By late April 2021, as the Delta virus plays Russian roulette with the whole human race, tearing through populations rich and poor, I am once again in Indonesia with Dewi and her family.
I rarely leave the guesthouse compound out of an abundance of caution – it’s very pleasant on the front verandah of our private residence, looking out over the swimming pool and tropical gardens but I’m struggling to find ways to occupy my time throughout the day.
I keep up to date with what’s going on in the world each morning via the ABC Australia news app as well as CNN, although life in America is far less interesting now that Donald Trump is out of office.
I play sudoku and solitaire on my hand phone for a bit of mental stimulation then, after a couple of mugs of Lombok coffee, several cigarettes and allowing enough time for breakfast to settle, I’m usually ready for a swim.
Most afternoons I spend a couple of hours watching tv in the bedroom with the air-con on, as the tropical heat can be brutal. As often as not I fall asleep for an hour or so, such is the way of my world.
By five o’clock the temperature has dropped below 30 and it’s a perfect time to enjoy a large bottle or two of locally produced Bintang beer. I’m actually a big fan of craft beers and in my former life as Melbourne hotel publican, I was one of the first to ditch the mainstream brewers in favour of small, independent producers. But in Indonesia the local lager suits me fine.
Evenings are spent watching Indonesian TV, which is also fine but even with a degree qualification in bahasa, I struggle to keep up with news reporters and talk show hosts.
It’s a simple, laid-back lifestyle and Dewi is a beautiful, loving companion but while we wait for international borders to re-open, I need some type of activity to keep me busy.
I decide I’m going to create a travel website for Lombok with coronavirus and travel updates and maybe a blog of my time here in Lombok.
I’ve already written a number of posts for the guesthouse website covering everything from beaches to street food.
They’ll need a little updating but they’re a good place to start. I can round out the website by adding a few more places of interest, including the lesser known “Gili’s” or smaller islands around Lombok, the very impressive active volcano, Mt Rinjani and some additional posts on traditional art and culture.
The young guy who built the guesthouse website is happy to help me and we get straight on it.
I choose the domain name “ishouldbetravelling.com” as I think it will appeal to anyone who has been stuck under months of lockdown.
I’m not so sure if anyone is going to be really that interested in reading about someone else’s time in lockdown but it’s going to give me something to do.
Let’s see how it goes.
I’ve had some further communication with Josh regarding the sale of my share of the business.
I gave him an indication of what I thought the business is worth before I left Australia and suggested he ask his accountant for an indicative valuation.
The accountant comes in right on my figure, although I imagined the price of stock would be added and by his estimation it is inclusive.
Josh is a smart kid who doesn’t need to overthink things too much. He suggests we settle on the mid point between the accountants price and mine.
It’s a little less than I would like but probably fair given the uncertainty of the times. It is also going to give Dewi and I enough money to live comfortably and keep the guesthouse running while we wait for international tourism to get underway again.
I also don’t want to press for a price too much over the valuation as it would trouble me greatly to see my son out on a limb and in financial difficulty if business were to suddenly turn sour.
I tell Josh he’s got himself a deal and contact my lawyer to prepare the paperwork.
I’ve no sooner got the deal done than I’m thinking again about the two properties next to the guesthouse.
The owner of the property next door has accepted another year’s rent from the current tenant, so it is off the market for now.
But I ask Dewi to make an enquiry and see whether the boarding house is still available, which it is.
The boarding house is the money property as it should be able to produce good, steady income. We can possibly rent the house in between in twelve months time which will enable us to rent our private residence as a poolside villa.
But no sooner is Dewi getting excited than I’m getting cold feet.
As a kid I was a dreamer and as an adult I like to identify great opportunities and dream about the possibilities. But I also have a cautious side, which comes out as the dreaming gives way to the reality of putting up cold hard cash.
It can be very frustrating for someone who doesn’t understand my process but there it is.
My major concern, and I should have considered this well before I started talking to Dewi, is that while we now have the funds to purchase the property, by the time we have done the renovation and fitted out all the rooms, the money I have on hand will be pretty much gone.
There is still no word on when the country is going to re-open it’s borders let alone when countries like Australia are going to allow their citizens to start travellling again.
So if we do proceed and international tourism does not, we will be caught with even higher overheads, two businesses not generating income and no funds to draw on.
It’s clearly going to be far better not to spend that money right now, all dreams aside.
So Dewi has her dreams dashed once again. It’s cruel but ultimately she agrees that we can live move comfortably if we choose to put ourselves, and our current commitments first.
As I write this, six months on, mbak Lis has just told us that there is another boarding house nearby that has just come up for sale. It has eight rooms and is in much better condition than the property two doors away. And they are only asking AUD$55,000. I ask her how much land it’s on and she says it’s smaller by half, 250 square metres.
At this price, our neighbour’s property is probably worth substantially less than the AUD$150,000 she is asking.
The value of not rushing in.
Our neighbour has more rooms than the newly for sale property but the grounds and guest accommodation will require alot of work.
This is another thing that has played on my mind as I have thought through the cold hard cash phase of my dreaming.
