Part XV

Sawasdee krap, (in Thai, a word that sounds like excrement is actually the equivalent of making polite conversation)

Got the jitters from that grunty Thai redbull and coke. Makes typing interesting...

I've been slacking around in the Khaosan Road area for the last few days, living the life of a bum artist. I have no problem with this however as I'm getting some good work done. Thus sitting on the pavement with a beer is actually work, beats helpdesk : )

'Tis amusing.. as one gets near the end of Khaosan road you get the chorus from left and right of "tuk tuk", "tuk,tuk" , 'tuk tuk"... then a furtive "ping pong show..." had to laugh on my way home down the alley.

Ran into a dodgy Greek the other night while I was chilling out with a beer at a table set out on the pavement of Khaosan road. He was selling stories to survive, much like Jason used too. I bought his book, it's about his experiences scraping a living in the Khaosan road area and seedy side of Bangkok. Made very interesting reading, quite a heads up for the place. All about prostitution, theft, drug trafficking, lady boys, all the farang walking hand in hand with their Thai "girlfriends", stuff not in any guidebook. Paints a dark picture of both the Thais and the farang that hang about Khaosan. Funny though, he lives in a dark shady world, I don't think the guy realises that he brings it on himself. Probably all he's ever known. My world has a rather different appearance. I was sitting on the pavement last night drawing a particularly cool picture. IMHO. These 2 older Thai woman came over and hung out. They shared some peanut like things with me. They weren't after my dosh, just being friendly.

My current guest house is cool (still the same teak place), down a quiet(ish) alleyway off Khaosan. Seems to be popular with Japanese back packers. Actually more accurately, Japanese stoners. Must have been advertised in the Japanese NORML news or something... There's a dude there at the moment with an instrument which is a cross between a didgeridoo and a trombone. Made of PVC its basically a didge that you can change the key of. Cool idea. He's pretty good on it too, gets the rattle going and busts out the animal sounds.

Was on my way home down the alley and heard the familiar "Thai massage for you, sir", which I 'd heard each time I walked down there, but this time it seemed the perfect end to an evening I felt wasn't over yet but hadn't made up my rasoodock what to do with the rest of.... Thai massage rocks! (whoa.. the intensity of that statement! You'd think it was my first.) They had a CD playing of Thai instrumentals of European classics. Picture Hotel California with Chinese sounding instruments. Really cool at midnight while you're getting a massage. I stipulated a female masseuse. Blokes do a good job (being therapeutic after all, better than some 18 year old hottie with no strength in her hands) but it's nice to get a bit of Yin energy with the treatment. The 30 odd woman I got did an excellent job. BTW. For those not in the know, you actually go to a Thai massage place for a genuine massage! Its a form of passive yoga.

Another day of adventures... well not really.

I couldn't put it off any longer, it was time to go shopping today. This involved catching a local bus to Siam Center which was really easy. I asked people for the correct bus number and it turned up just as I got to the bus stop. It dropped me off right outside too and cost a whopping total of 7 baht (30c). I saw loads of old European dorks taking their Thai "girlfriends" on shopping sprees. Sat next to one on the bus (not by choice, was the last available seat BTW). He was totally unfriendly. When he went for his change a couple of condoms fell out... No surprise to me, I already had a pigeon hole for him (no astrology necessary). They can call it what they like but its just an exchange of goods for sex. Companionship too I suppose.. (Hah... sounds like a traditional marriage : )

There's a couple of old Japanese hippie/prophet looking fullas staying at my place now. One of them has a mandolin looking instrument and I woke up this morning to him playing the flute. Thought "wicked... I've woken up early!" It was half 11.

Time for a kebab!

Yet another day.

Went to the palace today. Its wicked. There's loads of dazzling temples which aren't very photogenic. I prefer ruins meinself. I bought a mini tripod yesterday. The coolest thing about a mini tripod is the "2 second delay action shot". Put camera on the ground in front of something cool them leap in front of it. Kept me entertained for most of the afternoon. They have an impressive mural of the Ramakien which is the Thai version of the Hindu epic the Ramayana. Goes right around the outside wall of the main temple complex, well over 100m me thinks, and its awesome! All sorts of interesting subject matter and a wicked style. About the only bit I could decipher is that some fulla recruited the leader of the local bovine community to rampage in the enemies village then one of the enemies somehow convinced the beast to come into a cave where they slaughtered it.

Saw the emerald Buddha which is actually jade. Apparently the Burmese or Khmers stole it then the Thais stole it back. Then they lost it and found it again. Not sure how that fits in with their belief structures... I could pinch really cool brass Buddha images from temples all over the place, but I, like most other patrons are aware of the Karma that would come with such a nefarious act. There was some serious energy coming off it. I suppose it is a form of crystal after all and has had millions of people focusing on it for eons. I found the atmosphere a tad heavy and didn't tarry. The over bearing weight of organised religion maybe?

I managed to cross one of the busiest roads in Bangkok at rush hour on my way back, 4 or 5 lanes it was. All bear witness to the greatness of it all... Was like my brother parting the Red Sea, effortlessly walking through a great gap in the seemingly constant flow. (Its great sharing the name of a great biblical prophet! Provides endless entertainment. Thanks Mum :)

Hmm.. for some reason I'm back in the Internet cafe. Probably escaping from the ladyboyz and hill tribe peddlers as 11pm came around and my road side bar just kicked me out. Going purely on physicality, some of them look hot as (many a drunken (or not even) fool shall fall for it!) but something just isn't quite right. I detect the Yang energy on them from way off, like a mosquito smells DEET. As quoted in my book from the Greek "Ladyboy just the same as a woman..." sorry bro, it ain't.

Wicked, there's a deaf Thai girl next to me gesticulating wildly at the web cam. Better that than some noisy yank talking loudly on an IP telephony client!

Has been a night of some worth spent with a beer (or 2...) and a bunch of Japanese creative types. Apparently the Japanese have been coming to my particular guest house since the 70s... although this old fulla (with a laptop full of cool media BTW) reckoned its more the 80s. The things Lonely Planet devotees miss out on eh? Sure, a guide book is really handy but the bible (Koran/Torah/Ramayana/Tao Te Ching...) it is not. I sat there creating a rather pleasing illustration of an etheric couple dancing (interesting the variety of muse from place to place) while they rambled on in Japanese. It's very pleasing to the ear, Japanese, quite fast but mellow. Then again, they're Japanese stoners... They spoke English too when questioned but I couldn't understand a word of it! Well, 1 or 2 maybe. A french dude came in for a while. In characteristic Cancerian hospitality I spake unto him "Bonjour monsieur". Got no response for ages before the eventual "were you talking to me?" Nah mate, the 3 Japanese fullas...

I now own an ashtray with a naked woman curled around inside it. Its pretty cool actually. Call me a patron of the arts. Now, who can I palm that off on...

Not one to bore people with my dreams but...

Yesterday I dreamt I was seeing a terrorist bomber ( bearing no resemblance to anyone I know). She'd say "I have to go out for a while" then some sh!t nearby would blow up. I managed to put 2 and 2 together but what can you do? Can't nark out ones lover and cant change someone which such deep seated conviction. How worthy is that?

Part XIII - Lucky for some

Khaosan Road. Horrid backpackers ghetto that it is.

Confucius say "man who walk through turnstyle sideways..."

Rocked into town at 6am after a 10 hr bus ride and found myself a nice little quiet windowless cell in a cheap concrete guesthouse. Someone had drawn a mural on the wall of my room and the irritating sound of tuk tuks is barely audible.. Can get onto the roof which is an excellent place for Qigong.

The 11 hour bus ride was pretty sweet, had loads of room on a VIP bus that was actually what it was marketed as plus the company of a particularly hot Swedish sociology student. There's been some impressive electrical storms since I got here, one of them was pretty much constant thunder, right overhead for a couple of hours and torrential rain. The thunder didn't rumble, it was more of an eardrum splitting crack.

Stayed there for 2 nights but last night I woke up seeing a creepy looking asian ghost.. well, sleep paralysis styles. Wake up and the image is still there for a while, haven't had that since staying at Cara's mums place... Think I'll paint it. Then someone accidentally burst into my room a little while later, he got the hell fright. "uh... solly" Strange coincidence. Hmm.. So I moved to this awesome old teak building down an alley. The people are friendly and there's just a real nice vibe there, not diminished by the deformed but ever cheerful daughter...

Just been to the Bangkok art gallery which is wicked! They are currently running an exhibition by Israeli photographer Alex Levac and its really good. B&W images of daily life in Israel with a humorous slant, such as; a camel kneeling to a poster of elvis, a woman sunbathing in a bikini outside a high security prison, a worker with his face in the crotch of a female statue. All very amusing... Worth taking a look if it comes to a town near you. (Can someone at Gen-i please flick this to Mr Ginther cos postmaster will probably block it as per usual)...
They also had an impressive exhibition by thai surrealist painter Kiettisak Chanonnart. Well worth looking into, inspiring as he uses some similar ideas as I do but his work is quite different, they were even good enough to be selling a book of his work for a bargain : )

The gallery also comprises of some cool old traditional thai works, some paintings by King Bumipol and that masterpiece of sculpture, "Two stallions licking each others balls" well, that's not what its called but its what it is anyway...

Speaking of Israelis, I found a kebab shop on the way back home, thanks to the abundance of hebs and their inability to consume the local tucker. It was good too, more a pita pocket full of kebab fillings but I wasn't complaining. It was very tasty! Dare I say it, I had a Burger King voucher in my hand at the time which I was going to use. Shame on me! I'll redeem myself tonight with traditional Thai delicacies such as Pad thai and banana pancakes.

Part XIII

Friends, family, colleagues and droogs.

I am in Krabi. Been here for 4 days and its rained for a good portion of each of them. It's ok though cos I like rain and Krabi is cool. Got System of a Down cranked up at the moment too and its going off!

I have just walked up 1200 really steep steps to an awesome buddhist temple on top of a jungle clad limestone pillar. The first real good work out I've had in some time, harder than climbing Sibayah, pretty much straight up. I was cursing in annoyance by about the 900th step but grunted on up then ripped my shirt off and collapsed at the top for the next 5 minutes. The view at the top is absolutely incredible! Can see for miles in all directions, the coast, islands, limestone out crops all over the place, plantations, rice paddies and Krabi. Awesome. The sun even came out for the first time in days.

