Back in the first world

I haven't posted in a wee while. Sorry about that. Its difficult to get the time and find computers which work at a decent speed etc etc. My last post was 3 weeks ago so here is a summary of what i have done in those 3 weeks.

JAVA

I went to Jogjakarta which is a big city in central Java. It was very cultural, lots of museums and arty things to do. Obviously this meant i spent most of my time in a Belgian owned restaurant which sold freshly made chocolate. It was a great experience of Belgian culture... in Indonesia. Whilst i was there, known terrorist and the FBI number 3 most wanted man, Nordin Top was thought to have been killed in a shoot-out with police. This happened about 50 miles from where i was. As it turned out the person they actually killed was a florist... who was also a terrorist and involved in the Jakarta bombs.

After Jogja I went on travelling to a eco-tourism site. At the train station I was informed there would be no train today as 5 carriages de-railed the previous night. Not sure how many people died but not much was said about it. Apparently that sort of thing is very common. So I got the bus instead. It was a local bus and not air-conditioned. I think it was probably hotter than the sun. The eco-tourism site was in a nice spot with fairly decent facilities. The bathroom was outdoors, as in it had 3 walls and no roof. A little weird. I like nature as much as the next person but that was perhaps a little too close to nature.I was now in volcano country. Everywhere there were massive volcanoes, some active and some dormant. It was quite a spectacular place. Mt Bromo was a definite highlight. People go to Bromo for the sunrise over the volcano. They set up a grandstand and it was quite weird to see 300 Japanese people cheering as the sun came up at 5am. It felt very touristy but the views were great. (I tried to upload some pictures i took but it didn't work so here is one from the internet which is similar to my own). After Bromo i got another bus (with A/C this time thankfully) and got a boat over to Bali.

Rice Paddy

Mount Bromo (my excellent photography!)

Nice quiet beach for surfing

BALI

I started in north Bali and one of the highlights was snorkelling over a shipwreck. It was a weird experience. You could go down and touch it and see in some of the rooms. There were colourful fish everywhere. The ship was an American merchant ship which was wrecked during the 2nd world war and just left there.

I got to Ubud in central Bali where i was to meet Richard Mail, my friend who i will be travelling with from now on. The night i met him i felt quite ill. I had stomach cramps and generally felt run down. So the next 10 days were spent in bed watching DVD's and going on short walks where i was constantly calculating the distance to the nearest toilet. I did manage to get a little surfing done in this time and enjoy the sun by the pool. I think i lost some weight being ill and when i last looked in the mirror i looked like Christian Bale from 'The Machinist'... for those of you who arent very up on popular culture, that means i looked very skinny. Me and Mail flew to Perth in Western Australia 3 days ago.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

I arrived in Perth and was struck by how similar it was to Canada. Very clean, wide roads, nice friendly people. It was nice to be in the first world again and be able to get what you wanted and not have to worry about getting cholera or tetanus by just walking down the street. I have come to Fremantle which is a suburb of Perth to see one of my friends who i met on my travels 6 years ago. That was a little weird but went well. Im headed on a trip to Broome tomorrow and then getting a camper van through the desert to Alice Springs and then onto Melbourne (that is about 5000km!). Should be in Melbourne in 3 weeks where i will start looking for a job and a place to live. Still a little ill but I think I'm getting better, and will hopefully start putting on weight soon. Shouldn't be too hard here. Portions are of the American style, large and full of fat.

Waterfalls in Karijini National Park

Sunset in Broome

A run-over snake on its last legs... sort of

erehpsimeh nrehtuos

I arrived safely in Bangkok to start the next leg of my journey to Singapore. I decided to this part as a semi organized tour with a company called intrepid. Intrepid arranged accommodation and travel from place to place. The trip from Bangkok to Singapore took 15 days. I thought that it would be busy at this time of year with lots of students and backpackers in a similar position to myself. How wrong i was. I walked into my room on the first day to discover i was sharing with an elderly Italian gentleman and that there was only 3 other people taking that tour. My 78 year old room mate didn't speak English too well so we didn't spend a lot of time together. When we did, i had to hold myself back from asking questions about the war and what things used to be like in the good old days.

The tour went to national parks, beaches, islands and big cities in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. The border crossing from Thailand into Malaysia went smoothly and offered an opportunity to see the largest insect i have seen in my life. It was some sort of grasshopper and it was sat just above the window for immigration. It was roughly the length from my elbow to the tips of my fingers. Fortunately it didn't move very much but it did make for some tourists a little more nervous looking than they should have been at a border crossing.

Once in Malaysia i visited Penang. I was feeling a tad ill and after sitting at a disgusting (but cheap!) roadside cafe and not getting served i thought i would go over the road to a 5 star hotel which were doing a lunchtime buffet. It cost GBP10.50 which was a fortune for the area and they told me the buffet was only on for another 15 minutes. I said this was ok and got 2 large plates straight away and ate my way through the food whilst reading. When it came time to pay the manager said it was ok, i hadnt eaten much and the food was going to waste anyway so i didnt have to pay. Who said there is no such thing as a free lunch!?

After reaching Singapore i got on a short flight, crossed the equator and arrived in busy Jakarta, Indonesia. I have had a few days surfing in southern Java which has been lots of fun if very painful at times. Yesterday i got up at 7am and went surfing on my own on a beach that was almost deserted other than some fisherman. Im travelling east across Java to the island of Bali where i am meeting a couple of friends and spending about 10 days on the beach. It will be good to spend more than 3 days in one place as i havent done that in around 2 months. After Bali im off to Australia where im looking forward to cereal and cheese which i havent seen much, if any of, in a long time.