Bromo & Yogyakarta

Happily I've now recovered from the ordeal of 36 hours of straight traveling. The train from Jakarta was by no means luxurious. I was expecting a bed and got a reclining chair and a free smelly blanket. I was expecting the 'free meal' to be both free and edible and was disappointed on both fronts. I was expecting to maybe get some sleep, but the screaming toddler behind me had other ideas. And lastly, I was expecting to arrive at the time the train was timetabled to arrive, whereby I'd have an hour to catch next train to Probolinggo, but no, a full two and a half hours after we should have been in Surubaya, we finally pulled into the station. So I went to the ticket office to find out when the next train to Probo was and when the man (who didn't speak a word of English) explained with a calendar rather than a timetable, I decided to find myself a nice strong coffee and some biscuits. Biscuits always help.

In the end, I went for a full Indonesian breakfast in a tiny little warung round the back of the station and while I was eating I was approached by a middle aged local guy saying 'where you from? where you from?'. Turns out he just wanted to practice his English rather than sell me some lude, tacky souvenirs, like I thought he would. He was actually a really nice guy, with surprisingly good English and he was more than willing to help out with my transport troubles. He recommended using a public bus from the bus terminal about 20 mins south of the centre, where they do a hourly service to Probo, which takes 2 hours and costs less than half what the train would have cost me. He even offered to drop me there (for a fee of course).

The bus trip was quite an experience. I was the only white person on board and there was a steady stream of buskers and beggers (some disturbingly young), getting on, singing hideously out of tune, spotting the white person sitting sheepishly in the corner, heading down the bus to then sing really loudly into my face, proffering plastic cups under my nose, asking for money, singing even louder when I said no, finally receiving a few coins and jumping off the moving bus, only to be followed by another busker, this time with an out of tune ukulele and an even worse voice. This cycle continued for the whole two hour journey and by the end, I was in a less than pleasant mood.

The bus came to Probo and the bus driver got off and helped me out of the bus and ushered me into a 'tourist information' place. I'm familiar with these from around Bali and they don't provide information, they provide overpriced tickets for tours and they're pretty difficult to leave once you're inside. Until your wallet opens, that is. Sleep deprivation and a foul headache meant that I was probably an easy target for them and indeed I agreed to use them to get up to Cemero Lawang, where Mt Bromo is and I bought a land rover tour from them, which I'd intended to do in Cemero anyway. So having paid an extortionate amount of money for all this, a minibus pulled up outside and I got in, while the driver tied my bag to the roof.

There was an American couple, Michael and Lily, on the bus already, so at least I wasn't the only idiot to get conned into this trip and I'd have some people to talk to on the way up. I got in at about 2pm and it turns out they'd been sitting in the bus since 11am. The driver said he was waiting for the bus to fill up before he left. Oh great, I'd be sitting in a hot, stuffy minibus that was filling up at a rate of one person an hour. Thankfully it only took about half an hour before a large group of Indonesian tourists got on and I thought we'd be able to leave. But the definition of a full bus here is quite different to that at home. It took another two hours (yes, two hours!) before the bus was sufficiently rammed with people, sitting on the floor, hanging off the ladder at the back, on each others laps and hanging out the side door. I'd managed to get a front seat with two chain smokers, but I was still better off than those in the back.

Slowly but surely the bus emptied out as people got off along the road and towards the end it was quite comfortable. We arrived in Cemero in the dark and in the rain and checked out the two cheapest places to stay, which were both pretty expensive and both fairly hideous. We went for the least cell-like rooms, chucked our stuff down and went to check out the restaurant, which, though similarly expensive, was actually very nice and apparently had good views over the volcano during the day. I ate with Michael and Lily and when they went to bed, I was joined by a dutch guy called Nolke, who was in the room opposite me and we had a beer together. He'd done the jeep tour I would be doing the following morning and he told me that the view point was covered by a big cloud when he was there, so they couldn't see a thing. Didn't sound too good, so I didn't get my hopes up. Like me, Nolke was going to Yogyakarta the next day and we decided to make the journey together.

3.30am there was a knock on my door and a voice saying 'Jeep... 15 minute,' so I hauled myself out of bed, chucked on as many layers of clothes as I could find (it was bloody freezing!) and headed out to the front. My jeep was a nice burnt orange Toyota Land Cruiser and the driver was semi-suicidal, with taste for speed. Needless to say, the journey to the view point was great fun! Woke me up more than any amount of caffeine could. The sunrise itself was distinctly disappointing though. Just dark and cloudy and the view from the view point wasn't that great. Plus it was difficult to get to the front to get and pictures due to the throngs of people lining the railing.

The jeep ride down from the viewpoint to the crater itself was, again, great fun. We'd been tailing an identical Land Cruiser down the mountain and once the land flattened out onto a plain of volcanic sand and ash, it was an all out race to the crater! The jeep ride alone was well worth the money I spent on it and more than made up for the crap sunrise.

The crater lip was spectacular. The sun was up by now and it was a clear morning (apart from the smoke billowing from the bottom of the crater), so there were some impressive views to be had.

The jeep took us back to the prison - I mean err, guest house... sorry - and I walked down the road to a tiny little warung with Nolke for a breakfast of Nasi Goreng (fried rice with a fried egg on top) before getting back in the minibus (this time with the same number of people as there were seats!). The journey to Yogyakarta went much smoother that I'd thought it would. We got off the minibus in Probolinggo and there was our next (aircon!) minibus waiting, ready to take us the 8 hours to Yogya. Okay, so the aircon didn't really work and yet again, the driver was a maniac, but we got there in one piece and more than that, we'd made a new friend :) Bob, from Ireland, was the only other English speaker on board and the three of us, on arriving in Yogya, went in search of some budget beds together.

Having been ushered round the little alleyways by a local, eager for us to use his travel agency, we found Nuri Losmen, a small and very cheap affair, with sparse rooms and no hot water, but surprisingly comfortable beds and unlimited free tea. They had only a single and a twin left, so Bob took the single and myself and Nolke shared to twin. Okay, so you do lose a little privacy, but it meant we only paid half each and the result was 3 nights of decent accommodation for the grand total of about five pounds fifty. Not too shabby.

