Well, I finally left Nelson. My mate Rob dropped me at the edge of town and I stuck my thumb out and soaked up the early morning rays. Within about 20 mins I got a lift with the principal of a local primary school. When he found out I was english, he wanted to know if I was a Royalist. I told him I thought the Royal Family should be moved into council houses and all their treasure sold and their money taken and spent on worthwhile things like education and healthcare. He tried to defend the Royals by making out that tourism revenues from the Royal Family were one of The UK's major sources of income. I'd always thought Arms dealing was our main source of income, but even if he was right, I pointed out to him, there was really no need for the Royal family to actually be present. We could simply move them out under cover of darkness, and then every week we'd get a lookalike of the queen to pop her head round the curtain at buckingham palace. The Royal press office could contimue leaking scandalous stories to the tabloids, and no one would be any the wiser! I mean let's face it, how many tourists who visit the UK actually SEE a Royal? None! They just wanna see their houses! At about this point i remebered that this guy was actually giving me a lift, so I said he was probably right after all and changed the subject...

He dropped me in his nondescript hometown of Blenheim, from where I was supposed to be hitching North to Picton where I could get a ferry to the North Island. My plan was to be in Wellington, the capital, by the end of the day... but somehow I found myself on the wrong side of the road hitching south instead! I could pretend it was an accident, but really it was just that i couldn't face the thought of going to a city, and someone had mentioned that Kaikora was really beautiful, so I just started heading there.... that's the beauty of hitching! No tickets, no fixed destinations... and no money!! Anyway, Kaikora is stunning. Today I walked along the coast as was blown away. Luckily someone caught my trouser leg and pulled me back down to the ground again.... (groan) no really, it is amazing. The mountains (snow capped of course) literally come right down to the sea, which is the deppest turquoise ever. There are seal colonies living right on the beach so you can walk up to within a metre of these awesome creatures. I might go swimming with dolphins tomorrow, but it costs 115 bucks, so not sure....

It's gonna be my birthday on Monday and it looks like I may be spending my first ever birthday alone with no friends! Sad huh? So please feel free to e-mail me a card! That way if I have no one to talk to on my birthday I can come in here and read mails! :)

ok, better be off, tummy's rumbling! (made green curry again last night!)

tara.

I was supposed to leave today....

but it's soo hard! When you wake up and you can hear the rain drumming on the roof, the thought of hitching is just so unappealing! So I'm stuck in Nelson once again... tomorrow I'm gonna leave for sure....

Anyway, what's new? I went busking yesterday for the first time ever! It was a glorious sunny day so I picked up my little guitar and headed into town. After trying one spot with no sucess I eventually bagged a spot by an ATM, so people had to stop right by me and couldn't feign poverty as I could see them withdrawing loads of cash! (a trick I learned from the homeless beggars of Leeds). At first no one seemed to even give me a second glance, so I changed tactics and started making songs up about people as they walked past... they were usually too embarresed to give me any money as they passed the first time.. they'd just look back over their shoulders and smile. But when they returned past me later, they'd already have a big pile of cash at the ready and dump on my little tartan guitar case! Woo Hoo!

Anyway, what else is news? Mmmmmm. Starting to learn a little spanish... slowly. Ola! Mi Mochila es Mal! (Hello! My backpack is ill!) . God I hate rainy days! What to do? I'm trying my hardest to remember anything remotely entertaining happening to me but I'm afraid I'm drawing a blank... Don't worry, I'm certain that S America is going to be full of exciting stories to tell! Right, I give up. Seeya!

hello!

I've had a funny day today. I went on a roadtrip with a bunch of guys from the hostel. They wanted to find some cows so that they could look for magic muchrooms in their shit, and after climbing a bitch of a hill we eventually found the cows, the shit, and the mushrooms... but we weren't sure whether they were the right ones because we'd only picked english mushrooms before... so, we headed to the town library and walked in there carrying a box of mushrooms and cow shit covered in mushrooms, and went to the natural science section... after looking at various books and laying out mushrooms and shit on the table, we finally found the right page and discovered that these were in fact magic mushrooms... probably. Which meant that maybe it wasn't really that clever being in a public library with them spread out all over the table!....

Anyway, I'm still in the Hostel Paradiso in nelson, wasting time.... should really leave soon i guess but I'm still quite set on the idea of doing some busking here.. i just need some sun... my little guitar is getting a lot of action ay the moment... starting to get really into this whole guitar/singling malarky.... forget working on computers man, they suck, guitars are the way forward. I think all ofiices acress the globe should switch their whole system over from desktop pc's to guitars, then for every task for which they used to need the pc, they could simply sit on down and sing a song! It wouldn't be particularly efficent, but it would be much more fun, and i think the general wellbeing of the employees would benefit as well.....

I made a thai green curry last night... it was bloody marvelous if i do say so myself... a bit on the spicy side, but that's all part of the experience i rekon... as was my 45 mins in the toilet this morning... ahhhh, thai curry.... :) It's nearly free soup time, so I'd better move soon.... in 5 mins the staff will bring out a big cauldren of soup and all the poor hungry backpackers will form a long tine to wait for their daily dose of nutrition... it's a heartwarming sight i can tell you.. shame the soup is the same every day... vegetable... but hey, free soup is free soup.. "beggers cant be choosers" as my grandad used to say... as well as "a dying man will eat a rat" which was one of his favourite comments when asked how he liked the vegetarian food my mum had made for him. anyway, off on a tangent there for moment... so, New Zealand... it's like an exagerration of Wales... the mountains are bigger, the lakes are deeper, and the sheep are even more attractive.... ok, time to go... seeya!

oops...

logged on to write big long blog entry but ended up banking.... how bring... now times almost up....

ok, speed blog time:

went to west coast with friends from Wanaka... stayed in hut by river... rained.... eaten by sandflies... got drunk... awesome. Tried to hitch to Franz Joseph Glacier... ended up on bus which stopped every 5 mins to visit another lame as tourist attraction like a salmon farm or a white bait stall..... arrived in franz Joseph and met up by chance with Irish Guy called Gary who i met on a bus in Java, Indonesia. Hung out for few days with hjim and other friends of his... saw glaciers... big chunk of ice.... rained.... climbed alex's knob... ran down his knob and ended up with fucked up legs... couldn't walk... tried to hitch to nelson in the rain.... got lift with nice german girl twins and french girl.... drove north into sunshine... sat in Spa watching stars drinking beer digesting thai red curry listening to waves break on shore.... then more rain..... then trekked abel tasman national park... forgeot to take a book... got cabin fever sitting in "hut" with nothing to do.... slept in hut full of smelly "trampers" (read: tramps) next to french guy who snored all night.... next day tramped back to start of track, wincing every step cos knees are fucked... stupid bloody knees.... got to nelson, said goodbye to the girls.... checked into Guesthouse Paradiso.... tried to rest but england playing tonga in rugby... wnet out, got drunk.... ended up at live drum and bass night.... tried to dance despite fucked knees.... woke up today... can't walk..... luckily its a public holiday so have excuse for doing nothing!! Pheeeeewwwww, that was faaast! ok, now maybe I'll try to expand on some of that until the time runs out....

bugger, time just ran out...

byeeee!

Hello from New Zealand!

It's been a while I know, but I haven't had internet and it's been so hard to� ahhh, who am I kidding, I've just been having too much fun and I couldn't be arsed!

So I left byron bay after more days of rain and jumped on a plane bound for Christchurch, which is on the south island of NZ. I'd spoken to Rob and Jess, a couple of my old skool friends from home, and found out that they were staying in Wanaka, a small town in the mountains. They told me that if I got a flight from Christchurch to Queenstown, they'd pick me up from the airport. So eventually I managed to buy this second flight online by pretending to be a Kiwi, and set off to catch my flight in Brisbane.

I landed in Christchurch at 10pm, but my flight didn't leave for Queenstown until 7:15am the next day. I'd read in my lonely planet that the airport closed at night, but I was damned if I was going to pay for a taxi into town and a hostel bed just for a few hours sleep, so I set about finding a good hiding place in the airport in which to build my nest. Unfortunately my trolley seemed to be determined to ruin my silent infiltration of the airport, and kept making a very loud clattering noise, which in the silence of the closed airport seemed deafening. Even when I moved really slowly it still made the same noise! But eventually I found a nice spot in the domestic terminal hidden behind some rows of cleared away seats and set about making myself at home. After about half an hour I was fully settled in with my sleeping bag and blankets and pillow spread out over a row of seats, and I stuck in my headphones and lay down to sleep. Then the cleaners saw me. Within about 5 mins a security lady was stood over me with walkie-talkie in hand. I reluctantly removed my headphones and gave her my best "Is there a problem officer?" look. Luckily she turned out to be very friendly and told me that I could probably get away with sleeping at the far end of the international arrivals hall, so I packed up my nest and headed off with my noisy trolley once more.

In the arrivals hall I found one guy already asleep on the bench, so I squeezed myself on and set about rebuilding my nest. I have to say that it was really quite a comfortable bed. My only complaint was that there was a huge fluorescent bulb directly over my head that kept shining in my eyes, but hey, it was a free bed!

I got up for my flight at 6:15am, and it was still dark. After checking in I went to the cafe and sat drinking coffee looking off into the darkness outside. As the sun slowly came up I was suddenly presented with the most awesome view I've ever seen from an airport caf�. I was completely surrounded by mountains. Bloody huge ones! And they were all snow capped, and the snow was pink. It was bloody marvelous.

Then I got into a rather tiny plane and flew right over these pink mountains (which slowly turned white) all the way to Queenstown. I have to say it was the most enjoyable flight I've ever taken. I arrived in Queenstown at 8am, my friends picked me up at 9, we arrived in Wanaka at 10:15 (after the car overheated coming through the mountains), I had a full set of free hire equipment by 11, and I was snowboarding down a mountain by 12. Not bad eh! We did have a little setback when the car overheated again halfway up Treble Cone (the ski mountain) and we had to hitch the rest of the way, but I think 24 hours between being on a rainy beach in Australia and being up a mountain in NZ with a board strapped to my feet is pretty damn good going.

