oneself. But it suits the ambience of Ubud where – as the Diary’s favourite fun gal, globetrotter-blogger and passionfruit cowgirl Jade Richardson likes to remind us (please don’t stop, Jade) – the guruhood has its fingers firmly on the hot little go-buttons of a great many who are seeking satisfaction of one sort or another.

     There’s also a Who Wants to be a Millionaire night.  What a ridiculous question. And anyway such contests – even if only for a million rupiah – so often provide risible displays of the focused non-functionality of people who should not have got out of bed that day. And that’s fun.

     Thanks for the heads-up, Lloyd. We’ll drop in one day.

Uncorked

The idea of an annual all-expenses-paid tipplers’ trip to distant parts has a certain appeal. Perhaps the wine teams at the St Regis and Laguna resorts at Nusa Dua could find a vacancy for a superannuated cockatoo? No? Shame! But never mind, we can get a vicarious vigneron fix from Jack Daniels. That’s local identity John M., not the old guy from the distilled quietude of scenic Lynchburg, Tennessee – though some wits do say Lynchburg’s not such a great place to hang around – whose product rightly graces bar shelves everywhere.

     We learn from a recent item in Daniels’ Bali Update – which Jack likes to remind people was once dubbed the Pravda of Bali; apparently he has forgotten (or perhaps he’s never known) that while pravda is the Russian word for truth, the infamous Soviet-era newspaper of the same name retailed nothing of the sort – that this year the lads (and lassies we hope) toured some of Western Australia’s finest wine country, having last year plonked themselves down in France.

     The Diary read the latest report from the field with interest and not only because we do devoutly hope St Regis and Laguna understand the critical difference between Vin Ordinaire and Vin Very. Margaret River is an old stamping ground – almost ancestral territory in fact – so it was interesting to see some familiar names.

     A couple struck one as odd, however. We hadn’t heard of Moos Wood winery (perhaps it doubles as a dairy farm) though the products of Moss Wood, which by astonishing coincidence is in the same area, are excellent. And when we’re next down that way – it won’t be long – we’ll try to find Pimberton, even though it’s not on any maps.

     Pemberton is, though. It’s not all that far from Moss Wood, at least at Australian traffic speeds. We like to go there whenever we can, to visit some lovely people we know very well who in their lifetimes never moved from their pleasant little Karri forest timber town and now never will. 

Hector's Diary appears in the fortnightly print edition of the Bali Advertiser and on the newspaper's website www.baliadvertiser.biz. Hec is on Twitter (@Scratchings) and on Facebook (Hector McSquawky)

HECTOR’S DIARY Bali Advertiser, Dec 28, 2011

A Beautiful Mind

Only the brightest get to Balliol, the cream of Oxford colleges. Christopher Hitchens, the British polemicist whose writing and advocacy put him at the forefront of political, social, religious and scientific debate, and who died in December (far too early at 62) was one of them and is a figure who will be sadly missed. His atheism angered many critics – one cannot imagine why, since if there is any existence after death Hitchens will now have proved himself wrong, though in common with all who have gone before he won’t be back to tell us about it – and his politics many others.

     Christopher Buckley, a friend and argument-foil of 30 years, wrote in a blog note on The Atlantic magazine site (Hitchens wrote for the magazine for years after moving to America in the late 1970s, saying later he jumped the pond because Britain was “like Weimar without the sex”) that Hitchens was “a feast of reason and a flow of soul, and, if the author of God Is Not Great did not himself believe in the concept of soul, he sure had one, and it was a great soul.”

     The television channel Al Jazeera posted some memorable quotes from Hitchens as part of its reportage of his death, including this one: “[George W. Bush] is lucky to be governor of Texas. He is unusually incurious, abnormally unintelligent, amazingly inarticulate, fantastically uncultured, extraordinarily uneducated, and apparently quite proud of all these things.”

      Hitchens said this in 1999, a year before Bush became US President. In 2003 Hitchens was a staunch supporter of the US-led invasion of Iraq.  He later railed against waterboarding, a torture technique favoured – until rightly banned – by the US military.

      He wrote 17 books, including The Trial of Henry Kissinger, God is Not Great, and a memoir, Hitch-22 (he was Hitch to his friends). His final publication of a collection of his essays, Arguably, was released this year.          

     It was perhaps apt – it is certainly poignant – that in the month of Hitchens’ death astronomers confirmed the existence of an Earth-like planet in the “habitable zone” around a star not unlike our own. The planet, Kepler 22-b, lies about 600 light-years away, is about 2.4 times the size of Earth, and has a temperature of about 22C (despite global warmists’ alarms, Earth’s mean surface temperature is still around 15C,where it’s been during the whole galactic nanosecond since homo sapiens discovered how to measure it).

     Kepler 22-b – named for the space telescope that is busy spotting distant parts of the neighbourhood – is the closest confirmed planet yet to one like Earth: a planet on which it is conceivable that advanced intelligent life could occur; such as, say, a life of Hitch.

Sun Don’t Shine

We tweet on Twitter (@Scratchings if you’re interested) to a select few who have chosen to follow Hector’s ephemeral flight paths and were thus pleased to see the other day that something called the Bali Sun – though its website and Twitter page call it Bali The Sun – had elected to follow us. It’s nice to have followers. No former leader writer should be without them.

