It has been 31 days since we moved from Jimbaran in the south, to Ubud in the centre of Bali.

Will you believe it if I said that we are still living out of boxes?

Well, we have basic furnishing in the house, such as tables to dine and work at; chairs to sit on; bed frame and mattress to sleep on; small wardrobe; refrigerator; water dispensor; you get the idea.

However, we lack other things like bookshelves, shelves, bigger wardrobe, more kitchen cabinets/storage space.

Additionally, many things about the house are still incomplete at the time that we moved in on February 6. For example, the roof over the maid’s room leaks badly whenever there is a heavy downpour; locks on the bathroom doors have still not been changed; requests for installing foundation piping from the front of the house to the kitchen so that we can install a hood for cooking have been ignored, thus we have been unable to cook at home, resulting in cash outflow for buying home or eating out twice a day. And a list of many other small things.

Considering that minor renovation and repair works – such as repainting the house and reinstalling the bathroom – began in late June last year, and were still not completed when we moved in, we are wondering what the workmen have been doing at the house for the past seven months. The records they passed to us indicate that they work an average of 20 days each month, but every time except once when we visited the house, there were no workmen present.

A month before moving in, we asked the landlord whether there was Internet connection available for the house. He said he would visit the Ubud Telkom office to find out.

A week after we moved in, the S.O. and the landlord went to enquire about the Internet connection. A couple of days later, the technicians came to test if the wires were good for receiving Internet. They came, spent 10-minutes in the house, then left saying they would call us again as they were unsuccessful in carrying out the tests.

One week passes, there are no phone calls. So the S.O. and I decide to go to the Telkom office again to find out what is going on.

The lady at the desk has to call the technicians who came to our house to find out what was the status. Turns out that some equipment in the area had broken down, and they did not know how long it will take before it can be repaired.

Now, this equipment is essential in delivering Internet to the homes in our area. That basically means that Internet will not arrive at our homes for any time between two weeks to a few months.

So Internet options include trying to access Blueline Hotspot from home, walk for half hour to an Internet provider shop, or camp out at Tutmak. We are often doing the latter, because a daily half-hour trek seems too much in the hot sun or pouring rain. As for the former, I sometimes have to wait for half an hour for the login page to load, only to have the connection drop while I am signing in.

This essentially explains why this blog has been dormant for the past month. It is not that I have nothing to write about regarding Bali – there are tons of information to share, especiall now that we have moved to Ubud.

I guess the information will have to wait, until we have the luxury of affordable and stable Internet connection in the home. In the meantime, I will post here when I can afford to (i.e. not bogged down with the demands of work!).

* I hit the ‘Publish Post’ button, then realised that the post title was mis-spelled. I have left it as it is, to show how really ‘out of sorts’ I am!