Being such a cool location I decided to do some gongs. I did Jen Jhi Dao Tai Kit Kuen for ages looking at the best grouping of limestone. Then ran through the Taiji form a few times and did it with surprisingly good coordination, very stable, then did Ba Duan Jin to top it all off and was feeling pretty damn incredible by the end of it all. I ran into a scottish yogi and a dutch desciple while going through my form. The scot got me to film him doing his yoga. They were dudes, older sinewy fullas like I'll be after a few years of qigong : ) Spend about 2 hours up there, alternating between gonging out and being a camera toting tourist lout. The rain came in and gradually obscured the surrounding scenery, then sprinted barefoot down the steps in the hope of beating the rain back to town. Just got on the bike when it absolutely p!ssed down so I chilled out for a while in a shrine. Ran into some poms on my way down who had walked in from the road and it had taken them 2 hours to get almost to the top only to get there just in time for the rain.

I've hired bikes 3 times since I got to thailand and got totally saturated every time. Went to Ao Nang yesterday, which is a beach nearby. Very touristy though, fancy restaurants and farang bars, not really my thing. It was raining heavily too, as soon as I got about a km from the place. The next beach downs pretty cool though, trees with buttress roots right on the beach and limestone islands just off shore with locals peddling dried fish and other traditional foods.

On the way back to Krabi I passed through a very cool limestone formation area so rode into a palm oil plantation thinking of doing some qigong. Perfect spot, surrounded by young palm trees encircled by forest covered limestone cliffs, awesome... except this large swarm of mozzies enveloped me as soon as I got there and as I'd left my repellent behind, had to exit the scene pronto.

Ran into a young canadian fulla on the first night here, good sort, so we got on the p1ss at the funky monkey bar. It had a wicked wooden sculpture of a chopper outside and stubby coolers (beer jackets). We had a ladyboy bar "maid" in a skimpy red dress. Was entertaining. He (the canadian) is on his way to NZ. Ran into an old pom living over here the next night who reckoned he'd seen a kebab shop down by the bangkok bank. Yum, had me hanging out for Kebab. Can't find the place though. Gutting! Need to open a worm hole and move Abrakebabra over here. I love thai food, but not for every meal every day. Get used to such a variety of culinary delights living in cosmopolitan cities such as Welly. Laksa from Satay Kingdom... Mixed veg kebas.. good fish n chips...

Got a cool guest house here, huge room with window, decent restaurant and in house internet cafe. Got a nice little stash of sounds hidden on the hard drive.. Only 100 baht or $4.12 NZD and it's run by a family of really hot thai chicks too : )

Been watching a bit of football as the world cup is on everywhere here in the evening. Still can't get excited about it though. Sit through 90 mins to see maybe 2 goals and a bunch of men rolling around in the grass in orgiastic delight! Well.. the Swiss did a couple of nights back.

That's about it from here.

Part XII

Yum... just had a tasty feed! Went to this small local food outfit and I couldn't really figure out what they sold but I ended up with some delicious sate noodles and my choice of salad from a large variety she put on my table. Interesting assortment there was, some of it was just coarse leaves from some unknown tree.

Yesterday... was wicked! I found a Cobra up on weng chan hill. I'd been wandering about this ancient stupa and was walking down a huge stair case when I head a hiss and a crackle of leaves. Just over a metre away was this big black cobra, slinking off into the grass. I so wanted a photo so threw a couple of sticks into the grass but couldn't rouse it. Figured it wouldn't do to probe around too much having seen the way the smaller cobra attacked the cage when Mike was looking at it. I found a cat in a pagoda up there too so hung out for a while. He purred loudly when I gave him some attention. I surprised the cats here let anyone get near them seeing they're on the menu!

The day before I hired a bike, treacherous little thing it was, narrow tires with poor grip and a big grunty disc brake on the front. Definately a ride to be treated with respect! I was heading out of town just as the makings of a storm were appearing, before long it stretched right across the horizon, a big black ominous spectacle heading right toward me. I decided to press on, after all, I could take shelter should I need it. I crossed two really long bridges across the inland sea to an island which is ony about 200m away from Songkhla across the inlet. Found a couple of really cool little muslim fishing villages, wedged between a cliff and the sea. The road was a narrow lane through them with 2 story houses towering over. From the looks I got it was apparent not many westerners got over there. Was like Sumatra in that regard. There was a vehicle ferry just about to leave for Songkhla, should have got on it... anyway, I kept on around the island as the front hit, a bit of wind and little else and the sky was a lot lighter behind it. So I kept on, looping back to the road to Songkhla, sweet, I'm doing alright, thinks I and then, just as I entered about 3km of very exposed bridge, the storm hit. Strong gales, heavy rain.. delightful conditions for an afternoon ride! Did alright, just kept low and kept going. I wasn't the only bike caught out but they stopped. There was no way I was going to stop out on the middle of that bridge getting pummelled by heavy rain so eventually got to the other side and found a tree to hide under. Of course, off the bridge, most of the wind went away, so I cruised on back home anyway, ever mindful of the big bisc brake and poor tires. Once I got back it rained for a little while then cleared up, typical.

Songkhla is full of oil workers and retired old western fullas. There are heaps of them here, but no tourists. It's an ideal place to live for farangs, its only 1 and a half hours from the Malaysian border for the necessary monthly visa runs. Aparantly there are curfews around here in southern thailand due to the civil unrest. Doesn't seem to have affected Songkhla itself. The local islamic terrorist organisation have stated they wont target foreigners or the tourism industry, they just want their separate state. The only thing remotely military I've seen so far was a camo clad soldier on a scooter with an assault rifle. In Penang they had 12 gauge toting security gaurds in the bank and at the jewellery stores, Bumitputra Commerce was a bit more low key, they had an old fulla with a glock who would open the door for people.

Part XI

Songkhla

Another day, another nation, another language, another alphabet...

Having had my fill of Penang, I slipped across the border yesterday and am now in Songkhla in the muslim south of Thailand. Songhkla is a laid back university city situated on a peninsular. It's got a nice beach, not spectacular but theres a very pleasant palm lined boulevard. There are no tourists here, there are a few old codgers at my guest house though. It's more a place older foreign dudes come to live for a while rather than hoards of backpackers or the tour bus masses. Can rent houses here. I found out about it from the strange old german fulla in Sumatra. My guest house is run by an old dutch woman. Virtually nothing is in english here and no one speaks it. To make matters worse, Thailand uses sanskrit so I can't even read what the word is, let alone translate... it's all just meaningless squiggles. No problems though, I got dropped off right where I needed to be and managed to get food and water with little difficulty.

I was beginning to wonder about the place when I arrived to the smell of sewerage, the scene of marauding dogs and associated excrement. The smell seems to have passed and I haven't seen many dogs today, maybe they were holding council. Although, my room smells a bit odd, I've tracked it down to the paint. Its a nice big room though and costs less than my cell in Penang. Theres not the continous racket of motorbikes that plagues Penang either... just the hideous sounds of the karaoke bar down the street. Most of it's in Thai but I head one fulla destroy a Scorpions song (Thailands favourite german rock band! Probably the only country that listens to them...) and some girls attempted Zombie, good attempt considering the Cranberrys singer struggles to stay in key anyway.

I got some crap directions from the dutch woman to the internet cafe but couldn't find it so went to the beach instead. On the way back I asked the woman I bought a pork bun off (not up with the penang variety, more like welly variety) where it is. She tried to draw a map, then got a friend to dub me there on his bike. Sweet!

Also a wicked bonus! I found a stationers and saw the Rotring logo in the window. Rotring make the best ink pens money can buy and I've coveted them for ages. I bought a set for about $45, they're about $120-$150 at home, or $75 for 1 pen!

The trip here was cruisy as. Expressway all the way from Penang to the border, then good 4 lane highway all the way to Hat Yai, where I changed to a another bus. The border crossing was pretty cruisy too, and it costs nothing for the visa, better than bothering to organise a visa before hand. Was very much a spur of the moment decision to come up here, was going to go south and do a loop around Malaysia but from what I heard, it's just more of the same but probably not as cool as Penang anyway. Then it occured to me that I'm near the top of Malaysia anyway, can always see more of Malaysia if I've got time, got to get back down that way for my flight out.

Cool, theres a school procession going past playing drums and other percussion instruments.

Here's what went on in Penang since the last chronical, that I didn't get around to sending.

Penang

After a couple of rums, note* only 2, I decided it would be cool to find a vantage point to check out the city by night. After consulting with the guesthouse management, it became apparent there's no road up Penang Hill. No worries though, Mike jumped on the back and we headed off up the hill to my temple in the jungle. The road was very skillfully constructed, it afforded absolutely no view of the city the entire way up! We wandered along the path to the temple, which wasn't too difficult, despite the fact neither of us brought a torch. The atmosphere there was O for awesome although there isn't exactly a panoramic view of the city. So I did a complete set of Qigong and Mike did some Karate. On the way back we stopped in at a fancy restaurant / conference centre I think it was. There was no one about as it was closed, so we wandered into their courtyard. They had a good view of the city.

The route back goes past the state mosque, which is impressively lit up at night. Alas, some guys had inconsiderately fallen off their motorcycles, right where I wanted to take a picture! There were people standing around and a dude lying on the road with blood all over his face so I figured it wouldn't be prudent to stop there. I popped down a side road hoping for a good photo but no luck so kept on, trying to navigate back to my digs. Unfortunately the massive 64 story Komtar building (which makes a good nav beacon) is not well lit at night. After some time I recognised where we were, which was heading in the opposite direction to where we should be. Very close to the snake farm tmple I couldn't find in fact No worries, knowing where we were it should be easy to get back. Ah, no... ended up on the expressway heading to the end of the island in completely the opposite direction. Not the first imte I'd done this exact same manouver either! Got it sorted in the end and got back about 2am. Mike was getting pretty sick of it by the end, not surprising really..

The next day was sight seeing day. Headed up to Batu Ferringi and had a beer at the beach. The only other people there were some fat old people and they were playing music that made the Breeze sound up beat. Checked out the butterfly farm. There were all sorts of interesting critters there. A cage full of scorpions, which were really hard to rouse, blowing at them would get a bit of a response but not much. Really wanted to stick my hand in... The stick insects were awesome, a lot bigger and more sinister looking than the ones at home. Cruised past the durian orchards.. ugh.

