A friend reminded me that I have been economical with my posts of late.  So in the interests of economy :

Eating

I recently went to the Gion Japanese and was pleased with the outcome.  On the subject of Japanese, the Riung Kuring Indonesian restaurant (Sundanese, I think) closed at the start of curfew but is coming back soon (if not already) with a Japanese menu.  I will be marking the card.  The Thai Jasmine also closed at the start of curfew (actually a planned owner holiday) but is open again.  The old cook from there is now down at Sabai Sabai (the old Soupy’s/Bangkok Thai).

Since ceasing drinking from the large water barrels,  my gastric system has been in top condition.  One recent set of tests that I am aware of showed that filtered bore water was of better quality than the barrel water.  This is but one set of tests – there may be product variation in your case.

Curfew

There is still a week to go.  Not being a real night owl anyway, it hasn’t upset me too much as I am usually gone by 10pm anyway.  The vigorous activity from police and military in the first week or so of curfew has now fallen away and it pretty normal apart from the annoying roadblock on beach road from Motael Church down the the TSDA corner near the lighthouse.  Traffic has to hack its way through the backstreets of Motael.  I have heard that the boys at the police/military command centre in Memorial Hall are quite liking the facilities.  I suppose only a new (Chinese funded) F-FDTL HQ will see the roadblock go.

Although curfew is due to end on 23 March, if one accepts that the need to have it is still there, then one would expect it to continue.  However, although I am not that way inclined, it may upset some of those Easter-like rituals such as midnight mass and candle-lit prayer vigils etc.

Dengue

It just seems that a lot of expats have acquired dengue this year.  I didn’t get it and I am glad I didn’t.

Bicycle tyres

I went over one year here before I had my first flat tyre on the bicycle.  I bought some green slime inserts from OZ and inserted them and things continued on fine until about 6 months ago.  I have had about 10 flat tyres since and about 5 this year.  Some of the recent ones were due to faulty inner tubes which were clearly tubes made from patched together pieces.  They simply blew apart.  I even resorted to buying new tyres.  Re. inner tubes, buyer beware.

Security things

In summary, although Susar and a couple of his mates have handed themselves in, Mr. Salsinha and his group remain somewhere in the Ermera area.  There were a few false reports of Salsinha handing himself in but as far as I know, it has not happened.  The UN have released very little information to the public since the President was shot.  There are tons of investigators working on all sorts of things but for the moment, details are not being released.

Mr. GS in number 57, your time is up.  Mr. GS response : “boys, keep pedalling”.