I'm really enjoying being on my own again.
I'm really grateful for all the new friends (family?) I made in Penang. But there's something to be said for being in a new place and not knowing anyone, and nobody knowing me.
That said, I met someone at the airport who is also trying to finish her thesis here (on plant-based cooking!). She'll be in Canggu at the weekend, and we'll be study buddies.
I'm getting bitten to shit by mosquitoes even when I wear repellent. If I get dengue fever, someone finish my thesis for me please.
For everyone panicking about me getting dengue fever, fear not! I'm not getting disproportionately bitten by mosquitoes after all!
It's bedbugs.
The hostel have called the anti bedbug people and put all of my stuff in plastic bags. But the hostel staff also suspect I might be having an allergic reaction to the bites because I'm so thoroughly covered and red and itchy, and they all seem to think it's not normal. I've never been bitten by bedbugs before, so I wouldn't know. But they match pictures online. Oh, and I found two dead ones and a live one in my bed, so there's that for evidence. They're so much bigger than I thought.
Nobody else has noticed bites yet though. If I picked them up somewhere, I'm not sure where. The bus to KL maybe? Even if I brought them they should have occupied the rest of the dorm by now. My other theory is that just like I'm a mosquito magnet, all the bedbugs are just hanging out with me and leaving everyone else alone, cos I taste so good. You're welcome.
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Wandering around and eating in Canggu
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A day in Ubud. Breakfast at Atman, Monkey Forest, wander around, stop at Luwak Coffee farm on the way home.
I went to Ubud for most of a day with A from Romania who I met at the hostel, and met up with N from Denmark who I met at the airport when I arrived. It wasn't a crazy jam-packed day, but we managed to get a few things in.
The taxi drive was about an hour. We ate breakfast at Atman; the 'famous' raw, grain-free porridge was pretty good, and the coconut oil latte was super interesting and creamy.
A and I went to the Monkey Forest (entrance 50k IDR) and spent about an hour there. Lots of curious baby monkeys. Bigger monkeys fighting over bananas and sharpening rocks. Old monkeys lounging around looking wise.
We stopped by the Ubud Palace, but it was mostly closed for renovations. Wandered through the market, then stopped for juice. It was hot (though perhaps cooler than Canggu) and none of us were feeling particularly energetic. I found a trail on the map and we walked along it a little way, and saw a waterfall and some nice views.
N had found a driver willing to take us back for 220k, which was a really good deal between 3 of us. On the way, he stopped at a coffee farm, and we tried many different flavoured coffees and luwak coffee. The luwak coffee was 50k for a cup which we shared, and the others were free. The luwak coffee is the one that is made from beans pooped out by a civet. It was really sweet. We had to get them to promise this was naturally its flavour and they hadn't added sugar. Apparently most people find it sour, but because the three of us don't each much sugar are tastes were different from the average tourist. All of the flavoured coffee samples also had sugar added, and coconut creamer (or honey in the teas). They managed to make six of them without sugar for us, but they were all pre-mixed with creamer. Not what we really wanted in a coffee tasting... We couldn't really taste any coffee. So if you go to one of these places and are a sugar-free kinda person, ask in advance for no-sugar versions of the samples. The only ones they sold were the pre-mixed instant versions too, which was disappointed, so we didn't buy anything.
Ubud is full of nice cafes, yoga studios, and shops selling yoga gear, as you might expect. I suppose I didn't really wander far, but it didn't feel much different from Canggu, minus the surfer part. Mostly tourists; perhaps you have to go deeper to find local culture.
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Food from Serenity and My Warung in Canggu
Charred tempeh..
So I fixed the bedbugs problem.
By moving from the hostel dorm to a room shared with one other person at a yoga retreat with a pool. For 20k less. I'll be here until Saturday, then decide what to do next.
May go back to the original dorm for a few days until the equivalently priced dorm at the yoga retreat becomes available..
The tradeoff is no kitchen at the yoga place.. but the pool... and 25% off in their veggie cafe which has lots of raw desserts.. but I like the location of the hostel better... Man, life is hard.
