Have you ever bought someone a house?

 

Neither have we but I bet we can make a difference for Boni, Titi & Ho, the three gifted, charismatic street musicians in this feature-length documentary called JALANAN which is a drama/comedy/romance/musical all rolled into one. Although they're living on the streets of Jakarta, struggling to hack out a basic living in the margins of society, they don't act like victims or grow bitter but retain their cheeky personalities, their hopeful spirit and their good hearts. They laugh more than most wealthy people I know. They celebrate life. They are an inspiration to us all!

The producer of the movie tried to think how he could improve their lives through this film. To be sure, the awareness that it generates will benefit – at least in a small way – their immediate community, and perhaps even marginalized people in other places too. A film doesn’t fix lives, but it can bring acknowledgement, which for many of these people is really all they ask.

But he still wanted to find a way of leaving them with a better life after the film than they had before it. While they will always be responsible for their fate and need to continue working hard and acting responsibly, he wanted to do his part in helping them move forward in life.

Assisting them financially seems logical, but he had learned through years of experimentation that handing them money – as in cash – never works. No matter how much you give, it’s gone two weeks later. And it’s not even their fault: as soon as they come into any sort of money, they're under intense pressure from family members, friends and neighbors to help them out. Indeed, in Indonesian culture it would be unthinkable not to.

So any money he gives them inevitably ends up helping a cousin make payments on his motorbike, a neighbor fix her roof, or a sibling buy new clothing. None of this is bad, of course, but it meant that just days after a modest financial windfall, those buskers were no better off than they were before. He found this frustrating and wanted to find some form of assistance that would be for them, and wouldn’t just disappear.

So he decided to try to buy them each a house. Something that will be theirs to keep. A place they can live or rent out or raise kids in. It won’t be large or fancy or even in a good neighborhood, because he won’t realistically be able to raise that kind of money. But Boni, Titi & Ho are humble individuals accustomed to living simply (Boni lived in a sewage tunnel for 10 years) so just owning a home, no matter how modest, will be a dream come true.

A house with a legitimate land certificate is also a much harder thing to take away from them. The certificates will be deposited with a third party so that the buskers cannot be pushed into pawning off their property no matter how intense the pressure may be from those around them. With lives that are constantly in flux, their houses should be the one non-negotiable asset that stays with them forever.

A simple one-bedroom house in a low-income neighborhood in Jakarta will cost at least $15,000 and so the overall fundraising target will be $50,000. If a thousand people each put up $50, Boni, Titi and Ho's lives will be turned around for ever!

We at "Riverbend" Cottage want to be part of this transformation and decided that for every booking we receive from now on, we will donate $50 in our guests' names to Boni, Titi and Ho's Housing Fund.

So next time somebody books themselves a holiday at "Riverbend" Cottage, they won't just have a wonderful time but also leave feeling proud and warm and fuzzy inside for having made a difference to three young people's lives. And since the donation is in their name, they will also receive a copy of the movie JALANAN when it is released on DVD.

 

Donated so far: US$50 on behalf of Michelle & James Thompson US$50 on behalf of Elaine & Mike Maffei US$50 on YOUR behalf?

 

 

P.S. Of course, they don't have to stay at "Riverbend" Cottage to make a donation. They can also directly DONATE HERE. And if they have been touched by Boni, Titi and Ho's story, we hope they will tell their friends!

The Edge of Bali

 

Three people travel to Bali for very different reasons. All three are on the edge, unsure of whether they should stay in Bali any longer, but are increasingly drawn into the heart of this complex and alluring island. One of the three travellers in the story states with contempt:

"The hotel’s farthest fence had a gate that led to the beach, and there, too, its billboard reminded you that inside it was the way you want Bali to be. And eat your heart out everyone else, because Bali isn’t the way you want it to be. Bali has dirt and poverty and armies of hustlers trying to make a dollar, and if you can’t get behind a big, wealthy wall you can’t miss it."

I have often wondered what Bali was like before it became fouled by tourism. Before plastic accumulated in refuse dumps outside of each family compound. Before, when the tropical air wasn’t filled with billowing, yellow smoke as families burned their garbage alongside the road every night.

The Edge of Bali is a classic example of a book that should never have gone out of print.

The Germans are laughing in my bloody pool bar so I won't be there this year ...

 

... but I try again next year!