Another day.

Snapped some good photos while walking around the town under the influence of royal stout last night, then went shopping. There's Chinese buddhist prayer shops all over the place but I found the Warehouse equivalent of a Buddhist supply store! The place was huge and had all sorts of brass buddhas and the like. Some were 2 metres tall. 35000 ringgit will get you an impressively large brass water feature for your temple!

There is a once grand derelict building a couple of streets away. It comes complete with bats, creepy trees and the ground is crawling with yellow striped centipedes. Cant get upstairs though cos the floors all rotted out. Got dealt to by mozzies there though. Something odd happened to my nose cos it went hard and numb... strange. The old christian cemetery down the street from it is pretty cool. Its really creepy. While I was there at 10am it was dark as due to the thick canopy of frangipani trees planted there. All the graves are covered in green moss and creapers. Had a torrential downpour while I was there but no biggie, some old timer had the forethought to have a dome built over his grave.

Went to the mosque today. I was outside taking photos and this dude who was riding down the footpath on his scooter, came up and told me I could go in. Figured why not, so took a look. I was walking around, camera in hand looking like a real tourist and this fulla told me off for being where I shouldn't. 'twas ok though, another fulla showed me around the place. I had to wear a blue coat though. He showed me the family tree of prophets including my biblical namesake Harun, aka Aaron, bearer of the rod.

I've started posting photos online, so this is where you'll have to go to see them in future. http://www.flickr.com/photos/86997343@N00/ next thing I'll have a blog... scary thought! Nah.. then no b'stard would read it : )

The pork buns here are delicious! Not like what they try and fob off as a pork bun at the vege market in Welly.

I saw a fulla fall of his motor bike today. Was funny as. There was a horrendous noise, so I looked around just as this bike goes flying past in a shower of sparks followed by this dude, arms flailing, doing about 50k on his @rse! Didn't seem to suffer too much harm. He leapt straight up, gestured at the car behind him not to run him over and rode off.

Part X

Wicked, it's 6/6/06. Although it'll be the 7th by the time you all get this anyway. Saw a licence plate with 666 but I don't think the world has ended yet...

I tried a Durian the other night. The so called "king of fruit". It was disgusting. It's comprised of this white ice cream like substance but it tastes yuk. I had 2 small bites and it left a horrible taste, then when I went for the chiller they told me I couldn't mix beer with durian or I'd die. Great! So I had a coke instead, then felt sick for the rest of the evening. Tasted not unlike an orange fruit I got the other day which left my lips sticky like PVA and had a texture of onion. Didn't eat much of that either. As tropical fruits go, I think I'll stick to mangoes and pineapple. There are reasons why we don't bother importing this cr@p I suppose... and Just Juice doesn't have a Durian variant : )

Tiring of the 'hos, lady boys and hideous whinings from the Chinese puppet show, I have found new lodgings. It used to be a Buddhist Mok some time back. Has a nice atmosphere. There's an indian fulla there named Raffy. He read my palm, was most fascinating, very well done. He does Cobra massage too, a worthy complimentary treatment for the acupuncture. Uses lots of pressure points and releasing stagnation in the channels. Not unlike Tuina.

Malaysia appears to have stange liquor laws / customs. After a b@stard morning yesterday of driving up and down motorways trying to find a temple full of snakes, which I had to abort in the end, I decided it would be prudent to have a beer and put it all behind me. I found the cheapest beer I have yet seen and it happens to be a premium Danish drop called Royal Stout made by Carlsberg at 8% alcohol. Go figure... it's really good too, only need 1 in this climate! It costs half the price for a hippy of spirits than it does for a large beer.

I was walking around thinking about food when these toothless old chinese women gestured for me to come over. They had a food stand but I couldn't really figure out what they were selling other than there was a pile of noodles on the counter. Decided to go for it anyway and they made me the most tasty seafood noodle soup I've ever had.

Can be a mission negotiating the motorways over here, one moment I'm heading north towards my destination and all of a sudden it'll loop around and spit me back out on a another motorway heading to the other end of the island.

Mike is here (for those who know Mike) He came rocking into my gusthouse last night. Got a bike today and went back down to find the Snake temple. Dodging in and out of the traffic with a passenger on the back, things got a bit wobbly at times but not too bad. I asked an indian fulla at the roundabout near where my useless map showed the temple to be and he gave us excellent directions to the place. It wasn't all that though, a few little green vipers around. Went into the snake farm next door though which was ok. Had a venomous baby Temple Viper on my hand, they're deadly but choose not to bite, cos I'm not their prey. Got in the cage with a massive python too.

Headed back to the massive boddhisatva statue via a rather circuitous route due to a combination of the Penang roading system and a tourist map with roads that look like fat wobbly worms with no place names. Checked out the rest of the temple complex this time. Theres temple after temple all to different personas of Buddha. Cool place. Theres tacky tourist shops in some of the temples which seems a bit off to me. Felt like busting out the Jesus styles.. flip the tables over and chase them out with a stick. Suppose they need to fund the place somehow. I hung out by the large statue while Mike was getting an extended lesson in Buddhism from a monk there. This dog decided to be my mate and followed me around the place, was nice except his idea of fun was to keep biting my leg, till I chased him away. We climbed the Million Buddhas Pagoda. I don't think there were quite a million depictions of Buddha in there though, maybe a couple of thousand...

It is nice having a bike for another 24hrs. Get to ride my lazy @ss around to the internet cafe rather than walking the whole 5 minute journey : )

Went to the furnicular (cable car) being just down the road but it's school holidays, busy as with annoying kids and a long wait so postponed that yet again.

Strange, the radio was just playing an obscure hip hop style Enya remix...

Oh no.. now the dude running the cafe is watching what sounds awfully like WWF.

"...brought a 2 by 4 down on Monty Browns back...."

Outta here, there's a predatory mosquito on the rampage in here.

Part IX

Salamat Malam, (Malay is very similar to Bahasa Indonesie! They all understand English though anyway)

Still in Penang, it's a cool place, well... it's really hot actually! Checked out the museum where they had all these paintings from the colonial era, local landscapes and portraits of pompous old poms.

Went to Fort Cornwallis. It a 19th century outfit that never actually fought any battles. It's named after the governor general of Bengal at the time, must be some form of aristocratic butt kissing I imagine. "Sir, look at this nice fort I built in your name!" Had a nice atmosphere amongst the trees and parrots and chickens. There were even a pair of horses grazing there for some reason. They were cranking out some classical giving it a very historic British air. Probably go back tomorrow and sit amongst the canons drawing.

Going to be here for a while as I wait for the LTSA to fax me some licence details so I can hire a motorbike. Damn civilised countries! : ) Indonesia didn't care about whether you were licenced or not. Then again, Indonesians didn't really seem to care much about anything...

Actually found some tasty food today in the form of a laksa. My last couple of meals being a bit of a disappointment. Little India and I can't even get a decent curry! The laksa here is quite different to the Singaporean style, there's no coconut cream in them, the soup is made of ground up mackerel and tamarinds. Quite tasty, very fishy though, just as well I had some gum!

[resumes the next day]

A night at the opera...

Last night I was wandering about the city in search of some kai when I came across this wicked Chinese temple with dragons carved out of the stone pillars. I was taking some pictures when this Chinese fulla Ang called out to me. He told me that the place was his clan house and that they run a traditional Chinese opera company. They don't advertise it in English at his grandmothers request, it's by word of mouth which is the old Chinese way. The temple was closed for the night but he showed me the room beside it, the clan meeting room. His grandmother was there, she's ancient with a cataract in one eye. The room has photos, some really old, of clan ancestors and the family tree.

We jumped on his bike and went to the place where they were having the opera. A temporary stage set up on the street. Its moves around from temple to temple all over Chinatown. I went back stage and checked out the performers putting on their make up and had a go on some of the traditional instruments, tried the harp and that 2 stringed violin type thing the busker dude in welly uses.

They do the opera in honour of their deities. Apparently the government wanted them to do it for the tourists for money but they weren't down with that so they pretended they'd forgotten how to do it. There was some ritual at the start, incense burning at a nearby temple. They had massive incense sticks 2m high and about 20cm in diameter. A dude came around giving out tasty little cookies with brown sugar in them.

Eventually the opera started, some toothless old crone with grey makeup came out and rambled on in a conspiratorial manner then out came some extravagantly dressed people talking in strange high pitched Chinese. I checked it out for about an hour or so, was entertaining. Not something you see every day. More a labour of love than anything for the performers, there weren't many people there cos they prefer to watch telly these days.

Starving, time for breakfast.. um.. late lunch.

I have decided...

Penang rocks!

Who can argue with a place with place names such as Cheapside and Love Lane, which happens to be my address. There are 'hos on Love Lane. Well, I'm picking that's what the extremely hot but hard looking hindu ladies just down the street are.

LTSA came through for me and I'm mobile again. Yeah! Usually they're breaking my ass, not helping it...

Hired a bike and cruised out to the old world war 2 British fortress that they've turned into a war museum. Got to pose with a heavy machine gun. Woo hoo! Checked out some bullet holes from where the japs executed prisoners. Saw the gallows where they hung the Japanese general... oh the horror, the horror!

Cruising the city during peak traffic is heaps of fun but not for the faint of heart. Unlike the sea of fellow bikers and pot holes and fish drying racks of Indonesia, there is a sea of cars and traffic islands that we bikers get to zip in and out of. It's quite simple really, find a gap, go for it. Gaps tend to appear right when you need them too. Just have to watch where you're going and not sight see too much. There are even some dedicated motorbike routes. Petrol is cheap here, less that 2 ringgit per litre, i.e. less than $1NZ

Saturday

Been cruising around the island all day which has been most worthy. First I headed out to find the cable car up Penang hill and a nearby town called Air Hitam which is supposed to do a good Ayam Laksa. Found the laksa first, was ok. Had lots of lime tasting leaves in it. The local laksa is a worthy dish but the Singaporean variety is nicer IMHO. Everyone was there at the markets being Saturday and they all brought thie cars. I saw an impressive looking Buddhist temple up on the hill and went up to check that out. The road kept going on up so I followed it as it looked particularly interesting. Turned out it was an access road to the reservoir and some TV aerials on the hill. I went up and up and found a track going off into the jungle marked with a sign in Chinese. Up for the adventure I set off and about 3 minutes later stumbled upon a temple among the trees. There was no one about so I rocked on up to investigate. It appeared to be in honour of Lao Tsu. I'm assuming that's who the statue of an old beaded man in a blue robe with trigrams on it was and some other fulla too. I lit some incense and chilled out there for a while. Had an awesomely calm atmosphere and an excellent view.