The other evening around 9pm I just fancied a chocolate with my tea. I walked 3 minutes down the road to the organic grocery store and was able to buy a single delicious handmade vegan chocolate. Ah, what is this life.
In reply to: https://rhiaro.co.uk/2017/03/chocolate
But on a related note, now when a cafe doesn't have any vegan cake at all I'm proper offended. (Like Betelnut, where I am working from this morning. Cracking smoothie though).
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My last CS Penang meetup! They made me make a speech. I said thanks for feeding me. Photos by Rohan.
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Food, food, food, and Serenity's pool
Well I've been here for a week and a half now, so maybe late for very first impressions.
To be specific, I've been only in Canggu, aside from some of a day in Ubud. I'm staying about a 15-20 minute walk from Batu Bolong Beach and a little further to Echo Beach. It's not built up, and there are lots of rice paddys. The streets are lined with villa-style guesthouses, restaurants, and small shops. There's nothing that feels 'local', not that I have any basis for comparison, having never been to any other part of Indonesia. Actually, there are little temples everywhere and they're somehow inconspicuous and impressive at the same time. Several times a day, locals place 'offerings' of banana leaves containing rice, flowers and incense (and sometimes sweets and cigarettes) on the ground in front of temples, homes, and guesthouses.
Most people I see around are tourists. People come here to surf and yoga. The beaches are good for surfing, but the waves are too big to swim. They're fairly unspoilt, not much trash or anything like that. There are a couple of bars on the beach, but nothing excessive. No massive hotel or apartment complexes, like Penang.
I also haven't seen any shopping malls or even supermarkets. But I haven't been far. It took a little while, but I did find cheap local (probably) food at nasi campur places. There are actually quite a few, but they're unassuming and I guess I skipped over them nestled between the fancier salad-and-smoothie-bowl-packed places that cater for health-conscious tourists.
Rather than helping yourself from a buffet (like nasi kandar in Malaysia), you point at dishes and they're plated for you. Tempeh and three or four types of vegetables has so far come to between 10k and 15k IDR (less than 1GBP). For context, main dishes or even smoothie bowls and fancy cakes are upwards of 50k at other cafes. But the nasi campur stops aren't ideal places to stay and work, being largely wall-less and power-less, so hot and not particularly comfortable. The ones I've seen so far, at least.
Random Balinese people one passes in the street are extremely friendly, including the ones who aren't trying to sell you transport. People say hello or welcome, and smile in a way that includes their eyes. I don't think I've experienced any catcalling so far.
Walking around at night is a little more difficult as there are no street lights. There are a few cross streets linking the main ones (which run perpendicular to the coast) which pass through rice paddies, and unless there's passing traffic it's completely dark. I'm walking around with my running lights, anyway. Most people rent scooters as there's no public transport, but I don't feel like now would be a good time to learn to drive. Uber and equivalents are banned in Canggu. You might get one to drop you off here if you're lucky, but you certainly can't get a pickup; local taxis only, and they're not cheap.
There are many more street dogs, but they're not as needy as the ones in Penang. Ie, they don't follow you. Sometimes they bark, but it's usually at something else and you just happen to be passing. I'm still a bit unnerved, but getting better at ignoring them.
Canggu definitely feels like a place people are on holiday, not living. Over the upcoming weeks I'll venture a little further out though, towards the main center of Canggu, as well as Seminyak (which is about a 1.5 hour walk from where I am). I'm not feeling particularly inspired to try to see the whole island. This is good, because I'm supposed to be (and have been!) writing my thesis. I'm trying to keep hold of that mindset. I've done yoga every single day (for the first time in my life) and I've found it easy to start my day at 7 or 7.30 every morning. I think I'll be content on the three parallel streets of Canggu that I know so far, for the most part. Right now I'm by the pool at Serenity, having come here for breakfast and yoga, and I don't feel like I'm missing out on being somewhere else. Maybe I'll make one excursion to see a volcano... But the holiday/resort/chilling TF out vibe is working.
Important announcement:
(this is a taro latte from Cafe Organic, Canggu, Bali)
I captured and released two mosquitoes that were inside my net.
I am a paragon of virtue.