     That day, there were only two tweets on its Twitter page. Both said it was an on-line tourist papper (sic). It’s “about us” page on its website was similarly uninformative. The single entry there said its popularity was 5 percent. It didn’t say what it was 5 percent popular with, but we couldn’t ask because the website doesn’t say who’s in charge.

     It is said that if you can’t say anything nice then don’t say anything at all. But diarists couldn’t possibly survive under such restrictive rules of engagement. A far better rule is that if something pops its head up above the parapet, shoot at it.

     Perhaps the Bali Sun will shine one day. But it will need to put a few more additions (oops, silly, we must mean editions) up on its site before any illuminating flashes of light reach us from the heavens.

     Speaking of illuminating moments, the other day we inadvertently bought a week-old copy of another local newspaper, the Bali Times. We’d parked outside a Circle K so the Distaff could negotiate some laundry next door and thought we’d better drop in to buy something at the convenience store, just to show goodwill. It was two days after the new edition should have been on the shelves, but sadly we weren’t paying attention and forked out Rp10K for an old fish-and-chip wrapper instead of a new one.

     It wasn’t all wasted effort, though. The Times, which continues to assert that it reveals the real Bali all the way from distant Ireland, turns out to be still on its inexplicable vendetta against the British novelist Will Self, whom, granted, some regard as tendentious and tedious, not to mention far too far up himself. Some time ago it reported “Man Throws Self off Cliff,” which surprised us no end because we had no idea he was even on the island. In the edition of the paper we just inadvertently bought is a story with this headline:  “Man Sets Self Alight Outside State Palace.” (He must have recovered from his Uluwatu plunge and gone to Jakarta.)

     Clearly someone’s out to get poor Will. We didn’t think his densely fantastical piece de resistance, Great Apes, was that bad. But should he be planning further Indonesian trips, he might consider doing so under an assumed name. We’d considered proposing Safe, since that suggests a measure of surety against unfortunate incident. But no, that wouldn’t do. The Bali Times would just report that robbers had blown him up.

She’s Our Hero

Robin Lim, who operates the Bumi Sehat foundation that provides health care and maternity and prenatal care to women in Bali who might otherwise not get it, was deservedly named CNN Hero of the Year 2011 this month, selected from among 10 finalists. She got US$250,000 for her win, having already received $50,000 for making it onto the finalists’ list.

     Lim is truly a hero.  She said at the awards (in Los Angeles on December 11): “Every baby's first breath on Earth could be one of peace and love. Every mother should be healthy and strong. Every birth could be safe and loving. But our world is not there yet.”

     Hear! Hear!

Kindling Thought

We had a lovely dinner party recently. Two people we got to know from their business activities but who are now friends – he’s a real estate broker, she is manicurist to the Distaff – joined us at The Cage for a western meal with Asian flavours, judged sufficiently Halal for mild Muslims, with background music by iPod, Hector’s  latest toy. He’s very proud of the playlists he has managed to create from a mix of iTunes and burned CDs and is in danger of becoming quite boring about it all.

     Amid the evening ambience – The Cage sports a sort of deep crimson light-pool at night, courtesy of some table lamps that inevitably propel one’s thoughts towards the more classy among Parisian and Chinese brothels (Hector is not at all unhappy about this) – talk turned among other things to the developing world of ebooks and specifically to the Kindles now on the inventory at our house.

     It will be great when a far larger body of literature in Bahasa Indonesia is available in electronic books, especially since bookshops in Bali are seriously deficient at the sentient end of literature’s envelope.

     The Diary is at present rereading (though perhaps that should be e-reading) James Joyce’s 1922 novel Ulysses, a long-time favourite as well as the spark for that grand old pub-crawl, Bloomsday. (It’s on June 16 every year, but you need to keep in training year round.)

     It is particularly memorable for Joyce’s use of some lines from William Butler Yeats’ 1892 poem Who Goes with Fergus? They include these two lines, sage advice in any vicissitude:

      And no more turn aside and brood

     Upon love’s bitter mystery

Santa in Seminyak

We expect Santa is now taking his customary well-earned rest after the oh-so-busy pre-Christmas period he and the reindeer, not to mention the elves, have to endure each year. One of the many spots he dropped in on in Bali in the lead-up to Present Day was The Cornerstore in Jl Oberoi at Seminyak.

     That was on Saturday, December 17. Informant Sean Cosgrove told us the red-suited gent would be there from 9am to noon. We do hope the sleigh didn’t get held up in the traditional traffic jam that gridlocks Kuta-Legian-Seminyak on a permanent basis.

Animal Capers

Someone kindly alerted us to a list of the most popular dog names this year – OK, it was in New York, which is one very self-absorbed apple – which lists Bella as No. 1. Presumably that’s for lady dogs. The Diary’s personal favourite was way down the list, at No. 49. We don’t have a dog, but we’re always calling “Oreo.”

     Guess there’ll be a new list next year.

     That’ll be 2012, which from January 23 is the Year of the Dragon.  We’re just leaving the Year of the Rabbit, in which some among us have found that we have been the bunnies. It can only get better.

     Happy New Year!

