My lovely Samsung phone that I got so fond of has gone to that great mobile phone graveyard.

Last year I dropped it and the display died. It came back on again after i turned it off and back on again but then, just before Christmas it got dropped again and again the display died. Unfortunately this time it didn’t come back on.

While it was still working fine I really need to have a working phone so I went back to my Nokia which I really don’t like that much.

Ten days later the phone started working again and I was happy but it only worked for maybe another ten days. I woke up one morning and the display in the LCD screen on the front was broken up and when I opened the phone it died again.

So I decided that it was time for something new

I wanted to get a PDA phone because I really do need to have something to organise myself properly and so I got a new i-mate K-Jam.

So far so good. My new bluetooth headset connected straight away and the wireless connectivity found my LAN straight away so I can access the internet on my phone via the LAN anywhere in the house.

Despite being rather busy, I started work on a new project for my LAN.

My housemate wants to get a new laptop computer and was talking about maybe being able to access the network in her room so I decided that, rather than running 40 metres of cat6 cable across the house (ouch, expensive) I would go WiFi

It’s something that I have put off for a while because I simply didn’t need it.

Well, I went to get some kind of device that I could attach to my existing network but the router that was sold to me just didn’t want to talk to my other router.

The problem was this. There were 4 LAN ports and 1 WAN port on the new router and in theory they should be the same but in practice the deliberate breaking up of the local and wide area networks created problems for my existing equipment.

I tried plugging my router into the new one via the WAN port but the new router accepts that the WAN port is going to a modem and not another router. Result, the local network is unavailable.
I then tried plugging the router into one of the LAN ports but again, because the new router only accepts that internet access will come from the WAN port there was no success. In this case the local network was available but no internet.

I went back to the shop where I pretty much confused the staff member who was trying to deal with it. Thankfully another person there realised what I was talking about and came up with a simple solution. Replace my existing router with a new one.

That was fine by me because the new router was still in the price range that I wanted to spend.

I got home, configured the router and the network is running perfectly. I even managed to do away with my network switch as I put my notebook and my housemates desktop machine onto wireless.

I am beginning to feel like an actual web designer.

It has been my goal to suppliment my income with the web work for quite a while and I have had moderate success but the last couple of months I have actually felt like my dream is taking focus.

The reason that I have not posted in the last ten days is that I have simply been too busy.

Most of my effort has been on a new website for Ready-Ed, A local company with quite a large web presence already.

This has been a shopping cart system and so I went back to the OSCommerce system that I have used before. The client has done most of the work on the database but I have spent a lot of time on configuring it.

I also put two other sites online this month.

True North Furniture has been a long time in the making. The client aproached me about 18 months ago with an aim to have a site online by November 2004 but they were in the process of setting up their business and put that plan on the back burner.

While I have not minded them taking their time to get the information together it has made development seem rather disjointed and the final site is a little different to what we first envisaged.

The other site is North West Tagalong Tours, an owner operated tourism based company. I am very happy with the outcome of this site which was developed over a few hours on afternoon. Something quick and simple but very effective.

It is good that my postal delivery work is quiet at this time of year giving me the time to work on these sites.

Regarding my previous post..

My housemate read it and called me a dumbass!

hmmm, fair call.

For the last five years I have been delivering the mail to a small government office located in a part of Whiteman Park that is not accessible via the usual entry entry but from a different driveway off Beechboro Road.

Because this section of road is quite busy and a 90km/h zone I often have to turn quite quickly into the driveway to avoid colliding with the traffic coming the other way. Something that is very safe because, as this area is natural bushland, I can clearly see up the driveway and know if there is other traffic on it.

This morning there was a line of traffic heading towards me on the other side of the road but they were not yet close enough to prevent me turning into the park so I looked up the driveway and knew that there was nothing coming down it, so I dropped back to about 50km/k and turned into it…

Only to find that the gate had been closed!

With the brake pulsing from the ABS and the distance getting rapidly closer I knew that there was no way that I was going to stop in time, so I resigned myself to the fact that I was going through.

Actually it was not a problem because the gate doesn’t actually lock and was just pulled closed and as I have a roo bar on the front of the car I was not worried about the impact on the vehicle.

It seems like a really dumb thing to do but that gate is never closed. There are other gates further down the driveway that are reguarly closed but this one is usually left open.
In fact, until this morning I didn’t even realise that there was a gate there.

No gates were damaged in the making of this story

A little over a week later and terrorists bombed restaurants around some tourist areas saddened me beyond belief but has not shaken my love of that country. I fully intend to go back there one day.

Two months after the bomb and the airline that I travelled on went into liquidation due to the downturn in the tourist trade and again I felt saddened that such beautiful and trusting people are made to suffer in this way by some more radical elements from Java.

22 September

After breakfast I went for a swim before cleaning up my room. I wanted to get a packing plan together for the journey home and I realised that there was no way I was going to get everything into my backpack so I decided to get a new bag while I was out at the markets.

While I was still in my room I had an SMS from my ex girlfriend Indri, an Indonesian girl that I met in Perth, fell madly in love with and who eventually broke my heart.

Indri actually lives in Lombok and I assumed that she was there but it turned out she was in Bali as well so we decided to catch up before I left to go back home.