All of us were absolutely shattered, having had rubbish nights sleep in the cell-like mountain rooms (see picture below), so we decided to find somewhere for a quick dinner, maybe a beer and then bed. But only bed for a few hours because the Man U - Barca final was on at 2am and none of us would be missing that! We ended up having dinner at about half 9 in the 'Bintang Cafe', listening to a really quite good live instrumental band (think early Pink Floyd music coupled with late-60's hair and fashion... actually no. Imagine Jimmy Hendrix but Indonesian, right handed, not quite as good [though still pretty decent] and with less fire and there you have the lead guitarist of this band. If only I'd had my camera with me...), but we had to pull ourselves away after a few songs, because we desperately needed some sleep before the game. Thankfully Nolke seems to be a light sleeper because he actually heard his alarm, got up and (with difficulty) woke both me and Bob up.

The game itself was an odd one for me. I fully intended to watch as a neutral, but was swayed in part by patriotism but mostly by the fact that 90% of people watching (including one very annoying, vocal and downright ignorant American sitting next to me) were supporting Barca. So for the first time I can remember, I actually wanted Man U to win a game. Of course, I was only to be disappointed and had I watched as a neutral I would probably have quite enjoyed the result.

Next morning was supposed to be a well deserved lay-in, but I was awake and beyond sleep by about 8.30 in the morning, as was Nolke. So we went to a little cafe down the road to have breakfast and then to a little travel agency to book a tour to see the vast Buddhist Temple of Borobodur at sunset. The tour left at 2pm and we hopped onto a little minubus and set off for the temple. Bob was going to explore Yogya, so we left him in bed.

Borobodur was bloody huge! Like really properly big. But the most amazing thing wasn't the sheer size of it. It wasn't even the mind-bogglingly intricate detail on every inch of it's surface. It was the evidence of what I can only presume to be the most backwards education system on the planet. Local students roved by the dozen all over the temple, having been sent here not on a history trip or even one for RE, but an English trip. Their English homework involves going to tourist hotspots, armed with cameras, pens and pieces of paper, in search of Westerners, whom they have to interview, get a signature from and be in a photo with. So me and Nolke spent most of our time there looking for deserted corners and didn't dare venture towards the top where the majority of them were prowling. Needless to say we couldn't stay inconspicuous for long and once one group has got hold of you, they all follow and block off any means of escape. In the end we glanced up at each other and both decided now was the best time to leave. So shoulders down, we pushed our way out of the crowd (they were mostly young kids... no match for a good shoulder barge or well placed elbow), jumped down the stairs and headed for the empty grounds around the temple.

The way out towards the car park was just as treacherous. Now just because their education techniques are questionable, doesn't mean that Indonesian people aren't clever. The way in to the temple had been a clear walk down a nice tree lined path, but on the way out we found this way blocked. As were all other the routes except for just one. And that route was a maze of market stalls, beggars and touts all eager to get your money and not in the least shy about asking for it. This time, chin up, pretend you can't see anything but what's directly ahead of you and walk fast! That way you only get the most determined sellers pushing garish souvenirs into your face. There was one man who deserves particular credit for his efforts though. He followed us right to our minibus, trying to sell what looked to us like pieces of wood that a child had drawn on, had to be forcibly moved just so we could shut the door and then stood, face gaunt, about an inch from the window, pointing to these bits of wood while everyone on board tried to keep a straight face and pretend he didn't exist. He stood there for a full 5 minutes until the last two people arrived at the bus and we could finally leave.

That evening, Bob was nowhere to be found, so me and Nolke went into Yogya to explore the night stalls buy presents for people at home. Don't get your hopes up, he was the one buying presents, not me. Yogyakarta (pron: Jogjakarta), is a very arty and cultural place and full of batik artwork (more on that tomorrow), leatherwork and amazing food, but mostly full of tourists. Not that it was that bad though; probably my favourite place in Indonesia and certainly the most relaxed and laid back place that I've been to. Nolke bought a load of t-shirts for his nephews and some new headphones for his ipod while I gawked at the rock bottom camera prices and vowed one day to come back to this place with nothing but an empty suitcase and a large baggage allowance on the return flight. We ate dinner in a tiny little place well away from the markets and all the tourists and were pleasantly surprised by the 'Bakso' we'd ordered. This place served only meal - a really nice beef and noodle soup - for 5000Rp or in British terms, 30p, and one drink - a lemony, sweet tea - for 1500Rp... 10p!

Right, now for Friday. Bob had turned up again and he and Nolke were going to head off to some other nearby temples, while I stayed in Yogya to by Sarah's birthday present, post that and some other stuff home and then go and explore a batik art gallery. In the post office, I was asked by a worker there if I wanted a hand. Evidently I looked as lost and confused as I felt. So I showed him what I had to post and told him where it was going to and he took me round the back to the packaging department where I watched as some other workers packed it up very neatly. So if it arrives broken Sarah, it's not my fault. While this was happening I got talking to the first guy about where I'm from, what I'm doing here etc and when I told him I was going to a batik gallery later, he told me not to trust anyone round the touristy spots as it's all fake and massively overpriced and recommended a small place about a kilometer east of town that I should visit. Once the package was done and they saw the look of horror on my face at the price to post it via airmail, the same man said I should go to a different post office to get it send by boat, which would take up to 2 months, but would cost about 10% of the airmail price. It just so happened that he had to go to this post office himself to pick up a delivery of paper and he offered me a free ride on the back of his motorbike. Not one to sniff at anything free, I gratefully accepted. Once there, he helped me fill out all the forms, explained to the lady behind the counter what needed to happen and once everything was done, he told me that the good batik gallery was only two blocks from here and that he'd happily drop me there. Score! If only everyone were this friendly...

The batik gallery was fascinating. Batik is a process where you apply a pattern to fabric with molten wax, dye the fabric and the waxed parts stay white. Then you chuck the whole thing into boiling water and the wax comes off. With multiple dyings and waxing, some truly stunning effects and images are possible. I walked through to the back and two women and one man were working on new pieces, sitting on the floor, waxing bits of fabric. The man got up, introduced himself (in perfect English) and offered me a free tour of the gallery and an explanation of the process. Having done a fair bit of batik stuff for work at Brampton, I was fairly familiar with the process and able to truly appreciate just how bloody amazing some of these pieces of art were. Now no offense to the students at Brampton Manor, but the stuff in this gallery makes the batik work hanging around T6 look like something a blind child with no arms has done.

