MBAK WIN’S Warung on Pudak Sari Lane is a modest affair. A small local eating house it offers delicious Indonesian food like grilled chicken and fried duck.

In a small laneway off one of Kuta’s busy streets, a few back from the famed beach, it is not really a tourist hangout. It’s for locals who like their food spicy and original. It calls itself a Muslim Warung.

Corby often bought takeaway from there — mostly ayam bakar or grilled chicken for 15,000 Rupiah or $1.50 a portion or nasi goring, fried rice, for the same price.

Several times a week she would grab some food and take it away — bungkus — wrapped in brown paper. Often her boyfriend Ben Panangian would be with her.

The warung is just a few hundred metres from the modest home where Corby has lived for the past few years while on parole.

Corby’s life, in the home in the dead end of the laneway and in a very local area, is a far cry from the luxury five-star villa in trendy Seminyak into which she was sequestered hours after her chaotic release from Kerobokan jail in February 2014.

Media circus

Like so much of the Corby story, the day of her release from jail was like a circus. Ushered through the front doors of the jail by guards and sister Mercedes’ then husband Wayan Widyartha, she was bundled into a prison van.

She could barely see. A scarf draped over her face and a hat perched on her head, she relied on others to guide her. Cameras were everywhere, people were shouting and pushing as the car sped off to the Prosecutor’s office.

There, in an office, an official demanded to see her face and told her to remove the scarf. She did so briefly, signed her paperwork and was bundled back into the car for the ride to the Parole Board.

A bigger circus greeted her there as she was taken inside to meet her parole officers, be told the rules and sign the paperwork. The scarf and hat remained on at all times. Wayan Widyartha sat next to her. Cameras filmed through the office windows and burly security guards hovered around.

Finally she was free — or at least free on parole. Channel 7, who had organised an exclusive with her and her family took over. Security guards surrounded a black van as she jumped in. But it was not a wild ride. They drove slowly as the media shadowed them, all the way to Sentosa Villas in Seminyak.

She was not going to the family compound of Wayan’s family, which was the listed address on her parole papers, and to the small home inside the compound which Wayan and Mercedes and their children shared.

What followed almost developed into farce. Channel 7 had planned a paid exclusive tell-all interview with Corby, filming the family reunions and her first days of freedom.

That was, until the Indonesian Government stepped in. They threatened that if she did any interviews her parole would be revoked and she would find herself back in her cell. The story was spiralling out of control. Mercedes flew to Jakarta in a bid to see the Justice Minister himself.

But he was not budging. There would be no interviews.

In the end the best Sunday Night got was an interview with Mercedes and some still photos of Corby along with some shaky phone video of her family reunion. Telling her story would need to wait for another day.

Seeking solitude

Eventually, after the furore died down, Corby moved out of the lovely villa.

But living at the family home of Wayan and Mercedes proved too difficult. Smack bang in the centre of Kuta, it was claustrophobic. She needed her own space. And cameras were always prying. Wayan’s family was not happy at all with the unwanted attention having a convicted drug trafficker in their midst brought.

So Mercedes rented a modest home further away where her sister could live peacefully. Brother Michael Corby, who gone backward and forward from Bali since his sister’s arrest, moved in as well.

The parole board agreed she did not have to live with Wayan. He was her parole guarantor but so long as he remained responsible for her, she could live anywhere in Bali.

By this time Mercedes and Wayan’s relationship was breaking down. They split and Mercedes and the three children moved back to the Gold Coast. Mercedes was confident Schapelle’s mental health issues were behind her and Michael was there to keep an eye her.

When she first left prison Schapelle had plans to renovate and run a shop called The Boardroom, where Wayan sold surfboards and surf clothes made by Mercedes’ business.

But the constant buzz of tourists, taking her photo and wanting to chat with celebrity, was too much. Schapelle just wanted to be left alone to get on with her life, she didn’t want the limelight. She hated it and she hated people photographing her all the time. The shop closed.

She tried to blend into Balinese life. She liked her own company and could spend her days at home, venturing out to swim at the nearby beach, taking one of her dogs with her.

They would sniff around the beach while Corby swam, snorkelled or laid reading a book at Jerman Beach. Local stallholders there say she was always friendly, saying hello and stopping for a chat. She would sometimes order fish soup to eat after her exercise routine and take home some fried fish.

She sometimes bought beer there and on occasion she had mum Rosleigh Rose with her. She told the women how she loved home cooking and would often chat about her dogs.

The two dogs, Luna and May, were Mercedes and Wayan’s family dogs. After Mercedes left to return to Australia, Schapelle took them and became their carer. Another dog, Stanley, had been her one-time jail companion but he had died after leaving the jail.

Countdown to freedom

In recent months Corby has taken up running. Riding her motorbike to the path near the beach, she then donned headphones and jogged along the path, or on the sand, along the beach.

Parishioners at the St Fransiskus Xaverius Catholic Church, not far from Corby’s Kuta home, say that during her parole she prayed there and sometimes attended services, on occasion with Panangian.

Sometimes she prayed alone in the Adoration Room, behind the main church. The small room, devoted to Jesus, is up stairs at the back of the church complex and is a place for quiet reflection and prayer. A small altar sits at the front and it is open 24 hours a day.

Parishioners say that she was always friendly, sometimes attending weekend mass.

One constant in Corby’s parole life has been Panangian. He comes and goes from her home, the pair swims at the beach and surfs together. A stand up paddle boarder, he takes clients out at Kedongonan Beach. Sometimes Corby goes with him, other days he goes alone.

The future of their relationship now seems uncertain. When she leaves Bali on May 27, she will be banned from returning for at least six months and it could be much longer — even life.

And given Panangian’s two drug convictions, his ability to get a visa to Australia could be hampered.

Corby has always maintained her innocence. She still does.

Whether she will fight to clear her name when she gets back to Australia remains to be seen.

— Additional reporting Komang Erviani in Bali and Lukman S. Bintoro

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