We couldn't get our WhatsApp messages to send. WiFi is always up and down so we thought nothing of it. We went out for dinner at our cute little cafe that also has WiFi. We connected but the WhatsApp messages we wrote earlier still wouldn"t send.
A few restarts of the App and the phones but nothing resolved the issue. We checked the Internet was working and it was. Confused, we searched the Internet to see if the service was down ...
What came next was a bit of surprise. We found articles in Indonesian first. We didn't really understand much of them but we translated them to English.
”6 killed in deadly riots in Jakarta, 200 injured. Social Media blocked."
Due to the scale of the incident, the Government had turned all social media off to try and restrict / prevent further issues. No problem for us and we totally understand!
A few days later things have quietened down. We can't imagine the frustration this must have created with the Indonesian people. They are social media addicts and use it to communicate everything!
That evening we watched a Balinese stage show with dancers, demons and a very packed audience! It was a good show with incredible costumes.
We left Ubud the next morning on the Perama bus, deciding 2 nights there was probably enough for us. The bus did its usual stop off and pickups at a few places before stopping in Kuta. There was a funeral procession in the centre so we were dropped at the closest stop available, just a minute down the road.
The walk to our little homestay, Pondok Denayu, was hot. We took little alleyways to stay out of the heat the best we could until we reached 'food'! Nasi Campur for lunch filled us up. We then checked in in double quick time as the beach was calling.
In the evening, a live band was playing outside one of the shopping malls so we listened in. They were good and we thoroughly enjoyed the music.