Around 10am Juliana arrived to take me to the bank and join me at the markets. I ended up doing the banking first and I guess it’s good to get that over and done with. After the bank we went to the markets near to my hotel where everything is more expensive than at the art market we went to the day before. Ahh tourist traps!

Not to matter though, I still got some nice things to take home with me including some Christmas gifts for the kids.

Probably my best buy was the oakley sunglasses that I got for the kids. Being expensive designer glasses that retail over $100 the starting price of rp 250.000 would seem reasonable to an unseasoned tourist at a little over $30 a pair, but that was not what I wanted.
I really didn’t care one way or the other if they were Oakleys or not, I just wanted some cheap glasses for the kids and I can get those a lot cheaper in Australia.

Because of the starting price I really didn’t expect the trader to come to the party on what I wanted to pay for them but in the end a deal was struck at rp 70.000 for both which worked out to be just under $5.

Juliana left me to my own devices after that so I gave Indri a call and suggested lunch. She agreed and after I had packed all my gear and checked out of the hotel, I went down to the main street and found a place to eat.

I then phoned Indri back and told her where it was and she said that she knew the place so I had a non alcoholic fruit cocktail and waited.

And waited..

And waited!

The time she said she would arrive came and went and no sign of her so I tried to call her but only got her voicemail.

For the next half an hour I kept trying but in the end decided to order my lunch. A couple of days later she told me on MSN that her battery had died on the phone and she didn’t know where I was.. Hmmm! Typical Indri!
I was upset with her for a little while, but she said she was sorry for not making it and naturally I forgave her.

With my luggage sitting at the reception of the hotel and nothing much else for me to do I decided to walk around for a while and look at the shops. In hindsight I wish I had cashed some more travellers cheques at this point.

After my walk I went back to the hotel and rested on the lounge in the foyer before taking a bemo to the airport where I met up with Julianna and Evi again for one last time.

Once I had checked my luggage and paid my departure taxes I had left myself with only rp 10.000 which should have been enough to buy a couple of drinks in the cafes just outside the terminals but as I soon discovered it was insufficiant to buy any drink inside the terminal.. And of course, no one accepted travellers cheques there!

My final views of Indonesia were looking out the window of the aircraft at the Bali sunset over the water, local children on the beach waving to the plane and I have to confess that I had a tear or two in my eye. I really was not ready to leave.

The journey home was uneventful and I was happy to see my parents again but I really miss my friends there. The sense of family is incredible. Most of my close Indonesian friends adopt me into their families, calling me uncle or brother or father and it’s not just empty words but true feelings.

21 September

I woke up at a leisurely time, had a shower and strolled to the restaurant for breakfast. After breakfast I waited for Juliana to arrive as she was going to take me to the markets. She picked me up a little after 10.30 and we headed off to Denpasar.

Our first port of call was the house that she shares with Evi and a few other girls. There we waited for Evi to take her break from work and then we all had lunch together. It was good! Traditional Indonesian food.. Nasi, Ayam Goreng, Kangkung, tempai and tahu. There was also a really nice fish dish, but the name escapes me now.

Makan Siang – Lunch Indonesian style. Sitting on the floor eating with our fingers.

We then went on to the market where I had to start bargaining, something that I am not so good at. I know on my last trip to Bali Amanda did most of the negotiations.. She was very good at it too. Thankfully I had another expert to help me… A local!

I got some clothes for the kids and some decorative items for the house. I also got some shorts for me to wear tomorrow. Although I had my laundry done on Saturday at the hotel in Malang, I am rapidly running out of clean clothes.

After the market we went to a museum in Denpasar which depicts the history of Bali. A history that is full of battles after the invasion of the Dutch who came to the Indonesian Archepelego to plunder the riches of the region. The Dutch were replaced by the Japanese in the Second World War and then for a year following the Independence of Indonesia in 1945 the Dutch attempted to regain the Island.

Myself in front of the museum

The Indonesian flag over the gateway to the museum

Me on the stairs by the entry gateway

A fountain inside the museum

Hindu statue

Observation deck
The day was starting to get late so we returned back to the house where we waited for Evi to return from work.

Evi and I walked to the nearby shop to get a drink. The children of the house were serving and they were all fascinated to have a westerner in their shop. Where my friends live is outside the tourist area and the road is too narrow for a car to get down. It’s definately a “locals” area.

The eldest child was asked if she was learning English by Evi and she said that she was so Evi suggested that she practice with me. The child must have been about 6 or 7 and was too embarrassed to try.
“Jangen malu”, I said to her, which means “Don’t be shy” but she was not going to try.

We then returned back to Legian and to my hotel where I had a quick shower before we all headed out to find somewhere for dinner.

It is fucking hard to find a place that sells Indonesian food in Legian. Plenty of western style foods, or eastern foods that have been marketed to westerners. Also plenty of Japanese restaurants, but I wanted something more traditional. We found something and I ended up having a balinese style fish dinner. It was very nice.

After dinner we returned to my hotel were we sat and discussed what we would do tomorrow. I need to work around the checkout of this hotel as well as clean up and have a shower. The plans are to do some shopping then return here to finish packing. The hotel said I could leave my luggage at the reception after checkout which is good because I don’t want to be carrying all my gear around Bali for an extra 2 hour. I will check out about 1pm and then head to the airport at 3

I want to use those two hours to go to the bank and return the million rp that I borrowed from my friend in Jakarta.