Hector's Diary appears in the fortnightly print edition of the Bali Advertiser and on the newspaper's website www.baliadvertiser.biz

On Twitter: @Scratchings. On Facebook: Hector McSquawky

HECTOR'S DIARY Bali Advertiser, Dec. 14, 2011

Pep Talk Required

When Pepito Express opened on Jl Raya Uluwatu near GWK on the Bukit a couple of years ago, the occupants of The Cage along with many other nearby residents rushed its doors. Inside there was not only a good range of products often otherwise unobtainable in Bali shops, but also aisles down which one could progress without first having to become bulimic to fit. It was a treat.

     Sadly, and no doubt in search of immediate feet through the door rather than a steady build-up of high-spending local consumers, things have changed. The place has become a calling point for huge buses which disgorge crowds of confused and apparently impecunious Taiwanese and Korean tourists (they never seem to understand the marked price or have the right money). The aisles have been stuffed with convenience foods (seaweed snacks seem to loom large) and there is no longer room to wheel your trolley down them with even the vague hope that you might find a regular Oreo as well as your normal range of western consumer products.

     One evening recently when The Diary and Distaff called in on a substantial resupply mission the place was impossible. The aisles had assumed trade store dimensions (and the assorted obstacle courses of cardboard cartons that goes with this genre of shopping); the staff apparently had better things to do than look after customers; and the salad shelves were full of listlessly limp post-greens.

     We may just have hit them on a particularly bad night, but the result of this un-Pepito-like experience was that the facilities of our formerly favourite emporium much further away, Lotus on the bypass at Jimbaran, suddenly looked rather attractive again.

Leap Before You Look

One of the more engaging of the local habits is the practice of walking out into the traffic and signalling a sort of pelan-pelan (slowly-slowly) instruction to oncoming drivers and riders. It’s a way of getting across an otherwise virtually gridlocked road, certainly.

     In many ways it is not dissimilar to the happy habit in Hanoi, Vietnam, where pedestrians wishing to cross the most frenetic of roads (and worse, intersections) simply plunge into the mayhem and walk steadily and on a fixed course in their chosen direction. They are confident the ubiquitous motorcycles will miss them. The buses sometimes don’t, though that’s another matter.

     But (that essential codicil!) you have to know what you’re doing. It helps, too, to know where you’re going.  If you are unsure of either of these things, and especially if unsure of both, do not attempt to tempt the traffic.

     Near Ungasan crossroads the other day there was a lovely little incident. A chap in a vehicle – a Bule of course; no fists would have been raised otherwise – who was (un)happily crawling along at 10kmh in the lengthy line of traffic behind yet another defective and overloaded yellow truck, was horribly surprised when a passing local gent suddenly leaped from the footpath (sic), put up his hand, and walked out straight in front of him. The vehicle’s driver slammed on the anchors: It’s so much easier than finding out the idiot you’ve just nudged happens to have 5,000 cousins in the immediate vicinity.

     In true Bali fashion, the incident was locally viewed as entirely the fault of the Bule.  After all, if he hadn’t been on the island, he wouldn’t have been involved.

Jingle Belles

The Diary got a lovely invitation from jewellery designer Tricia Kim – we go back such a long way, she and we, all the way back to the 2009 Yak awards where we ran into each other upon the steps at the then new Cocoon and didn’t know each other from a bar of soap, something now pleasantly rectified – to attend the launch of her 2012 collection on December 7.

     It would have been delightful to be there, for Tricia’s svelte and energetic company through a relaxing afternoon, the new collection of course, and the afternoon tea including cupcakes (can’t resist them) and sandwiches along with mojitos. A complimentary mani-pedi available on a first come, first served basis would have been good too. The claws could do with a buffing.

     And then there was the venue: Di Astana Villa at Kerobokan (it’s in Jl Batu Belig on the way down to the beach there).

     Unfortunately we were in Ubud on other duties at the time and couldn’t make it. But we’ll catch up with the collection later.

No Need to Duck

Sakinah Nauderer, the decorative and delightfully enigmatic proprietor of Senggigi’s Asmara Restaurant – a place of fine resort when in Lombok – tells us her Christmas plans this year include no more rubbery local ducks. Imported turkey will fill that role (and a lot of tummies) this season.

     She plans a Christmas Brunch Buffet on the day itself, starting from 12 noon, and at 1.30pm the children’s gospel choir from Ampenan will entertain guests with appropriate vocals. This Christmas treat costs Rp175K for adults and Rp50K for children aged six to 12. If you’re under six, you don’t pay at all. There’s a lucky draw after the turkey and the choir.

     Here’s the menu: Welcome drink and bruchetta; creamy lobster soup; stuffed turkey with gravy and cranberry sauce (prawns are available for non-turkey-eaters); spiced red cabbage; cauliflower and broccoli cheese; potato croquettes and roast potatoes. Desserts on offer are cheesecake, apple pie and chocolate cake with whipped cream. There’s coffee and tea to follow if by then you’re not as stuffed as your turkey.

Cook Up

Janet DeNeefe’s new book collecting recipes and photos of Bali and just published by Pan Macmillan Australia has been snapped up by a keen cook in Australia who – naturally enough – read about it in The Diary. He tells us he’ll be trying out his personal top choice from the menus when next he arranges a candlelight dinner.

     After our original item in The Diary last issue, DeNeefe told us copies of her book (Bali: The Food of my Island Home) were a little scarce hereabouts. They were “still in Surabaya.” We sympathise. So much that should be cleared through the wharves and customs in no time flat instead finds itself in limbo as a result of that pernicious and endemic disease, Surabaya Syndrome.