That was all about 6 days ago, and since then I have been snowboarding for about 4 of the days, mountain biking today, and the remaining day was spent caned, wandering round "Puzzle world", which despite sounding a bit lame, is in fact the coolest "museum type thing" I've ever been to. Rob and Jessie have been ace and I've been so enjoying living in a proper flat and sleeping alone in a room. They are managing a backpackers hostel here and have there own little attached flat. The scenery here is without a doubt the most amazing I have seen anywhere, including the Himalayas in Nepal and India. It's just so diverse, and the colours are so varied and beautiful that everything seems like a painting. An average view goes something like this, starting from the bottom and working up: Green stuff like willow trees and bushes and shit; lake with reflection of the following; greeny browny yellowy bluey hilly mountain type stuff; snowy peaks of aforementioned mountains; blue skies and white clouds. The blue skies bit is kind of every other day, but it doesn't seem to rain for more than one day in a row here�. not like some countries whose names I won't mention�.

So yeah, if you like mountains and breathtaking scenery, come to New Zealand!

So what else has happened to me? Well, I have a gay haircut if that's interesting�. It all started back in Mission beach�..

I was travelling down the East Coast with this rather sexy girl called Alex who I met in mission Beach. We ended up having a bit of a fling, and the day before she left to catch her flight to Melbourne, she offered to cut my hair. She was a hairdresser by the way, if that makes things a little clearer. Now I was quite happy with my hair at the time; it was long and unkempt, and the only "styling" I needed to do after a shower was a vigorous towel dry. But Alex convinced me that she could do wonderful things to it, and I figured "right, if she thinks it looks good, then maybe other incredibly fit girls will also think it looks good, so what have I got to lose?" So I let her loose with her scissors, and she told me that she was going to do something a bit Paul Wellerish, leaving the length but taking off some of the bulk from etc etc� When she had finished I went off to find a mirror and examine my new barnet. I went back to the room and she asked me,

"So what do you think?"

"It's a mullet" I said.

"It's not a mullet!" she said, looking shocked.

"It's longer at the back than it is at the top and sides, that's a mullet" I said.

"It needs some wax!" she said, grabbing a tub of vaseline and smearing it into my hair. "Without wax it will look like a basin cut".

With Vaseline it looked marginally better, but as much as I tried to imagine myself as Paul Weller, I couldn't help seeing myself as Cleetus the slack jawed yokel from the Simpsons��. or any number of German porn stars�.. or any football player from the Mexico 86 World Cup��. There was no avoiding it, I had a mullet. In fact, let me rephrase that, I HAVE a mullet! My god, what have a done! I even bought some styling wax in the hope that it really would transform my basin like mullet into a super cool brit pop barnet, but all it seems to do is give me a greasy mullet��

I have to admit that as the days go by I am less and less shocked by my mullet, after all, it is a part of me, and I suppose I should love it just the same as I love my butt or my fingernails. Maybe, given time, my Mullet will grow on me�.. Hehehehehe, sorry, I couldn't resist it! :)

Ok, better go as the sun is shining and I have a book to read..... seeya!

Hey guys,

well, it's been a fairly eventful week i suppose.. in a painfully boring kind of way. The weather has been shit, i.e. rain, cloud, and fucking freezing. Byron bay is lame if you ask me. It's just a touristy seaside town with a packed beach and expensive accomodation. The place I'm staying is called the "Arts Factory".. that's a fuckin joke! The place was founded by hippies in the 60's and gained a reputation as a wild party venue and general far out place for bohemians and artists to hang out and be groovy. Up until a few years ago it was under the management of this guy called Jim, who now runs trips to Nimbin (see later entry), but apparantly his laid back style of management wasn't making enough cash, so it was handed over to a proper businessman who has been sucking the soul out of it ever since. To give you a few examples: Jamming hours are between 10am to 1pm and then 4pm to 10pm.. jamming outside of these hours is prohibited, as I discoved the other night when they confiscated my little baby guitar!! bastards! I wonder if the Ramones or the Pouges ever had this problem when they stayed there... Anyway, I got my revenge: I entered the "talent contest" and won it hands down by improvising a song about what a shithole the place is and how it's run by a bunch of mini hitlers. And they had to give me a prize for it! Ha!

The prize from the talent show was a trip to Nimbin! Well I'd already been but I thought fuckit, I'm bored so i may as well go again... Nimbin is a small village in the hills where the growing, selling, and smoking of drugs has become pretty much legal. It's pretty fucking wierd. Like a mini amsterdam in the hills. Lot's of messed up old hippies who've lost the plot, and young lads selling pot. Anyway, the tour is pretty cool. Jim (see earlier) is an old hippy who drives the bus. He basically takes everyone out there, everyone eats some "special" cookies, and then he drives around the countryside with good tunes blasting, showing you nice spots. At one point he stops up at the top of a big hill and tells a few stoner stories, and then says "ok guys, I used to do this thing where I drove down this hill really fast playing this scary pink floyd song...."

"Dooo iiiit!!!" we all cry from the back of the bus.

"Noooooo, go slow!" they all cry from the front of the bus, obviously freaking out on their first cookie experience.

"ok, I'll go moderately fast and play something a bit scary"... he tries..

"No! go slow!" all the pussies at the front whine.

"ok, I'll go slow.." he says, and flashes us a naughty grin...

He drives to the edge of the hill and we see that it is in fact a natural rollercoaster that goes on for miles. A perfect rolling "big dipper". The music starts to build up... I don't know the name of the track, but it's pretty intense.. and we're off! He floors the accelerator and we start hurtling down as the music builds. All the stoned people start whooping and waving their arms in the air as if they're at the fair... after about 5-10 mins of intense music and near death experiences, the road levels out, and he switches into "Three little birds" by Bob Marley to try and win back the pussies... :) Anyway, highly recommended, go try it....

I had a rather disturbing experience this morning. I came out of the shower in the communal bathroom and went to the wash basins to have a shave. At the basin next to me was this middle aged, red headed, slightly podgy and extremely naked man. No big deal i thought, it's a mens toilet, perhaps the shower was too cramped and he wanted some space to get dry.. I couldn't help noticing however that his dick wasn't quite as droopy as it should have been... But hey, how many dicks have i examined? None (except my own of course), so maybe he's just a bit of a freak... Then it got worse. He started applying moisturiser all over his body, but got a bit carried away whilst lubing up his groin. Bear in mind that I'm doing my best not to watch this, but I'm shaving in the mirror and it keeps catching my eye. Eventually I think fuckit, I have to check that this guy's not about to shoot his load over my leg, and I turn to look at him. There's no doubt now that he's got a hardon, despite the fact that it's embaressingly small, and it's also pretty clear that he's trying to crack one off right next to me.

"D'you wanna go and do that somewhere a little more fucking private?!" I say to him.

"No" he replys, but quickly starts getting dressed and leaves. So what the fuck was going on there?! When he started the sinks were all taken and it was pretty busy in there, but by the end it was just me and him, so maybe he thought the sight of him spanking his stunted monkey was going to get me all turned on and end with me inviting him into the end cubicle... Dirty old bastard. Looking back, maybe I should have clocked him one, but to be honest I didn't really fancy getting to close... eeeew.

I'm flying to New zealand in a few days now! Oz was over so fast! I've spent toooo fuckin much money, and I figure NZ is gonna be quite similar.... Oh well, just have to spend my whole time in S America chillin and doing nothing.... :)

ok, gonna go for now, but have unlimited internet here so maybe if another story comes to me I'll add it later....

G'day guys, how ya goin?

I'm goin pretty good. Sitting in a cafe in Byron Bay.

Well, Airlie beach didn't look so bad in the daylight, and I managed to book onto the same package as my friend Alex so at about 3pm we went down to the marina to find our boat. Our boat was called Jade and was skippered by a weatherbeaten old ozzie who's philosophy seemed to be "at sea, anything goes..." I can't really think of a lot to say about the trip. We spent the days lying around on thre deck of our catamaran, snorkelling in the crystal clear waters, visiting blinding white beaches etc, and the nights getting horribly drunk and sprawling in jaccuzis.

After our sailing trip, we got the bus down to Rainbow beach where we were doing an organised trip to Fraser Island. Now this is damn cool and I highly recommend it to anyone. Here's the jist of it:

take 10 young travellers, give them a 4x4 landcruiser, some tents, a load of food with an day by day menu of what to eat, an itinery of where to go and what to do, and then send them off in the direction of the ferry, via the off-licence..... :)

It was a bit like "Survivor - Fraser Island" crossed with "The Amazing Race 7 - Bickering Backpackers", but I enjoyed it all.. :) Needless to say, my driving skills were top-notch. On the first day, I was driving back along the beach and the tide was coming in fast. We had about 10 mins left to find the camp site and tensions were running high in the group. We had been told by the organisers and rangers that everytime we approached a "washoff" (stream/river running out to sea over the sand), we should send someone out to check how deep it it and how high the edge is. We did this for the first, but it was a waste of time as it was really shallow. As we approached the second washoff, I thought "fuck, this one looks quite deep" and I looked at my co-driver, who would be the one who had to wade out into it. "Just go for it" he said, and without another thought, i did. We flew off the edge of the bank, which turned out to be about 2 feet abover the water, and nose dived into the water, which turned out to be about 3 feet deep. The water came crashing up into the windscreen and for a good second i couldn't see a thing except water, and images of ppl passing our jeep stuck nose first in a river bed kept sneaking into my head. Luckily however, i was going pretty fast, and the momentum pulled my through the river and I revved up the other bank. But everything was soaked with salty water, which is one of the few things you are NOT allowed to do or your insurance is screwed. But fuckit, how were they gonna tell eh? The car kept going so i was happy, and my passengers forgave me pretty quickly, cos lets face it, living safely is boring, getting fucked up sucks, but living dangerously and not getting fucked up, now that's FUN! :D

Greetings from hell!

