Planet Bridgwater

Hazel off to work


Car in Denpasar, Bali


My vso bike in Bali


Bridgwater bottoms


Working? in the garden



“It’s summer, warm and sunny, safe to come home” they had said but I arrive in the uk with cold and cloudy weather – it seems that I missed the summer by two weeks! Still its good to see the family again and they ply me with stacks of food and wine….

It is weird being back in Bridgwater, that other planet Java seemed so real for seven months but now suddenly becomes just a passing dream never to be experienced again. Despite having no work to do it was a strenuous and mind boggling experience so I was looking forward to a quiet, relaxing and slow recovery in my garden. Chance would be a fine thing! Seven months of mail from the taxman, different societies that I belong to and even xmas cards to be sorted out. The lawn needs cutting, part of the garden fence has been blown down and I’ve suddenly developed a stinker of a cold.

Anyway I have got appointments with an optician and my doctor this week I’ve nearly completed my vso reports about my project in Java and today it is warm enough to sit in the garden at last……

into the hills

Bali's central volcanoes


Country Road


New bridge


cloudy sunrise



Bali Thursday

At last a morning without rain or threatening clouds, also my last full day with the bike so instead of packing I plan a route up to the volcanoes and set off. Get lost very quickly but recover route and we’re away. First the part familiar road to Ubud then north up the hills into the interior. The bike performs well and I cruise along fast on good roads and more sedately on the narrow potholed country lanes winding up through the forests. The temperature reduces to that of a good summer’s day and with the changing panoramas, the wind on my body and the vroom vroom of the bike this must be the next best thing to sex! Thanks to my pathetic command of the language I think a garage rips me off on the price of a fill-up but everyone else, schoolchildren making their way to or from school, little old ladies and wizened village elders are all keen to help me find my way and I move from volcano to volcano, none of them active like Merapi but none of them hiding in cloud and just one where a small lava spill had occurred last year.

My, hopefully final, Knalpot (exhaust pipe) burn that I got yesterday has not developed like previous ones, I’m obviously getting quicker in moving away if not actually avoiding trouble. My powerful, smelly and unattractive but highly effective ‘deet’ mosquito repellent ran out as I was leaving the village in Jogyakarta and the replacement cream from a local chemist is not so good so I have to be more careful with the mosquito net and using the air-conditioner to move the air about which they do not like. I’m also using my money up on lavish western meals, Italian last night and I’ve found a likely looking Indian restaurant for tonight. Even with wine its still less than six quid though.

A cleverly crafted text message in Indonesian to forecast the demise of my local telephone number looks good but the waiter at breakfast has great difficulty understanding it so re-writes it (really just changing the word order) and I’m able to post off Indonesian/English versions to my contacts.

An interesting book on Raffles in the hotel library – or it would be if it wasn’t a sycophantic novel with him gallantly bringing peace, harmony, justice and fair trade to these foreign parts, fending off the wily Dutch, French, Portuguese and Germans with their wicked plans. He took control of Java (wisely after some initial ‘problems’ leaving the local sultans in nominal control) and other Islands for Britain, probably naming Maliboro Street in Jogya and introducing the left hand traffic rules.

The trusted bike goes back to vso HQ tomorrow – six months of no accidents must be something of a vso record – unless I manage something on the way to the office in the morning that is! Lily is going staight from the annual conference on holiday and will not be back till June – so much for persuading Pak T.O. to build the kitchens and toilets given that the books closed on the ‘Spark’ funding today. I feel as if for ‘my’ project I might as well have stayed in the uk, T.O. could have had his money and would almost certainly have spent most of it on new houses in the village and vso could have saved the not inconsiderable cost of my visit, training, accommodation and so on but there we are, I have certainly had an enlightening time, lost my paunch, learnt a few words of Indonesian and know a lot more about bamboo construction.

The gods don't like me

A damp morning in central Java


Tue 8 May

Another damp morning, so maybe a good idea to update this blog before going out again. I was up early, earlier than necessary because Bali is in a different time zone to Java, in order to experience the glorious sunrise over the eastern sea. Mandungan villagers had returned with stunning photos of the sunrise from Sanur beach but for me, as with Merapi volcano everything hidden by cloud – maybe the gods don’t like me or want me to come back sometime? All I get are some dumb pics of uninteresting cloud formations and a number of offers for massage services from some admittedly attractive girls but at six o’clock in the morning! Never mind, back to the hotel for a quick swim and breakfast – yoghurt with fruit and cups of hot black Java (or Bali?) coffee. Tito texts a cheerful message from the laundry although what takes a student there at that time in the morning!?

