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Righty Ho Then.... We arrived in Indonesia to the glorious splendour of Kuta. Kuta is basically the Aussie equivalent of Magaluf. Well at least it was until the bombing which stopped the hordes of Aussie pissheads going. Fortunately for the Balinese the rest of the pissheads from around the world need more than a bomb to stop them getting their pint....so there we were! When we initially arrived I think we were both suffering from a bit of travelitis. Sometimes you loose the motivation to drag your ass around the world, and you just want to stay put for a minute. This had kind of hit Charlie worse than me and his arse was firmly planted in Kuta, so we indulged it for a few days. Basically we did nothing apart from eat, sleep, the occasional token wander around town. However we did go out and hit it really hard in this terrible club. Exhibit A is the videos of me and Charlie bustin out the dance moves. We also got drinking with this bunch of Jordie Surfers who were there for the waves. Our one adventure in Kuta was when we tried to go surfing with these Jordie's one morning. Me and Charlie had had a go at surfing for an hour on Kuta beach, which has friendly little waves. I actually managed to stand up a couple of times, Charlie came close enough. So we obviously thought it was only a matter of time before we turned pro, and we could easily go out with our Jordie companions. As it turned out the place they took us (Padang Padang) had huge ridiculous waves, and a really strong rip dragging you out to sea. Perfect conditions for people who can't even stand on a board. Me and Charlie tentatively swam out with Jimmy the jordie on our boards. The rip took us out between a gap in the waves which brought us out behind where they broke. WE WERE BRICKING IT! We are lying there bobbing up and down as waves roll under us and smash the reef they were breaking onto. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that bit, the waves broke over a reef which meant the water was between thigh and shoulder depth. So basically if you come off, you run the risk of being tenderised on the reef and served up to the local wildlife. We both paddled a bit closer and before we could say 'f*** this' and bottle it, we found ourselves in the direct path of a massive wave. We both looked at each other and paddle our little hearts out, more trying to run away than catch the wave. The wave broke and a tonne of water came crashing down on top of us, spilling us off our boards and spitting us into the foams aftermath. This is when we realised the most painful part of surfing, it’s bad enough missing one wave, but when you have, you end up directly in the bit between where all the subsequent waves break. Hence we then found ourselves getting smashed by wave after wave after wave. God decided to smile on us that day and eventually after a severe pounding spat me Charlie out close enough to the beach to make it back in one piece. Charlie had had enough after that ordeal and refused to tackle the sea again. For some strange and suicidal reason I decided to fight a round with Neptune once more and went out again. I actually managed to get up on the board twice and ride it into the beach so I was well chuffed. Took an absolute beating in the process. I swear Charlie was just as happy watching me get smashed up by the waves and half drown!
After these few lazy days the explorer in me wanted to go see some more of the country and work our way east, island hoping to some of the most remote places we've been on our entire trip. We caught a short flight and Went to the island of Flores. When we stepped off the small plane we instantly new we were out in the sticks, because we were probably the only white westerners on the island, and the airport consisted of a strip of runway and a shed, that was it. We jumped on the back of a local’s bike and headed into town to catch a bus to a town at the foot of mount Kelimutu, a dormant volcano. This was our first real experience of the islands unique laid back way of doing things. We rocked up at the bus station which was just the bus parked on the side of the road. The guy took our bags and said the bus would leave soon...well he didn’t exactly say that but that was the jist we got. Not many people on the islands outside Bali speak English. We sat there waiting for maybe an hour and a half for a few more people to turn up, then off we went. We'd heard the buses we bad but to actually experience them was brilliant...and painful! The bus was about 50 years old and a wreck. It was jammed with locals who'd brought there chickens (live) bags of corn, coconuts, and all types of crap with them. So they push us on and point at a gap between some bags of s***e as if to say sit there. So we do, then as the bus pulls away they put on the loudest s***e techno crap music you've ever heard. I will never understand this, the bus must have been worth $5, but the guy’s speakers must have been priceless, it was soooo loud. And all the buses do it??? I don’t know if it’s so the locals can hear for miles around that the bus is coming, so they can run out to the road and throw another couple of chickens on it? It was so bad that a couple of hours into the journey as dusk was falling, I jumped off the bus and climbed up onto the roof. I'd heard that you