The story so far:

Decided to leave "The Treehouse", after keeping everyone awake till 3am playing guitar and doing martial arts in the kitchen... Moved to a new place called the "Beachshack"... good move! It was right on the beach, and felt like being at home! Big leather sofas, huge tv, video, X-Box, pool, free bikes, free tea and coffee, bathroom with power shower, bath, spa....!!!! I met some really great people there and apart from a bit of a bed-bug scare and a lot of cheap wine hangovers, it was all good... But then yesterday it was time to leave mission beach and move south.. but not after first doing a skydive from 12000 feet right onto the beach!! It's hard to explain the experience, except that it is awesome! I learned some interesting things about my rather odd brain that day too. During the whole experience, not once did I feel the slightest feeling of anxiety or nervousness, even as I swung my legs over the edge of the minute little plane and fell out, I was calm as a cucumber.... but then later, as I waited to catch my bus south, I felt anxiety building in my stomach as I worried about whether i would make the bus on time, whether i'd forgotten something etc etc! So what's going on here!?? How is it that I can be completely worry free when throwing myself out of a plane at 12000 feet but can't relax trying to catch a bus, even though I have a lift arranged already? I think I have a major problem of anxiety priority disorder. Anyway, I got a video of me doing the jump so folks at home can watch it once i post it back! :)

Anyway, I know you all hate it when I'm having too much fun, and it makes for a pretty boring read, so you'll be pleased to know that last night I arrived in hell. Well maybe not hell, but definitely a suburb of hell. It is called Airlie beach, despite having no beach, and it is the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands, which apparantly are stunning. Airlie, however, is not. It is a big long strip of bars and shops populated by drunken tourists staggering around a being sick. I arrived at 9:30pm, and was gutted to find out that all the "relaxed" hostels were closed already, and all that remained open were the two "party" hostels in the middle of town. I picked one at random and checked in. My dorm ended up being right above the pub/club with a balcony directly over the beer garden should I feel the need to throw up on someones head. The noise was at a level that made thought difficult.. I guess this was my treehouse bad karma coming back to bite me... luckily i have an MD player and some good tunes, so all was well in the end and I managed to get to sleep...

Maybe i'm just a boring bastard and I should have just downed half a bottle of tequlia and gone and joined the first group of young drunk people I saw... but I think the truth is even more shocking.... I'm getting older! Nooooo! Yes, it's true, every day that passes I am getting progressively older and strange metabloic and psychological changes are taking place that make drinking too much and being sick seem less and less appealing each day. I mean I still love to get hammered with a group of people I like in a cool setting, but the 100's of people down in that pub last night was just noy my idea of a cool setting.... anyway, I guess I've been travelling too long when i say that being in a party town is hellish... compared to having a shit job and working 9 to 5 I guess it does have some advantages... ;)

Mmmmm, not sure what else to write about.... It's not like asia where everyday something bizzare happens that I can write about... life here is pretty damn predictable, but pretty cool all the same. I can see why most brits just come backpacking here and skip asia, as it is basically just like britain except everything is bigger and more spread out, the beaches are more beautiful, the weather's better, and the people are generally more friendly.... But it doesn't feel like travelling. It feels like a long and rather expensive holiday... damn that exchange rate! Ok, I'm starting to bore you now, I'm sorry, i'll leave......

G'day.

well, here's the highlights of the last few days:

I arrived in Cairns after a pretty impressive flight over the vast area of nothingness that is central australia. Finally I was actually "backpacking" in australia! I got a bus to the hostel, which was easy.... too easy..... and was shocked by the hostels appearance. It was just so.... clean! The receptionist was very friendly, and gave me the key for my dorm, so I went to get settled in. My dorm was empty, but there were other backpacks lying around. It wasn't really a "dorm" in the sense that I understood, it was just a bedroom with 4 beds in it. I was expecting a huge room with 20 or so beds! I looked around to see if I could find any clues as to what the other guys sharing my room might be like. The first thing I spotted was a pink anorak on one of the coat hooks... not a good start. Then I saw that one guy had a small teddy bear keyring attatched to his bag... then I looked closer and saw that one guy had a bra poking out of the top of his bag!!! Then it suddenly dawned on me! I was in the wrong dorm! This must be a girls dorm, and any second a girl was going to open the door wrapped in a towel, see me there, scream and run to get the security guard! I was about to run back to the reception and tell her that shed given me the wrong kety, when I noticed under one of the beds was a pair of mens shoes.... mmmm, this was very odd... could it really be that they had MIXED dorms here?! In asia that would have been impossible, but I suppose here that wasn't so strange....

After discovering that they were in fact mixed dorms, I realised my next problem. I was used to every guest house having a restaurant and being able to afford everything on the menu ten times over, but when I walked out of my room, I realised that there was no restaurant, and everyone else was busy cooking food in the communal kitchen. I asked one guy if there was any restaurant near by, and he told me that there wasn't, but there was a supermarket 5 mins walk away. So, I set off for the supermarket. Walking into the supermarket, I suddenly realised what it must feel like for someone from india when they first arrive in the west... it was completely overwhelming. How could I possibly find something to eat in here?! It was just huge! There was more food in this one supermarket than i saw in the whole 3 months i spent travelling in india! It really felt quite obscene. I wandered around trying to figure out how to buy just enough for 1 meal for 1 person, and eventually setteled for:

1 small courgette
1 small onion
2 packets instant noodles
1 clove garlic

I went back to the hostel and cooked a rather disgcuting stir fried noodle dish which stuck to the pan, and spent the rest of the evening watching "who want's to be a millionaire" on tv. So far this wasn't really seeming that great.....

The next day I decided I needed to do something exciting to get myself into the trip, so I set off to book a diving trip. I ended up booking myself on a 4 day, 3 night "liveaboard" diving trip that left in 1 hour!! After hurridly packing a few things, i was on the boat and heading out to sea. At this point I discovered that "Holmes Reef" where we were headed was actually 150 miles out to sea and would take 17 hours to reach!!! That night I slept like a baby........ in a washing machine. It was mad. It felt like being on a fairground ride, with one minute the g-force really pushing your loose flesh into the matress, and the next minute you whole body being waitless as the bow of the boat crashed up and down....

The following morning we went diving. I won't tell you about all the diving, cos you had ro be there really, but I will tell you about the last one: The shark feed! First onr of the crew threw dead fish overboard to show us how many sharks were in the water. As soon as the fish had left his hand, the sharks and Giant trevelli were racing through the water towards the point of impact, and the second it hit the water it was engulfed by a mass of thrashing tails and gnashing jaws!!! There must have been 20 to 30 sharks plus many other massive mean looking fish in there! Bear in mind that this is not "underwater World" I'm talking about, this is the ocean, 150 miles from land, with the nearest medical help 17 hours away...

So then it was out turn to get in the water... We got kitted up, and were told not to inflate our bouyancy jackets as the longer you float on the surface the more likely you are to get eaten! I jumped in, and as soon as I was under the water I saw about 5 BIG sharks coming right for me! They swam up to me, and the turned just as they reached me, as if they had gotr a whiff of me a decided I wasn't really that appetising... I swam down where i was directed and took my place in a semi circle with the other guys, all spaced about 1.5 metres apart. Then came the fun part. The crew up on the boat lowered in a giant kebab of Red Snapper fish, secured to a chain. This hung in the water about 6 metres in front of us. The sharks and giant trevelli were highest in the pecking order, so they went first, ripping into it with their powerful jaws, thrashing their bodies as they tried to rip of the flesh. As soon as they'd got a bit they woulf turn and swim quickly away... straight towards us!! They literally swam right past my face, jaws still gnashing as they tried to swallow the meat. Let me just emphasise now, that some of these sharks were BIG. Most of them were white tip reef sharks, which aren't that big: maybe 1.5-2 metres, but there were also silver tips and greay whalers, which are big mean looking bastards! I guess the biggest must have been 3.5 metres or so...

Anyway, that was great fun, I recommend it to anyone!

Now I'm in Mission Beach, which is south of Cairns. It's a beautiful beach and I've met some cool people, so I'm happy. I'm staying up in the rainforest in a place called the treehouse, and I have to get the bus now to get back and cook my bangers and mash....

seeya next time! :)

Hello, Gday, and welcome.

I'm leaving tomorrow for the east coast so I thought I'd make a quick entry to get you guys up to speed....

Well, as i predicted, I discovered that australia does indeed have some pretty amazing beaches. Yesterday we went on a day trip to Rottnest Island, which is off the coast of Perth. It was stunning. The island is covered by a bike path and has a main hub where there's lots of facilities and coffee shops etc, but despite this high level of "organised tourism", within 3 mins we managed to find an idylic, deserted beach, with no signs of mankind visible at all. And the beaches really were amazing! For a while now I've been pining for the ruggedness of Britains coastline, as all Tropical beaches are basically the same: big arc of golden/white sand, blue water, backed by palm trees. But the beaches on Rottnest had the best of both worlds: perfectly clear turquoise blue water, white sand, but backed by dunes and limestone rocks that have been worn by the wind into amazing overhangs and craggy..... crags. The only drawback was that the water was icy cold, but that didn't stop us having a paddle... (Jim even went the whole way and plunged in, although this may well have been as a self inflicted punishment. His crime: making us all search for 45 mins for my "lost" sunglasses when all the while they were actually on his head under his bicycle helmet...)

mmm, what else to write.... Just had a long "discussion" with james about the Aborigonals and whether or not they are all "usually drunk" and "don't want to work".. will have to do some research so that I can argue with facts in future.... ;)

I'm feeling a little apprehensive about starting my trip down the east coast. The problem is that i'm attempting to do it in a month, whereas most sane ppl give themselves 3 months at least.. just hoping I can find some other idiots who have a car and also want to rush their way down one of the most beautiful coasts in the world.... mmmmmm.

Am getting very used to this cosy home.. not looking forward to being in a smelly hostel... then again my mattress here does smell of cabbage... Lynn and Jim are waiting for the company to come and replace it... :) I saw my first kangaroo today. It was.. well... a kangaroo. I was more impressed by the quokkers on Rottnest island. They're like big friendly rats that sit on their hind legs and come up to you and sniff your hands.. very cool. It's a bit bloody cold here tho.. looking forward to getting back to the tropical weather in cairns... I'm definitely a warm weather kinda guy....