All the exhibits are either hanging on the walls or piled against each other along the edges of the room and there's so much in this little place that it'd take at least a day to look at it all; they have stuff from hundreds of artists across the globe. Now my room at home is decidedly bare and could do with some art to liven it up, so I figured I'd see if anything took my fancy. Looking round, I made a shortlist of about 30 pieces and the guy who'd given me the tour came over and remarked that I had very good taste. There were about 6 of his own in my little collection. I asked if I could see any more of his work and if he had any particular favourites. When asked this question, he pointed to a piece that had escaped me until now. Hanging opposite the main desk was an absolute masterpiece. A mountain landscape at least two and a half meters across and one and a half deep, so intricately detailed and perfectly made that I was almost speechless. It had taken him 17 weeks to complete and was the only piece he'd been working on at the time. Now most of the ones I'd picked out already were in the 150,000Rp - 300,000Rp range (about 10-20 quid) and all now seemed slightly poor in comparison. 1.75 Million Ruppiah this was valued at and me, never willing to spend any money on anything, was sorely tempted. So some hard bargaining followed and I got him down to 1.1m (about 67GBP), which seemed pretty good to me, so I bought it. It's now nice and safe at the bottom of my bag, waiting for me to get home and build a stretcher frame for it. If you're reading this Tom, I'll be paying the tech department a visit once I'm home, looking for some assistance.

This post is now failing to save as a draft, so I'll have to post it up. I'm off to get dinner somewhere in Kuala Lumpur's chinatown, where I'm staying at the moment. I will be back to add more to it!

Photos...

Bromo:



Pathetic sunrise




Borobodur:





Just a quick update on my plans for the next few weeks. I'm heading to the Camron Highlands tomorrow, and then to Penang. From there I'll have to move bloody quickly to Chiang Mai in north Thailand, because I've applied for a week long volunteering thing with a load of elephants on Jo's advice. If i'm successful, that starts on Monday morning. From there, Laos, Hanoi, Vietnam coast to Ho Chi Minh, Cambodia, Siem reap and the temples there, Bangkok, New York, HOME!!!

Byesy bye.

I've got some catching up to do.

I'm sitting in a stuffy internet cafe in Jakarta right now, wondering how I'm going to spend the next 6 hours before my train leaves Gambir station at 2130. There is the glimmer of hope that it's a 'luxury' train, so I have something to look forward to at least. For now though, I'll try my best to remember the last few days and recount them for your reading pleasure.

The last night in Lovina was spent entirely in and around the homestay. I went to sit on the beach for a bit and found Georgio (the guy from Hounslow or wherever it was) there already. I'd bought my Lonely Planet for some light reading and he went through all sorts of places with me, telling me the best way to get from place to place, what to do about visas, where to avoid, where I shouldn't miss and all sorts of very useful stuff like that. At sunset I went to get my camera and it turns out he's into photography too, but he'd decided against bringing his stuff, so that fueled the conversation for a while. That was when I got the chicken shot in the previous post.

Eventually the conversation turned to cycling, which we're both fans of, even if he is a bit on the slow side. He wanted some help adjusting the indexing on his rear derailleur and showed him how to and even drew some diagrams. So it turns out I am useful for some things, even if rivetting blog posts about cameras and bikes isn't one of them.

As a reward he invited me to try some of the Durian he'd bought earlier. It's the most expensive fruit you can buy and, defying all logic, it's by far the most disgusting. First off it smells absolutely foul - gut wrenchingly so, if you take a deep breath of it. It's prickly enough to be painful to pick up, it's very slimy sticky and it's renound for giving people hallucinations and weird dreams if you eat enough of it. It doesn't taste quite as bad as it smells, but that's not to say it's by any means pleasant. I had a few tentative mouthfuls and had to resort to spitting the rest away and washing my mouth out. It took a good 2 days for the smell to completely leave my fingers (yes, I do wash my hands, thankyouverymuch), but I can at least say I've tried a Durian, which is something not many people can do. Although similarly, I can also say I've drawn a diagram of the indexing of a rear derailleur, so perhaps it's not such a good thing.

Dinner that night was tuna steak, caught fresh by Mr Gede's son, cooked in a very nice Balinese onioney sauce, which I enjoyed in the company of Mr Gede himself. He'd been playing the Gamelan that afternoon and I was asking about it, so he offered to teach me some traditional Balinese tunes. It's harder than it looks, but I picked it up quite quick. For those interested, it uses a pentatonic scale (the black notes of a piano), where no two notes will sound wrong together, so you can happily sit there with no musical prowess whatsever and make something resembling actual music! I might have to get me one of these!

Later that night I sat on the beach trying to get some more star trail photos, but got so harrassed by local touts trying to sell me stuff, I decided to leave it after one shot. Then for an early night, followed by an equally early morning, ready for my bus back to Kuta.

I went to Kuta much moer mentally prepared this time, and it paid dividends. I quite liked it there this time. You can have fun messing around with the touts, the food's cheaper than anywhere else and I was staying somewhere with a really nice pool. So two days were spent browsing (but not buying) in the local markets and relaxing in the hotel grounds, preparing for two days of continuous relentless travel (from which this blog is being made).

From Kuta, I flew to Jakarta and from here, I'll get the overnight train to Surubaya ni the east of Java and from there, it's a taxi to another station within Surubaya, then another train to Probolinggo, then a bus to Cemoro Lawang, where I'll finally be able to book a bed for the night. Cemoro Lawang is right on the lip of the crater of Gunung Bromo and I'll be up at 4am to trek to the summit for sunrise. Expect some good photos :)

In case you hadn't guessed, I'm writing as a means of time wasting while I wait for my train (5 hours to go now!), so apologies if I'm babbling. Well apologies if I'm babbling more than usual, anyway...

Now to try and put into words the vast monstrosity that is Jakarta. This is how Lonely Planet put it - 'America can keep its big apple; Indonesia's capital was never going to be an easy fruit to swallow. Dubbed the 'Big Durian', Jakarta is a chaotic landscape of freeways, skyscrapers, slums and traffic jams'. And I completely agree. It is, to not put too fine a point on it, fucking horrible here. You can actually see the pollution here! The air is hazy and if you look up, even when there's a rare cloudless moment, the sky is mottled and brown rather than blue. Flying in, you could see a quite spectacular change in atmosphere below the cloudline, where it went from clear and clean, to being abruptly dirty and smoggy, with maybe no more than half a kilometer's visabilty. It smells about as bad as it looks too.

I've found my way to the backpacker district, had lunch in a really quite nice and friendly café and am now in an internet café a few hundred yards down the road. The internet and computers are slow, the keyboard is sticky, but there's a fan pointed right at my face, so I'm happy to stay here. It's dirt cheap too... about 20p an hour!

