Dear friends

It has been a long time I have written my blog. In Indonesia, I haven't got the best internet connection, but that's one of the major problems here. The area where I lived for months, I used a 2G connection. Of course reloading pages cost a lot of time to get it. I'm glad I can be at the office to use a normal internet connection. Of course it's not the fastest, but still better then a 2G connection.

Indonesia is a poor country and the infrastruture needed to be renew. the roads are a lot of holes, so the infrastructure is not good and the airport is also pretty old too. Even in my area, the electricity went a couple of times off. Sometimes a half day or a whole day. But still it's nice to have another experienced to face on that without electricity. Just doing the tradional way and there is always a way out.
But corruption is still there. I faced a lot of those corruption when I stayed for a long time. Even you did something, while you do that the same time, they police will force you to stop. Have a nice chat with them and gave them 20.000 Rupiah (1.40 Euro) and the cop is a happy person. Those cops are so freaking b******s.

At the moment I'm ok so far, but I will tell my story about myself what happened the last few weeks. There are a lot of things to tell, so I will manage the story step by step as always. Everything so far, I have the situation under control, so please don't worry about me to much.

I faced another challenge / problems in the last few weeks. Something like a mixed up of bad luck and unexpected things in life lately. Of course by my calmness and overview the situation, I survived and kept me alive. Probably one of those lessons in life I have learned so far.

The challenge / problems came acutally on the 2nd week of November. During the weekend, I was checking my balance of how much money I had still left. But suddenly my former bank (Fortis) has been taken over by ABN AMRO bank. I was aware about that, but I didn't expect that the transformation was that soon. When I was log on to check my balance on internet, I couldn't see my balance anymore. They said: you needed a new "Access Key" to see your balance. I was like: damn, I can't see how much balance I have and also the old "Access Key" what I always used, doesn't work anymore.

Later on that day, I went with friends to hang out in Gadja Mada. That's in the city of Jakarta and closed to my mom's old house were she lived and grown up. I went to Gadja Mada Plaza to the ATM machine. As standard normal procedure and normal routine I will get cash from that ATM machine.
In Holland you will get your ATM card first out and then you will get your money. In Indonesia it was the opposite; first get your money then you got the ATM card. I was gettin' 1.5 million Rupiah (100 Euro), but the bank notes what I got was 30 mulitple 50.000. So you can imagine I was busy to put the money in my wallet. But suddenly, my ATM card was still on the holder and after 10 second it went automatically swallowed back into the ATM machine. I was just to late to grab that card out of the holder. I was like: oh my gosh, first I couldn't have access to my money on internet and then my ATM card was swallowed.

My friends called a lot of agencies who provided that ATM machine, but here in Indonesia the customer services sucks completely and doesn't help you much. Then I was figuring out, I have to blocked that card and I called my mom. The next day she went to the bank and block the card. Further I asked my mom if I can have a new card, but the ABN AMRO bank wants to see ID + seeing the person as well. So I have to go back to Holland to get a new ATM card. Further the new "Access Key" from ABN AMRO I got that at home.
My mom told me how much balance I have still left. So I knew about my balance a bit and I thought it should be enough to survive till January 2011. I'm not that big spender, but still I have to be careful on what I will spend.

My laptop was also a worse part after my problem with my urinary infection. The fan was broken and I had to fixed that first. Further of course for a cheap price they will fix that, but suddenly they forgot to connect my webcam. So back to the store and finally they connected again.

Further my health is going slowly down worse and probably I'm very tired. My body / health needed rest for a couple of weeks. But still, the world trip isn't over yet and still I'm in travel mode. But the other problem I faced on is: I got urinary infection. When I was peeing, it hurts so much and also my stomach reacted very heavy on it. Glad when I was peeing, there was no bleeding. I went to the doctor and he gave me some antibiotic. The peeing was going slide well.
But after a couple of weeks later I got problems again. This time I went to the doctor and he said that I have to go to the hospital to make an echo scan + blood and urinary test. The results I got it in one day and I went back to the doctor. Suddenly there are no kidney stones or other thing what happened. Only what I have till now is that urinary infection, but it's just less. I had some medicine what I used now and let see how it will go before the Christmas week starts.
Also, because my health isn't that good at the moment and I have still pain on body, back and legs. My friend suggested me to have a good masseur who might solved the problem what I have at the moment. So I followed the advice and the masseuse was a very good one. Lately she said: I needed a lot of rest and recovered. The body is to tired. My muscles she said: it was like a brick and definitely I couldn't walk or stood up. I must say: after I was like half tortured, I felt much better and everything is a bit smoothly now. But still I have still pain, but next week I have to go again she said.

Of course there are also some good things to tell about what I have done so far. I mean that's life, sometimes it could be less and then there will be always be a good part too.
There was a Trance event in Ancol with Markus Schulz. I definitely enjoyed the party, cause the last Trance party I went was a long time ago. It was an outdoor event and definitely with a nice weather and close to the beach, it was just perfect.
Further I went to Puncak, 100 km outside Jakarta with friends. It has been a long time I have been there. Suddenly there a lot of changes over there and I didn't remember much of that place. Definitely I had a great time with my friends. Chilling around and having lunch and fun together. I will upload the pictures later on.

Because I have my 30 days visa in Indonesia, I had to get out again. The next destination for me was KL (Kuala Lumpur), Malaysia. I had a great time over there and saw the people again who I met the first time when I came there. So just chilling around and I went to the Petronas Tower again. Further I went to Bukit Bintang to hang out and check some IT / gadgets stuff. It was a short staying in Malaysia, but definitely a nice country to hang out for a couple of days.

The coming few weeks, basically I have a whole month ago is seeing family and further spending a lot time with friends + celebrating Christmas and New Year for the first time ever here in Indonesia. Another nice challenge / adventure how it will go.
The Christmas trees what I have seen in Malaysia as in Indonesia are very nice decorated and a lot people wanted to make pictures in front of Christmas tree or with Santa. In Malaysia the Christmas tree is purple, but still it's nice. Also what I mentioned is that there is midnight sales every week. It's not only in KL, Malaysia but also here in Indonesia. It's a nice happening with lots of discount of course.

This is it so far about my story in those 2 months. The last blog will be after New Year. If I didn't write my blog till Christmas, I want to say to you all: Merry Christmas and a good, healthy and lucky 2011.

Cya all soon and till the next time!

Greetz from Jakarta, Indonesia

Patrick Delsine