How Indonesia is 500 times better than Canada.

So I’m settled at Dieng (Jalan Dieng No. 2 – or 2 Dieng Street).  Some of the junk outside has been moved, so the front yard is actually a yard again.  Across the street all of the Madurese people selling fruit have been “relocated” by the government to a new spot (not far from here according to my relatives, but I’m not sure if that means a street over or a city away).  All of their shacks have been destroyed and now I can actually see the houses across the street.  It opens up the street a little, which is the way it should be. 

My impression from one day here is that the present government is actually doing a half-decent job.  It’s not like Indonesia is a first world country or anything, but it seems cleaner than it was 3 years ago.  Less plastic bags floating around at least (although the water ways are still disgusting).  There is a general election here in a week (I always seem to be in town for them).  Maybe the present guy will get back in again, which doesn’t seem to be a bad thing.

I went for my first run yesterday at 5:30am, and it was HOT!  I’m used to running in 2C weather.  It’s never gets below 23C here.  I planned to go slow and last an hour.  I only made it to 30 minutes before I got back to Dieng, soaked from head to toe.  Even in the morning it’s 28C and a million percent humidity.  I’m going to have to take it easy for a while until I’m a little more acclimatized to the heat.  Needless to say a Bule (White Guy) running through the tiny streets was noticed by everyone.  It was a good run though, not a lot of traffic yet that early in the morning.  Tomorrow I’ll try it again, maybe going out for 40 minutes.

Tomorrow I’m also on a flight to Bali with Bing Bing (a girl) and Sin Quok (a guy), two of my cousin-in-laws.  Both worked in the States for a while (Bing Bing went to school in Toronto), so they speak English very well.  The plan is one night (or maybe two) at Mimpi Mengaran, one might in a hotel in Ubud (one of Bing Bing’s friends), and one night at Mimpi Jimbaran.  Jimbaran is beside the Four Seasons in Bali, and along Jimbaran beach, which I’m really looking forward to running on.  One small change that has happened is that Mimpi Jimbaran is being renovated (nuked and rebuild from the ground up is more apt), so I won’t be staying at the old hotel anymore.  I’ll be staying at the Tante Luan’s (the owner of the Mimpi resorts – a family friend) daughter’s house, which is just up the hill.  All the better in case of Tsunami I guess.

Besides planning the rest of the trip (it looks like Jakarta is next week and Manado is the week after), I discovered that Canada is about as backward as it can get in terms of its cell phone system.  I specifically bought an unlocked phone (i.e. not tied to a carrier) so I could bring the phone with me to Indonesia and use it.  I didn’t realize how cheap it would be to actually do that though.  When I bought a FIDO SIM card for my phone, it was $40.  Here the exact same SIM card is 40 cents.  Data is 500 times cheaper per kilobyte than from Rogers/Fido in Canada.  I knew Canada was getting screwed for cell phone coverage, but I didn’t know by how much until I got here.

So now I’m using my phone as a 3G modem, getting Internet access that way.  In fact I’ll probably buy a Bluetooth keyboard (my old one broke) and simply use my cell phone for all my writing and email.  It’ll be a lot easier than carrying the notebook with me.

p.s.: I’ve taken a few pictures, but I still have to figure out how to upload them to Blogger.  They will all probably be up after Bali on Tuesday.