Hill Town Daze

We took some very special visitors to Ubud recently – The Diary’s sister and her husband, who spent a week with us just out of the UK via Bangkok on their way to two months in Australia. The Diary is a Wayan – so is the Distaff, which occasionally creates problems of precedence – and the Brit Sis is a Made. All this was made clear over a gin and tonic or three.

    Ubud was its usual self: spiritual, quaint, eclectic and jammed with huge charabancs quite unsuitable for the little town’s streets. We stayed at Beji Ubud Resort at Sanggingan, where sadly, this time, the internet connection was rather below par; we dined one night at Café des Artistes, refreshed ourselves at The Three Monkeys (de rigueur for diarists who die for pumpkin ravioli and who are now looking forward to trying out the new T3M at Sanur) and did a few other eating and musical things, including the new-look Jazz Café. Oh yes, and we made sure we walked right past Naughty Nuri’s. We like a little elbow room with our eating experience rather more than we like the in-crowd.

    Sister Made was on her way to see our other sister (she’s a Nyoman; there’s a Ketut brother who lives in the USA) who long ago made the chilly choice to reside in Canberra, the country’s notional capital 600 metres above sea level  in the frankly frigid Southern Tablelands. The Diary worked in that fair city for some years, on a FIFO basis, and was always glad his office was in Parliament House. It always has a plentiful supply of hot air.

     The travelling sister’s Australian itinerary does include more sensible parts of the country, including tropical – and thus truly warm – Queensland.

Merry Christmas

Christmas has long since been a global retail opportunity, a celebration of consumerism and a far cry indeed from its origins in the Christian faith and its belief that Jesus Christ was born in a cow byre in Bethlehem. Nonetheless, amid all the commercial pap, it does serve to remind you that charity and goodwill, along with forgiveness, are essential elements of life.

    So Merry Christmas to all. 

Hector's Diary appears in the Bali Advertiser print edition published every two weeks and on the newspaper's website www.baliadvertiser.biz

You can follow Hector on Twitter @Scratchings and join him on his Facebook (Hector McSquawky)

HECTOR'S DIARY The Bali Advertiser, Nov. 30, 2011

Holiday Break

The Diary has just spent two weeks enjoying the pleasant ambience of the Nerang River in Queensland. It was, though not in the way Hyacinth Bucket (“It’s ‘Bouquet’”) achieved it, a riparian delight. We were well away from the faux glam glitter of the Gold Coast’s beachside tourist strip and – courtesy of some lovely friends of very long standing who courageously opened their home to Diary and Distaff – enjoyed all manner of domestic comforts.

     It gave us a chance to catch up with people we haven’t seen for many years (at least six, since we left Queensland for the sybaritic delights of Bali) and to reconnect with what for the Diary is truly home. We also spent a couple of days well inland, on a formerly frequently visited farm, the domicile of other dear friends. It is a place with plentiful cups of tea and long views of beautiful mountains:  the sort of landscape that the weather and Bali’s love affair with dysfunctional internal combustion engines so often conspire to deprive you of at home.

     We drove down into New South Wales to visit another old haunt, Byron Bay, and had a beer and some lunch, but were blown back from the beaches by a stiff northerly half-gale. Ah well, never mind; next time perhaps. We went up to the Gold Coast’s own special “mountain,” Mt Tamborine, a 500-metre high ridge nowadays littered with wineries, and sampled a few vintages. These are mostly from Queensland’s distant Granite Belt which is so high and so cold you actually can grow wine grapes there. We dropped in on a liqueur maker who was doing a roaring trade (the wattle myrtle vodka is a killer –Za vashe zdorovye!). Hector left a note in the visitor’s book.  We lunched at a Bavarian restaurant, far too well, and had to take the rest of the afternoon off.

Idiots’ Week

The peculiar Australian custom of “Schoolies Week” – an annual event during which young people who have just finished senior school go off and have a holiday with their mates – is a pernicious occurrence not only in Bali, where little idiots arrive and do foolish things, but also at the Gold Coast in Queensland. This year’s risk of choice there, among the mindless, was balcony jumping. That’s one way of bringing yourself down quickly from a party high, we suppose.

     But it was events in Bali that enraged the Diary; events as portrayed of course. A segment on tabloid television’s “current affairs show” ACA related the sad case of some other little idiot who had travelled to Bali to run amuck and had injured his foot in a motorbike accident. The enragement was less because the accident occurred – they do, with depressing regularity, though they mostly involve locals who are of no interest to visiting Aussie tabloid TV teams – than with the fellow’s determined refusal to acknowledge that he had been the author of his own misfortune because he was (a) drunk and (b) stupid.

     In that regard it was good to see BIMC chief Craig Beveridge on the programme explaining that his establishment sees plenty of such cases.  Perhaps some lapsed parents in Australia saw that and took it in. Well, just perhaps: sentience tends to be a genetic thing.

Blog for Health

High profile conferences and diplomacy are of course vital to the business of managing international relations and bringing assistance to countries and communities that need help (in whatever form) but it is at the lower, less visible, end of the equation that most of the practical work gets done.