Upon leaving it seemed appropriate to coast down the hill which was a most enjoyable way of descending the mountain. Got down to the temple and went in. There's this mammoth Bodhisattva statue there, all in bronze. Largest of its kind in the world apparently. They're currently assembling some massive carved pillars there to house it. The place is Buddhist but doesn't seem to be far removed from the Hindu origins, utilising swastikas and multi-armed deities. Not sure what the deal is, my knowledge of Buddhism is patchy at best. Found some sanskrit flags that were identical to the pages I found up on Mt Sibayak.

Another road headed on along the hill past the temple so I went for a nosey. It continued for quite some way and I saw 2 iguanas and a squirrel, all running for there lives in terror as my mighty black Honda bore down upon them. Wasn't going all that fast...

I headed off to the cable car but every man and his dog was there on the account of it being Saturday so thought I'd leave that to Monday.

After leaving there, a mish to the botanic gardens was in order. They currently have the 16th International Penang Floral Show there, finishing Sunday. Skillful timing on my part... Got some impressive shots of the orchids. Rude little plants that they are. They had some impressive floral art displays based on the 5 Chinese elements too.

Botanical urges satisfied, I headed off to the top of the island through an insane amount of traffic. Motorbikes are definitely the answer here. Got up to Batu Ferrengi which is a resort outfit with a nice beach and big swanky hotels. It was full of fat old Australians by the looks. A replacement destination for Bali maybe? I tarried not and headed on further up until I got to the National Park. Quite a nice spot there, lovely little secluded beaches amongst the rocks with monkeys hanging out. The mosque in town cranked up while I was there. (yep, another predominantly Muslim country) and a bunch of dogs out on a fishing platform in the bay started howling at it.

A strange little metallic spider leaped onto my bare (beer?:) belly, I tried to get it to leap into the tree above but no, he decided to abseil into the sea. I thought, oh well, off to his demise but no.. he motored away under his own power, off out to sea. Strange critters over here. Saw a little walking fish there too. Saw what the guide called a cicada the size of a sparrow in Sumatra (no exaggeration).

After some time it was getting late but not feeling like heading straight back I followed the road on around the island. An excellent little scenic drive past a massive new reservoir, lots of jungle and some Durian plantations. The road got quite high up into the hills a couple of times too with some impressive views, lit by the setting sun. Saw a little car full of asians with an All Blacks sticker in the back window and felt mighty patriotic. Go nationalism!

Georgetown is so multicultural. Loads of Chinese, lots of Indians, there are churches and mosques, Hindu and Buddhist temples. High rise apartments and quiet suburban neighbourhoods. I'm yet to find a slum. Ads for yoga and retreats for monks. I saw a Scottish Freemasons lodge and even a couple of suit clad Mormons, bible in hand. There are seedy hookers and transvestites literally a stones throw away from a traditional Chinese puppet show. (Right on my street : ) The British left behind a very vibrant, diverse and particularly cool city. ...a parade just went past outside, complete with brass band! Some sort of Chinese festival I think...

A stark contrast to Sumatra, where, apart from some dilapidated old buildings and a cool clock tower in Bukittinggi, it's rather hard to tell the Dutch were ever there. Well, apart from the rampant Catholicism (Katolik I think they call it) in the north... I'm not sure if thats an improvement on the traditional Animist beliefs or not...

Not to dis Sumatra too much though. Actually, I've been back in the civilised world for long enough now to formulate an informed opinion on Sumatra rather than an emotion driven one. West and North Sumatra to be precise, as that's all I visited. The more heavily populated North Sumatra is dark and savage. The Bataks were cannibals. Ran into 2 people wandering about with guns, hunting I assume. Nora had a gun in her lounge. I never felt in danger anywhere though, they're not hostile people. Theres just some sort of dark primieval energy underlying the place. Some of it found it's way in and I'd really had it by the end. The Qigong wasn't having much effect at dispelling it either.. except on the top of Sibayak which seemed to be free of that bad vibe. Certainly eating with the hands and crashing through the jungle getting bitten by leeches, ants and mozzies has a certain de-civilising effect on the psyche which took days to clear, along with the tummy bugs! It was like a weight lifted as soon as I got on the ferry.

West Sumatra and the Minakabau people are a completely different kettle of fish however. The mood is light. They sit around in the evening strumming on the guitar, singing folk songs and it's pretty good too. I haven't had a game of chess since leaving there either. The place is a shambles and there's rubbish everywhere but it has its charm. There is still rain forest about and fruit trees everywhere, its like man and the jungle are in harmony. Basically if there's not a rice paddy, habitation or a road there, it's jungle. In the North, so much of the jungle has been cleared and the jungle I did visit felt inhospitable.

Sumatra is definitely an adventure and there is some real cool stuff to see and do. It's also kind of nice being a novelty item that everyone wants to say "hello" to.

Part VIII

It's Salamut tinggal to the 3rd world shambles that is The Republic of Indonesia for I am now in Malaysia. Little India in Penang to be precise.

I shall recount my voyages since the last chronical.

Left Berastagi and headed up to Medan but only in transit before boarding another bus, which I had to wait 3 hours for cos I'd just missed the last. It was p!ssing down but I had some really good coffee and a tasty feed so that was ok. This bus took me to Bukit Lawang, the journey being 75 km but 40k of the trip was over a pot hole ridden abortion of a tarsealed road through palm oil plantations. Bukit Lawang is home of the Orang-utan rehabilitation centre which borders on to the Gunang Luasa (sp?) national park. Stayed the first night in a nice little wooden bungalow on stilts above a fish pond at a place called Nora's Homestay. She's a fat jolly woman who cooks a mighty tasty gado-gado.

The next day I headed off into the jungle with a dutch couple and a guide to go camping for the night. Was handy having a guide as he was able to point out plants not to touch cos they burn and other hazards of which I seem to be good at finding but have avoided any consequences thus far. I found another snake! It was a little blue fulla with a red head and tail and I was standing a few centimetres from it. I showed the guide and he told me I should move away a bit cos its deadly poisonous. Then he wandered off and got a stick to poke at it. It's rather dangerous cos it hides in the leaves and bites your foot if you stand on it. I was quite aware of this for the rest of the journey, me being in sports sandals. I asked him about the snake I found on Mt Sibayak, that was poisonous too, a green mamba. Just as well I didn't try to commune with it or it would've killed my ass. We walked up and down ridges through thick jungle and trails that were barely there.

We saw an orang-utan high in the trees with a young one. Saw lots of long tail macaques and Thomas' Leaf monkeys which are black with a mohawk. A bit further along a huge male orang-utan came down and hung in the tree right in front. (I'll send pics later. No USB on this PC) The jungle looked just like NZ bush, except theres huge ants every where and snakes and primates and stuff. I don't think my constitution is down with the jungle there though. Started getting a fever after lunch which got worse during the day but was only mild, just left my limbs with that horrible ache. I think it's the flu I picked up in Brisbane of all places, it's been trying to find a way in for weeks. Eventually we arrived at a shelter by a fork in the stream, made by a couple of fullas that were cooking curry for dinner when we arrived. It was waterproof which was a good thing cos there was an almighty thunderstorm that night, then it p1ssed down for a few hours. It's rainy season in north sumatra.

After a terrible nights sleep on top of rocks with only a thin bed role it was finally breakfast time and my fever had abated though I wasn't exactly in high spirits. We walked up onto a massive ridge line listening to the sounds of black gibbons having some from of conflict on the next ridge, didn't see them tough. Stopped for lunch by a nice little stream. There were a couple of little turtles hanging out there. They'd chase bits of pinapple we'd throw at them but they didn't eat it, was more of a game I think.

After a bit more walking on steep trails and bites from ants and mozzies and what I can only assume was a horse fly we came out through a grove of plants with massive leaves to the river where the fullas had a raft made of truck inner tubes. The ride was pretty sedate over a few rapids but was fun none the less and very scenic before winding up back in town. We'd walked quite some distance. Bukit Lawang township is rather small as 3 years ago there were some catastrophic floods which washed away most of it.

Stayed the next night before piling into a minibus back to medan with the dutch couple, Nora (who was coming to pick up some tourists) and half the town by the looks. Slowly picking up more and more locals untill we had 17 people packed inside and one hanging off the back. Nora gave me a hand getting my ferry tickets and finding a guest house, although I wasn't down with the power tools going on at the place she recommended so she sent me off with some tout who took me to a place that was full before circling around to the place I was going to stay at in the first place. Hence nothing in it for the tout, he tried to sell me all manner of things before buggering off when I told him I didn't need anything as I'm leaving tomorrow.

Zakias guest house is right next to this huge mosque. #2 in sumatra aparantly. The place (zakias) is a bit of a dive but its away from the busy streets. The traffic in Medan is insane. Apparantly lots of expats live there. They can have it! They couldn't pay me enough to live anywhere in Indonesia for more than a month or so. There's some real cool stuff to see and experiences to be had, its definately worth a visit but on the whole the place is a dump. I'd never live there.

The mosque cranked up really loud at the stardard 5am, theres a lot of speakers on that tower! Was good though, not the screeching distorted womens singing they had in Berastagi and Bukit Lawang. Checked out early and managed to find a nice little food outlet that sold lontong, an excellent farewell breakfast. It even had a prawn in it! After waiting for over and hour and a half from the allotted time, the bus finally left for the ferry terminal and thus a welcome exit. Was about 4 or 5 hours by fast ferry to Penang.

Highlights.

Bukittinggi - met some interesting characters there.

Lilis Homestay at Lake Maninjau - nice relaxed place to hang for a few days.

Climbing Mt Sibayak

The wildlife

Lontong and good penang restaurants.

Low lights

Smoking - everywhere, tobacco advertising everywhere, indonesian males who don't smoke get called lady boys.

Rubbish - nearly everywhere.

Internet - I dont think it's just slow, it just doesn't work properly.