I played a gig the other night!!!!! Yes indeed, my musical talents were on display for all to hear (at least those who still had their hearing) at the Kalamunda Folk Club! I was on second, after a few women had performed a strange medieval folk song about removing one's head and then going on holiday. As I took the stage... well, the chair at the front of the room..., the audience hushed in anticipation. All you could hear was the static crackling of wooly jumpers and cardigans colliding in the crowded pews as people jostled for position.... and then my moment came.... I think the shock of hearing my lyrical skill was too much for some people, as when I returned to my seat I saw a surprising number of grey haired heads in the room.... anyway, I'm just messin, it was the first time I've ever been to a "folk night" and I have to say it was excellent fun. There was a few semi-proffesional acts who were really very talented and very, very funny.

I've uploaded some new photos to my yahoo folder in a new folder called "perth".. go to:

http://photos.yahoo.com/billymation

ok, it's time for me to go...

seeya on the other side.... :)

G'day maaaaate!

well, I'm back in the world of whitey. It's really nice to be in a house that's actually lived in for a change, sleeping in a bed with a duvet and real pillows! My relatives I'm visiting, who I've never met before, have turned out to be absolutely lovely and are going out of their way to make me feel at home. Their house is in a suburb of Perth called Kalamunda, which is such a contrast to my last 7 months it's quite a culture shock. Greay haired grannies with a blue rinses walking dogs along quiet suburban tree lined roads past shops so new the brickwork is still irridescant orange. Everything is so clean it shines. Not even a bit of moss or lichen, let alone mildew, blemishes the walls of the newly constructed shopping arcades and community centres that make up the small neighbourhood. Part of me enjoys the familiarity of it all, but another part of me yearns for crumling dusty buildings coated in black mildew, the smell of spices and foodstalls, the noise of traffic and people and dogs and cockerels....

We went for a drive along the coast yesterday. The beaches are beautiful, but we left quite late in the day, so didn't have time to go far from the city. What struck me about the beaches was how neat and orderly they were, all with identical car-parks, neatly bordered by identical wooden fences, with signposts proclaiming the beaches name in matching colours and styles. The grass cut to a respectable stubble, the dunes set back and fenced in; only the seaweed along the tideline seemed to challenge the ordered cleanliness of it all. But don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this made the beach less attractive. After all, this is how half the beaches of my childhood looked, although maybe not quite so well maintained. The abscence of litter and plastic bottles was a breath of fresh air after the pointless littering that so many people in asia seem unable to control. But I think for me I always prefer to see nature untamed; allowed to run free without fences and footpaths. But not to worry, I'm sure that in a country the size of australia, there'll be plenty of that to come!.....

I finally managed to get me flight confirmed for the 8th of september to fly to Cairns after hours on the phone. In the end I had to tell the nice girl on the phone at Quantas that I wanted to give someone some serious shit, and as she probably wasn't in a position of authority would she please put on someone who was. She was more than happy to pass me thru to her supevisor, Rodney.

"Alright Rodders", I said. "I have discovered that the flight which you have been telling me is fully booked for the last 3 weeks actually has 40 seats available in a class that is cheaper than mine and identical in all but the letter before it's name, and that you only have 9 setas allocated to MY class anyway, meaning that there is no chance of a seat becoming available for me. So Rodney, I want you to put me in one of those 40 empty seats, and don't tell me you can't do it, because I know you can".

"Ummm, I wouldn't know about the availability sir, as I would have to check our system..."

"Don't bother", I interrupted, "I've already told you, there's no need to check".

"But how do you know that sir?" he asked with a barb in his voice.

"I have my sources" I said mysteriously. (The girl I spoke to before told me by accident: "Ah yes sir, there's 40 seats available on this flight... oh... no, hang on a minute... no that flight's full sir...." Too late mate!! Ha! After further grilling she admitted the truth)

"So Rodney, would you please make on of those empty seats available to me".

"Ummmm, I'll put a request thru to head office, but that's all I can do".

"Thank's Rodders, you're a star!"

And so he was! The next day I rang up and found that my flight was confirmed just like that. I called ready for a big argument, but before I even had time to set up my opening move the woman interrupted me and said "Yes sir, that's confirmed for you". I rekon rodders had put notes on my file saying "Just give him the bloody confirmation and hang up! Do not speak to this man!"... :)

We went to see a movie last night: "Once upon a time in the midlands". Before the movie we were talking about how hollywood movies were so formulaic, and I commented that enlish movies were starting to become a bit formulaic too: Working class families doing bugger all except watch tv and wear tasteless clothes have some kind of crises that affects their relationships but it all works out in the end and everyone is happy and free to go back to eating chips and watching "Who want's to be a millionairre". I couldn't have been more right! It was as if I had been talking abou tthe plot of this exact movie! It was alright though. Great cast and great acting, holding up a very thin and uninspiring plot. Watch it on video.

Right, not really got much of interest to say at the moment. Just to round up my Indonesia trip, I'd like to repeat myself: Go to Indonesia, it rocks. Amazingly friendly and honest people, stunning scenery, good food... just go there! (But not to Papua, they've been shooting each other with bows and arrows, 4 dead so far. All part of another oil powerplay involving an american company.... grrrrr)

Hello!

I'm in Kuta, Bali, at the mo. Site of the infamous Bali bomb. All seems fairly normal and touristy to me... I have just got here after spending a few days on a little island just to the south of Bali, Nusa lembongan.

One thing that struck me about this island, and in fact most of bali, is how obsessed the local men are with their cocks. It's not unusual to see a man sat stroking his cock on the front porch of his house. They are very competative about their cocks, and one guy was explaining to me how he massages his every day to make it stronger. Then, once a week, they strap razor blades to their cocks (I kid you not!) and hold a "cock-fight" at which all the men bet money on who's cock will be the first to have it's head cut off..... oh! you didn't think I meant??... oh you silly things!.....

Another thing about their being so many cocks on this island is that there is a pretty much 24 hour chorus of "cock-a-doodle-doo", which peaks at about 5am, making sleep completely impossible. I've never heard quite so many cocks at once before.. if only they could learn to crow in a round and get some harmonies going....

Well, I'm off to Oz tonight. I can't quite believe it. My time in Asia is finally coming to an end. 2 years in sinagpore, then india, nepal, thailand, singapore again, and now indonesia..... and tomorrow I'm gonna be back in the land of sitting toilets, fast food, expensive restaurants, and above all.... white people! Arrrghhh! It's a scary thought you know. Most people in the west are scared of coming to aplace where theirs is the only white face, but for me now it's the opposite. It's like, if mine is the only white face, it's much easier to identify myself, like yep, that's me, Billy the ang mo/farang/buloh etc etc, but when I arrive back in a western country, especially in a city, my face just blends into a sea of similar faces and I suddenly become annonymous again... perhaps i should dye my hair blue....

Anyway, aside from theorising about how Oz will affect my sense of self, I am also looking forward to having heaps of fun and meeing loads of ppl and trying to meet the "locals". I have already started practising the local language, which I was already fairly profficient at, having spent many a fruitful day at uni watching "neighbours" and "home and away" (ozzie soaps), sometimes twice in the same day! I have learnt that the local way to deal with persistent taxi touts and rickshaw wallahs in the major ozzie cities is with the phrase "Rack off mate!", which roughly translated in english means "Piss off mate!". There are in fact many similarities between "australian" and english. I think maybe at some point in the past they may actually have been derived from the same language...

The only problem with my current grasp of this language is that due to the nature of my studies, I can only really speak like either an angst ridden adopted teenager with intimacy issues, or a grumpy 55 year old shopkeeper. "Aw Streuth Elsa!"

I went diving yesterday by the way. It was a rather lax company, with old equipment and almost non-existent safety regulations, but I survived, and saw some seriously amazing shit. Not real shit you understand, although that wouldn't have been that surprising, as just before getting in the water, tim, the instructor, jumped in saying he needed to go to the toilet. We all assumed he was going for a piss, but after 30 mins when he still hadn't returned, we started to wonder what had happened to him, as we were in the middle of the sea. Then we saw him, swimming back from far away on the horizon. Turns out he ate too much chilli the night before and had had to go and let it rip, right over the reef we were about to dive!! Grim huh?

ok, better go now. See you down under! :)

Correction:


I'd just like to make a bit of a correction to one of my earlier posts. I don't usually talk about my personal life in my blog, but seeing as I put it in there as part of my story, I should explain properly. My girlfriend, selene, didn't "finish with me", that makes it sound like she was doing something cruel, which if i wanted to wallow in self pity would be an easy thing to let myself believe, but is basically not true. She didn't want to end the relationship any more than I did, but for reasons too complicated to talk about, it needed ending, and I didn't have the balls to do it. I prefer to pretend everything is fine until the last possible minute. We're still best friends, and we're both absolutely gutted, but we want different things from life, live on opposite sides of the globe, and I am currently only half way thru 12 months of travelling, so I can't blame her for taking the initiative. It's one thing travelling around having fun knowing that someone is waiting for you, it's another thing doing the waiting. So just in case you were thinking my gf is some heartless bitch who has left me in the lurch, alone in a strange country, think again. Doesn't make it any less shit. Maybe even more so, as you don't have the luxuries of blame or self pity, but i guess that's life. Anyway, if I wanted to write one of those moany blogs where people talk about how miserable they are, then you wouldn't be reading this, so this will be my final word on the matter. Give me a while for my eyes to clear so that i can go back to observing the world again, and i will do my best to pick out something worthy of your horizontal eye movement. Thankyou for you time. BingBong.

Ok, today I am simply going to talk about random stuff. First on the agenda: buses.

Indonesian buses are truly unique. So what are the most important elements of an Indonesian bus? No, not the suspension. No, not the steering. The most important thing to invest in when doing up bus here are: stickers and sound system. I�ll start with sound system. Imagine an old rickety bus; seat covers coming apart, dirt collecting in every possible corner etc etc. Now imagine an illegal rave, with an old, but powerful PA system blasting out happy hardcore. Now combine the two. In fact, throw in one of those �boy racer� cars with the expensive rear mounted sub-woofers. Now you are close to understanding the auditory power of these otherwise scrap-worthy vehicles.