I'm coming to the unavoidable conclusion that the best way to while away the hours might be to find another friendly little café somewhere and get started on the Bintang - a very nice Indonesian beer. Maybe there will actually be some other backpackers to talk to. We can only hope.

I think I've exhausted all my stores of inane nonsense, so I'll leave it here for now. Next time I write, I'll be either at Bromo, or in Yogyakarta - the former may not have internet access, I'm not sure.

Wish me luck.

Just photos this time

It's been a while since I've been able to upload anything, so here's the backlog. I'll do my best to get them in chronological order.

Temple in Ubud where I saw the Legong dances:




Rice Paddies in the hills north of Ubud:



Helpful notice on the cottage door in Ubud:

Not sure if you can read it due to the compression, so here's what it says:
Attention to guest

We would be preciated to you if you do go to bed to sleep close the door from inside.

Sincerly your
Sama Cottage Owner

Not entirely sure what they meant by that...

Sunset Temple (Tanah Lot) and you can see where it gets its name from...


The temple is the big silhouette on the left. It's inside the rock.

My army of admirers (there were more off shot too!):


Lovina Chicken!


And the shot it was interrupting:


Gede's Homestay at night:


Told you I like stars. Expect plenty of these to come. The sky is soo nice here at night! No light pollution whatsoever.

Sorry about all the compression - it's the only way to get shots up in time over here. There's more on my flickr if you're interested.

My plans for the next few days

So I'm back in Kuta now, having taken the direct shuttle bus here from Lovina.

I have a flight on Monday morning to Jakarta, which sounds like a boring place, so I'm gonna try and head out of there the day I arrive and go to Yogyakarta, which doesn't sound like a boring place. It's got a cool name at least. I'll spend a night or two there, then head to either Surubaya or Probollingo, where I'll make my way to Gunung Bromo. I'll spend a few nights there before heading, finally, into Malaysia, probably from Surubaya's airport, but maybe by taking a ferry from somewhere. I'll decide nearer the time. For those who want to know what Gunung Bromo is, Google Images is your friend (until I get there and take some better pictures!).

In Malaysia (Mum, you'd best not read this paragraph), I can legally rent a motorbike and since that's a fun thing to do, I shall endeavor to do just that. If you did read that Mum, don't worry, I'll use a helmet and only go fast when the police aren't looking.

The last of my adventures in Lovina will come in the next blog, whenever that might happen. Probably later tonight because I'll only end up at the hotel reading my book otherwise. On which note - Dad, you'll be happy to know that your Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is now on sale in a little second-hand bookshop in Kuta for 70,000Rp and got me a pretty good deal on a nice thick Dean Koontz novel. Ta!

The last of Ubud and the first of Lovina

Yesterday's evening at the sunset temple was much better than I'd been expecting. Possibly even worth the hour's very slow journey on the back of Akak's motorbike!

Now personally I'm not a huge fan of temples and the like and I'd been expecting something similar to those earlier in the day. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that this one was basically just a very nice stretch of black beach with various templey-like buildings 20 or so meters out to sea (you could swim there, but I didn't fancy it myself) and some more on rocky outcrops that you could walk up to. 'DO NOT ENTRY' was the sign at most of the buildings and I happily complied.

The beach itself was heaving with people and there something extremely unexpected, but not entirely unwelcome, happened. I'm kneeling down with my camera trying to get a photo as I so often do and someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around and there's a group of about a dozen local teenage girls all staring at me and giggling. 'Foto foto' was all the girl said to me, so I presumed they wanted a group photo against the sunset and they want me to take it for them. A group photo was what they wanted, but apparently I was to be included. So I had to stand and pose amid a rather large pack of girls (yes girls, you come in packs) while half a dozen cameras were produced and handed to another bemused Westener, so they could have their photo taken with me. Now let's face it, you can't blame them... you'd be hard pushed to resist a photo with me, but this was slightly over the top, I'm sure you'll agree. Despite their pleas and possibly against my own better judgement, I managed to escape, but from then on the rest of the evening seemed a slightly more pleasant affair than it otherwise might have. It's always nice to be appreciated.

The journey home was much faster and more pleasant and it being night time, the roads were less crowded and the air significantly cooler. Plus the stars were out in force and if you hadn't gathered by now, I quite like a starry sky, so I quite enjoyed the journey back to Ubud.

That night I ate in Warung Kaca, which was a very cheap place I found in a tiny little back street about a kilometer from the town centre. It was fairly empty bar a small Indonesian family and some half a dozen cats and some very friendly dogs, but the food was, as it usually is here, excellent.

The journey to Lovina the following day took about 3 hours and would take us through some stunning landscapes of mountain bordered lakes, and smoke and cloud tipped volcanoes. At one point we drove through a thick cloud for a good 3 or 4 kms. The bus itself was pretty empty with only myself, a Japanese couple who didn't speak any English and a Swedish couple called Daniel and Lydia, who spoke perfect English. So I spent the journey talking to them about the sort of things backpackers talk about. I.e. backpacking. They're heading out to Thailand and Cambodia after Bali.

Once in Lovina, we split up since they were staying with some friends, who came to collect them from the bus stop and I would be staying at Gede's Homestay, right on the beach, about 2kms East of Kalibukbuk - the centre of Lovina.

This is by far the cheapest place I've stayed and for once I thought I'd go for the cheapest option available, just to see what it's like being a proper backpacker. So no air-con, no hot water and not even any toilet paper. Just a bed, a ceiling fan and a toilet/shower room complete with it's own population of mosquitoes. Still, it's only costing me about 4GBP a night. Having spent one night there though, I think it might be worth the extra 2 quid for an air-con room in future. I had about 3, maybe 4 hours sleep in total last night.

I'd only been there for 20 mins or so and was sitting at the table outside my little bungalow when Mr Gede, the owner, came and introduced himself to me and sat down to have a little chat. He's an old man (probably 70 or so) and very friendly and open, with lots of good advice about the area and which activities to do and what touts to avoid. His family runs the homestay, with nieces, nephews, grandsons and granddaughters milling around the restaurant, cleaning rooms and fixing broken motorbikes. He asked how I found out about his place and I told him I'd found it in the Lonely Planet guide, which seemed to surprise him - I thought the majority of his custom would come from people like me, sticking religiously to everything their guidebook says, but apparently not. So I showed him the page in the book and he read it with interest, occasionally asking for definitions of some of the longer words and at the end his face lit up as he saw a mention of himself and the free rides on his motorbike that he gives his guests.