Not much to say about Penang yet, looks nice, little india looks really cool, going to get a curry. They have broadband here too!

Part VII

It's Salamut tinggal to the 3rd world shambles that is The Republic of Indonesia for I am now in Malaysia. Little India in Penang to be precise.

I shall recount my voyages since the last chronical.

Left Berastagi and headed up to Medan but only in transit before boarding another bus, which I had to wait 3 hours for cos I'd just missed the last. It was p!ssing down but I had some really good coffee and a tasty feed so that was ok. This bus took me to Bukit Lawang, the journey being 75 km but 40k of the trip was over a pot hole ridden abortion of a tarsealed road through palm oil plantations. Bukit Lawang is home of the Orang-utan rehabilitation centre which borders on to the Gunang Luasa (sp?) national park. Stayed the first night in a nice little wooden bungalow on stilts above a fish pond at a place called Nora's Homestay. She's a fat jolly woman who cooks a mighty tasty gado-gado.

The next day I headed off into the jungle with a dutch couple and a guide to go camping for the night. Was handy having a guide as he was able to point out plants not to touch cos they burn and other hazards of which I seem to be good at finding but have avoided any consequences thus far. I found another snake! It was a little blue fulla with a red head and tail and I was standing a few centimetres from it. I showed the guide and he told me I should move away a bit cos its deadly poisonous. Then he wandered off and got a stick to poke at it. It's rather dangerous cos it hides in the leaves and bites your foot if you stand on it. I was quite aware of this for the rest of the journey, me being in sports sandals. I asked him about the snake I found on Mt Sibayak, that was poisonous too, a green mamba. Just as well I didn't try to commune with it or it would've killed my ass. We walked up and down ridges through thick jungle and trails that were barely there.

We saw an orang-utan high in the trees with a young one. Saw lots of long tail macaques and Thomas' Leaf monkeys which are black with a mohawk. A bit further along a huge male orang-utan came down and hung in the tree right in front. (I'll send pics later. No USB on this PC) The jungle looked just like NZ bush, except theres huge ants every where and snakes and primates and stuff. I don't think my constitution is down with the jungle there though. Started getting a fever after lunch which got worse during the day but was only mild, just left my limbs with that horrible ache. I think it's the flu I picked up in Brisbane of all places, it's been trying to find a way in for weeks. Eventually we arrived at a shelter by a fork in the stream, made by a couple of fullas that were cooking curry for dinner when we arrived. It was waterproof which was a good thing cos there was an almighty thunderstorm that night, then it p1ssed down for a few hours. It's rainy season in north sumatra.

After a terrible nights sleep on top of rocks with only a thin bed role it was finally breakfast time and my fever had abated though I wasn't exactly in high spirits. We walked up onto a massive ridge line listening to the sounds of black gibbons having some from of conflict on the next ridge, didn't see them tough. Stopped for lunch by a nice little stream. There were a couple of little turtles hanging out there. They'd chase bits of pinapple we'd throw at them but they didn't eat it, was more of a game I think.

After a bit more walking on steep trails and bites from ants and mozzies and what I can only assume was a horse fly we came out through a grove of plants with massive leaves to the river where the fullas had a raft made of truck inner tubes. The ride was pretty sedate over a few rapids but was fun none the less and very scenic before winding up back in town. We'd walked quite some distance. Bukit Lawang township is rather small as 3 years ago there were some catastrophic floods which washed away most of it.

Stayed the next night before piling into a minibus back to medan with the dutch couple, Nora (who was coming to pick up some tourists) and half the town by the looks. Slowly picking up more and more locals untill we had 17 people packed inside and one hanging off the back. Nora gave me a hand getting my ferry tickets and finding a guest house, although I wasn't down with the power tools going on at the place she recommended so she sent me off with some tout who took me to a place that was full before circling around to the place I was going to stay at in the first place. Hence nothing in it for the tout, he tried to sell me all manner of things before buggering off when I told him I didn't need anything as I'm leaving tomorrow.

Zakias guest house is right next to this huge mosque. #2 in sumatra aparantly. The place (zakias) is a bit of a dive but its away from the busy streets. The traffic in Medan is insane. Apparantly lots of expats live there. They can have it! They couldn't pay me enough to live anywhere in Indonesia for more than a month or so. There's some real cool stuff to see and experiences to be had, its definately worth a visit but on the whole the place is a dump. I'd never live there.

The mosque cranked up really loud at the stardard 5am, theres a lot of speakers on that tower! Was good though, not the screeching distorted womens singing they had in Berastagi and Bukit Lawang. Checked out early and managed to find a nice little food outlet that sold lontong, an excellent farewell breakfast. It even had a prawn in it! After waiting for over and hour and a half from the allotted time, the bus finally left for the ferry terminal and thus a welcome exit. Was about 4 or 5 hours by fast ferry to Penang.

Highlights.

Bukittinggi - met some interesting characters there.

Lilis Homestay at Lake Maninjau - nice relaxed place to hang for a few days.

Climbing Mt Sibayak

The wildlife

Lontong and good penang restaurants.

Low lights

Smoking - everywhere, tobacco advertising everywhere, indonesian males who don't smoke get called lady boys.

Rubbish - nearly everywhere.

Internet - I dont think it's just slow, it just doesn't work properly.

Not much to say about Penang yet, looks nice, little india looks really cool, going to get a curry. They have broadband here too!

Part VII

sup peoples,

2nd attempt, this keyboard has a power button where the delete key should be.

I am currently chilling out in the resort town of Tuk Tuk which is located on a peninsular on Samosir island in the middle of lake toba. I've got the real gucci digs complete with warm shower for only 30,000rp! I think they put the price way down and expect you to buy lots of other stuff to make up for it. Suckers! Not really my scene though, theres only fancy restaurants around here when all I want is a Rumah Makan for some tasty penang or lontong. I ask the locals how to catch a public transport out of here to Berastagi and they all try and sell me tickets at dumb @ss western tourist prices. My take on it is I stand out on my hotels jetty and wave down a ferry to Parapat which is on the main highway. Can't go wrong there.

Lets see, what happened since my last chronicle. I got a nice cold beer after leaving the internet cafe from a friendly chinese dairy. It was my first chilled beer in a long time and it tasted fantastic so I had 4 the next night which was my last night in Bukittinggi so a cause for celebration. Managed to sleep through the 5am call to prayer which was a first and had to sort out transport to Parapat. Feeling a bit hung over I settled for getting a travel agent to get my ticket. Had to catch 2 bemos to the bus stop but got there in the end with a bit of Bahasa and a shonky map drawn by the boss at D'enam.

The trip was 13 hours along the trans sumatran "highway" which consisted of a country lane than winded through jungle and river valley and mountain range and lots of small towns. I actually managed to get about half an hours sleep during a particularly windy strech of road, don't sk me how, but my hangover was gone by the time I woke up. Stopped for some really bad penang in a dump of a place in the middle of no where, it was really got there too. Bought some water and it felt like it came out of the hot tap. As we went along I noticed a distinct lack of mosques and an abundance of churches. I'd left the lands of the maninkabau and headed to the lands of the batak who are predominantly christian.

I arrived at 3:30 am in Parapat with no where to stay and nothing open, the only signs of life being barking dogs and a few teenagers loitering about. I did a recon, it being a good time with few people about and found the ferry terminal so with that sorted I found a nice piece of pavement by the lake which was hidden from view where I could chill out for a while. I even managed half an hours sleep before being woken by a woman with her washing looking at me strangely. There was an incredible sun rise!

Walking back to the ferry / market area an annoying tout / wandering travel agent started following me and wouldn't go away. He followed me to the restaurant which served a very tasty lontong. The best so far! I can't praise this dish highly enough, its delicious! Anyway, he showed me some pics of the resort and came along too, and even paid for my breakfast. I'm thinking where's the scam? Took the ferry to the hotel called Anju Cottages and its sweet, just as he says. I think he just wants me to use him as a guide and travel agent but I don't cos I don't actually like the guy. He did hook me up with a motorbike rental for an ok price, except it didn't show up the next day when it was supposed to so the hotel owner borrowed a bike for me.

Samosir is a rather large island which is moutainous is the middle with a road circling it. I went for a cruise right around passing throngs of people on their way to church. There are churches everywhere and every family seems to have a family crypt. Some of them a pretty impressive too, so I took lots of photos. Most of the island is like a grave yard.

I got to a volcano with some hotsprings so cruised on in. I road up a path that looked pretty much like a footpath and next thing I'd ridden straight into the middle of a restaurant. The didn't seem to mind so I parked up and got the tasties fried rice I've ever had. The price of admission to their hot pools was a meal or a drink so that sorted I stripped off to my undies and had an enjoyable soak in the pool. The crater was smoking so I decided to ride my mighty 125cc beasty up to it alas, the road turned away from the thermal area but was a nice ride anyway, high above the lake in a farming area. Theres no rainforest left up here, hence no monkeys and iguanas about either. Looks not unlike NZ. On my way back I noticed the "crater" had stopped smoking cos it was only a bush fire.

Ah 3rd attempt at getting this out. Update from Berastagi, the power went out at tuk tuk and never came back up! I tried from here last night too but half an hour later gmail still hadn't loaded. I think they run internet cafes off a dialup over here and probably not even 56 k at that.

Ok... here was I. Cruised around the island as the road went steadily from bad to worse, it then turned inland into the hill country. Was some impressive land formations. Lots of little gullies with terraced wheat fields running up them. I founf a nice spot on a ridge in the middle of nowhere and did some very excellent qigong.

Got further along, quite chilled out after the gongs and the road went from pot holes to big muddy puddles. Manage to come flying off went I ran into a rut at about 20k. No harm done to either me or my ride, was highly amusing though. Not too much further though and the bike coughed and died. Outta gas man, though the gauge still registered 1/3 tank. I've got no luck with these damn bikes over here. I pushed the bike for about 20 mins withg annoying kids going "Hello mister!" Never mind hello, get me some gas! Not pushing this for the hell of it. At one stage I just had to fall over on the side of the road for a break. Eventually I got to what I assume was the local store. It was a shed on the side of the road with a bunch of locals sitting around a table. I asked for water and fuel and sure enough, she opened a pantry door and dug both out for me. Was a nice cruisy little run back to Tuk tuk then.

