For those who have not travelled long distances on a motorbike without stopping, my take on that is to not even begin thinking about it.

For four days in a row, we travelled on the bike to and from Ubud, for almost an hour each way: last Friday was mainly for some overdue waxing, followed by a manicure and pedicure; on Saturday, it was for a home-cooked dinner with seven other people; on Sunday, it was to catch up with a Swiss girl – whom the S.O. met two years ago when she first visited Bali – and her German boyfriend over dinner and coffee; on Monday, it was to attend the birthday dinner of another friend of ours.

All that riding on the motorbike obviously did not mean good news for our poor butt cheeks. By the second night, they were screaming: “Give us a break! We are sore and cannot do this anymore!”

Of course, I did not heed them: I even spent 24 minutes on the bicycle in the gym on Monday. This meant that I burned out, and needed up until Thursday to recover. On Friday, we had to go out on the bike again, but the furthest we went was 25 minutes away, to Sanur.

So the butt cheeks are fine and dandy today, thank you!

Now that I have got this little incident out in public, I can go back to more stories about Bali. Stay tuned!

About a month before my arrival in Bali, the S.O. became acquinted with the Italian-speaking Balinese ‘manageress’ working at an Italian restuarant that he visited regularly. This 30-year-old lady had moved to Italy more than 10 years ago after marrying an Italian, but had recently returned to the island after they divorced.

Having spent most of her young adult life in a country that has more rules and is considered ‘more advanced’ than Indonesia, she is (in our opinion) more Italian than Balinese in characteristics and nature: she is more used to Italian standards, and the Italian way of life.

This explains her reaction on hearing that we have a local maid working for us: “Why would a Balinese want to be a maid in Bali?”

What she does not understand is that she was one of the very few lucky Balinese: she was given an opportunity to experience life outside of Bali, and the chance to have an education.

In Bali, it is not compulsary to have an education, and when there are no subsidies for school fees or books, most families would choose not to send their children to school. In fact, most would put their children to work for money the moment they are strong and capable to do so, at the estimate age of eight to 10 years old.

Without the ability to read and write, there is very little opportunity open to these kids when they grow in to young adults. The types of work that are open to them would be menial jobs requiring physical energy, or the use of a skill with the hands.

In fact, for most of the uneducated locals, being able to find work as a gardener (for the males) or as a maid (more for the females) is a good job because they are getting paid for doing something that is considered a daily task.

Most times, when a female is hired as a maid, she does not have to worry about a place to live, for she has her own room on the property. She also does not have to worry about food, because she cooks an extra share for herself when she cooks for the household. The best part of the deal is that she gets paid for keeping the house in order.

Our 19-year-old maid can speak basic English, and is able to read and write, having received the equivalent of a high school education. The bright girl will probably do well if she had the chance to attend university. But her family probably felt that it was time for her to earn her own keep, and besides, it is not cheap to send her for undergraduate studies – remember, education is not subsidised here.

However, the S.O. has met maids who do not know how to read and write at all. Further, they have shown no interest in learning how to read and write, for they do not understand how these simple skills can help ease their current situation. To them, it is more important to earn money to support themselves and their family, than to waste time on learning how to recognise and pronounce some alphabets strung together. When we think about these illiterate maids, we see them spending their entire life in aimless and mundane servitude.

Comparing the situation here with Singapore, I realise that my homeland would not be where it is today if there was no law making basic education compulsary for all Singaporean children. With just the ability to read and write, the island’s citizens are able to aid its economic growth – with the help of natural products such as oil, timber, tin, gold etc. – and open more doors to the world.

So the next time someone in Singapore grips about having to do his or her homework, why not tell them what they could end up doing for the rest of their lives if they do not get at least a basic education?

Further to our previous ‘adventure’ at Dunkin Donuts, the S.O. visited another outlet in Denpasar on August 30. He bought a few donuts and they gave him a receipt for the purchase because, according to him, the outlet manager present was the one who gave him the receipt.

So there is some honesty among the staff, we thought.

Yet when we stepped into the same Denpasar branch last Thursday, instinct (or maybe it was the presence of that same insulting sign, but this time only in Bahasa Indonesia and none in English) made me say to the S.O. before ordering: “Make sure you ask for a receipt for the purchase.”

He replied, “If they don’t give me a receipt, I am not paying.”

True enough, as the male staff put together our order of two Triple Choclate donuts, one hot chocolate and one hot tea, his female co-worker started punching numbers on a calculator instead of on the cash register – the exact same thing that happened at the Sanur branch on our previous visit.

At this point, the S.O. whispers to me, “I’m going to tell them that I am not paying because they didn’t give me a receipt.”

A good idea! So I walked away first to find a table. A minute later, the S.O. arrives at the table and places down the tray with our order, then walks back to the counter and tells them exactly what he said to me. He later told me that they immediately started to key the purchase into the cash register but he told them it was too late, walked back to our table and sat down.

Surprisingly, the staff did not make any protest or come running after him and demand that he pays. We slowly ate our donuts and drank our bevarage. I think we took at least 20 minutes to savour or little snack.

Yet in that entire time, not a single staff or even a manager walked to our table and get us to settle our bill. But they did print a receipt for the purchase made by an Indonesian Chinese lady, for herself and her two daughters.

Thus with this incident, we have come to some decisions:
- the moment we see the purchases being added on a calculator, we will take the tray and walk to a table without bothering to pay;
- the lose of about S$5 (the cost of our snack), from one out of millions of international outlets, in a month means nothing to a billion-revenue American corporation;
- if the sign is meant to make unwary non-Bahasa Indonesia speaking customers look stupid, we hope to make a change to that perception;
- the employees still get their monthly salary, even if they lose that little pocket money;
- this was ‘payback’ for the last meal, where we were not given a receipt but still paid for the purchase.