     So it is with the Australian aid agency AusAID’s great Indonesian gig to get bloggers to help increase awareness of HIV/AIDS and of World AIDS Day (December 1). Active bloggers were invited to enter a dynamic online competition themed “HIV and Youth.” The competition called for young Indonesian bloggers to write about their own experiences or opinions on HIV/AIDS.
     Australia’s ambassador, Greg Moriarty, says of the competition: “Indonesia has one of the fastest growing HIV/AIDS epidemics in South East Asia. We need to do all we can to raise awareness of this disease.”
     The competition was aimed at tapping into Indonesia’s thriving social media scene – which has 38 million Facebook users and more than 3.2 million bloggers – to expose the country’s browsing community to inspiring and easy to read information about the disease. It was held by AusAID in partnership with Viva News, one of Indonesia’s leading news sites. Submissions closed on November 30.
     The winning blog entries will be announced on December 20. The top three bloggers will win computers, cameras and high-tech phones.
     In 2010, Australia’s $100 million Partnership for HIV provided services to 50,000 prisoners, helped 26,000 injecting drug users to gain access to clean needles, methadone maintenance programmes and harm reduction services, and improved access to medicines for people living with HIV.

Dream Road

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard was among the squadrons of international political leaders who attended the East Asia Summit in Bali two weeks ago. These jamborees are important – genuinely, they’re not just photo opportunities or occasions for grandstanding as some of the more jaded among us might sometimes think – even if, for most of the population under the flatfooted footprint of the attendant VIP protection effort, they are chiefly occasions for mass inconvenience.

     Gillard took the opportunity of the summit to visit the Bali Bombing Memorial in Legian on November 19. She described it as a moving experience. It always is, of course. The Diary visits the memorial at least once a year to read (silently) the 202 names listed.

     Amid tight security, including roof-top snipers, Gillard placed a wreath at the memorial site and chatted with Australian tourists.  She met Governor Made Mangku Pastika, who as Bali’s police chief in 2002 led the investigation into first bombing.

    But what caused the Diary a particularly dyspeptic sigh was the ABC report that said she then left to return to Nusa Dua “about 20 minutes drive from the memorial.” Yeah, right. That would be about the travel time, if you’re in a high-speed VIP motorcade and everyone else has been shoved rudely out of the way.

  

Great Idea

The big bash at the Westin Nusa Dua from November 16-19 included, as is the fashion with modern day international group navel-gazing events, a number of side events and bilateral meetings. These were conducted at the Bali International Convention Centre and at the Westin itself.

    One of them was a think-in about Women’s Empowerment, hosted by Indonesia’s Ministry of Same and chaired by First Lady Ani Yudhoyono. Now that’s an area where a lot of work is needed.

What’s Cooking?

Janet DeNeefe, Fragrant Ricist and Festival Founder, is back in print with another little tome on Bali cuisine. Bali: The food of my island home, runs to 272 pages and was published by Pan Macmillan Australia on November 8.

     It’s always a joy to read publisher’s blurbs. This one invites potential readers to follow Janet on a spice trail through Bali and its rich food culture, with chapters exploring sambals, rice dishes, curries and coconut, street food, ceremonial food, modern offerings and sweets.  It notes that each recipe is accompanied by an insight into the local culture, while key Balinese ingredients – such as kencur, candlenuts and shrimp paste – are explained in an extensive glossary.

     And it says the book is not only a cookbook but also an incredible photographic journey. It sounds like a dream.  Perhaps it will feature in 2012’s writers’ and readers’ festival.   

Artist in Residence

If the Diary ran to an artist in residence, then we should have to choose Leticia Balacek. This is not just because she’s a decorative Argentine, or even because her art is first rate. It has to do with vivacity, verve and vitality. You need all those to properly engage with people.

     So it was good to hear that more of Balacek’s work is on show at Black Sheep (Jl Drupadi 69, Seminyak). It’s a mix media collection that includes Textures (Life is Paradise – Bangkok; and Transformations - Buenos Aires) and a work she hasn’t shown before, For a Little Bit of Sun, from Berlin, in A4 size.  The show runs until Saturday (Dec. 3).
     Gaya at Ubud is also showing Balacek’s work in an exhibition to celebrate the Mother as the central point of human society.  The organisers say the concept was born of the desire to honour and connect to the Mother through creative expression.  It’s true that everyone has an individual story that relates to this theme, which has unquestionably created who we are.  Works scheduled to appear at Gaya from December 17-24, by various artists in many media, include painting, photography, ceramics, sculpture, drawing, written poetry, video projection, song, spoken word poetry, dance and music.

     We hear, by the way, that Balacek will be exhibiting in Jakarta next year.

Back Home

It’s great to have an alternative to Virgin Australia on the Bali-Brisbane route and Air Australia, formerly Strategic, is filling that role very well. The Diary flew both ways with them on the recent trip to the old home town.

    While the airline is using Airbus A320s on the route there is the little matter of the “technical stop” on the uphill leg – the 320 doesn’t have the range to fly Brisbane-Bali non-stop against the headwinds and lands at Darwin to refuel. The downhill leg is fine. Pushed along by a friendly tailwind the Diary made Brisbane in around five hours and twenty minutes on November 11. The return trip on November 25 was somewhat longer.

    When Air Australia (then Strategic) commenced its Brisbane-Bali service it was using an Airbus 330 which doesn’t need to drop in on the Northern Territory capital en route.  Maybe we’ll see the bigger aircraft back on the route sometime.