Actually the happy hardcore is mainly played in the smaller buses, which aren�t really buses at all; more like moving bass bins on wheels. They are actually those small mini-vans you rarely see in England, but which maybe the village butcher might drive. You know, the ones which re-defined the word �mini-van� and promoted the current models up to, ummmm, �midi-van�? Anyway, yeah, them, but with half of the back filled with speakers and the other half crammed with people squished along little benches along the sides or hanging out of the door. The �buses�, also known as �Colts�, �bemos�, and other names, are invariably driven by teenage boys, who treat the whole affair like a ride on the dodgems, with the happy hardcore or gabba techno adding to this feeling. They drive around trying to cut each other off or push one another off the road and into the pedestrians on the pavement, finding the whole thing hilarious, and driving as fast as possible, their adrenaline fueled by the 200bpm blasting out of the speakers. They are essentially boy racers with passengers.

But it�s not just the music that creates this image. It�s the stickers. Every bus, be it a Bemo or a big bus, is completely covered in lurid stickers except a small strip about a foot high to allow the driver to see through the windscreen�. a bit. These stickers really do make every bus look like it belongs in a fairground! They are hard to describe, but a few things that stick in my mind are: huge graffiti like bubble writing, NO FEAR logos, go faster stripes�.. basically anything goes as long as no bus is visible. As for how they manage to drive with only a foot high strip of windscreen to see through, I really couldn�t tell you�. But they do!

So, that's indonesian buses. I have a picture, but dont have the means to post it up.... will let you know when it's up on my photos site....

Hello again,

Well, I�m all alone once more. I saw my family off at the airport earlier and am now feeling rather at a loss as to what to do with myself. Actually, I have a few local friends I could call, but I�m not really feeling up to making conversation�.

Anyway, last night we had a blast! Dekson, the singer I mentioned before, invited us to a party at his mates house. It was a garden party, with flaming toches all around, a stage for everyone to jam on, and lots of booze. Awesome. People kept telling us it was a traditional Javanese party. We tried to explain to them that it was exactly the same as a traditional English party, but they wouldn�t have any of it. �But look, try this Indonesian food from the barbecue!� they said. �It�s a corn on the cob�, we said, �we have them too, very tasty�. I will say this for them however: they are a damned musical bunch! Loads of people were getting up and jamming, including myself, and no one was embarrassed to be singing, or wailing, or banging a drum, or whatever�.

Well, I�m off to Mt Bromo next, then on to Bali to catch a flight to perth, where hopefully I�ll be able to visit some relatives of mine (If they reply my e-mail in time!...)

I�m gonna go and grab some food. I�ll try and write something a bit more interesting next time�..

Selamat Suree!

I am now in Yogyakarta, the tourist capital of Java. It's pretty cool here. Last night I went to eat at a restaurant with my mum and sis, and there was a great live band playing. They were a bunch of locals about my age, playing guitars, double bass, drums, mandolin, cello and of course vocals. I had a bit of a jam with them and they then invited us to join them at a party they were going to (I think this had more to do with the singer fancying my sister than anything...) so we headed off... What we arrived at was quite a surprise. A beer drinking competition! Bear in mind this is a muslim country, and if any of these youngsters had been caught by their parents they probably wouldn't have lived to drink again. But by god these kids got into the spirit of it! There were girls falling over, people throwing up, guys shouting and laughing... but absolutely NO aggression or violence, despite the copious amounts of free beer being drunk.... My mum and sis left after a while to go back to the hotel, but I decided to stick around. The guys who took me told me it wasn't really their scene, but Dekson, the singer, had promised his mate who was DJing that he'd show up, so he felt obliged to stay. So we hung out there for a while until Doni, the DJ, finished his set, then we headed off to a little roadside cafe, which consisted of some straw mats layed out on the floor outside the K-Mart.

It almost goes without saying now that these guys wouldn't let me pay anything towards drinks and taxis. These indonesians are just so goddamn friendly! These guys all came from Borneo, which as we know from the news is populated by cannabalistic tribes and bloodthirsty militant muslims. Mmmmm, they must be a genetic anomoly.... I mean the news is the NEWS! ...right?.....

It really is tragic how Indonesian tourist industry has been left to choke to death like this. I had assumed that it was since the bali bomb that things began to go wrong here, but I was wrong. It was actually the riots in 1998 (1997? I forget!) that started it. You remember? The ones where muslims were killing christians, christians were killing muslims, and everyone was killing the chinese and parading their heads down the streets on poles. And of course everyone in the whole country was involved in this, right from the tip of Sumatra down to East timor, because that's all we saw on the news...

Ironically, the lonely planet guidbook hasn't bothered to update itself since then, so the information in there doesn't take into account 7 years of no tourists! For example, when we arrived in pangandaren, Java's main beach resort, we headed straight for "Delta Gecko Village", as the book told us that this was a popular hang out for travellers and had lots going on. When we arrived the first image that sprung to my mind was that house in Terminator 2 where they go to hide out for a while, somewhere in the mexican desert i think... you know the one... Just a straight, dusty road, stretching to the horizon in both directions, and then some derelict looking buildings sitting neglected by the side of the road. We went inside and followed a couple of old signposts until we found ourselves in a little courtyard where an ageing hippie Indonesian and his wife were sitting around chatting. He looked up at us and the look on his face was priceless! First he looked shocked, then overjoyed as he jumped out of his seat to welcome us. "Come in! come in!" he said, grinning from ear to ear. He explained to us that he hasn't really had tourists, except for the occasional trickle, for 7 years. Before that the place had been so poular that sometimes they had to bring in extra tables to feed the 26 or so guests. He showed me some old photo albums and he was right. And I could see why: the place was amazing! Our host, Agus was his name, is an artist, and the whole place is one big piece of art... there are cow's jawbones set into the wall, beautiful mosaics covering the bathrooms, rooms on stilts with winding strairways leading up to them, all painted by hand so that you feel like you're in a huge art exhibit. We chose to stay in a 2 story "cottage" that was just beautiful, and we only paid $10 a night for the whole house. Agus made us dinner every night and we played guitar and sung and chatted with him and his many friends who came to share his hippie wisdom (or was it his free tea and coffee?). If you ever go to Panagandaren, which you should, be sure to stay at the Delta gecko Village!!

Once again, I was amazed at the hospitality, honesty, and all round friendliness of the people in pangandaren. It just seems such a shame that the rest of the world is too scared to experience the hospitality of these beautiful people.

While i'm here I may as well tell you about the jouney from jakarta to Pangandaren, as it was a typical Billy disaster journey....

We were planning to leave at 10pm in a hired car with a driver, so we checked out of the hotel and then started trying to kill the rest of the day in hot smelly jakarta. Then, around midday I decided to go on the internet, and managed to speak to my girlfriend, who then finished with me. As you can imagine, after over 1 and a half years together I was quite badly in need of a major cry, probably with some guttwrenching screams thrown in for good measure, but as I already mentioned, we'd checked out of the hotel already, and i was in a crowded internet cafe. After wiping my eyes too mant times to pass it off as a yawn, I told her I had to go and went out into the street. There was nowhere to go! I struggled to regain control of my emotions and walked back to the restaurant where my mum and sis were waiting. I headed straight for the toilet thinking maybe i could get some privacy there, but it was a tiny cramped smelly little loo with "Why?! Please come back to me!" rather appropriately graffitied on the inside of the door with marker pen. This was not going to be a good place to regain control of myself, so i headed back out and sat with my family pretending nothing had happened. I knew that i couldn't tell them without bursting into tears, so i figured best to say nothing at all.

Later i suggested we go to watch a movie, as i thought this would be a good way to take my mind off things and kill some time. The movie we watched was called "The In Laws", starring Michael Douglas, and it was really quite funny, which cheered me up no end, until the end when the couple got married and lived happily ever after, which kind of ruined my improved state.

Eventually 9pm came around and the taxi driver found us and we decided to set off. Once we started driving, it became even more difficult not to cry, as we weren't talking, allowing my mind to roam free. I decided the best thing to do was to pop a couple of sleeping pills that i'd bought in Thailand and just sleep thru the whole journey, so that's exactly what i did. Only that would have been too easy wouldn't it? So at about 3am, i was woken up by the car stopping. I think the driver wanted to get out and stretch his legs, as apparantly he'd almost fallen asleep at the wheel (great!). When he got back in and tried to start the car, instead of the usual "NnngNnngNnnng.. Vrooom", we got a small "click". We tried again a few times, but nothing. We figured the battery must be flat so it was suggested I jump out and push start it. May i remind you that I was currently under the influence of some pretty powerful prescription drugs which were not intended to make you strong and energetic. I fell out of the car and staggered about a bit before managing to clear my head enough to push the car down a small slope and jump start it.

After climbing back into the car and preparing to fall back asleep, I noticed the driver was looking rather worried. I followed his gaze and realised why. The headlights were so dim that you could barely see the road 4 feet in front of us. This wasn't looking good. We stopped again and got out, opening the bonnet for a bit of ignorant poking. Eventually we figured out that the problem was that some idiot has replace one of the battery terminal clips with one from a different car that didn't actually fit, and then tried to secure it with a screw! I tried to get it to work, filing bits down, sandpapering, twisting and turning, and eventually managed to make the car start. We set off again, but still the lights were dim. Then the car stalled. On a hill. More precisely, going UP a hill. Even more precisely, a fucking steep hill, just after a sharp bend. Once again we got out and proceeded to fumble under the bonnet. We tried to reverse jump start, but it didn't work, meaning we had to push the car BACK UP THE HILL to get it away from the blind corner!! So I pushed like a mule, feet sliding in the gravel, my heavily sedated body protesting as violently as it could, given that it was sedated. We got the car back to it's original position....and then repeated the whole thing twice!

Eventually it got light at about 6am, and a guy towed us to the top of the hill where we jumpstarted. With no more need for lights, you'd think it would be plain sailing, but no. The driver was afraid that if he slowed down, the car would stall again. I tried explaining to him that if he put it in a low gear, and kept the clutch in, it wouldn't stall, but he didn't seem to understand, and after nearly stalling a couple of times after slowing down in a high gear, he decided it was best to just maintain a dangerously fast speed at all times. The problem with this is that we were driving through villages at 6:25 in the morning, and the roads were packed with children on their way to school! Add to this the fact that we had no battery, and therefore no horn, and you can imagine how dangerous it was. I felt like leaning out of the window and screaming "Get out of the way!!! He's a maniac! Run!", but i didn't, i was still sedated....

