Selemat sore ( Good Evening)

Well first of all sorry about the much delayed update and I may just blabber on about boring things.

It has taken a hell of a long time to get here but paradise is worth waiting for. And when I mean a long time I mean a 7 hour flight, 4hour wait, 8 hour flight, staying a night in Jakarta in an amazingly luxurious hotel, a 4 hour flight to Kendari and then a night in not such a nice hotel, 5 hour ferry followed by an 12hour over night ferry nicknamed the slave ship due to its sleeping arrangements.

But it was all full of amazing scenery, people and stories. In Kendari there were children coming up to us and scrubbing our skin because they had never seen a white person before so was checking to see if it was a trick or if this amazing whiteness would stay on. And in Indo how pale you are indicates wealth as people who work in the fields working become darker. One man came up to me and said do you understand they have never seen a white man and we are chocolate colour, which we thought was quite funny. And of course everyone was amazed by my height and would come up to me and would want to shake my hand or high five me. Children would try and jump to reach my height and women seemed to pat me on the back.

We also went past a village on an island that had been relocated by the Indonesian government as they used to have houses on stilts out at sea but were forced to move. David Attenborough produced a documentary at that very village for the BBC. I could go on and on but that's probably enough of the trip.

Hoga is definitely a tropical island. Bearing in mind this is the dry season it rains a hell of a lot, although we did have sun today!!! We have all been given a hut which I'm sharing with Chris. Lets just say its very nice and clean although the toilet is very basic i.e. a hole. And the shower consists of a bucket of water and a cup to our water over you. Oh and there is very limited water supply to the island so we have to try and shower with 3 cup full (about 4litres).

After the first day of admin, accommodation and a lecture all the worlds dangerous animals that just happen to live here, we began the Reef Ecology course. So to date I have had 5 lectures, 3 dives and 1 snorkel and 1 test on classification (Latin names of invertebrates) which I got 90% on!The reefs here are spectacular and the ones we have dived on are classed as the bad ones. We have seen an array of corals (there are 800 species of coral in Indo). Plenty of lion fish, crocodile fish, bat fish, nudibranches the list goes on. And after learning what is down there in the lectures you look much closer and take longer over each coral and appreciate the complexity of this incredible habitat that sadly is getting destroyed. Sounds like I may come back an eco freak!!!

The food here is pretty good. Normally fish, rice and then some vegetables but all with local ingredients. And it's normally fruit for pudding. The pineapple is so juicy. We have all become addicted to prawn crackers and a chili sauce which seemed incredibly hot when we first came but hardly affects us now we have had so much of it.

I could right for ever but the internet here is very expensive and is very slow due to the location. However one of the villages does happen to have a rather large satellite so we are staying up for the world cup match tonight/morning as kick off is at 230am. Ouch. Come on the Dutch!!!

Well that's all from me for now. I will try and up date this every week and possible put on the odd picture depending how slow the internet is.

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I was going to post this last night but the generator cuts out at 12 so I had to save it. I did stay up for the world cup but went to bed after the 90mins as I was falling asleep and it was going to be light soon. Again dived and snorkeled today. However I got stung by a Pacific Man-of War jellyfish today, so we had to abort the dive and I had my face in really hot water to denature the toxins. It hurt a hell of a lot but its all fine now!!! I will add more later on.