     Air Australia has big plans – and not just for Bali, from where one imagines it should pick up a good proportion of the Bali-originating Brisbane trade. We’ll be back on board.

Hector's Diary appears in the fortnightly print edition of the Bali Advertiser and on the newspaper's website www.baliadvertiser.biz.

HECTOR’S DIARY Bali Advertiser November 16, 2011

Mum-in-Law Says

Domestic order has been disturbed at The Cage, domicile of Diary and Distaff, by the departure of our prized pembantu. She was apparently prised from our grip by the iron grasp of her mother-in-law, who seemingly saw benefit in depriving her household of one of the two regular incomes it received.

     We think she didn’t want to go. She’d been with us as our housekeeper for four years; we all enjoyed a joke and a laugh together; we gave her extra money for additional tasks, and her husband too, for providing overnight security (and messing around with our TV) during any of our absences from home; her work schedule was regularly (or rather, irregularly) amended to meet her need to attend ceremonies and to the other, many, demands of local life; and there were other benefits, including a regular supply of clothing for herself and her child brought to our house by visitors from overseas who had heard about, and often met, our Wayan.

     It’s a shame. It points up the impossibility of applying here employment rules such as might exist in more formal economies (notice? what is notice?). It reinforces with stark clarity the single most significant fact of life in Bali for foreigners living here: that they are ATMs, nothing more, and rate only the label of Public Convenience.

     But worse than that, it demonstrates that those who promote the concept of women’s equality (or even basic rights) in Indonesia have a long and very hard row to hoe. In Indonesia generally, and in Bali’s iconoclastic and restrictive society particularly, a woman’s place is in her home. Doing what her husband and her mother-in-law tell her to do.

Just So You Know

We dined some little time ago at Dava, the signature restaurant at The Ayana Resort and Spa, the guests of Ayana’s chief spruiker Marian Hinchliffe, who couldn’t be with us on the night but had nonetheless arranged a complimentary glass of nice Chilean red.

     The occasion was to sample the degustation menu of Singapore chef Jusman So, over which Dava divas and other paying guests have been swooning. And so they should – it’s top tucker. We opted for a five-course sampling (the Distaff, who lately has been breaking out, chose two desserts) and added our own purchase of a bottle of said Chilean red (the Lapostalle merlot) to help the medicine go down. That cost a pembantu’s monthly salary plus extras, which is why Dava doesn’t see us all that often.

     For those with the readies, however, the degustation menu is just So ...  fabulous. Should a lottery win eventuate, the Diary might dine at Dava very regularly indeed. There was no lavosh among the complimentary breads, unfortunately, but Ottmar Leibert seemed to be providing the tunes to chomp to, which almost made up for its absence.

    The Diary had the gorgonzola, duck foie gras, purple potatoes, wagyu beef and fondant. The Distaff made it through a salad and fish (grouper) and beef dishes before hoeing into her two desserts.

     So is also now presenting his full a la carte menu, by the way.  We might come back to that. But you shouldn’t miss it, if your plastic stretches far enough.

 New Look:  Aussie colour in the air

Go Green and Gold

Strategic Airlines, the Brisbane-based carrier that serves Bali from the Queensland capital, changed its name and its livery on November 15. It became Air Australia and went green and gold – the country’s sporting colours – instead of red, white and blue.

     As well as this, it went low-cost, dispensing with cabin service included in ticket costs in favour of the buy-on-board option. It has big plans to become Australia’s true low-cost carrier – Virgin Australia long ago having junked that idea, preferring instead to reinvent the airline duopoly that served Australia in the past – and plans to expand its Bali services among many other developments.

     It will be retaining business class on its aircraft, however.

Rovers’ Return

Many years ago the Diary gave up on both the UK and southern Africa and moved to Australia, shortly thereafter adopting Brisbane – appropriately the city is named after a Scotsman – as his place of domicile. It served admirably in this capacity for some 35 years before the Distaff, herself from another extremity on the Australian continent, sold the house and contents, packed the remnants in her dilly-bag, and moved us to Bali.

     That was six years ago and was (and is) a move in no way regretted. It’s warmer here, for one thing. And Australia’s vast and uncontrollably growing regulatory environment wouldn’t thrive in Bali either. Since we prefer to live freely by our own (reasonable and lawful) rules, and hate the very thought of a nanny state, let alone Big Brother and all the other meddlers, Bali’s where we have to be.

      Nonetheless, thoughts of home drift into consciousness now and then, and we flew down to Brisbane on November 11 – on Strategic (Air Australia) as it happens – for a two-week fix, our first since the big move though we regularly go to Perth.  It’s only a short visit, and a busy one at that – so much to do, so little time – but it’s great to see old friends and old haunts, to smell the eucalyptus, to enjoy long, smog-free vistas of distant gum-blue mountains, and visit favourite places.

      These include the Queensland Museum of Modern Art (in Brisbane) where there is a photographic exhibition on that the Diary is going to see come hell or high water, and the thoroughly seductive Byron Bay, scene of many past delights.     

In the Pink: Organisers of the Bali Pink Ribbon Walk at this year’s event

In the Money

Gaye Warren, originator of the Bali Pink Ribbon Walk, tells us this year’s event – it was on October 22 – was highly successful. She didn’t mean that this was because Hector wore pink and wowed the crowd. She meant – and this is really good news – that fundraising here and in Jakarta, and in Australia and Britain, looked likely to bring on purchase of a mammogram machine in 2012.