Then he stalled again.

We were only 30km from our destination, but we had to wait for his friend to bring another car, during which time I fell asleep, and then woke up feeling like absolute shit. But anyway, we reached there in the end, and i got my own room, where I collapsed on the bed and finally let out the flood of emotion that had been welling up inside me for the last 20 hours..... what a fucking day.

Greetings from Jakarta!

Well, it was a pretty mad caper, but I managed to get here! It all started back in maninjau......

I left my beatiful lakeside retreat a day early just to be absolutely sure i could make it to the airport in padang in time. The reason it was so important I make this flight, as I may have mentioned, was that my mum and sister were flying in to jakarta from england, and i had booked a flight from padang (west sumatra) to jakarta on the same day so as to meet them at the airport. My flight was scheduled to arrive in jakarta at 13:50, and theirs at 20:45, so there was plenty of time. Anyway, I set off in a "travel bus" to spend a night in Padang. Travel buses come in a few different varietys, normally involving brightly coloured stickers and happy hardcore. This one was a stickerless country and western type however, which if anything was a change... anyway, as we set off it was raining. When we arrived it was raining more. As we approached the city of padang, the roads suddenly turned into a ginat waterpark! The main roundabout was a genuine whirlpool due to the cars and the current provided by the overflow of a side road... Now i know what your thinking, your thinking I'm exaggerating and that basically there was just a bit of water on the roads, but let me tell you, we drove through water at least one and a half feet (45cm) deep, causing a proper wake to form around the front of the car! I kept seeing people pushing cars and motorbikes that had stalled, and I prayed that my car's fate wouldn't be the same. At one pint we couldn't get thru the road, so my driver went up onto a riverside footpath! This path was meant for pedestrains, and was on a raised bank along the side of the man made river. The river, which was swollen to the point of almost busrsting it's banks, raced alongside the car. Then another car started coming the other way down the tiny footpath! We somehow managed to pass, and eventually made it to a hotel without stalling.

After checking in i went and waded out into the street to find some food. The rain was still falling, and 2 indonesian guys started talking to me and offered to share their umbrella. i walked with them and tried to ask where i could find a food stall that was still open. One of the guys said he was heading towards one, and the other took a different turn, so i was left with this guy. He was very smiley, about 35 i guess, and he was walking quite close to share his umbrella with me. Then he put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze, and looked at me, saying something along the lines of "do you want a massage?". "Tidak (no)" I said, and he let go, then he did the same thing again, this time laughing when i put on a serious face and again said "Tidak!". Then he ponted at my crotch, and then put the tip of his finger in my mouth and said "you want?". "TIDAK!" I said!! There was nothing dodgy or confrontational about what he did, he simply offered me a blowjob as if it was the most normal thing in the world to do! "I have a girlfriend!" I said, as if this might somehow justify my refusing his generous offer. He just laughed and tried to massage my shoulder again, but by now i was onto him and sidestepped. He thought the whole situation was extremely funny, and tried one last time to get my hotel room number before i finally turned around, said my goodnight's and headed back the way I had come so he couldn't pretend to be going the same way! These indonesians take hospitality to new levels i tell you!

After a night of being eaten by mosquitos and a morning of playing guitar with the hotel staff, i finally made it to the airport. I was very stressed by this point, as I was imagining that due to the floods my flight might be cancelled or delayed, but when I reached the airport i checked the computer screen, and my flight was still scheduled to leave on time. I checked in and went thru to the waiting area. My flight was due to leave at 12:20. When at 1:00 I was still sat in the waiting room and the monitor was still giving my flight's status as "check in", I started to realise something was up. I went up to the counter and asked what was up. "Oh, the planes broken, we're fixing it at the moment" said the girl. "So when will it be fixed?" I asked. "mmmm, no way of telling really", she said, trying to look apologetic. Or maybe she just shrugged. To be honest her english wasn't exactly up to much. By now lots of other passengers had come up to join in the complaining, and suddenly I was surrounded by people far more intent on making a fuss than I was, and so was pushed to the back of the "que", which wasn'r actually a que, but more an imaginary order in which peple would be dealt with depending on how pushy and obnoxious they were being. By far the most obnoxious was an Italian guy, who, embarressingly, was the only other white guy there. He kept saying really unnececarily annoying things like "Look, it's not my fault the planes broken is it? So who's fault is it? (blank look from girl who clearly has very low position) Yes, that's right, it's YOUR fault, so I want you to book me onto the next flight on any other airline, and I want YOU to pay for it! OK!? Right, get me your boss! I demand to speak to the Boss!!!" and so on and so forth. " what a prick" i thought to myself. Surely there was no need to like that? I mean there's no way they could just buy him another ticket was there, they would just send him to the boss, who would try to placate him and tell him he understood his feeling etc etc....

So anyway, I eventually managed to speak to one of the girls, and i explained to her that i had to meet my mother and sister in jakarta, and could she tell me what time that expected the flight to leave. She told me that that were waiting for a part which was being flown out from jakarta and would arrive at 2:20, then after the plane was fixd we'd probably still leave by 4pm, so i'd still be in jakarta in time. So, satisfied that all was well, i went and played my guitar to a bunch of old men, thinking what a stressful time the italian was probably having arguing with the boss all for sake of saving 1 hour or so. At about 3:30 I went back up to the desk. "So, did the part arrive ok?" I asked. "What part?", said the girl. "You know! The part to fix the plane!" I said, shocked that she could forget something so important! "Oh! Ummmm, No." she said, then smiled at me to make up for any upset this news may have caused. "So when is the plane going to leave?!" I asked, starting to panic. Then, the italian turned up, and asked me how i was getting on. I explained that I wasn't doing so great all things considered, and he said "what, you didn't get moved to another flight?!"... "ummm, no. you can do that?" I asked, feeling like a prize idiot. "Well, yes, but you'd have to do it bloody quick, the flight leaves in 15 minutes!" he said. Suddenly siezed with panic I ran about frantically looking for someone with authority who could help me. Eventually, after about 4 reffereals, I ended up in the Lion Air office, and was told that the Bali Air flight was full, so I couldn't go on it. I finally gave in, and adopted the post colonial "I'm white and rich and you'd better bloody do what i say so help you god!" attitude that had served the italian so well, and within minutes I was checking in to the Bali Air flight! I'd asked the boss what time the Lion Air flight was really expected to leave and he told me 6pm, so i was thanking my lucky stars that the Italian had told to change flights just in time or I would have missed my mum for sure!

I said to the guy sorting my ticket, "But what about my bag! I've already checked it in on your flight!". "Don't worry" he said, "give me your baggage tag and I'll get it put on the new flight". "But it leaves in 15 mins!" I said. "Don't worry!" he said, "It's no problem!". No problem for him the lying bastard! but more about that later.... So anyway, I manage to get on the plane, and as we taxi out into the runway, and I'm busy congratulating myself for acting so fast, i look out my window, and guess what i see? Only all the other fucking delayed passengers getting onto the supposedly broken Lion Air flight!! And in a sudden moment of second sight, I suddenly know that my bag isn't in the hold of the plane I'm currently sitting in. It just wasn't possible. They didn't ask what my bag looked like, and to identify it by the number on the tag alone would take forever, and even if they had identified it (which by now i was praying they hadn't) they wouldn't have had time to put it on this plane, so it was probably sat in the airport somewhere, ownerless and flightless, probably about to be destroyed in a controlled explosion by the bomb-squad. I tried to put this out of my mind and tell myself i was being paranoid, but my logical mind just knew it was right, and as I stood there at the empty baggage claim belt after everyone else had left I'm sure i heard my brain sing a little "told you sooo!". I went and told someone official looking, and they gave me what I assume was supposed to be a sympathetic smile, but came across more as an "aren't you pathetic" smile. I was led down a maze of corridors and dumped from one person to another, one departm,ent to the next, until i was eventually told that they couldn't get thru to lion air, and i should just go there myself. Luckily one friendly guy gave me a lift to the terminal.

As you can imagine, losing your backpack 6 months into a one year trip is not just inconvenient, it's pretty much a nightmare. I mean of course I didn't reaaly NEEED any of that stuff, but well, no, fuck it, I did NEEEEED it!!!!! It's my stuff! I'm attatched to it! Clothes i can replace, toiletries i can replace, but all those chargers for my digital camera, video camera, MD player (what can i say, i lived in singapore for 2 years!) couldn't be replaced so easily! And what about my powerpuff towel??!! Where was I going to find on of them in jakarta?! Ok, so i clutching at straws here, i guess it really was just stuff, but hey, it was MY stuff, and I WanteD it!

By now it was already time to go meet my mum and sis, so after telling the woman from lion air what had happened and recieveing a promise that she's try and find me bag I headed down to the arrivals terminal. They're flight was delayed (a recurring theme of the day) and I headed back upstairs. As i sat and waited, gloomily thinking of how much I was going to miss my berghaus walking boots, I looked up to be greeted by the site of an indonesian guy carrying a huge, ridiculous looking backpack. wait a minute! It was MY backpack! Hoooooray! I could have kissed him! (I didn't).

So in the end, my mum and sis arrived. After their long haul flight from London via Dubai, Columbo, and Singapore, they seemed far less exhausted than me! What a day. The only other highlight of the day was mum's bag being searched for bombs as we entered Jalan Jacksa (tourist street) in a taxi! That was all yesterday. Today is another story......

hey there....

I was contemplatig rewriting that leech story, but as the n key is broken I just cant be bothered... actually thats a lame excuse, i just cat be bothered anyway...

I'm writig a song at the mo about the world situation and stuff.... here's the basics so far:

Every time I watch the news these days,
I see the same old leaders
tryin to lead us into wars with propaganda that they feed us.
As the unelected president of the United States of General Motors,
Plans his next move aimed to help his business partners meet their quotas,
and I-aaaaa
I watch the world just stand asiiide
waiting for their piece,
of the american pie.