Also staying here are two dutch couples, who are very friendly and chatty, a middle aged guy from Hounslow, who's cycling the circumference of the island (about 300-400 miles and he's taking two months to do it, so I didn't like to mention Bike Europe) and is very knowledgeable about the whole of southeast Asia and an American girl who's quite good looking, but so far seems very quiet and unwilling to join in conversations, unfortunately.

As for Lovina, it's not very big, but it seems a very nice place and isn't as touristy as I'd expected it to be. There's still lots of touts around though, offering dolphin watching trips and cock fights. My ability to say no to things is fast improving and I can even speak some very basic Bahasa Indonesia now, and they bother you less when you put the effort in to say no in their own language. It usually evokes a smile and lots of 'well done, well done!!'s.

This morning, on a recommendation from Mr Gede, I went snorkling and it was absolutely breathtaking! It's something I've never done before, but it's surprisingly easy to pick up and the coral reef to the northwest of Lovina is spectacular. Perfectly clear waters, thousands of psychedelically coloured fish and weird looking coral thingies sticking up from the seabed, at times only a foot or two from my face. For about 6 quid for half an hour in the water, I was pretty chuffed with my morning, even if I didn't get to see a giant turtle, which supposedly are quite common here. The only downside being my now slightly rosy coloured shoulders, but it was well worth a bit of sunburn.

Tomorrow I head back to Kuta for a few more days and I have a flight to catch on Monday into Jakarta. I'm now more prepared for the mayhem that is Kuta and I'm going to try and make more of my time there than I did before.

That's all for now. Photos will probably have to wait until Jakarta, where they (hopefully) have broadband.

So until next time, selamat tinggal and selamat malam!

Screw what I said before...

Bali is a friggin' paradise!

I'm out of Kuta now, thank God! I'm up in the rural area of Ubud, staying at Sama's Cottages as recommended by Lonely Planet. I have my own en suite cottage and there's a really nice pool surrounded by palm trees. I'm only here for two nights though; I'm heading up to Lovina next, where there's an interesting sounding black sand beach.

Yesterday was spent on the rickety little bus from Kuta here, which took about an hour and a half, then spent exploring Ubud itself. Yesterday evening I went to one of the ceremonial dance performances in the central temple, which was pretty amazing, if a bit odd. Incredible musicianship though and plenty of nice complex polyrhythms and odd time-signatures to keep me entertained.

Ubud is like the religious centre of Bali, and there's a temple on pretty much every corner and if you travel out a few kms from the centre, there are some spectacular temples set into the hills. I've spent this morning travelling round some of those on the back of a motorbike ridden by a local named Akak (I think). 100,000Rp (~6 quid) for a day's riding doesn't seem too bad to me. He's taking me to the Sunset Temple later, which is apparently spectacular. Apparently I'm the best Westerner he's had on the back of the bike - most people make it hard to ride, but apparently I don't.

There's an awful lot of French people here and I've spoken to a few of them as best I can, but it'd still be nice to have some English speaking company. Maybe Lovina or Yogyakarta will be better for that.

I would upload photos, but the internet here still seems to be made of bits of string and cardboard and is distinctly pedestrian. I don't think this computer can handle pictures either.

It's mid afternoon here, and I'm off for a late lunch of spit-roast suckling pig. That is if I can find the place that does it - it wouldn't be the first time that the Lonely Planet guide has been wrong.

Not sure when I'll be back. Probably soon. Until then, Selamat Tinggal.

Finally got to Bali

I have indeed arrived and it's frigging boiling here!

I'm in Kuta, which is the hotspot for western tourists, but it still feels extremely foreign. Tiny little alleyways with scooters weaving their way around you, Balinese people constantly (and I mean literally every 10-15 seconds) asking if I want a taxi somewhere, some cheap sunglasses, my hair dreadlocked, my back massaged, a bike to rent, a surf board to hire, some lessons in surfing, a tailor made suit... I could go on, but I'm sure you've got the idea by now. It is completely incessant and quite annoying, so going to leave Kuta tomorrow and head north to Ubud, which sounds a bit nicer.

It's not all bad here though. The food and drink is phenomenally cheap - I paid about two pounds for a quite large (and very spicy) meal and a beer - and once they realise they might actually make a sale out of you, the people are very nice, friendly and helpful. It's nice being a millionaire too :) it's about 15,000Rp to the pound at the moment and I haven't seen much being sold for more than 50,000Rp

I gotta be off now though
Bye

...

Back again :)

Been here for a day and a half now and the culture shock has hit me pretty hard. I'm occasionally feeling at a bit of a loss in this new place with far too many sights and sounds to take in and being an obvious foreigner I'm a particular target for all the thousands of street-side vendors. So I've been feeling a weird rollercoaster of optimism and excitement to bouts of hopelessness and overwealmedness (there must be a word for that...).

Things are looking up though and I now have a plan!

But I'll have to tell you the plan later because my internet is running out... their idea of 30 minutes seems pretty dubious to me! It's a good plan though, you'll like it.

So here's what happened:

I arrived for my flight at about half past eight, only half an hour later than planned, and joined the back of the rather large check-in queue. It took 45 minutes to get to the front, but I got there with about 15 minutes before bording and everything went smoothly. I got my boarding pass and my bag went through fine, so I headed towards the nearest travelex to get some Indonesian Rupiah. I figured it best to do this while I was still in an English speaking country where I knew my bank cards would work. Only they didn't. I've got two debit cards and a credit card with me and all three failed to get me anywhere. So I went and tried the cards in the nearest ATM, but no luck. My transaction was temporarily unavailable, apparently.

Now I know that logically speaking, it's unlikely that all three cards would happen to get cancelled on exactly the same day, when they've been working fine for the last month, but I had 5 minutes left to get through security and get to my gate and locic was the last thing my mind was capable of. As if to prove this, the first thing I did was to phone home for advice, waking my parents up at half past midnight (on my mum's birthday of all days), and genuinely thinking they might actually be able to help me. In the end I went over to Garuda Airways helpdesk and asked them what to do. It seemed I had the option of either running through security (not literally of course, that'd look suspiscious), catching my flight and ringing various banks once I was at the other side in the hope that I could sort it out there or getting my bag pulled from the flight and getting a transfer to the next flight to Indonesia, on Sunday. I chose the second option, decided to get down to the HSBC in Sydney and find out what the hell had happened.