Got back to my hotel and all the loud locals had left. There was a dude from siantar staying next door with what I though was his mrs. He was there to go pig hunting cos he'd seen some when he was there a week ago. We had a yarn for a while. The next day they came over for a chat. Turned out it s not his wife but his cousin. Her husband p1ssed off 2 weeks before and hadn't come back. He'd been taking chicks there so they were there to spy on him. I wandered if the rifle was just for pig hunting! I did their portraits which pleased them although they weren't very goo, not really my thing but good practise. They went hunting that day and saw no pigs. So he shot some poor little parrot and decided to have that on the barbie instead! I joined them for dinner. The indonesian idea of barbeque is to pour lots of kero over some charcoal, wait a while and chuck the food on. Pretty damn noxious if you ask me. Had some fish and tried some of the parrot, was stringy and tough but edible. I got directions off the dude to get to Berastagi, no point asking anyone who worked at tu ktuk, they all want to sell you the ticket. Some noisy chinese people turned up that day. Its school holidays! hoorah...

Tuk tuk is a place of vice. You want it they can get it. They'll hook you up with a 'girlfriend' in about 20 mins too. This isn't for cash styles either, these are just local girls hoping to hook a foreigner who'll take them out of there me thinks. There was an american who'd been there for weeks cos he got a girlfriend. I was feeling a bit crook after my kerosene infused meal so had to pass on the offer.

Got sick of tuk tuk very fast. The westerners there were wasters and sad @rses. It's not really why I'm here and instead of the call to prayer I got noisy chinese families yelling and carrying on. To start with it was nice being in christian territory with people who get on the p!ss but I found the muslim minankabau were nicer people, then again, got weird hanging at Bedudal Cafe with people who never drank too!

The next day I waved down a ferry to Parapat and as soon as I got off, I was on a minibus to P.Siantar. It stopped for a while in parapat so I got a bunch of really good bananas and gave 1 to everyone on the bus. Had a chat to a woman with good english. Found out there was another woman on the bus going to Berastagi. Sweet, so I tagged along with her. She looks like something out of onces were warriors. Dark shades, easy on the eye but hard looking with long dark hair and black supertapers. She was travelling with her young sister.

The trip to Siantar was madness, the dude was screaming along and at one stage, Medan Raya Tours went rarking past which he wasn't down with, so he nailed it and only just let them in when a bus came the other way. Then he raced them for a while. We got dropped in Siantar which is a rather large city and the Permosi bus that goes to Kaban Jahe was there but the chick reckoned it was no good, too slow and smelly so we jumped on a bemo to the other sied of town. She left me there with the sister and wandered off for ages. The bus had to wait for her in the end. She jumped on and it turned out she'd been getting us some kai. So we shared a nice feed of fish, rice and simple flavourings, very indonesian styles eating with our hands, followed by some pineapple. Sweet. Got to Kaban Jahe after 3 1/2 hours of rough but not too bad roads listening to some good sounds, they had the massive sound system on the bus. The music I would describe as Sumatran Roots, it was wicked! There we jumped a bemo to Berastagi just down the road. She pointed out a decent hotel for me and wandered off to the market saying she'd come visit. She did too for a little while, I thought she might be a guide or something looking for clientelle but nah, she just wanted to come hang out.

Berastagi is in the lands of the Karo, the karo highlands to be precise, which seems to be christian mainly but with some muslims. A catholic local dude had a rant to me about the muslims blowing sh!t up, cos he wants to work in tourism but theres not enough tourists now.

I went to the info centre which is run by a rasta named Smily. Told him I was from NZ and he's like sweet and invited me around for a smoke! He's got a mate whos a kiwi whos living at Beratagi. I had to pass on that though but I got a little hand drawn map off him for climbing the volcano. Gunang Sibayak. Yeah! Non of this guides trekking stuff for me.

And thats what I did today, climbed an active volcano. Was choice! Was a 6km walk just to get to Sibayak, a lot of it was a little country lane through the jungle with no traffic at all, shame, I wanted to hitch a ride! Got to the end of the road which was some old abandoned government facility and had to locate the start to the track. There was a french canadian couple there who werent very friendly. They couldnt find the path so I pointed it out to them but I dont think they believed me. Ran into a dutch(?) couple on their way down, was only 20 mins from the sumit. Excellent.

The crater was wicked, had big steaming vents and a little lake. I ate my play lunch and headed for the highest point, a rocky piece with an aerial on top. Got part way up and got paranoid (sensible?) cos it was getting a little treacherous and I'd seen a list of all the poeple that died up there at the info centre. These were europeans and americans though, not intrepid kiwis such as myself! I hung out on a nice rock with a lizard who was doing just the same. Was a good vantage point and I could spy on the couple and a canadian guy who was after them. Eventually I decided it wasn't all that far to the top so I ditched my sandals (Hiking boots are for canadians!) and climbed barefoot monkey styles to the top. It was awesome up there, just past the tower, the solar panels and remains of a fence was a nice little piece of grass and some ferns. An odd spot cos all around below was ranpant volcanism. I did some qigong, the 8 precious brocade in fact, the first time since being away and got an excellent buzz up there on that mountain top.

Decided that the place was indeed sacred and needed a tidy so I removed the fence remains from the ferns and stacked them up near the tower and cleared the rubbish from the lawn and created an excellent little Zen garden, then hung out for a good hour or so playing old man of the mountain. There were some strange sanskrit pages up there to. Unusual, Indonesia uses the same letters as we do. No one else came up either, guess they weren't down with the cliff hanger styles to get there! The mist came and went as did the sun but it never got particulary cold (for the top of a mountain). On my way down from my perch I found a snake sleeping on top of a bush. My first ever snake.. wicked! I snuck up and took a photo. As much as I really wanted to get Steve Irwin styles with it, I decided this wouldn't be prudent and left it alone. A little further I found a wicked big beetle in a crevice.

I located the path back down, not the way I'd came, I wasn't up for the hike back over the ridge, but down to the hot pools and a little village. The path descended rapidly first through ferns, then larger ferns untill I was under the jungle canopy. Eventualy, after about an hour of jungle trek, I became surrounded by bamboo and the sounds of a mosque in the village slowly got louder and louder and the sound of heavy machiney was apparent, before suddently emerging into a clearing with 3 bulldozers working and some sort of industrial structure. Gas? Wandered out past security who just smiled and waved and went to the hot pools. Ran into the canadian who said the couple couldnt find the path down that we'd taken, though they ate lunch right there at the start of it. Not surprising, they couldn't find the way up either! Apparantly they kicked up a fuss about paying the entry fee too. A whole 1500 rupiah, thats about 30c... He thought the way up the top looked a bit full on but heard that kiwis had a rep for just getting on a doing it. Probably read the list of fatalities too! He decided to walk back along another path over the ridge. I couldnt be bothered with that so walked through the little village looking for a bemo.

A dude gave me a dub on his motorbike to the main road where I waved down a bus. It was packed but they still found room from me and this chick who was also waiting. The money collector climbed out the back door while we were moving and along the side of the bus to the front door to collect fares, then back to our door, opened it and climbed back in. Got dropped off right in town in Berastagi and enjoyed a well deserved beer.

Part VI

Salamut Datang,

I am back in my current home away from home in Bukit tinggi, where people know me even. Got some waves and hellos on my return. And no, I didn't get annihilated by the volcano in Java, although there was an impressive earthquake last night. Went for about a minute with a couple of after shocks. I have 1.3 million rupiah in my pocket!

The mish to Maninjau was a bit of an adventure, I caught public transport! This involved jumping on a "bemo" which is a little red share taxi van to the bus station. The entire street on the way to the station was a traffic jam so we hooned up the wrong side of the road, nearly crashing into the bemo in front. I'm sure the driver is used to this manouver as he'd do the run several times a day. At the head of the jam was a Polisi in the the middle of the street directing traffic, I'm not sure if he was helping or causing the jam. The bus station is total madness! About 5 acres crammed with buses with markets around the side. I just stated walking into the thick of it and a fulla said "Mr, where you go" and pointed me in the right direction and then another fulla pointed me straight to the bus. Theres not really any time table for the buses, just jump on and wait untill theres enough people on there for it to leave. The buses are pimped up half sized buses with mirror windows and a thumping sound system which cranked out some form of local rock. There's barely enough room to fit your legs in between the seat and the seat in front. We stopped at a servo and the obligatory busker jumped on. A fulla on the bus told me it was a Minankabau folk song. Maninjau is about 40k from Bukit tinggi but its not your Eketahuna to Masterton style 40k. The road is little more than one lane with obstacles all over the place. There are obnoxious european tourists in the internet cafe.. grr... anyway. The road zig zags it way 43 times down into the huge crater which formed lake Maninjau. BTW, I didn't count, each corner has a signpost. This is obviously important to them, they dont signpost much else! The roads seem pretty crazy but I'm yet to see an accident. Different rules apply by, pass where you can, but its within reason, buses will give way to motorbikes on occasion, if it involves them crashing into something, otherwise its get out of the way. An annoying man has just walked in and is standing beside me playing the harmonica and clapping despite my ignoring him and slow head shake... sweet, he's harassing someone else now. ah.. they've kicked him out.

I got dropped off right outside Lilis Homestay, which is run by this local guy Herman and his wife Lili who is a kiwi, but she's back in NZ at the moment. The place is usually really quiet but they only had one room available as there were a whole lot of students staying from Padang. They sat around having a sing song for a while before digging out this huge hi-fi system they'd somehow managed to transport there. The cranked up some dance music, a refreshing change from Indo pop/rock but after they played the same old Gatecrasher track several times it was time for me to leave so I went for a stroll.

On the sunday I went in search of makan (food) ended up walking for quite a way before finding an ok restaurant It was sunday after all. The next day I walked the other way and found a tasty penang restaurant within 5 mins walk. I found a lonely planet guide but it was in french. Still managed to decipher a lot of it, thanks to familiarity with the book, similarity of language and a bit of 3rd form french, cheers Mr Zohrab! The students left that day and peace was restored. It was restored so much in fact that the place became rather boring and empty. I can see it being a really lonely place there for Herman. He'd come and hang out for a yarn and the odd game of chess in the evenings. He's pretty good on guitar, be nice if he'd replace his strings though...