     Breast screening is an essential element in detecting breast cancer early enough to make remedial treatment a viable option. At present most women in Bali who are found to have breast cancer have gone to the doctor only very late in the progress of the disease. Having a mobile mammogram unit will help the Bali International Women’s Association (BIWA), which supports the Bali Care Cancer Foundation set up by doctors at leading hospital Prima Medika, to ensure that more women receive treatment early.

     The Bali walk alone raised Rp200 million, bolstered by similar amounts raised in Britain and Australia and a quilt made by Jakarta quilters was auctioned, raising further funds. One woman in a wheelchair travelled from Jakarta and wheeled her way around the course. That’s dedication.
     Another breast cancer fundraising event, a charity lunch organised by the Rotary Club Bali Seminyak  at Metis in Seminyak on October 28 and attended by nearly 200, raised close to Rp110 million.

On Your Bike

We all owe a debt of gratitude to Nyoman Minta, the Bali Tourism Development Corporation gardener who made monkeys of the presidential security corps in Nusa Dua a couple of weeks ago. Minta pedalled his pushbike right through the middle of the select throng chosen to hear the latest presidential pronouncement on the occasion of some international conference or other. He did so because, as he later told police, he always rode through there.

     Medals are in order. For Minta, we suggest the Medal of Freedom (from thought and everything else). For the commander of the presidential security corps, who said everyone else was to blame, we recommend the Grand Star of the Order of My Friend Did It (with Inventive Excuse clasp), even if he doesn’t also get the JDS (Jangan Datang Senin, known in the English-speaking world as the DCM – Don’t Come Monday).  And clearly the three cordons of security goons through which Minta insouciantly perambulated while they were watching, rapt, as the Indonesian Air Force put on an aerial display, collectively and individually deserve conferment of the Dereliction of Duty Medal with Nincompoop clasp.

     Perhaps the president himself should get a gong. He is reported to have ordered police to treat Minta humanely. The change of policy – a welcome shift from beating every miscreant in sight with batons – is to be commended.

That’s the Spirit

You’ve got to hand it to Tom Hufnagel at JP’s Warungclub in Seminyak ... he gets all the big acts. Star of their Halloween Monday Night Special on October 31 was Amy Winehouse, who they said would dance again for you all. Well, she might have been there in spirit. The non-ethereal sound effects were by Sound Rebel. Revellers who wore a Halloween costume got a free drink. The late Amy would have liked that.

The Diary appears in the fortnightly print edition of the Bali Advertiser and on the newspaper's website at www.baliadvertiser.biz.id

HECTOR'S DIARY The Bali Advertiser, November 2, 2011

Island Interlude

A week in Lombok is not a long time, especially if most of it is spent on Gili Trawangan, aka the Party Island.  It’s always been an eclectic little community so far as expats go, strongly focused on accommodation and recreational diving.

    On a recent trip across the Wallace Line we stayed first in Senggigi, at the usefully central Puri Bunga, just across from the Art Market, where the tariff’s not a killer and waitress Novi, by now an old friend, remains as helpful as ever at breakfast.

    On Trawangan, we stayed at Gili Villas, the Manta Dive-linked operation just up the street from the Gili Deli next to the night market.  They are pleasant little villas and the cleaning, cooking and security staff members are enthusiastic, at least for the most part. And the limit-of-two-users free Wi-Fi was just manageable for a household of three heavy users.

New Experience

Flying into the new Lombok International Airport for the first time was an interesting experience. The tourism-oriented locals up Senggigi way call it Bandara Hutan (Forest Airport) since it is 47 kilometres and at least an hour and fifteen minutes away from where most tourists want to be. They’ll probably get over this angst if the airport begins to pick up additional international services.

    We flew Garuda (we have to keep adding a few unusable frequent flier points to the piggy-bank) and landed at Bandara Internasional Lombok, near Praya in the middle of the island, in the swiftly gathering gloom of post-sunset. By this time, 11 days after it had finally opened, its lighted signage was proclaiming “ANDARA IN-ERNASIONAL LOMBOK” and the “K” was looking as if it wouldn’t be around for long. Still, the runway lights seemed to be in place and working.

    The new highway that is supposed to speed honoured guests to the booming cash points in Senggigi and the boats to the Gilis so they can begin parting with their money to the greater glory of the island’s economy is, after the fashion of things in Indonesia, a cross between half-completed and notional work-in-progress.

    Our taxi driver skilfully negotiated his way through the narrow gap between two large signs clearly warning (in Indonesian) “road closed ahead” before he worked out he was on one of the work-in-progress bits and nearly drove us into the cavernous ditch at the end of this enterprise.

Fine Dining

A great highlight of our Trawangan visit was dinner with the delightful Diane Somerton, who markets The Beach House and the neighbouring Kokomo resort. Kokomo’s restaurant serves very fine fare indeed and the wine, chosen by Somerton, was a real prize.

    We saw her too at The Beach House for two of the Rugby World Cup finals series matches, including the one in which the All Blacks knocked the Wallabies out of their way while charging towards their first cup win in 24 years.

     This was hard for Hector, who’s been wobbly for years; especially since his travelling party on the trip included a Kiwi. Still, never mind; they do say rugby’s only a game.