What I captured them in was the lid of the mosquito repellant though, so they had a really shitty five seconds. I'm not that nice.
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Foooood
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An adorable puppy stole my socks and destroyed them whilst I was sitting by the Serenity pool. It was a good death.
Even though my deadline is coming up fast, I still have a lot of work to do on this thesis. I am, and have been from the start, doing this in the open; my thesis is in a public GitHub repo, and you can see it at dr.amy.gy (aspirational URL which redirects to github pages). Lots of pieces are still to be written, so don't expect a coherent start-to-finish reading experience. With that in mind, feedback and suggestions are welcome in the form of issues; but unless you're my supervisor or someone who knows for a fact I take your opinions on this topic seriously, they might not receive a ton of attention :)
Self presentation is evolving; with digital technologies, with the Web and personal publishing, and then with mainstream adoption of online social media. Where are we going next? One possibility is towards a world where we log and own vast amounts of data about ourselves. We choose to share - or not - the data as part of our identity, and in interactions with others; it contributes to our day-to-day personhood or sense of self. We imagine a world where the individual is empowered by their digital traces (not imprisoned), but this is a complex world.
This thesis examines the many factors at play when we present ourselves through Web technologies. We optimistically look to a future where control over our digital identities are not in the hands of centralised actors, but our own, and both survey and contribute to the ongoing technical work which strives to make this a reality. Decentralisation changes things in unexpected ways. In the context of the bigger picture of our online selves, building on what we already know about self-presentation from decades of Social Science research, we examine what might change as we move towards decentralisation; how people could be affected, and what the possibilities are for a positive change. Finally we explore one possible way of self-presentation on a decentralised social Web through lightweight controls which allow an audience to set their expectations in order for the subject to meet them appropriately.
We seek to acknowledge the multifaceted, complicated, messy, socially-shaped nature of the self in a way that makes sense to software developers. Technology may always fall short when dealing with humanness, but the framework outlined in this thesis can provide a foundation for more easily considering all of the factors surrounding individual self-presentation in order to build future systems which empower participants.
Evolution of presentation of self; social science and social media studies literature. Starring danah boyd, danah boyd, Erving Goffman, and danah boyd.
Some studies on contemporary practices of online self-presentation, starring Max and Dave (A++++ would coauthor again), TomSka and other YouTubers, and the Indieweb. Named for Harry Halpin's thesis/book which made me think a lot.
A possible future - decentralisation and the technologies to get us there. Starring the W3C Social Web WG.
How these technologies affect self-presentation; how does the big picture change? One idea and its implementation. Starring the Social Web Protocols and sloph, both things I was originally doing to procrastinate from thesis work.
// TODO lol
Past time, I finally ate gado-gado. Boiled vegetables in a peanut sauce; usually comes with egg, which I swapped for tofu. This one also had tempeh. SO good. And, at Warung Nelayan, I accompanied it with hands down the best Bali coffee I've had since I've been here. It's so thick and rich it actually tempered my cake craving.
I think the total price of this meal is 25k IDR (about £1.50), though the coffee is on the menu in two places, for 5k and 10k, so we'll see..
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Bali food update
Today's writing technique: I'm only allowed to order cake when I've finished a section..
I'm working from Shady Shack in Canggu, and all of the food going past looks amazing so.. it's working.
Does mosquito repellent work on bedbugs?
In reply to: https://rhiaro.co.uk/2017/03/does-mosquito
I suppose a pertinent question is: does mosquito repellent work on mosquitoes?
In reply to: https://rhiaro.co.uk/2017/03/suppose-pertinent
Argh, I have definitely broken out in a weird itchy rash, all over my arms, hands and feet. Probably not insect related. Heat/humidity I guess?
In reply to: https://rhiaro.co.uk/2017/03/argh-rash
Omg imagine if I was allergic to mosquito repellent.
So I'm back in the dorm with bedbugs until the dorm at the yoga retreat becomes available on Thursday.
But in a fit of itching and feeling like bugs were crawling all over me in the wee hours of this morning, I grabbed my phone and booked the next three nights in the hostel next door. I didn't need to be logged into booking.com, or put my card information in xD Technology is amazing.