I've been annihilating the locals at chess. I don't profess to be any form of chess expert and most of these guys are technically better, they just lose heart when they make mistakes so I battle on when all looks lost and wait for them to slip up and capitalise on it. Played some really gung ho young fullas and they all slip up, too rash.

A french couple, followed by a dutch couple stayed while I was there. Couple's aren't of much use to the solitary traveller, they're too busy doing couple things. Did some incredible qigong the first night. Could feel the qi coming up off the lake like something solid and tangeable, was a wall of it in front of me... despite the loud stereo! Left me in a better state to deal with young people so I went and hung out. They gave me some barbequed corn.

Lilis place is really nice. A little beach, nice clear waters with cool little bungalows set amongst the trees. Locals cruise past in dugout canoes laying nets and fishing. Most say hello. Very few tourists come though, Herman was saying before lots come, now maybe 1 or 2 per week. I saw virtually no wildlife in my 3 visits to Thailand and that included a hill tribe trek. Here, monkeys hangout on the roads and in parks.

A monkey would come hang out in the trees sometimes and one day I saw an Iguana. They can swim too aparantly cos I saw one swimming in the lake the next day. After a beer one day I was starving, Herman wasn't about and I couldn't be bothered walking for miles, so I crashed about in the surrounding jungle in search of a coconut. Found one too but it was rotten... Herman got back before long though and cooked me a tasty "taco" which was pretty much a pie. Perfect food after a beer! There's a dog at Lilis with 6 young pups and two cat's with a kitten. There is so much life in Sumatra. The cycle of life is everywhere, loads of insects. Cats and dogs roaming about everywhere, I think they're pets but they're left to roam free. Then again, who wants to cuddle an old mangy dog. Theres fish every where, in the rice paddies, in the creeks, in the lake. I saw a dog swim out into the lake and come back with a fish. Seemed a bit sus that the dog just rocked on in and caught a fish. Then another one did it. On investigation, I found a few dead fish floating about, probably chucked out from the fish farm around the corner, so I waded and and gave one to the cat which was hanging out at the waters edge, trying to get a drink without getting wet. She took it up to the dutch couples deck and tore it to bits. The next morning the cat family was sleeping on the chair on my deck. The night before the pups stayed under my cabin. This was nice, except that they woke me up early as, scratching about. Very hard to not wake up at 5 here. Its either the early morning call to prayer from the mosque, or a dog barking or some other disruption. Not a biggie though, just sleep during the afternoon.

Catching the bus back involved standing outside on the road and waving out when a bus went past. Was a bit of a mish finding a bemo to get back to town as I had no idea what direction was what at the bus station, but after navigating my way through a rather large market, I found a bemo and was back in familiar territory in no time. As you've probably guessed, I didn't get up to much at maninjau. Just hung out, swam a bit, played chess and did a bit of drawing. Which is what i'm here for anyway, not to pack as much tourist activities into 4 months as possible.

The locals are friendly as, theres no great reason not to come here. It can seem really daunting but I always get where I want to go. Not paying rip off prices either, just ask the locals, eg guest house staff, people in cafes, what the price is for transport etc and pay it without asking. So far I've found most places are honest. Get the odd food joint that over charges (still cheap) and think they're really smart then realise they aren't as they watch me walk past them to their neightbour the next 3 days in a row.

Yuck, the sounds of Mariah Carey and the prick next to mes cigarette are making me nausious, must be time to leave the refuge of the internet cafe. All the men here chain smoke, I imagine their average life expectancy in Indonesia isn't great. I'm probably getting a pack a day at times and am thus beginning to hate smoking with the passion of a zealot!

Heres some photos... I'd embed them with blurbs, but I haven't figured how to do it with Gmail. From memory there are pictures of, in no particular order.... a singaporean skyline, the minankabau kings old palace, me getting botanical with a rafflesia, sunset at maninjau, Herman attempting to play the flute, me with a whole lot of kids and a silly smile, a cave somewhere, view from a hill near the cave, a mosque at koto baru with traditional minankabau building, mosque at night from deck at d'enam, hotel orchid with active volcano at night from deck at d'enam (might have to turn brightness up on monitor :), a pup at Lilis, a sign at the reservoir in singapore and a saturated me with accursed bike getting puncture repaired.

Hope that made sense, been inserting and rearranging it over the last 2 - 3 hours as I remember things whilst attempting (being the operative word) to do other internet activities... probably on a shared 56k connection!

Part V

I am still in Bukittinggi, been here a week but I heading off to Lake Maninjau today for a few days as it sounds nice, a chilled out crater lake. Theres not a lot in the way of facilities there so I'll be out of contact. Probably wont be near an internet cafe for a lot of the rest of my time here in indonesia as they have very little access to it and I'm going jungle styles rather than urban.

Spent thursday wandering around the markets etc. Found a supermarket with cheap beer so we got some and spent a while drinking beer on the deck with the german fulla watching the rain while the mosque rambled on.

Here a little tale...

And so our intrepid adventurers, Aronimus and Ryan decide to venture out again onto the treacherous roads of West Sumatra, for a scenic ride around the volcano. It being a beautiful sunny day. Astride 110cc motorcycles they head off, armed with a little bit of Bahasa Indonesia and a map which was hand drawn by a Belgian and given to them by a French anthropologist.... gah, too taxing to write in the 3rd person, especially before breakfast!

Anyway, I stipulated a quiet bike this time and it was much more pleasant, not that I didn't get enjoyment value out of the braaaaap of my last bike. We missed the first turn we were supposed to make and drove for miles and miles. Eventually we decided to turn back, there was also a village that sold crafts, just back a bit we wanted to check out. We found the village but there wasn't any crafts, probably not enough tourists. The people looked at us with suspicion, it was a rather authentic minankabau village with very little motorised transport around. After leaving the village it occured to me that missing the first turn wasn't actually a problem, we were just doing the route in the opposite direction. My front tyre was in need of some air, I tried at the servo but they dont have air or food for that matter, just fuel, although they do look like a modern servo at home. I found a tyre place which comprises of a small shack on the side of the road. I rocked in and said "Pagi" and showed them the tyre. They pumped it up, didn't seem to know any english except the man said "Free" so I thanked him with "terima kasih" then "salamut tinggal" which was very well taken by them and off we headed.

Arrived at a large town, with the ocassional stop along the way for directions. Ryan being quite adept at asking the locals and most locals being rather helpful. I myself settle for "bukittinggi?" and point. Kinda been a bit slack at learning Bahasa, even though its really easy, not the same necessity when you have a companion who can do the talking. It started p1ssing down and we were immediatly saturated. Hung out for a while under a veranda. There was an art gallery with some interesting islamic inspired paintings next door. Had a tasty feed at a local pedang restaurant before setting forth into the rain that wasn't going to let up.

aaaagggghhhhh! There is a vehicle outside with some fool rambling on over a loud speaker.

Had been going for a few minutes and stopped for a photo opportunity when my bike got a puncture. Hoorrah, I got a puncture on the last journey too. Why do I always get the crap bike?! It was quite unrideable so Ryan went searching for a tyre place. Conveniently, there was one just down the road. I rode the bike down, this being a feat unto itself, and rocked up to the dude who knew no engrish but set to work immediately. There was a nice water fall there so it was rather pleasant place to kill the time. We ran into some dour looking european tourists, they weren't intrepid travellers with street cred like us, just in town to fix a puncture. Merely bus driven tourists... Puncture repair in indonesia is a fascinating affair. They put a hunk of rubber over the hole, then put the tube in a press with a kerosene burner underneath. After about 10 mins theres a very good patch on there. I gave the man 5000rp >$1 which is what the last repair cost and he accepted happily. Tyre people are honest here it would seem, no inflated tourist prices. The rain stopped too, further down the road it hadn't rained at all.

We cruised off, he didn't tighten my chain very well and it was flapping about every where. After some more directions and a chat with the Polisi (wo wanted to have coffee with us) we got onto a quaint little country lane that headed off up the mountain. The villagers were friendly and there were many calls of "Hello" and "Hello mister!" There were a lot of really attractive women hidden away up that country lane too, all with big smiles, probably hoping us handsome westerners would sweep them off their feet and take them the hell out of there. My chain sounded awful so I cruised up to these dudes working on a car (I assume it was a garage) and pointed at the problem. We fixed it and he wouldn't accept money but greatfully received my thanks and farewell in the local lingo.

In another little village a girl came up to us and wanted to practise english with us, she was rather proficient at it. We went to her house and had a drink. Must have been the talk of the town, soon a mob had formed. People look so young here, I thought she was 12 maybe 13 but she was 16.

After leaving there the road got better and better. A little country lane winding its way up the volcano, surrounded by jungle with the ocassional settlement or view of the rice paddies below. Most of the road was in good repair but there weas some fun rough stuff. Only met 2 cars and a bus along the way, came flying around a corner both times, the first time was a little lock up but no biggie the driver was grinning and said something which I interpreted as too fast. The other vehicle I just swerved and crashed my way through the lush growth on the side of the road. I think very few westerners go along that road, its not in lonely planet which is a very good thing, probably not many locals go along it either.

We took a wrong turn and went a long way in the wrong direction but it was a most excellent road, no biggie except Ryan was running out of gas. Got some directions to the right way and as it was starting to get dark I picked up the pace a bit. It was getting rather cool as we headed over the mountain and it got dark too, my light was much better this time though. All of a sudden we were out on a busy street in Bukittingi.

Thats pretty much it for the days adventures. There were many many wrong turns not mentioned as theres not a lot of road signs around but its all part of the adventure. While its nice having a guide, it's also really cool doing it for thyself.

Time to run some errands and catch a bus to Maninjau. Wicked!

Part IV

Malam, (means evening)

After leaving the internet cafe yesterday I decided it was time for a beer so went to this cool cafe playing Bob Marley. Ran into this pommy dude Ryan who'd just got into town. Joined him for a feed and made good use of his lonely planet indonesia book. He was heading up to D'enam which happened to be my guest house. He had run into Mikaya ( the tatooed woman) at Danau (Lake) Maninjau the day before. Small world.

