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Visit balivnew.com to look at our villa that is available for rentals. You can send emails to check details, then book on-line. |
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Informing-blog
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Written by Administrator
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Monday, 20 October 2008 |
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Rote (or Roti) IslandRote Island is off the western end of Timor and is the southern most part of Indonesia. The first Google Earth Image shows it in the context of other eastern Indonesian islands, and north-west Australia. The distance from Rote Island the the eastern tip of Timor Leste is about 500 Km, and the distance to Australia is also about 500 Km. The second Google earth image shows the ferry route (about 80 Km) and then the cross island path to Nembrala (about 40 Km). |  Timor between Australia and other Indo islands |  Rote Island off west of Timor | You get ot Rote on a fast boat that covers the 80 Km in 2.5 hours. In January 2006 a boat (similar to this) sank with loss of about 30 lives (from a total of about 160 on the boat). Apparently the seas were heavy, then the motor failed, the boat swung helplessly until side on to the swell, then tipped over and sank. When crossing the Rote Strait between Timor and Rote, the full force of the Indian Ocean swell comes through.
|  Bahari Express - boat to Rote |  Executive Class on Bahari Express | The boat arrives at Ba'a, and you cross to Nembrala by road - about 1.5 hr for the 40 Km. You can rent a car, if available, or else a bemo - both are Rp250,000 but the car can only take 4 while the bemo can take 6 or more. We found a German couple who had secured a bemo but needed more passengers so we joined them. The bemo turned out to be old and sick, and before we had climbed the hill out of Ba'a it got a flat tyre. They changed to the spare which turned out to be in poor condition, so half way across the island we got a second flat. This time another bemo stopped and lent us their very bald spare. On a couple of steep hills, the driver messed up his change to 1st gear so we stopped, and then he could not manage the hill start unless we got out and pushed - then he would go to the crest of the hill and let us in again.
|  Our Bemo - first flat tyre |  Our Bemo - second flat tyre | Nembrala has a beautiful white sand beach, and is protected from the surf by a reef. Surfers go beond the reef, and get good left breaks from about March till October. Being the west end of the island, the sunsets into the ocean - unless there is a cloud bank for it to sink in.
|  Nembrala Beach looking north |  Sunset at Nembrala | There are pigs along the beach, and the use their long snouts to gouge furrows along the sand. Every now and then they dig more - I guess it is crabs that they want. The homestays here run like surf camps and provide 3 meals a day as well as the bed. We stayed at Anugerah which is a bit more expensive than others - but seemed to have better dining facilites.
|  Nembrala - pigmakes a furrow with snout |  Anugerah homestay - dining room |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 22 October 2008 )
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Special Thanks to GoDaddy, PayPal and Google Mail |
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Written by Ron B
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Saturday, 18 October 2008 |
 GoDaddy - our provider | Special Thanks to GoDaddy, PayPal and Google MailOn October 14, we got hacked - our web sites were deleted, domain names were deleted, our Google mailbox hi-jacked, and our PayPal account also hi-jacked. Luckily, as we had come back from Timor earlier than planned, we discoverd the problem within hours. The first step was to recover our domains (particularly baliv.com and balivnew.com) and get email to these domains working again. The GoDaddy 24 hour telephone support was excellent, and once I established my identity, they were quick to descibe what the hacker had done, and guide me through recovery steps. | | The next step was to approach PayPal, now that the email address linked with my PayPal account was working. Again using their phone support, I re-established my control of the account, and then again with their help idenified 5 transactions initiated by the hacker and filed dispute reports (unauthorised transactions) for these. In a couple of days we received refunds for all the disputed transactions. |  PayPal - our credit card service provider |  Gmail - our main email store | While we use email to addresses at baliv.com as our main points of contact, all the messages are forward to a Google mailbox - so this our main archive of everything that has happened. To recover the mailbox, I filled in an on-line form with many details that helped them identify me as the true owner. They then retrieved the mailbox and allowed me to define a new password. This process very rapid. So, we are really impressed by all these service providers. And how did we get hacked? We are not sure of exact details, but it relates to lax management of passwords. I tended to use the same password everywhere so probably registered an identity on a site that was really designed to collect useful passwords. Now we have a much stronger and safer approach to passwords. |
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 18 October 2008 )
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Kupang, Timor - first impressions |
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Written by Ron B
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Friday, 17 October 2008 |
Kupang, Timor - first impressions The plane approached over Semau Island and the western end of Timor. The airport is 15 Km to the east of Kupang. First impression as we drove to Kupang - it is very rocky and arid, and the town of Kupang is spread out. We stayed at the house of our friends which is in Osmok, halfway between Central Kupang and the ports. The house is on a hillside looking across palms to the beach and Kupang Bay. |  Our Friends' house where we stayed |  View of Kupang Bay | We got to enjoy the beach bars where you can easily meet some expats and tourists. This one, Pantai Laut Resto, is a new name located where a well-known Bar (Teddy's) was. Teddy's has moved into a nearby hotel. The guy in the photo on the right is selling locally woven rugs called ikats.