Dewi’s closest friend works for a property developer and we were able to establish through him that the price per square metre of our neighbour’s property was in line with the market price for city property. But the property has now been on the market for at least two years and no one has made an offer.
The owner has told Dewi that she has family connections that would like to buy the property but she doesn’t want people within her own community being privy to to her financial situation or, to put it simply, be able to gossip amongst themselves about the price she receives from the sale.
This may be so but a couple of other properties near the guesthouse have also recently come onto the market leading me to think there may be a number of property owners presently feeling the pinch.
It’s quite clear no-one has alot of money to throw around at the moment, moreso since the advent of covid and there is presently little investment activity going on in the city.
In other words, it’s a buyers market.
I think we can safely hold on to our money for now and consider our options early in the new year.
The guesthouse receives only one guest in the month of May, only six rooms are booked in June but the average length of stay is four nights per guest.
In July I need to close out our rooms on all the booking sites while we get ourselves vaccinated. However, in late July an Iraqi born Englishman turns up unannounced with his Indonesian wife.
He saw our guesthouse online when he was still in the UK and he is hoping to stay with us for a week or more if he can.
He and his wife are both double vaccinated and quite charming. I figure given that we have all had one covid shot and they are fully vaccinated it’s a low-risk proposition and I let him take a look at our rooms. He immediately selects the most expensive room and hands me two weeks rent up front.
There’s the next month’s wages bill covered.
Haider turns out to be quite a likeable character. He’s a chef by trade and has recently married his Indonesian wife Eka, sold his restaurant in London and now dreams of settling down in Lombok. For now though his wife lives and works in Jakarta, so it’s a work in progress. Still, a man’s allowed to dream.
Eka stays only a few nights before having to fly back to Jakarta for work. Haider stays on for nearly a month. He views a number of properties, none of which are quite what he’s looking for. In late August, with Eka growing a little impatient, he returns to Jakarta, promising to return soon.
The Delta virus has by now ripped through Java and Bali, infecting millions and accounting for over 100,000 deaths. The country’s fragile health system is completely overwhelmed.
Official figures put total case numbers at around 4 million infections but a serological survey conducted in Jakarta suggests that this could be the figure in the capital alone.
It’s a particular blow for the Balinese too, who have had to shelve reopening plans for the second year in a row. They had even managed to double vaccinate 70% of their population prior to the outbreak but the Chinese produced Sinovac vaccine has proven to be no match for Delta.
Australia too is now in the grip of this rampant strain with the two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, under extended lockdowns and all state and territory borders closed.
The suppression strategy which proved so successful at managing the Wuhan strain has now been abandoned in favour of an 80% nation-wide vaccination target. Sydney and Melbourne are on track to meet the target sometime in October and other states will start to reopen once their populations hit the same mark.
My friends and family in Melbourne have now spent over 200 days in lockdown. They don’t need me to tell them it has been an extremely difficult time for the entire world.
Dewi and I have recently welcomed two toy poodle puppies into our family. Pedro and Lulu are two very active and very social little beings who spend their days chasing each other around the house and gardens at breakneck speed and harassing our poor cats at every opportunity.
Muslims are mainly cat people and Dewi’s family view Pedro and Lulu with a mixture of fascination and fear.
They love watching their playful antics from a distance but will run screaming if either puppy should come racing over to greet them.
September is the first month this year where we have not one guest arrival but we are now all fully vaccinated and it’s simply a matter of waiting.
My website is ready to launch but my web developer has gone AWOL. I’m gettting very frustrated as I started working on it in June and I want to start promoting it amongst my friends in Australia as they are coming out of lockdown.
It was close to completion in August but a couple of free plugins he has installed causes the whole site to crash.
In September his parents fell ill and he had to pawn his handphone to buy medicine for them.
Then he fell ill and I lost complete contact with him for around ten days.
It appears that his whole household came down with coronavirus. Fortunately no one died.
I give him another good week to recover before pressing him to get the job finished.
It is a torturously slow process but the site finally goes live in early October.
I’m now spruiking it to everyone I know in an attempt to get the site higher in the Google search listings.
It’s a slow process.
The government has finally announced that the holiday island of Bali will reopen to international tourism in October but there’s a catch. All arrivals will have to quarantine for five days at their own expense before being allowed to commence their vacation.
The government has been planning for a gradual and measured reopening but the quarantine requirement is swiftly reduced to three days after all advance bookings are cancelled.
As of mid November there have still been no inbound arrivals.
Haider returns to Lombok in late October and stays with us for ten nights. He spends most of his time in the beach town of Senggigi though, where he has already made a number of expat friends.
The much anticipated Moto GP circuit in Kuta Lombok, which has been under construction for several years now, has finally been completed and is ready for its first big test in November.
An international super bike competition is being played out here over two weekends. The first Indonesian Moto GP event is scheduled for March 2022.
The circuit has stunning views of the Indian Ocean and the South Lombok coastline. It should be a major drawcard and earn this beautiful island some well deserved recognition.
There is also talk that, with some minor track modifications, it could be suitable for hosting Formula One.
It all sounds very exciting, but as you know, we’re all just sitting here, waiting.
And hoping.