could get away with riding on the bus roofs in the most remote islands of Indonesia, its true. This was awesome, I now found myself speeding along on the roof of some rickety bus at dusk, looking out over the most amazing scenery. The Island of Flores is truly beautiful in every sense. The word Flores was Portuguese for Flowers. The Portuguese called it this because it is so lush and green, in comparison to all the other islands. The island is covered in mountains with rice paddies set in the valleys. The local people are amazing as well. They are so happy to see foreigners they all shout 'Hello Mister', the best bit was when me and Charlie went passed a group of kids in the road. They got so excited to see us, they all started jumping up and down screaming 'HELLO MISTER'!! You feel like a star. To get an idea of how crowded the bus was, even after climbing up to the roof, we'd found virtually no free space as there was about 12 other guys squeezed onto the roof rack! We pulled up in our mountain town and arranged to go up the Volcano in the morning. Kelimutu is no ordinary dormant volcano. It is famous for having three beautiful coloured lakes on its summit. They are formed by different mineral contents which have stained them different colours, and they change colour all the time. We got up at about 5 and got on the back of a motorbike to head up the mountain. When we arrived at the end of the road there is still a little climb left before the peak, so off we went. We edged our way along a path kind of wondering what to expect and got a little lost. Then we saw some torchlight’s in the distance heading up a path so we headed for them. When we got there, we found about 6 other tourists, I think they were Russian or something can’t really remember, stood against a railing looking out into the dark night sky. Me and Charlie stood there for a bit discussing where we'd find these lakes, then Charlie spotted the reflection of the moonlight below are feet. When dawn broke we realised we'd been stood on the edge of a big drop off over the first lake. It was a beautiful blue lake. We got some pictures of the sunrise and then headed of to the highest point on the mountain (which we could then see). After climbing loads of steps we got to the summit. The view was amazing. You could see right across the island, over all the mountains to the sea. But most importantly you could see the other two lakes, one stained black and the other a brilliant green. We stayed up there for a while taking in the view and taking photos, it was spectacular! Check out the pics... Whilst up Kelimutu we also got chatting to some of the few other tourists. There were two guys traveling with a girl, all our age from UK. They were a cool bunch and we ended up later bumping into them and traveling the rest of the island with them. As we headed back down Kelimutu on our bikes we also stopped at a few other sights. A natural hot spring that ran through a local village and pooled into their own personal bath tub. We went down and stripped off and had a soak. That spring was even better than the one in Japan. The water was literally as hot as a bath, had it been any hotter it would have been uncomfortable. We also stopped at a waterfall that ran down the mountain which was also beautiful.
Now Kelimutu was the main reason we came to the island of Flores, so we then started to head West across the island to start the island hoping adventure, that would get us back to Bali, and most importantly to our flights to Australia. We figured we'd stop in any interesting places along the way. However this is where we realised how much we'd underestimated the islands transportation. Without jumping the gun it took us three days on buses, traveling all day to reach the West coast of the island. Don’t go thinking the island must have been massive, IT WASN'T!!! It’s just what happens when you’re traveling in a really poor backward country, where everything takes an age, and the islands covered in mountains, meaning the only way across it is on windy roads zig zagging through them. The one point I can’t stress hard enough though, is how stunning this island was! For me it was up there competing for the top spot of 'the most beautiful scenery award'. However after three days of back breaking pain on s*** cramped buses playing blazing techno, I could have been staring at a wall of naked super models and I would have still been fecked off! We did have one little adventure on our journey. About two days into our gargantuan bus ride we pulled into a little town for the night. Me and Charlie went for a stroll looking for food, and as we were walking around these two white people came running out of a hut 'screaming Ohhh TOURISTS', this is how remote and un traveled where we were is. They turned out to be a Dutch couple who had a job for an English company. They were living on the island working to try and help build up its infrastructure. They were so happy to see some westerners they invited us to their place for dinner. They were cooking on a home made barbecue some fish and rice. We sat there drinking some beers in front of the fire under the night sky, feeling like kings of the island. It was a really nice and unexpected experience. I think the Dutch couple where just ecstatic to be able to talk to some "normal" Europeans about usual s***!
