.... AND THEY'RE OFF!

So this week kicks off the official start of the CAMPAIGN of POLITICAL PARTIES for Indonesia's Parliamentary (Federal) Election coming up on April 9th. Everyday now, up until the 5th of April, each of the 44 different parties will take turns parading through the streets. Honking horns and waving flags and wearing their brightly coloured T-shirts in an attempt to drum up support for their favorite candidate.

So, officially what this means to all the rest of us is ........... be prepared to get caught up in the traffic. Plan your route. And there is an actual official schedule for all of this.

..... can you imagine having to choose between 44 official parties. Wholly smokes. The Jakarta Post had a picture last week of what the voting ballot looks like. It's huge, like the size of a poster in fact - I can't even figure out how they're going to fold it up to get it in the ballot box.

TODAY: For starters - well, no big surprise, the DRIP, DRIP is back. Yup, pretty much rained all night - and now the leak in the Blue Room is turning into a steady stream. Actually, I don't think it ever really went away - just stopped raining for a bit. The little drip is now even bigger than before. And the black hole, has in fact, more than doubled in size.

And, seems last month we paid someone else's house phone bill by mistake. So, need to get that sorted out. The office inverted the numbers (phone number) on the bill and so when we paid it .......... well turns out we paid the bill for some other house. What I can't figure out is why our phone didn't get cut off - there is like a zero grace period here for anything. In fact, if you don't pay the Indovision (Satelite TV) bill on time, a warning will scroll across your TV screen telling you to pay up or be cut off. Not a bad plan actually. No body ever gets behind on their bills around here.

Ok, so guess it's time to for me head out in tropical rain that seems to have NO plan of easing up. Stay dry everyone - good day for duck suits.

Good to Go!