Went with Ryan back to Panorama park and the canyon. On the other side of the canyon is a traditional village call Kota something or other (Gador I think). where they do silver smithing. Walking our way down into the canyon, this fulla decided to be our impromtu guide. He took us on a nice little stroll through the rice paddies, then through the jungle and along the river at the bottom of the canyon. It's a truly impressive place, it's a shame that indonesians are littering b@stards so the whole river flat is like a tip. Went to a nice water fall though and got our gears off and had a shower. There was a tree full of flying foxes which all took flight (after some prompting from us) which looked awesome. Got to the village and they had this impressively intricate silver jewellery there. Walking through the village the local mosque started up its evening session which sounded really erie but particularly cool. A man spat at me on my way out, he was bitter and twisted and living the fruits of his karma. He had a growth on his face like that homeless fulla that died recently. He's lucky the dao isn't down with me throwing him into the rice paddy... It's the only hostility I have come across here. Ryan found this choice armour plated centipede in the grass with a green LED in its ass.

Went back to the Cafe whatchamacallit and had some beers and a bottle of p1ss weak contraband whiskey. It's illegal here apparantly. Spent the evening playing chess and solving little puzzles, the indonesians seem to be into those in a big way. Beat one of the locals at chess 2 - 1. He was technically a better player than me but rather rash. Met another pom who wants to climb that errupting volcano in java. A local fulla did some islamic art in my book. There was about 5 or 6 other westerners in the place... damn place is getting over run!

Spent today fanging around the province on an obnoxiously loud little motorbike, Che Guevara styles. Wasn't exactly a norton 500 but was fun none the less. . Got woken up at 5 am by the mosque. It's starting to get a little old now! Ryan wanted to hire a motor bike and go for a tiki tour which is exactly what I had planned for the day, before I met him. He knew this guide Christine that he met on the bus from Maninjau. We hired our selves some bikes and set forth. I found the picture the dude drew in my book on the wall at the bike hire place. My bike was a little red suzuki and probably one of the loudest in sumatra. I liked it this way, at least people knew I was coming. With Ryan dubbing christine and me dubbing this young fulla Abel who works at the cafe and wants to be a guide so I let him tag along, off we went. We went for about an hours trek into the jungle checking out a Rafflesia in bloom. The largest flower in the world apparantly. Was wicked. The jungle here looks not unlike the bush in NZ. We then headed to this cave which stunk of bats but had some excellent formations going on. Stopped at a penang restaurant which is where they put out a selection of tasty (and I mean really tasty) food. You choose what you want and they bill you on the empty plates. Was good timing, it started p1ssing down as soon as we got inside.

After the feed we rocked out to this village surround by huge cliffs with a waterfall. I got some airtime over a bump at about 90k while riding one handed. My other hand was holding my helmet down which had a habit of coming off at high speeds. Did well to keep that under control. Abel enjoyed it though. The cliffs were impressive. We blatted through some villages, the people didnt look that pleased to see me. I wouldn't be that pleased either if some fulla was going BLAAAAAAAAT!!! through my quiet little village at about 80 k. I have no idea what the speed limit is here. What ever you feel like I think. My speedo was busted anyway. I must have passed several hundred vehicles on the journey, but people passed me too. The roads are pandemonium here. I sussed out the rule for traffic lights. They don't mean anything unless there are police watching. My guide was good for pointing this out. Intersections are basically a merge with vehicles going in all directions and you just find a gap and shoot for it. Pass when ever you like, as long as you can get through. Trucks dont mind passing on blind conrners while driving up a narrow mountain road. Stop where ever you like too, people just have to go around you. Had a nice little cruise though this windy mountain road to the kings palace. It was an impressive wooden thatched roofed traditional affair.

It got dark and we had 40k of windy mountain road before us to get back to Bukittinggi. My light ranged between not even adequate to barely visible at all. It worked better if I stayed in a lower gear and rung the sh1t out of it so thats what I did. I couldn't actually see where I was going, was more driving by a mixture of qi, instinct and good luck, didn't hit a single pot hole. Nearly hit a cat, it stopped in time, then tried to take Ryan out instead. There were lots of pedestrians too but their white head scarves were quite visible. Ryans light was better than mine and he couldnt see either yet I was leading for some reason. He was following in my wake with enough room to go around if I fell off. Got back in one piece though. Both our speedos were shot but we must have covered 3 - 400 km today. Used a whole tank of gas but then again, I was ringing it out most of the time.

There are lots of head scarf wearing moslem women crusing round in boyed up 4x4s. Its quite a sight.

There is a french anthropologist staying at D'enam. He's been studying the maninkabao (local tribe) for 5 years. Seems to be all sorts of unusual western people in indonesia. Not the usual 20 something year old back packers you find in thailand. A weird old german has turned up now but the strange old italian has left.

Thats about it for now, wrecked. Hope that made sence Will sleep well tonight, hopefully I'll sleep thorugh the 5am sermon...

Part III

Salumut Malam,

I'm still at Bukittinggi, its a nice place, extremely nice by indonesian standards. Its surrounded by active volcanoes. There are very few western tourists here. Whoa, one just walked into the internet cafe, how novel! The call to prayer echos out from the mosques several times a day, I'm quite enjoying it.

I had a rather a eventful day after the last email. Just after leaving the i-cafe I was accosted by a teacher and a whole lot of kids, they wanted to practise their english. I had a bit of a yarn, then another dude Syahriful (Paul) came over. He's in town for the day from a small place 70 k from here where he runs a school. He's a representative for the Childrens Democratic Party apparantly and a journalist. He didn't manage to win a seat in the election though. He was there with a couple of english teachers. 2 unmarried young muslim women, one was 24 and didn't seem that happy about her marital status. Probably quite old for around here, another year and she'll be christmas cake. Later, I asked her what this fancy piece of card was she was carrying. She said "a marriage proposal" and then giggled to her friend. I don't know whether she was joking or not...

Paul asked if I could hang out and talk with them and the kids. Why not thought I, all part of the adventure. We went by horse driven buggy to the town square and met up with the kids. Another english teacher, also a young muslim women asked if I could help her out as well, so she joined us too. He picked us all up some lunch and we went along to Fort de Koch, the remains of a WW1 dutch fort. It was quite nice there, shady pine trees and people hanging out, it being Sunday after all. Chowed down to a tasty meal of rice and chicken and some sort of curry. Indonesians eat with their hands, thus so did I. I have to be careful being left handed cos thats the bum washing hand, they're not too bothered though, quite accepting. I chatted away to Paul, his english being pretty good. He told me about indonesia and being a muslim and all sorts of stuff. His daugher is 3rd ranked in the koran for west sumatra province. The koran is a song aparantly and they study the correct pronounciations for all the words. Theres very little extremism here, its not as the news would have you believe. I helped the kids out with a few phrases. "How are you?", "I am good" "What is your name" etc etc... and told them about New Zealand. They took some photos too, I'm going to be in the paper aparantly.

I gave the other woman a hand. She had some indonesian folk tales in english she wanted me to proof read and tape record me reading so she could make a book to teach english. She had gotten a german to do this once before but her teacher wouldn't accept it as it wasn't his native language. I helped her out for about an hour, her written english was pretty good, not too many corrections. Was interesting reading the folk tales, tales about spoilt princesses and the like that explained the colours in the lake or how a mountain got there. One was about a man whose father was a dog and he killed him and fed the liver to his mother. Then she banished him to roam the wilderness where he learnt black magic and time traveled back to his mother and they fell in love. I find it rather amusing that a whole lot of indonesian children are going to learn english with a kiwi accent. Was of a benefit to me because I actually had to think about things such as past-tense and nouns and the idiosyncrasies of english. I'm sure I was never actually taught the mechanics of english at school. I left their company after hanging out for the best part of a day.

Across from the fort, a huge colonial era bridge spans to the zoo so I had a look there too. Pretty miserable place with depressed looking animals which I suspected it would be so didnt stay long.

I got back to my hotel and discovered a nice cheap but clean homestay, right across the street with a helpful young dude at the counter. I met an old scottish woman Mikaya there. She's quite butch with tattoos, shes the first native english speaker I've talked to since leaving singapore. She also had an old SE Asian on a shoe string book with her. That was worth its weight in gold to me. She'd also been up north to hang out in the jungle with the orangutans. She gave me some good places to stay and loads of useful info so I took her out to dinner at some authentic little local cafe that took her fancy. There was a display case full of weird and wonderful foods to choose from. I had a fish in some hot red sauce and some green spinach like vegetables. Mikaya had some sort of curried egg I suppose it was. The eggs are blue here, but they taste good. The meal was absolutely delicous!

The tourist info centre was actually open today and i now have some useful maps of the area. I was supposed to go to check out this wicked canyon but went the wrong way and conveniently found this internet cafe, there are not many in indonesia and its painfully slow.

Ah, another day. I'm a bit out of gas, it's really muggy today. Most of the time the temperature here in Bukit tinggi is a rather pleasant 27 degrees at a guess cos we're about 1000m up. Gets muggy as when its cloudy though.

I found my way to panorama park today, the dude at the tourism centre put it in the wrong place on my map, or the map is dodgy. neither would surprise me. There is certainly an impressive view of a very impressive canyon. I checked out a WW2 japanese tunnel network built with slave labour which is part of the park. There are the remains of a cafe and display cases in there. This place in seriously in need of some tourism, the place has all the facilities and attractions but no tourists. It is nice how ever to be able to enjoy the places without throngs of annoying tourists. I hung out with the monkeys for a while at the park until the battery in my camera went flat. Excellent timing, I can go back. Its 10 mins walk from my homestay and entry costs 3000 rupiah. about 70c.

I am having to be more careful with the chump change I was throwing out willy nilly to beggars because I 'm having trouble finding people who can cash 50,000 rupiah notes from the ATM. Water costs 2000 and I need plenty of it in this climate. Try buying water with a 50,000 note. A tasty feed is only 5000 - 13000, depending on how much I eat.

There is an old italian dude staying at my home stay. He's retired over here but has to do a visa run every couple of months. Seems to live off peanuts and the occasional piece of fruit. Looks like a yogi, got that sinuey yogi body, but he's not. There's an old german fulla just turned up today too.

The mullah was singing and preaching for hours last night from the mosque near my lodgings. it was wicked. I chilled out on the deck drawing and taking in the vibe. Very hard to escape from the muslim influence here. The local manitoba tribe don't have a choice, it's very difficult to be manitoba and not muslim. Rather moderate muslims they are though, the women wear head scarves but not burqas or anything that full on and the men dont have beards. Can buy beer here but I havent yet, probably why I feel like sh1t today :-P