Yesterday I took the opportunity to drive out into the countryside and despite Bali having some street signs soon got lost in the many little lanes, pretty but not much use when you are trying to get somewhere – may be on my next trip to the tropics I will bring a compass since with the sun so high in the sky it is really difficult to gauge which direction you are facing. On second thoughts perhaps a satellite GPS system now that they are the size of a hand phone?

Also went shopping, nothing like leaving it to the last minute for prezzies to force me to fork out some money, In this coastal resort of Sanur the shops, even the kiosks seem expensive and I can’t find anything I really like, even replacement hats for the one I gave to pirate Priyo or the one I left in a restaurant. So a drive into town where I had seen a street of fabric shops and to confirm that the traffic is a bit more cautious and restrained than in Jogya. Found the street and the adjoining colourful flower market (must be to service all the local Hindu festivals). Browsing round I find a myriad of attractive materials and at one third of the “best price, specially for you sir” prices in Sanur so I buy a couple of pretty bags at the same time to add to my collection of toys I got yesterday so only the hats still to do….

Prices here certainly are much higher than in Jogyakarta, a comparable meal costing 10.000 Rph in Jogya costs here 60 or 80 thousand, my laundry – only two shirts and a pair of pants (English pants, not trousers) cost me 12 thousand compared to 3 or 4 I would guess in Jogya. The happy little prostitutes in the nearby bar charge (so I am told), four times what one would pay in Jogya. I do get the impression that the area is still undergoing a recovery from the Bali bombings setback with a number of new shops being built and it seems more restaurants open and more foreign tourists than when I was here in October. Locals dispute this but perhaps hotel staff and shopkeepers are like farmers and can never be satisfied?

I had planned to get out on the bike again this morning but the showers seem to be continuing so I will make my way to the local museum of a French artist and check out the internet prices in the shopping mall, one establishment across the road charges 36.000 Rph for an hour, its 3.600 in dear old Jogya!

A Millionaire’s life

Bamboo 'retreat' hut Ushludin



Final ceremony Pat and new householders in village


4 May

Being in Bali I am still in Indonesia and therefore still a millionaire and here we are in a different world to Java though, being woken not by the wailing from the mosque at 4.30 but by the uncaged birds flying in the sky with the kites and the sound of distant cockerels. In my air-conditioned room with hot water for the shower a four poster double bed (no one to share it with but even millionaires can’t have everything), with a tailored mosquito net and a comfortable mattress after months with a poor substitute. Outside, the pool surrounded by exotic flowering trees and shrubs invites use at any time of day. Morning breakfast with toast and coffee and life seems quite attractive.

At the vso headquarters my programme leader, Lily says she will recover the money already recklessly paid to Pak T.O. for the planned toilets and kitchens that have never been built for my houses. I again offer to eat my hat if she is successful and we leave it at that although she misses my blue hat which, though not eaten has found a new home with pirate Priyo because it suits him so well.

A meeting with the disabled centre of Senang Hati goes well, I am dressed in my executive gear and straw hat so everyone accepts that I am indeed an expert and can explain the complexities of planning and building a new complex. Good to so be in there again, see the friends I made last time and enjoy the more temperate climate of the wooded hills

An evening meal shared with Athena who is passing through on her way to the vso annual conference, and she briefs me on how Thomas and Alice are getting to grips with their laundry’s 24 hour service claim and promises to keep an eye on them. She asks me for my kedgeree recipe which is flattering especially from such a good cook as her!

It seems that there is a suitably beefy motorbike at the vso office which I will be able to borrow for a week while most of the staff are away at the conference and I have daughter Hazel’s guide to the island so I am looking forward to a pleasant time before my flight back to the real world next week.

At the hotel, as in Senang Hati it seems that one lady’s full time job is to prepare food for the gods and to serve it at the boundaries of the property. Personally I reckon that it gets eaten by the birds and the hoards of feral dogs but I’m just a cynical old man. Those dogs though are a downside to Bali life, nobody likes them but since they are still humans who have been re-incarnated as dogs because of their previous wickedness you can’t kill them or run them over, just ignore them. If you haven’t been quite so wicked in this life then you may only come back a a cripple to be shamefully hidden away – unless you can get to Senang Hati that is.