In the cold* light of day I feel like I must have been imagining it and I'm crazy, and moving seems like an overreaction... but I do have new bites. And even if it is all in my head, it'll just be like that again tonight, and I can't go on like this.
It's a shame, because everything else about this hostel is lovely. Hopefully the one next door is just as lovely, minus bedbugs.
However, since I got back on Saturday, I haven't seen any of the owners or staff... So I'd like to like, pay for the two nights I just stayed, and tell them I'm not coming back, but it's proving difficult.
* Not really, it's 31 degrees c
I held a headstand for a few seconds by myself today. I don't think it's an unreasonable goal to be getting all the way up by myself before I leave Bali..
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Canggu: food (Shady Shack, Warung Dandelion (with bunnies), Memoh Warung, Warung Pook), beach, and some hostel interiors or views (Monkey House and Surfer's House)
People who order their sit-in coffees in takeaway cups and "extra hot" must really hate the planet.
Troublemaker csarven just won't lie down and sign whatever publishers ask him to.
Full Article, Immediate, Permanent, Discoverable, and Accessible
Just last week I was telling my friend how I'll never be able to straighten my legs in downward dog because my hamstrings are so uncooperative, and I just accept that. This week, I'm straightening my legs in downard dog pretty much off the bat from the start of class. I'm still never expecting to get my heels down... but...
Yesterday I did my first side crow. It was a sort of mutant side crow. Maybe like a very old one-winged side crow. But it was there.
Last week N and I walked past a cafe in Canggu called Love and Coconuts. We checked out the menu, but didn't stop to eat because we had our stomachs set on elsewhere that night. But while we were there, we were both given a free matcha coconut bliss ball :)
I went past by myself a few days later in the evening intending to eat, but they close at 6. I said hi to the staff who were just closing up, anyway.
Today I finally made it at lunch time. I plugged my laptop in and got comfy in the nice surroundings. I was brought a free turmeric and betel leaf shot before the menu even made it. I ordered and ate a veggie burger and moringa tea, which was seriously filling and delicious. Later I got a free refill in my tea.
I've been here for over 4 hours now. I'm still too full to move..
Nothing here is disposable, except the toilet paper. Even the hand towels in the toilet are normal small towels. The bamboo straw in the tea, I get to keep, and if I bring it back I get 5k off my next drink :)
And the music is really nice. It's good covers of lots of songs I know really well.
Most of the food is vegetarian, lots is vegan, and it's all well labelled.
Yeah I like it here.
Update: Free vegan chocolate cake! They were experimenting last night. It's so good! They've been open a week!
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You guessed it.. more photos of food. And some of the interior of Surfer House. Food at: Avocado, Love and Coconuts, Cafe Organic, Roti Canai, and Serenity
Honestly one of the times I'm most happy is eating in a restaurant by myself. One of the reasons I love travelling solo.
Sharing meals with people who are as into the food as me is also super enjoyable.. but I do love eating alone.
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Food at Love and Coconuts and Serenity, and a wander around Canggu
Listening to surfer dudes trying to discuss vegan smoothie bowls with funny names without diminishing their masculinity.
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Walk from Canggu to Seminyak and back. Food at Peloton, Spicy Coconut, and a tofu food cart. Couple of Serenity.
Seems about right..
Today I wandered from Canggu to Seminyak and back again. It takes about an hour and a half and for some reason people think that's crazy. I stopped several times for food obviously and planned my route around vegan restaurants also obviously.
Roads here are narrow and fairly busy so not super fun to walk down. Sometimes it seems like it's about to come to a choice between being hit by a van and being up to my knees in rice paddy mud. Fortunately I didn't have to make that choice yet. Here's the route.
I had a breakfast burrito and juice (and later coffee) at Peloton, a vegan cafe not far from Canggu, and stayed there to work for a few hours. I walked to Seminyak partly by way of the beach, and visited Seminyak Square and a market. Not really much of interest. I enjoyed the air conditioning in a mall for a while. Seminyak seems to be mostly fancy villas and tourist shops. It feels a bit less chill than Canggu even, though more going on. Didn't feel bursting with exciting vegan food like Canggu is! Maybe more upmarket, less hippie.