Well people try to tell me the ends justify the means,
but I guess these people haven't ever heard the victim's screams,
and there's clearly many questions that I really can't ignore,
like: Is it a just war? Or is it just a war?

And as blair kisses bushes butt and calculates his cut,
NBC does it's best to stir your patriotic feelings up,
and as the peole were protecting, they pile up in the soil,
I'll tell you this, my friends,
Blood, is thicker than oil.

We went in the looking for the W-M-D,
Instead we found a country that was practically empty,
except for one commodity, of which they had plenty,
enough to power bushes car for a century.

State of Emergency
National Security
Fear of an enemy that you can't see
Savin my liberty
that's what they're tellin me,
make more space in the miltary cemetry
Troops in afghanistan
wipin out the Taliban
finishin the job that the russians had planned
overseas enterprise
dollar signs in their eyes
yesterdays allies are soon to be enemies.

-----

Sounds better if you sing it of course!

right, that's all folks! I'm flying to Jakarta tomorrow morning.. wish me luck!!

It's been a while hasn't it?

well, i've not really got a good excuse, as lots of interesting stuff has been happening. You may have noticed that my last post ended rather abruptly. Well, that's because I was typing it from my handwritten journal, and quite frankly it felt too much like work. I can only write if I'm writing from the top of my head....

so, what's happening in my exciting life? I've been battling leeches in the jungles of west sumatra, swimming in crystal clear lakes, lying in my hammock and reading spy thrillers, playing my groovy little guitarlele and jamming with the locals, learning Indonesian, and much more, making it almost impossible to know where to start!

well, I think that rather than telling you what I've been doing, I'll just ramble on about something.... It's more fun that way...

So, leeches. The funny thing about leeches is that they don't hurt, they don't carry diseases, they don't leave itchy bites... they're basically harmless. So why is it that the mere mention of them is enough to send most ppl off into convulsions of repulsion? If you've ever seen one you'll know. They are just about the most hideous looking creature on earth. And it's the way they move! They somehow stand up on their rear ends, and then wave their front end around in the air, as if they are smelling for human flesh, before reaching as far as they can, gripping the ground with their faces, and then pulling their backside up to it. As I trekked thru the jungle a few days ago I saw more leeches in a few hours than most ppl see in a lifetime. And somehow, no matter how fast you walk, they manage to latch on to your boots and start making the journey up to your carefully contructed yet easily penetrable barriers of trouser legs tucked into socks. But here's the problem. Even tho you see them dragging themselves purposefully towards your ankles, there's nothing you can do about it! Because if you stop even for a second to flick them off, 20 others will home in on the foot your not watching and you're back to square one!

FUUUUUUCCCKKKKK!!!! I just wrote an extremely funny anecdote about fighting leeches, and then I yawned and stretched, touching a plug that is precariously hanging out of a loose socket behind my head, and causing the pc to reboot!!!!! And as i mentioned b4, I can only write from the top of my head, so there's no way I can re-write the same passage!!! ARRRGGGHHGGGH!!

I give up. i'm sorry, i tried. If you ever see me, ask me to tell you the one about the 2 leeches and the one that got away.....

by the way, I'm currently staying in meninjau, a lake in West Sumatra, Indonesia. My mum and sister Seren are coming out to spend 8 days with me on sunday in Java!

After 10 days of living a life of air-conditioned comfort in singapore, it's finally time to head of into the unknown once again. Now the plan is to head to Indonesia, but having checked the US and UK foreign office web pages this seems like guaranteed suicide. Here's what they have to say:

http://travel.state.gov/indonesia.html

www.fco.gov.uk/travel/countryadvice.asp

basic summary: If your not there yet, don't go. If you're there already, leave.

So what should I do? Should I follow the advice of the western governments, or should I follow my instincts? Do the indonesians really want my head on a pole, or is that just stupid ignorant propoganda? Well there's only one way to find out... join me as I go to Indonesia in search of someone who wants me dead.....

24th July 03

I left my gf at the ferry termial in singapore. I had to say a very fast goodbye as my eyes were starting to leak. The ferry ride to batam was very unexceptional, except for my trying not to cry the whole way, but as soon as I reached batam and turned right out of the ferry terminal, things went crazy. All the singaporeans turned left towards their cheap brothel day trips, but turning right led me to the domestic ferry terminal. After about 6 metres I walked into another world! Suddenly I was hit by a barrage of noise as the ticket vendors competed to shout over one another. I went up to the first counter and was quoted 81,000 rupiah, 31,000 more than "the book" said, so I pressed on. I soon discovered that the book was full of shit, and paid up. As I wen't through to board, every single person smiled at me and said hello. After singapore it was quite surreal! Even the guy taking money for "seaport tax" looked at my ticket and said "Billy...mmm, that's a good name...mmm, yes, very good name", before handing me my tax coupon with a smile. Then the customs guy wanted me to stop and explain to him how my remote for my MD player worked. Then as I aproached the ferry an oldish guy came running up going "Hello! Hello! Show me your ticket!". Now, I'm naturally suspicious these days, so I showed it to him but held on to the corner firmly. "Ah ha!" he exclaimed breaking ito a huge grin, "seat 47!", as if this was just as he had suspected. For some reason he kept ruffling my hair like you would to a small child, which was quite an effort for him as he was at least 2 feet shorter than me!

He led me onto the ferry (I was starting to realise that this was rather special treatment) and to my seat. Then he anounced to me and anyone else who would listen, "Look, you white skin, everyone else brown skin! You the only one!". "Yes, that's right!", I agreed enthusiastically, and feeling obliged to live up to my newly given celebrity status, I said Hi and smiled and waved to the two guys sat behind me as I took my seat.

As the journey began I got chatting with the guy behind me, who's name turned out to be Doni (Dooney). He was a graduate and had been working for an oil company in Batam for 3 months before the company collapsed and he was laid off. Now he was on his way back to his hometown of pekanbaru for his friend's graduation ceremony. About 3 mins into the conversation (before i had found out any of this stuff about him), after he had found out that I was going to be stayig in pekanbaru for a night before heading to bukkittingi, he offered to let me stay at his place, and said he could be my guide, take care of me etc etc. Now as I have mentioned before, 6 months of travel have made me naturally wary of anyone who offers me anything for free, as it invariably ends with a sob story about some dire situation that can only be resovled by a generous donation of my cash! So I politely declined, saying that I needed a hotel as I was really tired and wated to sleep in the afternoon. Doni reluctantly agreed but then started arranging how he could help me find a hotel near his house! After he explained that his house was near the Bus Station I figured what the hell. I was starting to trust the guy!

He asked me if I was a christian or a muslim and then laughed in amazement when I told him niether. "But don't you want to go to heaven?!" he asked me in disbelief. I told him I figured if jesus was really as forgiving as he says he is, that he'd probably let me in anyway. He clearly saw this attitude as being a rather big gamble and looked at me with an almost admirable disbelief, as if I had just told him I was going to hike everest i my underwear on the off-chance that it wasn't cold.

Once the ferry arrived in Sumatra we all had to pile onto a small bus, and I was told that my bag would have to be put on the roof. Then, after I had got on the bus, reluctantly leaving my bag with the lads outside, one of them got on and told me I had to pay 5000 rupiah (about 60 cents) for my bag! I was used to this kind of thing from india and nepal, and I figured it was the same. In India (with some exceptions) they only ask the foreigners for money, and I found the easiest way to avoid an argument was just to put my own bag on the roof. So, I got up to go out and do this, and Doni came with me. He spoke to the boys in indonesian for a minute and then reached in his pocket, pulled out 5000, and paid them!! Before I had a chance to reach for my bag OR my money belt! I tried to give him the money back, but he wouldn't take it. When i tried to explain that they were just asking me for money because I was foreign, he said no, he had just asked them and everyone had to pay.... So, feeling stingy and a bit guilty for doubting his honesty, I got back on board.

The bus ride made my worst Indian or nepalese bus trips seem like a cruise down the Auto-Bahn in a new BMW. The "road" from the ferry terminal to Pekanbaru was made from a combination of dust and rocks. I still have a significant amount of the dust with me in my nose, throat and lungs. What was the most amazing was the speed at which the bus drove over this uneven, rocky terrain. It practically flew! What i found particulary ironic was that while the boat ride had been fast and smooth, the bus ride was making me decidedly sea-sick...

The high point of the bus rtide for me was when we came to a ferry river crossing. As the bus waited for the ferry, hoardes of food hawkers started climbing on the bus or shouting through the windows, trying to entice us to try their salted peanuts, or these small speckled blue eggs that looked decidedly endangered... Then, just as the bus pulled onto the ferry, a boy jumped on carrying a guitar. I assumed he was a passenger, but as the ferry pulled away, he lifted his guitar, jostled himself some space in the already crowded aisle, and began to play. At first he just seemed to be banging out some random chords and talking over them in Indonesian, but then the song began proper, and I have to say, it was pretty catchy! He sung us all the way to the other side and then pulled out a piece of magazine folded into a makeshift envelope and went around collecting money. Genius! I think the buskers in the london Underground could learn from this: why play to a mobile crowd in a rush when you could get ON the tube and have a captive audience!?

ok, I guess it's time to try and update my blog, so here goes...

After finishing my PADI Open Water and Advanced Open Water courses in Ko Tao, I set about trying to figure out how to get to Singapore as quickly and as cheaply as possible. Being an idiot I left it until the day before I travelled to ask about booking tickets, and of course was told that the trains were all fully booked! The only other option... you've guessed it... the bus!! Not just the bus; actually the proposed route was 8 hours on a "night boat", follwed by 5 hours in a "mini-van" followed by 20 hours in a "VIP bus". That's a total of 33 hours continuous travelling!!...

