The end of the first week

Well, formal classes have not started but I've had plenty of short conversations with people wanting to gain a bit of conversational practice.  Many of these are staff who would not get an opportunity to participate in formal activities.  That's all good and enjoyable.

Yesterday (Thursday 5th Aug) after work Jaya, the Secretary of the Dhyana Pura Foundation, took me to a small spa centre he and his wife have established in the Kerobokan.  Many westerners have come there to establish villas for either investment or to settle.  Tourist villas are also springing up as it is not far from the beach strip, but land is much less expensive.  It is very different from Dalung - cafes and coffee shops; art and craft shops (even one selling overpainted digeridoos; souvenir and clothing shops; signage in English, and so on.  Kerobokan is probably better known in Australia for the grim looking prison, its white walls topped by barbed wire.  Schapelle Corby and the Bali 9 are held there. 

Jaya collected his wife from her work at the Oberoi hotel - a resort with  very swish grounds - and we then enjoyed a delicious local meal at a cafe called "Calamary" before going to his house to meet his 3 children and chat over coffee on his front porch.  It was real Balinese coffee and was a welcome delight after the few cups of instant coffee I've had in my room.  I haven't seen a coffee house on the stretch of main road I frequent in Dalung.

Today I went to the printshop to have photographs taken, and copies made of my visa certificate.  The College must lodge copies as part of the paperwork needed to register me as a "guest worker" and to extend my visa when the 60 days granted me in Australia run out.  The shop was very close to the tailors where I lodged trousers to have the cuffs taken up, so that saved me quite a walk on what has been a hot and humid day.

A couple of hundred meters down the road from the college is a building housing the Bali campus of the Dutch Stenden University. On Wednesday I stopped for a close look at the sculptured wall decorations. Three musicians playing different traditional instruments sit atop the fence posts, and beneath the portico, beside the entrance, is a sculptured panel depicting traditional Balinese activities.  Here is the musician playing the drum - the other two play the cymbals and the gong.  You can see them and another section of the wall decoration in my online galleries available on this Blog site. These are some of the small attractions around the campus, even if Dalung doesn't appear to have much to attract the tourist.

"Ploughing the field" - a small section of an extensive
 decorative wall sculpture at Stenden University

The Balinese drummer is one of several musicians
who decorate the fence posts at Stenden Uni.  The
more classical figure statue looking over his
shoulder looks strangely out of of place.

One of my favourite Fawlty Towers epidodes is "The Wedding Guests". Tomorrow I'll be able to say "we've been to a wedding" with a smile on my face, as I will have done just that. Christine, the delightful and ever-helpful Secretary of the College obtained an invitation for the wedding of her best friend. It will be held in West Bali, about 3 hours away, so it will be a day with lots of driving. I'll report on that event in my next bulletin.

Paul in Bali