Rock of Ages

Dream Divers, old friends from our own days in Lombok, took us to Gili Trawangan from Senggigi. The coastal road up to Teluk Nara/Kode and beyond must be Indonesia’s finest highway. It is really very good and some of the tighter bends have actually been engineered properly.

    While we were waiting at Dream Divers’ landside facility for our boat to Trawangan we went to pay our respects at Gerd’s Rock, the memorial stone placed there by Dream Divers staff after the death last year of founder Gerd Bunte.

    One of the workers on hand told us Gerd had chosen the rock himself. It seems that after his death last year they had been unsuccessfully looking for a suitable rock and, empty handed, were driving back to Senggigi, when the fine specimen now residing at Teluk Kode plunged down the hillside directly in front of their vehicle.

Taman Tales

Peter Duncan, Lombok resident, tells us the disputed ownership of Senggigi’s Taman restaurant has now been finally resolved. It was sold in a court ordered auction in mid-October; the buyer was Wiwik Pusparini, who is his wife.

    Taman, once a leading light along Senggigi’s restaurant row and former place of beneficial Duncan management, has been far from gleaming for a long time, after one of those interminable ownership rows that so afflict business in Lombok and elsewhere.  We’ll leave those details alone but it’s good to hear that the Duncan connection has triumphed and that Taman is likely soon to be spruced up and gleaming (and trading) profitably again.   

In the Pink

The Bali Pink Ribbon Walk on October 22 raised sums unspecified at diary deadline time to support breast cancer prevention programmes for local women, helped along by a wide range of generous commercial sponsors. Hector now has a pink T-shirt for his own effort in walking the allegedly five kilometre course around the manicured gardens and streets of Nusa Dua’s star hotels precinct (most of the walkers opted for their own shortened course) and also gained an insight into modern forms of entertainment.

     For some reason, the organisers thought a bunch of cross-dressing trans-gender boys acting the goat (well, the jenny perhaps) and pretending to (a) sing and (b) be Beyonce was just the thing. It’s certainly the nearest Hector has been to a raunchy nightclub performance in quite a while; probably since the days long ago when he might, unwisely perhaps, once or twice have worn a pink shirt.

     October is Breast Cancer Month globally. But the 2012 Bali Pink Ribbon Walk, organised by the Bali International Women’s Association (BIWA), will revert to May when the weather’s less likely to be humid. It’s on Saturday, May 26.

Growing better: The Sole Men collect a welcome donation from Banyan Tree Ungasan General Manager Reinhold Johann at the plush resort’s infant banyan tree.

Great Feat

Robert Epstone, originator of the barefoot Bukit Walk for a Sustainable Future which took place from September 22-25, tells us it raised around US$2,000 for the ROLE Foundation with more money still coming in. The walk promoted support for Homeless children in Indonesia, women’s and children's literacy and vocational skills training and environmental restoration projects in South Bali.

    Epstone, Rotarian Sole Man UK; Rotarian Sole Man French Daniel Chieppa; and Swiss Sole Man Beat Schmid de Gruneck presented to money to Mike O’Leary, ROLE Foundation’s founder; and the president of both charities, Mangku Ariawan, Hindu priest, politician, humanitarian and owner of Bali Island Home, who said: “It is great to have two important organisations combine their efforts and ‘go that extra mile’ to do good together. “

    Epstone tells us the walk presented a wonderful opportunity to share their story as well as hear the stories from people living on the Bukit. “Along our way we made many new friends, meeting with the local Balinese, hotels, owners of businesses, villas and restaurants; and the Uluwatu surf community,” he says. “We also discovered some inspirational 'silent heroes' actively trying to make our planet a better place.”

    Mike O’Leary adds this: “The Bukit peninsula and Badung regency is experiencing huge tourism development with new luxury resorts and world class waves attracting a global surf industry. Expansion is a given with progress but must also be sensitive to culture, social needs and the environment. When the coastline and land is being redeveloped we need to make sure simple communities such as seaweed farmers aren’t marginalised and people, women in particular, are given new opportunities to make a basic living.”

Yum!

A little while ago the Diary dined at The Ayana’s great Dava restaurant, where Jusman So, Singapore culinary sensation, was presenting a six-course degustation menu. We’ll talk about that in the next edition.

Post Script

The Hong Kong Journal, an online effort that over 22 issues has sought to bring important issues into the public domain, is no longer being published.  A statement from editor Robert Keatley tells us the Smith Richardson Foundation, whose generosity brought the Journal into existence six years ago and has been its main funder ever since, is not renewing the grant that made its publication possible and that it has not been possible to find sufficient alternative funding. Although the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace will maintain the Hong Kong Journal’s archives on line for some time, there will be no future issues.

    Issue 22, posted some weeks ago at www.hkjournal.org, includes an analysis by Anthony Cheung, President of the Hong Kong Institute of Education, explaining why so many Hong Kong residents are unhappy with their government and current social trends. It also has a report by Louis Pauly of the University of Toronto that outlines the reasons why he believes the administration needs more aggressive economic policies if Hong Kong is to remain an affluent, global financial centre in the coming years.

    The demise of the Hong Kong Journal is a shame. We need to see free thought from China’s only really free city.


Hector's Diary appears in the fortnightly print edition of the Bali Advertiser and on the newspaper's website www.baliadvertiser.biz