So anyway, I set off in the evening for the night boat with fairly high expectations... The woman in the travel agents had told me that the night boat was very comfortable and I could get a good nights sleep on it, so when I arrived at the pier I was a bit surprised to find the only boat moored there was an old wooden fishing boat.... But I figured maybe it was like Dr Who's Tardis, small and dull on the outside, big and flashy on the inside. I was wrong. Inside, the deck was just like...well, a deck i suppose.. you know, bits of rope, boxes, barrels, anchors etc etc.... then I found out that the sleeping quarters were actually upstairs, and I stepped back from the brink of despair momentarily. Then I climbed the ladder to the top deck. Upstairs was an area about 5mx10m with hard sleeping mats layed down the 2 sides of the "room". The cieling was only about 1m high, and there was small hard pillows spread along the edges of each side of the floor. Each person had about 2 feet of space in which to sleep, and the heat was unbearable. Now all of this may sound a bit harsh, but actually none of what I have just described was really a problem. I mean all you really need is a piece of floor big anough to lie on and soft enough not to bruise... no, the problem wasn't the heat or the beds, the problem was to 10 foot swells that we were sailing through! As the storm raged outside, the boat rocked from side to side to 50 degree angles, causing everyone to slide out of their beds and across the floor. As well as this, the front of the boat (over which I was sleeping) kept lurching up a wave and then crashing down into the next trough. It was so bad it was almost funny. The floor didn't stop moving for at least 24 hours after I got off the boat!

Right, I'm trying to write this whilst ppl are watching "Sex and the City" in the same room and to be honest it's impossible not to listen to it, making it impossible to write anything worth reading, so i'm gonna give up.... maybe I'll continue later.... :)

honeeey, i'm hoooome!!

Yep, that's right, I'm back in Singpore, the land of the free (gifts). I'll write up the events of the last few days a bit later, as i haven't slept for quite a long time, but if anyone want's to meet me for a coffee or a beer while I'm here, please feel free to drop me a mail... :)

I had a very odd dream last night...

I was finger painting with Eminem (as you do) and his painting was really colourful, but on mine all the colours were mixing together and making a big brown mess. Not content to be better than me at rapping he has to be better than me at finger painting as well! Smug bastard. And while we're there finger painting I'm desperately trying to turn the conversation towards MC'ing so I can try and show him my skills and get a record deal! At some point we aquired brushes, but the style of the painting remained the same: splodge paint on and make pretty colours (or in my case, brown). Then we went for a walk, and all the time I'm thinking "I can't believe I've just been finger painting with Eminem! This is insane! I must try to get his phone number so I can call and pester him!". Being in dreamworld I don't think I quite apprciated just how bizzare the situaton really was......

When I told Duncan, one of the guys at my dive school, about my dream, he commented that even if he was trying to come up with something surreal he wouldn't be able to concieve of something quite so ludicrous. I think he was trying to suggest that my brain is a little fucked up, but I think it shows I have a vivid imagination... :)

I did my PADI Open Water exam today. I passed with flying colours, so now I just have to do the Open Water Dives.... Still worried about my ears, but now I have some special de-congestant for diving which will hopefully help. But if the next time you see me and shout and I don't respond, it's not because I've decided your a dick after all, it's because I've burst both my ear drums.....

it's a funny old world isn't it. Just thought I'd share that with you.

My god I'm tired!

For the first time since my GCSE's at the age of 16, I find myself studying from a fat text book for an exam tommorow!! Not only that, but I'm spending all day watching training videos and swimming about in heavy scuba gear, and then being told that I have to read 100 pages in the evening! Needless to say i haven't been. I mean I TRIED! But as soon as I lie in my hammock and start to read, my eyes just close and I'm asleep! It's amazing! If the writer's of these books were to shift their market to insomniacs, they could put a lot of phamecutical companies out of business overnight (maybe a week, to give the insomniacs time to sleep before calling the doctor to cancel their prescriptions).

I went down to 3 metres today and sat on the bottom and performed lots of suicdal tricks like throwing your air away and then trying steal your friend's (it's part of the course! honest!) Anyway, I'm not entirely sure how my ears are gonna cope with the 18 metres tommorow,as they were giving me some shit today..little fuckers... giving me a right earful they were....

KO Tao is a majorly beautiful island tho. The water's crystal clear ( the sea water that is, the stuff that comes out of the tap is brown and murky), and the sun was shining like a big ball of firey gas... I say "was", as today it cloudy and shit. The water I was diving in had about a 6 foot swell, which may not sound like much, but when your floating in it trying to remove your scuba gear and put it back on again without swallowing too many endangered aquatic species in the process, it seems pretty high I can tell you.

So yeah anyway, unless you want to hear about nitrogen bubbles in the blood, oxygen toxicity, rip tides, or eqipment that is available in a variety of colours and styles, then I've not really got a lot to say.....

oh well, I'd better go and revise... :(

In Ko Tao starting PADI Open Water course tomorrow. Can't wait!!

Cheap Internet!!!! :)

ok, no more excuses now. I shall endevour to write something interesting. The problem is that when you're lying on a beach getting a tan very little of interest actually happens. I guess I could rustle up a couple of fairly decent little anecdotes.....

So, when I arrived in Ko Chang, I have to say I was pretty dissapointed. The beach I ended up at, White Sands, was just one long stretch of upmarket resort type bungalows with air-con and all the rest. I managed to find myself a cheapie hut at the far end of the beach but it just didn't feel right. I went out to have a drink and maybe meet some ppl, but it seemed that I was the only lone traveller there. Everyone else was in a couple, either of the traditional variety, or (more commonly) of the 1000 baht a night variety. I didn't really fancy chatting to some fat middle aged german who would keep informing me that the pre-pubescant looking thai girl sat on his beer belly was a "real cracker", so I headed home feeling a bit displaced and pining for India.

The second day was better. I went to the bar next door to my hut and made friends with the owner, a thai guy called Sonor. The bar was empty apart from a couple of fat eoropeans with thai girls, so we chatted until everyone had left, and then Sonor Invited my out to go have some drinks with him. I accepted greatfully and we set off in his pick-up to find a "karaoke bar". Unfortunately, Sonor told me wistfully, the police had closed down all the Karaoke bars pending further bribes, and thus deprived the thai men of the favourite form of entertainment. However, there was one place still open. A huge lump of concrete sticking out of the middle of no where with an enormous neon sign proclaiming it the "Sky Bar". Sonor said he had to make a phone call and told me to go ahead. I walked thru the doors past a few hopefull looking hookers and found myself the only human being in a large concert hall filled with tables. There was a band on the stage knocking out english and thai pop songs to a fairly unresponsive audience: me.

No sooner had I entered than the entire staff of waiters started closing in on me from all angles, desperate for a moment of work to relieve the boredom of job with no purpose.

"Hello Sir! You alone?"

said the guy who arrived first, somehow managing to offer me a range of sexual services simply using his eyebrows.

"No No, I'm with a friend... I'll have 2 beers please"

" Two beers?"

"Yes please"

"Not one?"

"No No, I really have a friend, he's just using the phone!"

So they bring me two beers and I sit there with the entire staff watching me as i sit and wait.... and wait..... and wait..... After 30 mins Sonor still hasn't arrived. The staff have started giving me knowing glances, once again coveying huge amounts of sub-text with their eyebrows: "You don't need to be embaressed sir, many single men come here looking for a good time... Let me intoduce you to Noi, she can be your companion for the night..."

Finally Sonor walked in and I had a moment of triumph, throwing my best "I told you so" stares at the staff. Later a group of thais who Sonor knew arrived and we joined them. I should say that by this point I had already drunk about 5 litres of Beer Chang, which is 6.5%, and was feeling considerably tipsy.... Then one of the new group offered me a drink. I accepted without thinking and suddenly had a whiskey and coke in front of me. That's ok, I thought, one whiskey and coke will be ok. How wrong i was. What i didn't realise is that every time I drank half of my glass, one of the waiters would reach over while I wasn't looking and top it up from the bottles on the table behind us! So a few hours later and god knows how many whiskey and cokes, the time finally arrived for the club to close. At this point I suddenly realised thru my drunken haze that Sonor was no longer with us! My new friends were going the wrong way and couldn't give me a lift, so i decided to go and see if his car was still there.

Outside I managed to spot his car and stagger towards it, realising on the way that he was actually sat in the drivers seat. Assuming he was waiting for me I flung open the door and slumped into the passenger seat. Then I looked across and was surprised to find Sonor getting his dick sucked by a whore leaning in the driver's door! I think I then mumbled something and slumped back out of the car before retreating to what seemed like a polite distance. I waited until I saw the crouched figure leave and then stagged back. At this point my memory kind of blacks out, but I vaguely remember Sonor dropping me off and me wondering why he was dropping me in the middle of nowhere before realising it was my guesthouse...... Needless to say the next day i felt like a huge pile of warm shit.

Then I got ill. Dioreah, sore throat etc.... So I decided not to go out, and ended up going to sonor's place for some food. This was a mistake, as he introduced me to another group of thais who once again made me drink whiskey. Despite the fact that I don't like whiskey, I have to say it was really great to have thais giving things to me rather than the other way round. They really are a generous lot once you get away from the tourists.

On about my 4th day in Ko Chang, I decided to rent a scooter and head off into the great unknown to find a beautiful beach to move to. I found a great beach and then decided to visit the waterfall in the middle of the island. After an hour or so of swimming around and generally feeling like a bit of a sad git (everyone else was in groups) I decoded to leave. On my way out I passed a big group of school kids on a day trip with their teacher. He stopped me as I passed with the obligatory "Hey! where you from?". We got chatting and he ended up darwing a characature of me, which I have to say was pretty good. He then told me his name was "tiger" and did a little "grrr" to emphasise his point... I noticed he was a little camp, so the "tiger" thing seemed fairly apt. Later on when I got back home, I showed the drawing to some friends I'd made. It was only then that i realised he's written a little note at the bottom..... "For Mr Billy, from your friend Tiger (hp 976 3574)" !!!! It hadn't really even ocurred to me at the time that he was chatting me up, as he was with all his students who were listening to our conversation, but I think it was pretty clear from the note that he wanted my butt! Cant blame him tho.... :)

Right, I've had enough of writing and you've had enough of reading, so I'll finish just by saying that my new plan (it changes every day) is to skip most of SE Asia and head straight for singapore before spending a month or so in Indonesia. So if all goes well I should be in singapore in less than 2 weeks!! So prepare yourself singapore.... the undercover hippy approaches........