Having calmed down slightly while waiting for my bag to arrive in the baggage handling place, I thought I'd try a different ATM and see if I could do anything at all with my cards. Low and behold, each and every one of them allowed me to get $20 out, check my balance or even top up my phone if I so wished.

It's now the next day, I've been to the HSBC and a different travelex and everything has been explained. First off, travelexes in Australia don't take UK cards of any description. Why the girl in tn the Airport travelex didn't know this, I don't know, but if she had, I'd currenly be on a beach in Bali. And it would seem that the ATM that didn't like me in the airport was just out of service.

So out of all this, I still have three working cards, two extra days in Sydney, my foreign money before I get to the airport, an earlier shuttle booked for tomorrow morning and I'm even gonna book my first night's accomodation in Bali before I get there. So I suppose it's all for the best in the long term. Plus I got some cool photos last night to make up for not taking my camera the first time.

Today has been spent in and around Paddy's Markets and Darling Harbour. Hardly anything to write home about, although inspired by my own blog post earlier, I bought the biggest apple I could find felt satified that I might manage my 5-a-week this week.

I'm gonna phone ahead and practice my Balinese with this accomodation booking. Hopefully my Lonely Planet guide is accurate.

I'll leave you with my photos from last night. It turns out you can do star trails in a city too. :) I didn't think that'd work.

Bye for now and hopefully my next blog post will actually be from Bali!

Update

Okay, so there were some mishaps with bank cards and currency exchanges at the airport and I've been transfered to Sunday's flight to Indonesia. Bit of a shame, but hey, two extra days in Sydney - could be worse...

I'll go into it all in plenty of detail later, don't worry.

In other news, I've developed a spectacularly snotty cold, partly due to staying up (with my camera this time) in the freezing cold at Maquaries Point and partly due, I think, to eating about as much fruit here in a month as I would in a day at home.

Happy (slightly belated, if my maths is correct, which it usually isn't) birthday Mum!

Byesy bye.

Back in Sydney for the last time

I'm writing this on the eve of my flight to Indonesia having spent the last two days in Sydney again.

Firstly, some good news being that my phone has revived itself, with only a little help from a two metre fall from my bunk. Should you feel the need to call me, I will actually be able to hear you. Okay, maybe good news isn't the best phrase... And secondly, my ipod dock broke. I had the idea of making a new one myself by connecting a usb plug (which I happen to have) with a 3.5mm jack (which I happen to have), because, as far as I could tell, that's all the original dock was. I asked the guys in the big Apple store in Sydney of this would work and got some strange looks, followed by an offer to buy a new one for $48. No thank you. Anyway, long story short, it doesn't work, so I was faced with the choice of no music for the next two months, which I'm sure you'll agree is totally unthinkable, an overpriced dock, which once again, I wouldn't sink to, or for an extra $15 a whole new ipod shuffle, which would include the dock and a handy extra pair of headphones. So I'm going to be looking for buyers of a two month old, slightly worn blue 1gb ipod shuffle when I get back home. Any takers? I'll throw in whatever random Thai music I happen to pick up in internet cafés free of charge.

I honestly never thought I'd write a whole paragraph about an mp3 player, but there we go. I'm sure you all enjoyed hearing about it.

Last night, a girl called Debs came round flaunting (don't worry, it's not that bad...) pieces of paper entitling the holder to a meal for $6 and pints for $3 at Madame Debiers. Sounded good and about twenty odd people were going from our hostel alone, so I figured why not, and tagged along. There was an open mic later that night which two people from our hostel would be performing in and they were actually pretty decent. Anyway, a good night was had and a pretty horrible morning followed.

I dragged myself up anyway, because I had planned to go to Bondi beach, since it was my last day in the country and therefore my last chance to go there. It takes about 45 minutes from the city and really isn't worth the effort. It's just a beach. Quite a nice one, but still just a beach. Maybe it's better in summer. Nonetheless, I spent a good hour or so, lying in the sand, reading the Lonely Planet guide to SE Asia, scared myself shitless about various diseases I'm going to catch and figured I'd be best off going to have lunch somewhere to take my mind off it all.

If there was one redeeming factor to Bondi, it was the fish and chips. Almost as good as those back in east London.

Anyways, I left at about 3 o clock to head into the city to buy the aforementioned ipod and on my way home decided it'd be nice to watch the sunset again from Mrs Macquaries Point. And if only I'd taken my camera... it was spectacular! Better by miles than last time I was there. Ah well... I'm sure there'll be plenty in Asia for me to get.

Since then, I've been sorting clothes out, charging things and generally making myself ready to fly out of Australia tomorrow. So this will be the last blog I make from anywhere vaguely western, but if Lonely Planet is right, they've got computers and things in Thailand now, so I should manage to keep you all informed of my antics and their whereabouts.

So goodbye for now and hopefully hello to some swealtering heat and sandy white beaches for me :)

Hope you're all nice and jealous.
Lots of love
Matt
xxx

Once again, no photos to show, but all my Blue Mountains ones are now up if you take a peek at my flickr

One more before I head back to Sydney.

I'm still in Katoomba and it's bloody freezing here! I've had to buy some shoes for God sake!

Having woken up late and just got to the kitchen in time to make some breakfast before they shut it down for cleaning, I figured it was about time I stopped being a lazy bastard actually went and made the most of my time here. So I walked down the road to the Explorer Bus place and tried to see what I could do for the day. The Explorer buses are two ex-service London routemasters that run an hour long circluar route round all the main sites in the mountains. One ticket means you can jump on and off as and when you like, all day, but it costs $34! I'm still not entirely sure how I managed it, but I got one for $13 and a half price voucher to go on the skywalk, scenic trainline and cable car. Plus I now had a plan for the day, which is always nice.

I got on the bus to the skywalk and arrived just as it was pulling up and boarding. It like a cable car but erm... well it is a cable car, they've just called it the Skywalk to make it sound better. It takes you right out over a gorge-thingy and you get some pretty spectacular views, obstructed only by posing chinese tourists. Once you arrive, you have the choice of either the world's steepest railway or the (actual) cable car ride down to the bottom. Naturally I chose the railway and like they said it would be, it was pretty damn steep! 52 degrees at its steepest point. I was lightly disappointed that it was all done by winches and counterweights though - I was hoping for an old steam train that would struggle to stop in time at the bottom ala Polar Express (how gay am I???).