I read about and pinpointed on Google Maps a tofu-specialist cafe. I didn't find it, but around the corner was a street cart selling tofu, so that seemed close enough. I chatted with the vendor as he fried tofu, liberally applied a pile of beansprouts and coated the whole thing in a huge layer of peanut sauce with some chopped chillis and a drizzle of soya sauce. It was super tasty, and 20k IDR. I ate it on the roadside, and while I was doing so, his friend came along with a cart of brightly coloured liquids in jars. They looked sugary, and neither of them were able to explain to me what it was apart from "ice" so I declined. But then I watched someone else get served - he spooned some of each jar into one cup - and my interest was piqued that this was more than just syrupy drinks. It turned out to be es daluman, a cincau grass jelly, coconut milk, and coconut sugar syrup dessert which is on the whole pretty nutritious. A cup was 10k, and very refreshing if a bit sweet. And so far the thing that has reminded me most of Malaysia!
I wrapped up my day with tempeh tacos and iced coconut milk mocha at the Spicy Coconut, another vegan cafe. Totally delicious.
I walked back in time for a yin yoga class at Serenity, and during the class a giant rainstorm hit. The yoga studio is on a third floor, and the sides are fairly open, and the roof is metal. So the noise was so great that we couldn't hear the teacher for most of the class, and leaves and rain were sweeping in. I enjoyed it. It had subsided by the time the class was over, and I sat in the pool for a while.
Now it's bedtime and the cockerals are going fucking mental for some reason. It's not even light! Shut uuuupppp!
I bought a mobile wifi hotspot with enough data to watch Netflix even if hostel wifi was bad and Netflix is blocked by mobile carriers in in Indonesia *splutters*
The fact that it took me til my last week to find this out shows you how productive I've been though!
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Another day of eating?! Who'd have thought.
There are two wee streetside nasi campur warungs next to each other a few minutes from where I'm staying, on Jalan Nelayan. They don't look inviting, but a couple of days ago I braved one of them and of course, because Balinese people are super friendly and accommodating, I was welcomed and fed.. so if you're ever in two minds about whether somewhere that is obvious extremely local, probably just go in anyway.
In the first one, they didn't really speak any English, and I don't speak Bahasar except for key food-related words, but pointing at food is all you need to navigate. And "kopi" of course. I was too late to ask for without rice, so I had a plateful, including several kinds of green vegetables, alfalfa sprouts, tofu and tempeh, with a sambal so spicy it made my eyes water. The coffee came black, but sugared up. This cost me 10k IDR (60p). Inside is pretty grimy and myself and the food were constantly under siege from very persistent unwaftable flies. But the lady was smiley.
This morning I went to the other one. The people inside were younger and spoke some English include "oh my god is your hair real?!" The overall food selection was smaller but the number and type of veggie things was about the same. I had more or less the same food as before, and it tasted as good. The sambal was less spicy but I also had peanut sauce, and managed to opt out of rice. I asked for no sugar in the coffee, but it was sweet anyway; I think part of the instant mix. This time it was 18k IDR.
The second place was even smaller, and didn't seem to be set up for actually accommodating people, but place was quickly cleared at a table so I could sit down. There were fewer flies, but it was also less hot today. Half way through my meal, an old lady came out from the back, topped up the food in the counter and then stopped to chat. In Bahasar. I understood at one point that she was commenting on the fact I didn't have rice so I was like 'yep, no rice, lots of tofu' and then she rubbed my arms and kept talking and I lost the thread. I nodded and smiled and said terima kasih when she left. I think that went well.
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Food aaaatttt... Roti Canai (roti canai), Crate (BEST smoothie bowl), Love & Coconuts (tempeh and broccoli and iced matcha), streetside roasted pumpkin with Ninni, Dandelion, nasi campur
I don't want my thesis to be boring, how do I make it not boring
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Serenity puppies
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Last two days in Canggu. Yeah I was just eating and hanging out at Serenity.
Local culture/traditions aside, this is such a shame. They should be in trees, in the wild, free.
I booked two nights in the dorm at Terrace Ampels Villa near Padang Padang beach, in Uluwatu. I stayed zero nights.