Roaming in the gloaming

Roaming is the word used to describe using your mobile phone on another network for a short period, while still being billed by your existing provider. Your mobile phone number remains the same while roaming. When you are roaming on another network the temporary mobile phone company will bill your usual mobile phone company for calls you make while roaming on their network. (Note: It is important to note that even calls you receive while roaming when you are overseas may be charged to you and not to the caller.)

Here's my advice: DON'T ROAM! Using your Australian mobile phone in Indonesia and switching to roaming can be prohibitively expensive. I have heard of instances where a tourist's roaming bill amounted to more than all his airfares and hotel expenses combined!

What to do?

1) As soon as you arrive in Bali (or wherever), remove your Australian SIM card from your mobile phone. (Keep it in a safe place as you will want to re-insert it as soon you have arrived back in Australia.)

2) Buy a prepaid Indonesian phone card. They come in various denominations and start from as low as Rp.6000 (about 60 cents) and you can always top up later on. The "3" card has the most extensive coverage in Bali. Other providers may offer better coverage in other parts of Indonesia. The "3" card is sold in countless shops all over the island.

3) Insert the new phone card in your mobile phone. Now call your friends and tell them your new mobile number which is written on the wrapper of the card. All incoming calls while in Indonesia are FREE, regardless of where they originate. You pay the local rate for local calls and a very low rate for calls to Australia. Unlike home, your Indonesian SIM card is prepaid so there is no need for a contract. On completion of each call, the provider sends you an SMS which tells you how much credit you have left. You can top up your credit by paying an additional amount of money at any one of the many shops selling the "3" card.

Please note: the shopkeeper who sells you the card will probably tell you but just in case he doesn't, here's how you make an overseas call (e.g. to Australia): dial 01088, followed by the country code for Australia 61, followed by the area code, say 2 for Sydney, followed by the actual phone number.



P.S. Your Indonesia SIM Card requires a SIM-unlocked GSM 1800 compatible international cell phone. If you have a locked compatible GSM phone, you can easily unlock it. To do so, visit www.unlockingcodesforphones.com.

Banjar Hills Retreat is now under German management

 

My favourite hide-away in the cool hills of northern Bali has been for many years the small Banjar Hills Retreat - read here how I first discovered it.

It has recently come under German management. Ralf Pelzner and Anke Sawalies came to Bali for the very first time five months ago. Back in Germany they had been waxing bodies - see here - , now they are waxing lyrical about Bali. After just one night's stay, they had fallen in love with Banjar Hills and leased it for the next two years with an option to buy (of course, no foreigner in Indonesia can "buy" real estate which is something else they've yet to discover - click here).

As they don't speak the local language, know nothing of the local customs, and, most important of all, have not yet been confronted by the everchanging imigrasi rules which require them to maintain valid residency permits and working visas, they're facing many problems, all of which reminds me of this little story:

The Devil appeared to a man on his deathbed. “I’m going to give you a choice between Heaven and Hell,” he said. “And just to make it fair, I’m going to let you see them first.” And there it was, Heaven, just as it was supposed to be: halos, harps, the lot; pleasant but dull. Hell, however, looked terrific: drinking, music, dancing girls. “I’ll take Hell,” the man said. After he had died, though, Hell turned out to be exactly what you would have imagined it to be in the first place: flames, screams, demons, pitchforks. “Wait a minute,” the man complained, “this isn’t what it looked like before.” “No,” the Devil said, “but then you were a visitor; now you're a resident.”

I had blogged about their potential problems but was immediately shouted down by them in an email full of capitalised letters, even though only a few months earlier I had given them a well-meaning recommendation on tripadvisor.com. Well, it didn't assuage Ralf's fierce Teutonic anger. "UNVERSCHÄMTHEIT!!!" (impertinence), he screamed in capitalised umlauts and demanded that I IMMEDIATELY take down his facebook photo which, even though in the public domain, is, according to him, "VERBOTEN" under German law to be shown anywhere else.

Well, Ralf, as an "inn-keeper" you had better get used to being a public figure who can no longer invoke Lèse-majesté! However, I do realise it's time for me to find myself another Bali hide-away, one that is run by charming Balinese, and leave Banjar Hills Retreat to those Germans and their laws! Which is just as well because Ralf has already put up the room rate by 30% to 450,000 - that's rupiahs not Deutsch-Marks!