At the bottom there was an elevated walk throught the rainforest with boring signposts stuck to trees and weirdly, lots of carpeted sections. Ever a cleaner, I couldn't help but wonder if they ever got hoovered and if so, how...

This circluar route took half an hour or so and I headed back up the mountainside in the cable car for lunch in the café.

Next on my list of things to do today were the Leura Cascades and they were only twenty minutes away on the next explorer bus. It was a popular stop and the whole bus emptied out. I ended up walking with an old couple from Geelong (on the south coast... I went there with the Oz tour) and a Chinese guy who seemed permenantly lost.

Will finish this later.

...


It's now later - two days later - and I can't be asked. It wasn't that exciting, don't worry.

Finally got to do it!

Ever since coming to Australia I've been waiting for a cloudless night in a place with no street lights and finally it happened!

And here's why...




All my other photos are uploading as I type, but I just checked the upload speed here and I'm getting 0.07mb/s. So they probably won't all be done before my time runs out.

They are actually pretty damn blue!

The mountains that is. I've been in the Blue Mountains for a few hours now and they are breathtaking! I'm staying in one of the top YHAs in the country in Katoomba and it's like a hotel! About $30 (15 quid) a night too... not bad! Their claim of 'fast internet' is somewhat dubious though - 30 pictures to upload and it's taken 15 minutes to do 3%... this might turn out to be an expensive internet session.

I arrived soon after lunchtime today, having taken the two hour train from Sydney and went straight to a little café for some lunch. And what a place to start here... really nice food for pretty cheap and the place was deserted so they let me play the piano in the corner afterwards. It needed tuning and felt a bit horrible to play, but they were still impressed :) Apparently it hasn't been touched in months. Nothing compared to the $270,000 Bechstein I played in Sydney (don't think I mentioned it before, but I stumbled upon a hidden little piano shop in Sydney with that piano in the window. The owner let me play one of the uprights in the back, heard me playing Fantasie Impromptu and offered me a 'real piano' to play. My god that was nice! But anyway, I'm a) just showing off now, and b) getting quite distracted and deviating massively off topic).

So yeah, the Blue Mountains... After lunch I decided to dump my stuff in the hostel and go off and do the touristy walk past the Three Sisters in time to catch the fast approaching sunset. Amazingly, I managed to time it perfectly, despite the walk being at least twice as far as I'd thought it would be. The mountains are stunning. Normally I'd let you look at the photos, but they're still only 12% done and I've got 20 minutes of internet left. I think they might have to wait til next time...

I've just got back from Echo Point and I'm sitting in the hostel, waiting for dinner time, when I'll have to decide between going to the supermarket and cooking for myself or eating out. I'll probably end up eating out because it seems pretty cheap round here and I can't cook.

The hostel's pretty empty (only two people in my six share dorm), so I dunno what's gonna be happening tonight. Hopefully it won't be too boring.

Once again, I'm running out of things to talk about so I'll leave you with the few photos that have uploaded.

I'm back in Sydney...

... and it's raining again.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to catch the train into the Blue Mountains and spend a night or two out there. 'Mostly sunny' is the forecast, so hopefully it won't be too bad.

Apologies again to those at home... it turns out my maths isn't as good as it should be and it was actually half six in the morning when they got three international calls with nobody on the other end. Oops!

Not too much to report for now. The greyhound bus over here was extremely uncomfortable, but I managed to get a few hours sleep. I now have an hour and a half to waste before I can check into the hostel, so I've booked into an internet café to upload the last of the photos from Byron. Nothing special though, so you'll have to look at my flickr to see them.

I really can't think of anything interesting to write, so I'll be off now.

Until next time...
:)

Quick and slightly irrelevant update

I rather stupidly took my phone into the sea with me yesterday and now the speaker doesn't work. I can still send and receive texts, but don't try and call me, because I won't be able to hear you.

For those at home, if you got a strange phone call at about half 9 this morning, that was me testing it.

And for those who don't know it, my number while I'm in Australia is +61(0)431591746

Byron Bay, but in a bit more detail...

I'l start at the beginning, in Sydney. My last morning there was spent checking out of the hostel and heading to a post office to get a load of stuff posted home. I had a rather nice breakfast from a market stall in Kings Cross and while I was there, I got a text from Anna with instructions on how to get to their campsite. So off onto the underground I went. They were three trains away in North Sydney in a little suburb called North Ryde. They picked me up from the station in their little 'Camperman Australia' camper van. They had a load of shopping to do before we could head off so we went to the local shopping centre, which was HUGE. Having got lost numerous times in numerous department stores, we eventually found the things they were looking for.

So on with the journey it was. The girls had spoken to a park ranger earlier who had given them a load of maps and recommended a few campsites up the coast. The original plan was to go to a coastal campsite in a national park and hopefully get there before dark, so we could set up, get a meal ready and just relax for the weekend. Needless to say, we miscalculated hideously and it was dark by half 5, it was raining, the camper van's wipers seemed only to add more water to the windscreen, articulated lorries flew past in the opposite direction only inches from the van, the entire road network was filled with road works and we were lost. It got to the point where we just said we'd go to the next campsite we saw and stay there for the night.

So along came the town of Kempsey and with it a roadside caravan park. We drove in, rang the bell and the owner came out and limped up the road towards us in her dressing gown. It really wasn't that bad though, she was very friendly and helpful, told us we could park up anywhere, use the electricity and the communal kitchen. The campsite itself was, as Maya so deftly put it, 'very trailer trash'. And it was indeed. Just a few plots down from us were some redneck Aussie hick, bogan type people, staying in their lovely looking caravan, complete with a little place for their pets and car wreck for the kids to play in.

Our own camper was not exactly luxurious though. There were two lower beds and one upper one, where I'd be sleeping for the night. I had about 2 foot of clearance from the roof and my own two feet had to hang in mid-air because clearly the average Australian camper is only 5 feet tall.

Our dinner was made on the little gas burning stove in the van and we had spaghetti bolognaise with ingredients bought in the shopping centre earlier that day. Only it got to the point where we couldn't be asked to cook the meat and decided instead that a veggie meal wouldn't be too bad. So we had Spaghetti with tomato, mushroom and onion sauce. And very nice it was too. I actually like mushrooms now as well!