When I arrived the staff were kind of grumpy and didn't smile (which I normally wouldn't notice, but because of the attitude of all other Balinese, it stood out). I ate in the restaurant, and worked on my laptop there for a few hours. There's a really nice infinity pool overlooking trees. There were lots of bugs and bats and geckos, which I thought was cool, though some people might not like.
A locker in the dorm room was 50k non-refundable which is unusual but whatever.
Around 11pm I went into the dorm, changed into my pyjamas and climbed up to my bunk. I saw bedbugs crawling along the wood frame. I immediately got down, moved my stuff, and went out to find staff because no. fucking. way. was I staying in a bed with bedbugs again. Not after last time.
I found the kitchen staff, and they woke the desk staff. By this time a couple of other dorm occupants had come back and were sitting around/in the pool. One of them, H, had been badly bitten the night before and she was covered in bites and itchy like I had been a couple of weeks ago. A forth dorm occupant heard about the bugs, and collectively we asked to be moved to another room.
The staff offered us another dorm, downstairs, completely empty. We went to check it out, discovered more bugs and giant cockroaches in the beds. So we came back upstairs, and all the staff had disappeared.
Sooo... four of us packed our stuff and moved down the road to a hotel, to share twin rooms. We checked into the new place about 1am.
The next day we came back to Terrace Ampels to ask for our money back for the night we hadn't stayed (and for me, the next night which I'd pre-paid for).
The staff were to start with kind of unwilling and dithering, until eventually becoming outright rude. They kept saying the had to talk to the boss, we had to wait for the boss.. And meanwhile aggressively asking the other guests why they hadn't complained sooner, since they'd stayed there one or two nights already. The guy who had been there the longest was yelled at by the desk staff: "It's you, you are telling everyone, you are causing this" like he planted the bedbugs or something.. Eventually we had to say we had better things to do than wait around there all day, and we'd come back later.
We were back around 8pm. The boss wasn't there, obviously, and the staff had claimed to talk to the boss and he said no refund. I said no way am I paying 350k for five minutes in the room! The guy tried to say they had no money there, and then also said he'd checked the room and there were no bugs! Like we'd moved fucking hotels at 1 o'clock in the morning for fun. And of course ignoring the fact H was covered in itchy red bumps from head to toe (literally, they bit her face, even I wasn't that unlucky).
Eventually I pushed enough that they gave me the money back for the night that hadn't occurred yet, and the locker rental. So I was down 150k for the night I'd left for the hotel, but better than nothing.
In contrast, when I cut my stay short at Monkey House in Canggu because of bedbugs, they offered to take me to the doctor, cleaned all my stuff, and had no trouble when I wanted to leave. In related contrast, when two of our number changed their plans and wanted to leave the hotel we moved to down the road from Terrace Ampels after one night, they refunded the second night no questions asked and with a smile.
Yesterday I got in on a car rental tour of South Kuta / Uluwatu area. Between 6 people it came to 85k each including parking/tolls. The driver was cool and easy going, took us to wherever people wanted to go. This ended up being a bunch of beachs, until the Uluwatu Temple for sunset.
We went to Dreamland beach, which was fairly busy, not particularly special. Plenty of places selling food; I had a coconut. Then Belawan beach where the sea was crystal clear blue/green, the rock formations were cool, and it wasn't so crowded. We chilled out here the longest. Bingin beach was down a long track and a lot of steps, busy and small. We at lunch at the Cashew Tree cafe.
Entrance to Uluwatu Temple is 30k, and this includes a mandatory sarong. We were there for sunset, but it was cloudy, so nothing interesting to report. There was a fire dance, but I didn't really see it. The stadium was full, and tickets were 100k. Which I would have paid, had the stadium not been full. Everyone else on the tour had seen this before. The tide was in, so we did not get to go in the cave underneath.
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Beaches in South Kuta and Uluwatu Temple
Tofu, black beans, various vegetables, lots of chilli and hot sauce, in a spelt wrap
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Ocean Reef, Perth suburb by the beach
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Exploring Perth CBD
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Afternoon jaunt to Fremantle