|  Pantai Laut Resto - beach bay |  Selling Ikats in teh bar | | Behind Pantai Laut Resto is an inlet with a rockly wall. Two holes have been cut into this wall, and we were told that the Japanese tunneled these during the 2nd World War (around 1942) as safe parking for their small submarines. The photo on the right shows some fo the local fishing boats nearby - quite different from fishing boats in Bali. |  Submarine parking near Pantai Laut Resto |  Fishing boats near the beach bars | L'avalon is another beach bar a couple of kilometres east, and it offers free internet access - so I kept going back for that reason. The photo on the right shows the beach view from L'avalon, and you can see one of the big speakers out there that is providing the music.
|  L'Avalon Beach Bar |  Beach View from L'Avalon Bar | Kupang is spread out a bit, so you need transport. There are taxis but no meters, so you negotiate often by time - like you figure you want him for 2 hours while you go shopping and grab a meal, then you negotiate a price for that. Alternatively, there are bemos which are highly decorated with window stickers and colorful flashing lights. They also have huge speakers under the passenger seats and can really boom like a disco as they move about.
|  Inside Kupang Bemo |  Bemos on Roti Island | |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 20 October 2008 )
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A Sudden Onset of Severe ... |
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Written by Ron B
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Thursday, 16 October 2008 |
 View from our bedroom in Kupang | A Sudden Onset of Severe ...
We were staying in Kupang, and from our bedroom we could see across Lontar palms to the bay.
Then, one morning I was hit with diarrhea with no warning - none of the usual rumbles and pains. Then next day muscle and joint pains and fever. The joint pains were worst, so that by the 3rd day I felt like an arthritic cripple.
On the fourth day, I got to the Internet and looked up Dengue Fever. The description left no doubt that this was my problem. The good news was that it should all be over in a week - so just 3 days to go.
| On the fourth day, I got to the Internet and looked up Dengue Fever. The description left no doubt that this was my problem. The good news was that it should all be over in a week - so just 3 days to go. And this is how it was - on the 6th day the symptoms were fading. So it was an interesting episode that tended to make our Timor visit slower paced than we had planned - but it still was very enjoyable.
|  Dengue Fever in Wikipedia | |
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 18 October 2008 )
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Wedding for Linda & Prana |
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Written by Ron B
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Sunday, 31 August 2008 |
Wedding for Linda & Prana"Aceh Wedding Party" announced the e-mail from Prana, and went on to give the address in Pamulang Barat. So I thought Pamulang was in Aceh and started looking up travel information for Aceh. But I was on the wrong track - Pamulang is near Jakarta, but the wedding was planned to be in an Acenese style. Below is a Google Earth map and the invitation - click for detail. The map shows Linda Gallery in Pamulang where the wedding was held at the bottom, Jakarta Airport at top left, Amaris Hotel where we stayed in the middle, and Central Jakarta indicated by the cloud of markers north of our hotel. |  Linda Gallery on a Google Earth map |  Linda & Prana Invitation - 1 |  Linda & Prana Invitation - 2 | We had got up before dawn in Makassar (about 4am Jakarta time) to catch an early plane from Makassar to Jakarta. A taxi from the airport got to Pamulang without too much trouble, but then finding the correct street took some trial and error and phone calls. The first photo below below shows Linda Gallery with a canopy erected between the house and the street. This meant that at times the ceremony spilled onto the street interrupting the flow of traffic. Prana led a small procession of family and friends from nearby the Gallery to the front entrance where they were receieved by family and friends of Linda. People in the procession carried gifts including a beautifully bound Koran, some money in a presentation frame, and fruit. |  Linda Gallery with street side canopy |  Preparing for the Procession |  Prana leads the procession |  Gifts include fruit ... |  And a Koran |  and Money ... |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 02 October 2008 )
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