So if you are a visitor to Bali and decide to make a purchase at Dunkin Donuts, you know what to look out for, and most importantly, what to do!

One of the questions that friends ask me is: “So what do you do in Bali?”

This is a difficult question to answer because each day seems to be like a holiday, yet there is work done in between as well.

For starters, I am working on getting my freelance work website up. This means getting the content and pictures into formats that are suitable for uploading online. Then, we try and squeeze in time at the gym, at least three times a week.

In between that the S.O. meets clients or works with his employees; we travel to Ubud or Seminyak to meet friends who are visiting or celebrate a birthday or two; we head to different supermarkets (Nirmala, Yudistira, Makro), stores (ACE Hardware, the hardware store next to Nirmala in Jimbaran) and markets to purchase different items for use in the house; attempting to learn some Bahasa Indonesia and Italianl; servicing the bike, and making payment for our monthly water, electricity and telephone bills.

But our favourite part is meeting friends who are visiting Bali for vacation or work.

The first was DJ Small, who played a gig at Papparazzi Lounge with French producer Hanna Hais. I totally enjoyed the night for the great house music that Small spun.

Last Sunday Sept 10, we had farewell lunch to a Polish couple who was in Bali and Asia for the first time. We welcomed Patrycja (same as ‘Patricia’) and Grzegorz (say ‘zher-gorz’) when they landed at Ngurah Rai airport, had lunch with them at our abode the next day, then did not see them until their last day. They spent the 14 days in between the arriving and departing days doing tons of things, like walking around, trekking a mountain, and taking about 3,500 pictures.

On Thursday Sept 15, we met my girlfriend Tanny and her fiance Gavin for lunch. It has been more than a year since I met Tanny my birthday celebration last July. As for Gavin, I last met him when the two of them moved in to their place at Tanjong Rhu, almost three years ago. So it was great to just catch up over lunch and hear about their plans for their November wedding (Tanny is a Chinese-Malaysian Singaporean PR and Gavin is Australian, but they have decided to do only one ceremony in Singapore).

This coming week, we will be meeting Jenny, a Swiss lady whom the S.O. met when she last came to Bali two years ago. She is here for a vacation with her boyfriend, and it seems like a good time for us and some other Bali residents to meet up with the duo.

I look forward to these meetings because we always end up trading stories about living in different countries and the various ways that we deal with the same situations in different places. Very educational and insightful, if you ask me.

But more so, I enjoy these meetings for the simple fact that they are a natural progression of my life. As I shared with Tanny over lunch on Thursday, I would rather be having lunch with friends than waking at noon feeling dehydrated and exhausted from a late night out at the clubs. I guess when you approach 30 years old, you do not want to drift about aimlessly from one long night to another, every weekend of the year.

Besides, as you get older, you realise that many of your single friends are no longer single! They are either settling into long term committed relationships or tying the knot. When this happens, it is always for two or three couples to meet over a meal or coffee, than for a single person to meet with a couple.

Well, a long post can be made out of the above paragraph. But I shall leave it for another time, and another blog.

For now, I am sending out a call to all my friends in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, London, the Caribbean and Europe: come and visit me if you can; I would love to catch up with you and show you this lovely island.

Our Balinese landlord came to the house today with his wife and three kids. Our house was their last stop on a day where they performed some Hindu ceremonies at the main temple, the temple in the village, and then at our house.

Both the S.O. and I do not object to these ceremonies; in fact, we welcome them and appreciate the significance behind them. In fact, we feel blessed that our landlord is the priest in his village.

The blessing at our house was necessary, especially after the facelift had been completed. So ibu (the landlord’s wife) together with our maid and another lady, all dressed in traditional sarong and kebaya top, performed the ceremony by blessing the house temple at the northeast corner of the compound. This was followed by placing offerings at the base of the steps leading to the house temple; our motorbike; taps or water outlets in the garden,; the kitchen stove; the maid’s newly renovated room; the gateway; the two pillars at the side of the gate, and the main door to our house.

After the ceremony, our landlord introduced us to our immediate neighbours, who both turn out to be very close to bapak; “Just like brothers,” says bapak.

The neighbour on our right – when we are facing our gate from the outside – speaks really good English. Turns out that he teaches at the same school. It seems that he helped bapak to plant certain trees and to maintain other plants as well. He also pointed out the uses of some other plants and trees that we had in the garden, and assured us that if we needed help, we can approach him.

The neighbour even explained to us that bapak is a priest because the responsibilty was passed on to him by his father on his demise. This means that both bapak and ibu cannot eat beef.

After that, we met the other neighbour on the right, who also teaches at the same school as bapak, speaks good English and also learnt Italian 15 years ago from a Swiss.

Overall, we feel blessed that things are turning out fine with the house, the maid, our landlord, and the neighbours.

You see, in some ways, Bali works quite similarly to Singapore, where good relations with people can mean the difference between preventing a burglary or an absolute wipe out of your property.

We took over the house from the S.O.’s business partner, A, who had lived here for nine years. There was a good relationship between A and bapak, and bapak seems to take the fact that A is in a business with the S.O. means that the latter is okay. So, our relationship with bapak started on a good note.

Then we have to thank bapak for introducing us to his ‘brothers’. His simple gesture speaks volumes: “Please take care of my tenants because I trust them while they are renting my house.” We are sure the neighbours also appreciate knowing that we are not some freaks occupying the house next to theirs.

The afternoon thus flew by quickly, but I am not fretting at the time lost, like I used to when I was in Singapore. Because life is meant to be spent making friends and building good relations so that you have a family away from home.