We ended our three day bus journey at the coast and this is where we had our final adventure of the island. We booked up to go diving off the Coast of Komodo Island. See Komodo (The Island with the big dragons...well lizards) was the next island going west back to Bali. So one morning we got up with our three new friends and headed off to go diving and walk around Komodo Island. When we got on the boat the heavens opened, I’m not kidding when I say the rain was so hard you could hardly see ten feet in front of your face. However by some miracle as we sailed out to our dive sites the sky cleared and out came the sun! The journey out was beautiful, we weaved our way through many tiny islets with lush green grass and foliage covering their heart, fringed with spotless white sand beaches. They were all uninhabited and perfect. We got to our first dive site which was over a reef. This was pretty similar to sites we’d dived on our trip, but we had our fingers crossed to see a few special creatures. The sea around the island we were traveling through was populated with Manta Ray. In case anyone doesn’t know what a Manta Ray looks like, they are HUGE rays much bigger than a person. They don’t so much swim as fly effortlessly through the water. Divers from all over the world would cut their arm off to dive with one as they are rare, and the beauty of diving is it’s the ocean, you might see nothing, or you might see a whale, who knows? We saw some really cool coral and fish, a shark and a turtle which was great, but no illusive Manta. Then Chami ran out of his air (he likes to drink it) so he headed to the surface. I continued for a few more minutes with the others. Then out of nowhere a beautiful Manta swam over the top of our group like a plane in the sky, it was amazing. Obviously when we got up to the boat and told Chami, he was not pleased as he’d missed it. So it was all resting for him on our final dive. However our final dive was on a site called ‘Manta Point’. We got there and dived in and to our amazement found ourselves in amongst a large group of huge Manta Ray. This dive site was quite shallow and the current was ripping over it so we had to swim our hearts off just to stay static in the water alongside these giants. IT WAS AMAZING!! Honestly one of the highlights of the entire trip. I’m hopefully going to get a copy of some photos of us diving it, in which case you will all be able to see just how big these things are. We finished the dive feeling on top of the world. However our day wasn’t over yet. We headed onto the main island of Komodo & Rinca, home of the infamous Komodo Dragons. As soon as we got of the boat we saw our first dragon. I thought they would have been a bit bigger so got a bit ballsy and got pretty close to it. Obviously Charlie was egging me on hoping for the dragon to spring into action and start chewing on my leg, unfortunately he didn’t get his wish! We then followed a track down to a hut where a guide would walk us round the island. As we walked Charlie suddenly bounced up in the air next to me like he’d seen a ghost. I looked down to see he’d just nearly stepped on a dragon that was hiding under a bush (probably stalking any stupid tourists dumb enough to come close enough)! That got our blood racing and then we walked off on our tour around the island. Unfortunately the only place we actually saw the dragons was outside this central hut. The guides throw them fish heads which they devour, so they inadvertently hang out there for a free snack. I’d kind of hoped to see them more strutting around in the wild. It didn’t detract from how impressive they were to look at though. The dominant male and female of the group were absolutely huge!! Look at the photos!
After that momentous final day we caught a ferry bypassing the next 2 days of crap buses, to the island of Lombok. Lombok wasn’t where we were heading though. After the over night ferry pulled into the port we headed north to a group of islands known as “The Gili’s”! We’d heard these islands were beautiful with great beaches, and a place to chill out. That they were, with perfect white sands and turquoise water…..heaven. However the one thing that did let us down a bit was the weather. It rained a lot on the Gili’s, and there aint much to do on a tiny island when it’s peeing down. The one good day we did get, we went snorkeling on the beach and just played around. There was still 5 of us as we were still traveling with our other group. We had another crack at surfing on the Gili’s as well, well at least I did. Charlie swam back in because he said his nipples were chaffing on the board (bring on the message board abuse). I didn’t get on that well on that island, just kept near drowning! We pretty mush just lounged around on the Gili’s in the rain playing Uno. I got raped several times and threw my toys out of my pram to everyone’s amusement, I’m such a bad loser!
The final leg of our Indonesian trip was spent heading back to Bali and the glorious Kuta! To my luck I got really ill! Charlie will tell you it is because I was greedy and ordered three deserts at this awesome restaurant we’d frequented. The three deserts bit is true, however I refuse to believe that I spent three days puking and s***ting my pants because I over indulged my sweet tooth!! Obviously I was pretty much out of action for my final days before Australia, but Charlie managed to drag me to our final sight seeing destination, a place in central Bali called Ubud. Ubud is full of native crafts, art and dance. It’s where you go to see Balinese culture. As you can imagine when you want to poop your pants, a stroll around art shops and markets aint on the top of your list. However we did have a look around and see some cool stuff. The best of which was a ceremonial dance we went to see. This Balinese dance (it’s actually a kind of story told in dance) is famous. If you guys can remember an advert a couple of years back, I think it was for ‘Sky’. Showing loads of cool snippets of nature and culture from all round the world. One of the shots was of hundreds of men all sat round in a circle with the arms out in front of them shaking their hands towards a sculpture of a god. Then their chanting would change and they would change where they were facing in unison. I can remember when I saw the advert thinking how cool it looked, well the real thing looks even better. We also saw a fire dance which consisted of one of the dancers jumping around over a fire and kicking it into the audience, which was crazy! One woman’s handbag nearly caught on fire!
The final thing that Charlie did that I missed was climb one of the mountains on Bali, I bailed as I still felt sick. He can tell you all about that if he likes, but this blog is long enough. So for me it was the end of the Asian Leg, and the start of the homeward straight with Australia.
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