That night was comfortable, if a bit of a pa'lava to organise - my bed was neither easy to set up nor get into, but once I was there, I had a pretty decent night's sleep. I was woken up in the morning by Anna, who had spotted a flock (herd?, pack?) of kangaroos a few metres from the van. And in part of an ongoing venture, they were all named Bert. Alf the quakka came first, Bert the kangaroos second, Carlos the ugly bird thing third, and Dennis and Earl are yet to be found... you get the idea.

Anyway, breakfast was jam and marmalade and similar such things on bread and was followed by showers in the surprisingly clean toilet block. We managed to leave soon after 9 and were optimistic that we'd be at Byron Bay by mid afternoon. We drove through a lot of wilderness, and countless little towns that all felt very deep-south American - wooden bungalows interspersed rather too frequently with churches bearing questionable promises of 'healing' and 'enlightenment'. We drove on regardless and soon saw signs for Ballina and Byron Bay. We stopped for lunch in a little town just south of Ballina and from there it was only an hour or so to Byron.

Byron itself is a very small beach town and is something of a Mecca for those with dreadlocks and guitars. It's a very very friendly place, packed full of little privately owned shops and not a big name store in sight. This time of year, it's a bit on the quiet side, but to be honest, it's all the better for it. There are patches of completely deserted beach and others that are still packed every day. There's a cool little lighthouse just down the coast, which I walked down to at quarter to six yesterday morning to catch the sunrise.

The last few days have been spent lazing around on the beach and wandering the town. I've met a few cool people in my youth hostel and we went out to 'Cheeky Monkey's' nightclub, which was such an awful place it was almost good. Certainly a good laugh anyway.

Yesterday I was wandering along the beach and spotted two familiar figures in the distance. Anna and Maya were sitting on the beach and were about to head out and do some kite surfing (it's what they're here for) and invited me along. So I hopped back into the camper van and we drove to Lennox Head beach. It took ages to get the kite ready and sort out the bits of string, but they did manage to get it up in the end, although apparently it wasn't windy enough to do any proper stuff. In the end we gave up and decided to go swimming in the massive waves. We went out for about 20 minutes, swallowed about a gallon of salty water each, decided that the rip currents were getting a bit strong and headed back to the beach, just as the sun was setting and it was getting cold. Having dried off and packed the kite up, we headed back to the camper van and they were kind enough to drop me back in Byron before heading off to their campsite.

Running out of time once again, but here are some photos:




Particularly proud of this one :) Well worth the 'ole click!

Byron Bay

Not a huge amount of time to do this, but time enough to let you know that I'm in Byron Bay (cool little place about 2 hours south of Brisbane) and I'm here til Saturday evening.

Drove up in a little camper van with Anna and Maya, two dutch sisters, and two of the nicest people I've ever met. They're here on a kite-surfing holiday finishing in Cairns. Awesome journey, which I'll write more about later when I have time.

Byron Bay is a small seaside town, which in summer is rammed full of dread-locked hippies, but at the moment is a bit empty. There's still a lot of hippies though.

I stayed up til about 1am taking photos on a completely deserted beach last night, then got up at 5.30, jogged down to the lighthouse to get some pictures of the sunrise over the sea - something I've been meaning to do since day 1 in Sydney.

And here are the results:

This first one was taken at night. Seriously!

Still in Sydney

Yep I'm still here, but I should be moving on tomorrow. Went to a free concert/festival type thing yesterday in Darling Harbour, which was pretty cool. They had a massive event to celebrate a Harbour's 21st birthday - just goes to show what sort of a country this is, I guess.

Spent most of the day wandering round with Lou (from the Oz Experience tour), eating ice cream, buying sunglasses and sitting akwardly in a manicure place while she had her scummy feet tended to. And despite both her efforts and the frankly insulting remarks from the Thai pedicure lady regarding the state of my feet, I managed to avoid getting my toenails painted pink.

Since we had about 2 hours before anything remotely decent was going to be on stage, we walked down to the observatory park to catch the last of the sunset (shut up Daniel!). Having done that, it was back to the main stage to see the last few acts perform. First up was an aboriginal digeridoo/dance group, who were just plain odd, but they were only a warmup act for the big name of the night. Wes Carr, Australian Idol winner!! So we were expecting some cheesy westlife covers and maybe a disney song or two, but it turns out, really quite paradoxically, that the winner of Australian Idol actually has some talent! Okay, not masses, but he was pretty good at guitar and he looked like Jesus, so that was enough to win me over.

Once he'd filled his half hour slot in 15 minutes, we were subjected to some of the worst ad libbing I've ever heard from the two comperes for the evening. They had 15 minutes to fill and actually resorted to talking about the weather. Shocking!

Next up were a group of Japanese drummers, who were awe inspiring! Really, really properly good! And their finale was accompanied by fireworks better than any London New Year. And this was all for a harbour's birthday!

After the fireworks, we met up with Emily and Kirstine for dinner in a quite expensive, but very nice Italian restaurant about 5 minutes walk down the waterside. Well worth the expense though, it was nice to finally be in some fluent English speaking company.

We all went our separate ways after the meal and as I was coming back into my hostel, a group of about a dozen people, some of whom I'd been chatting to the night before (we all watched the Man U match in the hostel TV room last night) were heading over the road to the 'Soho' bar for a few drinks. So I joined them and met two Dutch sisters who are renting a camper van and heading north up the coast. They've agreed to take me as far as either Byron Bay or Brisbane. So the next few days should be pretty good fun.

From there I'll probably Greyhound it back to Sydney and spend some more time here. I still haven't done the Blue Mountains or the zoo, both of which are apparently unmissable.

Sydney is flippin' cool! I wouldn't mind living here.

Anyways, I best be off.
Not sure when the next blog'll be, but I'm sure it'll be a good'un!

Byesy bye

Sydney, Day 2

Spent the majority of today exploring Sydney on foot. Walked all round the bays around the harbour bridge and oprah house, explored the city a bit, then went back to Mrs Macquiries Point for sunset, to get some shots overlooking the Oprah house and the bridge. Nearly fell into the water at one point, but I got the shot I wanted, so it was worth it. Didn't have my tripod with me though, so they're a teeny bit blurry - 2 minutes is a long time to keep the camera still!

Back at an internet cafe near the hostel now. Apparently there's gonna be a BBQ there tonight, so if that's true, I'll certainly be going to that.

Maybe going to the beach tomorrow. Dunno yet.

Photos!












This is the one that nearly killed me: