I got up early and did my usual Lukel chill alone. Eventually once Ryan woke up we went and shot a few rounds of pool. It was 9-9 soon after. Still too even.

After breakfast we started looking for a new hotel, and Rohan had seen a nice place up the road to check out – we thought we might treat ourselves to a 60-80 dollar villa. We walk in through this huge security gate onto the massive grounds of the Sengiggi Beach Hotel. The place Rohan had seen was on these very grounds, but over the other side, but our path led us to the reception of the far more upperclass Sengiggi Beach Villas. We enquire about prices and get informed that each of the 12 private pool villas is around $350 US a night. See in Aus, that isn’t a lot – but on Lombok that equals some high class luxury. We start walking away, all of a sudden less enthused about the places we had originally planned.

Back in Australia and quite often, the three of us will go out for a hearty dinner or some beers, and every time it comes time to pick up the bill Ryan and I suggest that it should be the Robot Academy XMAS party. Basically, we’re jeering him for the fact that Rohan’s business never has a XMAS party. It’s not funny but it generally annoys him. Which in turn makes it funny. See?

So as per usual as we walk me and Ryan start suggesting the Robot Academy XMAS party, throwing in words like “stingy” and “unprofessional”. We keep walking along said path together talking until we realise Rohan is standing back 10 metres entirely still and mouth open as though he has had a great idea. We know what he’s thinking. ROBOT ACADEMY PRIVATE VILLA POOL XMAS PARTY!!! IN JUNE!!!

He scurries away and we go back to the same receptionist who smugly turn us away prior and inform her that we’ll take the room.

“Sorry, sir – we can only book the $350US / night rooms here”
“Yep, we’ll take the room”
“Oh…..” *Becomes all professional, calls little men to come grab our bags etc etc*

Yep, we’re royalty now!

Little bit of paper work later and we get to inspect our room.

WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW

It’s this amazing, huge, double story room with 3 double beds, huge couches, a big screen TV, our own spa… wait, TWO SPAS, this pool off the downstairs area (which you can swim to the pool bar from), complimentary fruit, another big TV, some more couches and a big arse balcony over looking the pool. Basically it’s amazing. AND – Satellite TV so I can watch Game 5 of the Finals in the loungeroom on the big arse TV.

Immediately, we do a bunch of rich man shit – eat fruit, have a swim, watch TV, read books, order room service. I had myself a nice warm shower and chillax.

Once we’re done grooming, we explore the grounds a bit. Me and Ryan decided a game of tennis was a good idea. So we book the court, and head down in our best “tennis” gear to start the match. NOTE TO SELF: Don’t play tennis in 33 degree heat ever again. Ryan beat me 6-3 1-0 before I literally couldn’t see straight. I had total double vision and was finding it hard to even walk. Ryan even broke a sweat, and that mofo is one fit mofo.

I stumbled into the hotel room, drank water and passed out cold. Woke up and had a bath and some fruit and did a bit more chilling. I think the guys went and had a drink or something, but I could barely move. Stupid tennis.

Once I was walking again, me and Ryan found a rad pool table right on the water, and I smoked him 6-2 in the first lopsided pool session of our trip. The sunset behind us, and Rohan read and relaxed on the beach. The funniest part of Sengiggi beach is that it’s completely covered in sweaters selling watches and fruit and necklaces and whatever else. But unlike Bali, there is an invisible line drawn that they can’t cross. So they have to stand at the line and try and sell you things. It’s like a forcefield, they just can’t move past it. Even if you say you will buy something if they come closer, they desperately try and find a way to get over the forcefield, but can’t. It’s really wacked.

That night was the best night of the trip. We bought like 6 longnecks of Bintang each, ordered amazing room service dinners, and sat on the balcony listening to pop punk and hanging out. We dressed up in our gowns like rich men do, and even did some rich man poses for photos. Eventually we even went and got more longnecks and munchies from the town and continued to party. At about 2am, we somehow ended up swimming in the pool and doing bombs off of any thing we could find. Ryan was especially hilarious, mounting statues and the like. At some point I think we left again, but we were pretty wasted by that point.

I passed out in my nice cosey double bed.

Rohan is camouflaged in the Indo shopping centre.

Mr Boatman drives us over to Lombok and drop us at this beach where 20 or so little kids come running from the one hut on the beach and come greet us. One of them is this retarded dude that sweats us a bit, but Mr Boatman whisks him away.

We wait a minute and eventually a forward drive rocks up where Mr Boatman has two friends who he greets with big hugs. We jump in and the three of them talk amongst themselves and laugh a lot. We meant to record them so Jerry could translate what they were saying, but somehow it didn’t happen (Ryan?) so we’ll never know. But they looked stoked to see eachother which was kinda cool.

The car drive east was a bit weird, it had been a while since we saw roads with cars, and the dudes had Britney Spears playing the whole time. We went through a bunch of pretty busy towns, lots of school kids running about, chickens and dogs everywhere and a lot of shops selling weird shit. It’s not often that a shop in Indonesia is dedicated to just one thing, they all sell everything. Which makes them all kinda the same. We stopped at some market and I bought the lushest apple I’ve ever eaten. I wish I got more.

Eventually we started on our way to a waterfall. Mr Boatman had talked up this waterfall a bit, but genuinely figured it would be pretty lame. Just because these things generally are. I’d learnt that in Thailand where they come up with some kind of special tour, and every local acts like they will take you to a special place, but they all take you to the same place.

Well, yeah. We we’re wrong, Mr Boatman rules.

We drove into this tight parking space and started on about a 500 m walk up through the bush with a small creek running by its side. There was still the odd random chicken busting about but for the most part it was pretty quiet. Once we get to the top we come out on top of these rice fields. It looked amazing – like totally Windows XP green and shit. The most impressive part was that they were using all the water from the waterfall and distributed the water through this meticulously built irrigation system to make miles and miles of rice fields.

We keep walking down a steep hill and through a small canyon. The sun goes away, and the temperature drops nicely. All of sudden we hear and see a huge waterfall on top, dropping into this set of smooth rocks at the bottom. Mr Boatman flies up ahead and climbs up a little wooden ladder into a cave. At this point we all freak. We’re sweaty and gross and have had saltwater showers for over a week, so we were ready to feel fresh.

It’s hard to explain the waterfall – it’s really heavy and majestic, but tumbles down into this circular stone cave and creates like a rock pool with water flying all around it. The main source of water is heavy enough to give you a nice massage. The walls are round enough to walk on and dive into the pool. Basically, it’s kinda like heaven.

So, refreshed and excited, we take the 20 minute walk out of there and go for a drive. I fell asleep in the car, as I have the tendency to do on holidays. Nanna naps are one of my favourite things to do. We arrived in Sengiggi and found ourselves a nice cheap hotel to stay at. We all had separate rooms, which was nice. As much as I like Ryan, sleeping with him every night had gotten weird when he would reach over and grab my arse while mumbling “Micheeeellle”.

Boatman and friends suggest lunch and tell us they know the perfect place. We rock up to a place that is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It looked like a cinema crossed with an 80s holiday house. We order beers and the dudes start suggesting we get “girls” – as in strippers or hookers. I’m unsure. It’s like 1pm and they want beer and strippers? Party animals. We settled for lunch, but found the place had run out of food. Despite no one being there, they have run out of food. “We still have girls?”

On to somewhere more appropriate I eat some gross Mi Goreng. I hate that stuff. Same with Nasi Goreng. It’s so dry and flavourless. So I complain a lot.

So now onto the important part. Anyone that knows me knows that I am quite fond of monkeys. They are my favourite animal, and I have been known to look up the odd photo or video of said creatures to cheer me up. I’d say my ten favourite things in the world are the LA Lakers, Nat, Mum, Dirk, Casey, Chris, Rohan, Caro, Bombings and Monkeys. Number 11 is nanna naps and number 12 is “Kiss From a Rose” by Seal. And the next three are “Daydream Nation” by Sonic Youth, smoked salmon and Archers of Loaf (special mention goes to Kobe, Trevor Ariza, Beer, sundried tomatoes and sex).

So we head up to what is called a monkey forest. Apparently this highway goes through a forest which a huge population of brown monkeys. The monkeys hate locals and stay away from them, but are very fond of anyone white. So Boatman tells me to buy some peanuts because monkeys love the peanuts. He says you can’t get bananas because the monkeys will freak out and attack you because they love bananas so much.

So yes, I fed monkeys on the side of a road. We beeped the horn and a tonne of them rushed up the road. It ended up crazy. Monkeys love peanuts, who knew.

On the longish drive home I had another nanna nap. This is where we say goodbye to Mr Boatman. He and is friends were off to get drunk and properly watch strippers.

Somehow, I dunno how. But I had another nanna nap. Like an hour, but still. Once I woke up, Rohan came to my room and we got a couple beers and drank them on my balcony. Ryan slept for like 5 hours or something while we drank, listened to music, laughed, talked shit. The stuff we’ve been doing for 6 years. Eventually Ryan woke up and we went down to the first restaurant we found with a pool table. We played a fair bit, and ended the night tied 7-7 for the whole trip.

It was a long day. We slept soon after.

This was the retarded dude waiting on the shoreline for us on Lombok.

Mr Boatman. Coolest cat in Indo.

And the video of the money feeding is here:

Gili Meno is a hard place to describe without over-doing it. It’s just an incredible place. It’s a small, almost exactly round island that from the sky would just look like a tiny plonk of land. You could walk around the edge of the whole thing in an hour, and be walking on sand the whole time (if the tide is down). The terrain isn’t THAT tropical either, some of the trees even look Victorian, and there are small farms throughout the centre of the island. There isn’t a lot of people here, and while East coast has a bit of accom (mostly bungalows scattered along that side), the rest of the beaches are fairly deserted, leaving stunning views and lots of coral and shells along the beach.

The centre of the island is where the 100 or so locals live in small houses and huts. There is a temple, a little bird nursery and a few little stores that sell bits and pieces. But for the most part, this island feels like a tiny community. People get around on horse and carriage through the dirt roads on the island, and at night when it is pitch black, they all carry around those old fire lanterns like it’s the 1800s.

Off the shore there are a lot of places to snorkel, especially on the North and West coasts. Including a shipwreck just off the West Coast with a lot of fish. There are a few reek breaks off the North Coast worthy of surfing also.

So on this day we pretty much did nothing. We found the one bar on the West Coast, which is basically just three treehouses full of cushions and a hammock and some tables. We commandeer one for ourselves, and stay there all day. Rohan and Ryan read, and I wrote (my version of reading). I listened to a lot of music in the sun. I remember frothing over Manchester Orchestra and having a moment while listening to Silversun Pickups. I drink watermelon shakes, smoked a bit, chilled, relaxxxed. And the whole time we ordered cheap food from the bar and got it served to our selfish little den.

Yep, this was a dream day.

At night we walked home in the pitch black via the centre of the island. It got dark enough that the light off my ipod was the only reason I could see my hand in front of my face.

We had a seafood dinner and a quiet relaxing time at the same restaurant – which, as it turns out is actually the only real restaurant worth eating at. Lucky it’s completely amazing right?

We watched more 30 Rock and then fell asleep early again.

June 12th, 2009
Feeling fresh. Yep. I think by this stage I was finally not snotty and sick from the disgusting Melbourne weather. I think I was finally relaxing a bit from work.

I was up at 6am again. This time because a rooster crawled under our bungalow before making it’s stupid rooster sound (Note: gaps in the wooden planks, I could see the damn Rooster from my bed). Ryan sleeps through it. I go load up as many pages on the Lakers and Finals as possible on my Laptop so I can spend the day reading about them. I buy another milo can and sit on the balcony reflecting on life.

The guys woke up at like 10am, so I had lots of Lukel time. We organised the night before to have one of the locals take us out to some snorkelling spots in his boat. We went out and looked for turtles. The dude who owned the boat jumped out basically in his shorts with no flippers and would just dive around looking for cool shit to show us. He was holding his breathe for twice as long as us and swimming twice as fast. Crazy little guy.

We saw a bunch of turtles, and this crazy shipwreck covered in fish. And got a good idea of how crazy the currents going around the island are. After a while we just chilled on the boat and talked for a while with the guy. He told us about how he saved for 10 years to get the materials to build his own boat. And all about the island and the areas of North-West Lombok. He told us of a bunch of places that seemed really cool. Dude was just a champion. I really liked hanging with him.

When we got back to shore, we went straight back to the treehouse bar, where we stayed the rest of the day. I caught up on my basketball reading, and listened to Lil Wayne. Yes, I think I’m black. No, I don’t really.
This time we get a horse and carriage home.

That night we ate at…. The same place. Still stoked on the food, it couldn’t be missed. And relaxing on cushions on the water is a good place to eat. Our friend from the boat came down to talk to us, and we ended up giving him some seafood to eat, and bought him a few beers. We talked a lot more about Lombok and Meno. Rohan started asking a lot of questions about buying land there. I think we all were starting to feel like we wanted to live there. It’s just the most simple, beautiful place.

Alas, we made plans to leave the next day with Mr Boatman. None of us could pronounce his name, and we didn’t wanna ask again. He rarely leaves the island, and loves to head to Lombok. So we agree to pay him 1,000,000 RP to take us to Lombok, drive us around all day and show some of his favourite places on the massive island.

Mr Boatman. And below is some ultra cool snorkel face…

Bigger than my baby sized hands. Yep.

This is the morning I decided to get a Kobe tattoo on my knuckles. Henna of course. But it was still pretty funny. I smoked with the tattoo artist, and walked back to the room where Rohan and Ryan laughed at my knuckles.

We got bicycles and did a lap of the island. Eventually it got really really hot, but we had to keep going. We ended up on the ultra quiet North side of the island, away from people. We had this beautiful little beach to ourselves, and a little open wooden windcharm full of pillows to lie on. We laid there chilling and talking for maybe 4 hours. It was the most relaxed I think I’ve ever felt… well till I got to Meno. We ordered from their Tapa’s menu. Prawns, olive spread, satay, bread, calamari and heaps more. It was so lush. I could have eaten there for days. I went for a walk on the beach and found a little hermit crab I named Harry. He was mad cute.

Once the sun wasn’t as hot we rode back to town. I got a crazy massage. It was painful but so good. The lady made me get naked which was kinda strange, mainly because I was concentrating on not getting an erection. Didn’t necessarily succeed. She ignored that, which is good.

After some more chilling out, we get some dinner. Rohan wasn’t feeling it, so he went home and we decided to party. This is sometimes a bad omen. See, Rohan is the good influence in my life, the dude that makes sure I don’t party too hard or get too adventurous.

Yep, things got crazy.

We went to this bar on the beach that had these shakes. We drank for a while and laughed and talked, and then went for a walk down the beach. All of a sudden we see a boat about to take off. It’s has maybe 16 people in it. We ask whats happening and they tell us they are going to a Full Moon Party on Gili Air – another Island about 8 kms away = and that if we go now, the boat will come back to grab us at 6am. It’s 11pm. We make a spontaneous decision and just do it. This is Ryan’s new birthday.

So we arrive at Gili Air by Boat, and walked for 2 kms around to the other side of the island. All of a sudden we hear trance music. As we arrive there is maybe 100-120 people just partying and dancing to music. Maybe 50 of them were Indonesians and the rest were a mix up of every country you would expect to see a tourist from. There were Finnish, Japanese, Spainish, French, German, Canadian, English… and us, the only Australians. We socialised for a while, mostly finding everyone to be well on their way to being dance zombies. But eventually we ended up a little bit away from the party just drinking and having our own party.

After a while, we end up back at the party and danced at the party for a while. I jumped over the fire, leading to a bunch of dudes doing it. Was pretty funny. I danced with this spainish girl for a while, thought she was pretty hot. Ryan kept telling me she was gross and to stop dancing with her. Turned out once the sun came up he was right. Good dancer though.

By the time the sun came up every one was dying. Not in good shape. We had to walk back to where the boat would meet us, and get a 30 min road back with the sun up. I was so wrecked but Ryan still had some energy I think.

On the way back there was a great moment. We walked past some Indo sweater who was asleep in his boat. He hears us coming, pokes his head up and says “Hello. I have Mushroooooooo zzzzzz” and falls back asleep. Very Indo. Still, trying to sell you things you don’t want in their sleep.

We got back, spoke to Rohan for a sec and passed out.

The boat ride to Gili Air

June 10th, 2009
URGH. Worst. I slept for like 4 hours but the whole time Rohan would come in a try talk to us about moving rooms and going to another island. He is a very influential person by virtue that if he doesn’t like something, it’s impossible to enjoy it so long as he’s around. And boy did Rohan HATE Gili Trawangan. Dude was having a rough time there and really wanted to leave. We did too, but unfortunately our party antics had paralysed us.

Eventually we caved and got up. For the next few hours we had to wait at this crappy café for our boat to come and take us away. I felt bad the whole time, worst day.

We eventually got to Gili Meno – the smallest quiet island ever. 100 people live on it and there is maybe 6 bars / restaurants around the island. Only maybe 100 people could stay there.

I slept in the bungalow while Ryan read and Rohan had to do a lap of the island to find a place to stay.  We get up to have dinner and start walking to the other side of the island to find a nice place to eat. As we go, the muslim speakers noises go off further inducing my nausea. Eventually I melt and just start throwing up for about four minutes straight. The whole time there is some muslim pray brutalising me over loud speakers. I think this way the Muslim God’s way of punishing me for partying too hard. Or maybe my body’s way.

We double back to a quieter place on our side of the island. The place we found was perfect. A little windcharm we could sit in right on the water and great food. I spent 3 bucks on dinner, just getting an extra spicy vegetable soup and some fried rice.

After dinner me and Ryan watched 30 Rock in our room. Had the best sleep I had all trip. Needed it too, 12 hours of heavenly rest.

As we wait for the boat I get Ryan a present by getting Bali Braids in my hair. He loves it. I take them out after a few photos. I looked like a nu-metal transsexual. If such a thing ever existed. It was seriously awful. When we got on the boat, some dude sees Rohan’s sailor hat and lets us know he has THE EXACT SAME ONE. What’s worse is this guy was a total jerkoff, and possibly a “comedy faggot”. We never saw the hat again, it was the final straw.

The boat ride to Gili Trawangan (the largest of the 3 Gilis at about 2km by 2km) is a little bit hectic. We decide to sit up on the roof of the boat, and that gets hectic when we start going 80kms an hour. We can’t get down as it’s a tiny little boat going way too fast. Ryan loses his hat. Happy Birthday! And I drink water from a metre away as it splashes into my face. It takes Big Al five full minutes to crawl to the front of the boat. It was seriously FAST.

Arriving at Gili T and it’s way different than I expected. It’s like a little Euro tourist town. The beach is beautiful and you can see the much quieter Gili Meno just 2km away. Everywhere you look places are selling Magic Mushrooms and Weed, and there are bars everywhere. Euro girls walk around the beach topless (and sometimes bottomless) and Rastafarian Indo dudes walk around smoking weed and trying to sell you Shrooms. It’s another world. As we arrived on our small speed boat, I get this feeling like I’m in a James Bond movie or something. Like everything just looked so high class or something.

The island is a bit too busy, and Rohan isn’t feeling well, so he goes away for some quiet time. So me and Ryan get money as a cash advance on a credit card, and go to a bar for a few drinks. Eventually at this Irish Bar (!?!!) I find a TV with ESPN on it and tune in for the Lakers Vs Magic Game 2. I watch intently as the game heads to over time, and Gasol seals the game on an insane and-one play with under a minute to go. Man it was intense. Ryan filmed me in the tense moments, and it’s a little embarassing. Oh well.

We had fantastic Indian food for dinner, including some flavoured Shisha, but our camp is a little exhausted and grumpy, and we call it a night early – ruining poor Ryan’s birthday. I vow to make it up to him the next day. Little does he know I’m real good with these promises.

That beautiful island behind me is Gili Meno, one of the nicest little beaches you’ll will see.

Asleep at dinner, yep.

After breakfast we meet Wyan and Comma at the bridge, and they have snorkels and a boat hooked up for us. After 5 of us (including Jason and Andy) all chip in it works out real cheap. The boat leaves the second island and we get a beautifully scenic trip over to the third island and into Crystal Bay. More and more it looks like we are getting far away from civilisation, which feels amazing. And the Crystal Bay snorkelling is incredible.

Before we’d left we grabbed a loaf of bread. The idea is you grab a handful, crush it up and dive as low as you can go to let go of the bread. It sprinkles everywhere and the fish come in swarms. I wanna scuba dive one day, it’s just hard to want to spend four days training while you’re overseas. I’ll do it one day. The snorkelling was fun and we chilled out on the boat for a while after.

From here we head into a little town on the coast of the island. It’s a crazy little town – the people look extremely poor but still happy. You can’t get here easily from anywhere, so it seems fairly untouched by the Western World – apart from the coke signs all over the café. We have the cheapest meal ever – 7 cokes, 4 plates of food, a pack of smokes all for 78,000 Rupees (AUS $8). The while time we ate, Wyan listened to Bring Me the Horizon on repeat. He also liked The Amity Affliction. I wish I could have given him the ipod but he didn’t have a charger and all I have is a cable that charges it from my Macbook. Plus he didn’t like anything else on there, just the “metal”.

The day has been pretty tiring so we head back to Mushroom Beach and listen to music, drink some beers and talk. While we sit up on the bar Jason scopes out girls to talk to. When we sees one, he goes down and tried to chat them up, while we watch from above. He gets shut down constantly, much to our amusement. What’s even funnier is apparently he could hear everything we were saying from down there, meaning the girls could too. So Andy would be like “Man she’s got good tits” and Jason and the girl could hear it while Jason is getting shut down. Yep. Pure class.

Eventually we go on a bushwalk to the next beach for a swim. As we sit there, Andy and Jason make a fire, and me and Rohan walk up on to the headland to do this crazy jump into the water below. We actually worked out where to jump because of a group of 13 year old girls – half balinese, half English. When I went there one of them said “You better not get scared, if a 13 year old girl can do it”. The second time we go back to do it, one of them is really scared and Rohan helps her get up the headland and back to safety. Later on they come and thank us for “saving her life”. So cute.

The jump was great (we did it twice) and at this point I got a little too boozed and needed time out (I think it was party foul central for a second there). So I slept before dinner and had yet another early night. I think Rohan and Ryan stayed up for a little but longer.

Indonesia’s answer to “Clerks”

World’s cheapest meal. 7 Cokes, 4 Meals and a pack of smokes for $8 AUS.

Jason getting rejected.

That’s the jump. Where you can see the group of girls.

Success

June 7th, 2009
In the morning we said goodbye to Jason and Andy who were heading back to Andy’s Mum’s house in Bali. I mixed up the days and thought Game 2 of the finals was on, so we headed back to Scooby Doo only to find it wasn’t on. We still had a dynamite burger up there, and went online for the first time since Bali.

As we finish up on the internet, we see a huge congregation of sketchy looking indo men up the road. We go up to check out whats happening. Turns out there is cockfighting going on! This shit is weird and brutal. It’s hard to work out whats going on, lots of money flying around and yelling and weird rituals and stuff. Its crazy watching the cocks look so crazed with eachother when they don’t seem to have any ill will towards the humans. And the blades tied to each cocks right leg gave me a weird feeling. Some English douchebag is getting in on it. One of those young guys no one likes at home because of how crass and cocky they are. Either way, yeah

From here we ride the bikes to Devil’s peak for a look around and end up playing pool at Dream Beach for a bit.

I think on this day we eventually felt it time to move on. So we had a nice boozy night at Mushroom Beach. The staff loved us by this point, and left us with some beers when they went to bed at 9pm. We talked all night, drank a fair bit and just listened to music. That’s pretty much the best night you can have – good friends, good beer, good conversation and good music. We listened to Saves the Day, Blink 182, The Get Up Kids, Passion Pit, Brand New and Friendly Fires. And of course an ass load of Lil Wayne and A Tribe Called Quest. Eventually we ended up skinny dipping down at the beach which was kinda funny. We aren’t gay, just beat going and getting swimmers. Plus we know Rohan likes the eye candy. Once we were partying down on the beach, some Indo guy came up and opened his bar just for us.

It seems no matter how much you drink, you never really get drunk in paradise. It’s just a nice boozy feeling. And there are no hangovers because you sweat it all out while you sleep. I dig it.

It was also on this day that we came up with Rohan’s new nickname – BIG AL. From here on in, Captain D will be referred to as Big Al.

It turns midnight and becomes Ryan’s birthday. I think we had just reached bed by the time it hit midnight and to celebrate I kick him and he falls off the bed. Sorry Ryan.

Captain D / Big Al was disappointed when he found out what “Cock Fight” meant…

Mr A-Z anyone?

The perfect party.

*SCENE MISSING*

All photos by Ryan Wheatley – http://www.sirwheatley.com/

June 2nd, 2009
I could easily have started this 4 days earlier since I was home for a total of 6 hours before we left for the airport after being in Sydney working over the weekend. For the month prior to leaving, every time I see Ryan and Rohan they’d say “Hey buddy, we’re going to Indo!” and I’d just grunt and walk away. Ditto if they tried to plan anything for while we were there. I literally started thinking about leaving at 2am on June 2nd. I packed a pair of shorts, some swimmers, a grey t-shirt, toothbrush, deodorant, lots of medicines, and my trusty Dan Bombings t-shirt (rep your hoodlum). Oh, AND, stupidly – my laptop. Which so far has been useless in the relatively less advanced Indonesia.

So I wake up ready to leave and realise I’ve been hit with a brutal flu. I hep myself up on goofballs, let loose with the nose spray, load my bag up with snot rags and get on my way to a place which I know nothing about. The only research I did was to check we aren’t going to the island of Komodo. On the plane I read the Lonely Island guide which despite telling me it’s on a boat, also informs me on a few things I did not know:

- Bali is an island, not a city or country
- Lombok is another island about 100 kms to the right of said island
- The Indonesian currency is fucked – ie. 50,000 RPs is 6 dollars. Meaning 1,000,000 RPs is $120. Try working that out on the fly. And when you’re splitting things between 3 too.
- You go to jail and get murdered for drugs, except if you go to select islands where you buy them over the counter.
- Indonesia is a Muslim country, except Bali and Lombok which have Hindu Mofo’s also.

Ok, got the basics down.

The plane ride was easy. They fucked our orders and didn’t give us any entertainment things, and we did stop at Darwin for 4 hours. But it was still easy. I was feeling really sick the whole way, but trying to put on a happy face both to not bum out my friends and also to not get quarantined on the way into the country. I read about Lil Wayne which got me listening to The Carter III on the plane – something I have been doing constantly for a week now. Dude is a genius.

Arriving at Denpaser it all looked a little too familiar. I felt like I was arriving at Bangkok or Phuket. Lots of Asian Sweaters yelling, tropical weather, that feeling like you need to rush away from them all. This time I’m used to it – I spark up a cigarette and we just walk over to the least annoying taxi driver and get in. As usual in SEA, the roads are terrible, and everyone drives like a nutcase, while dogs, babies and old people walk onto the road with reckless abandon and narrowly miss getting hit.

Our lack of planning lands us at a weird hotel in Seminyak. Our room has it’s own courtyard and balcony and walls. Pretty cool. We find out we are like miles from the main strip which has a beach and a bunch of clubs. So we head to a bar near bye called Ku De Tar – which is some kind of Entourage styled expensive bar on the beach with fountains and crazy décor and stuff. Drinks are expensive and some dirty bogan chicks recommend we head into Kuta – the main area of Bali’s nightlife.

Kuta is the shittest place I’ve ever been.

Think the ugliest, busiest street you can full of drunk foreigners and 3 level ritzy looking nightclubs blasting out bad house music. Think kebab shops, bars everywhere, McDonalds, KFC, and a bunch of shit surfers and fat sluts from Sydney yelling “yeeewwww” as they throw up on themselves.

Basically think about all the things Lukel hates, that’s Kuta. Loud dance music, jerks, drunk retards, nightclubs.

So we picked up a few beers, head back to our hotel, chuck on some A Tribe Called Quest and have a killer time. Room service ruled, and Ryan took photos of us vibing to quest.

It was on this day we discovered our love of the Indonesian beer – Bintang. It’s the only beer you can get most places, but it tastes like heaven. Kinda halfway between my two favourite beers – Heineken and Chang. It’s so refreshing, I can’t imagine drinking another beer once I get home.

Seriously, who wears jeans on the way to Indo?

At Ku De Tar. We we’re so tired at this point, I don’t think anyone said much.

June 3rd, 2009
Wake up, swim in the pool, lather up with sunscreen, eat some breakfast… good start to the day. Lets head to the beach…

Seriously, why do people come to Bali? Note to everyone – just leave as soon as the plane arrives. Go North or to another island. That main 3kms strip all the Australian’s come to is basically like Surfers Paradise, only the sand is black and gross, and there are these disgusting Asian sweaters that come up to you while you sit on your 10 dollar a day beach chair and try to sell you stuff. And they don’t go away after you say no, they keep begging you to buy stuff. As you sit on the beach, you will not go more than 3 minutes without being sweated. The worst part is that it seems like Australian’s mostly come here, while the travellers from the rest of the world go to all the beautiful places. Once you leave this main strip, Aussies are few and far between. It’s weird.

After a few hours, I’d had enough. We planned to leave Bali the next day for greener pastures.

First though, we fit in a couple of rounds of pool, got an amazing massage and found out there is an amazing seafood restaurant on a beach about 45 minutes south. So we head down to this retaurant and arrive in time for beers on the beach to watch the sun go down over a beautiful fishing town.

This meal was up there in the top 10 of my life. Oysters, Crabs, King Prawns and Tuna on a beautiful beach – all with increased lushness thanks to the chefs special spicy sauce. It’s all BBQ’d heaven.

After dinner we walked like a kilometre up the beach. I don’t really know why, I remember being exhausted still. We finally get into a cab and high tail it home.

Sweaters….

Sweated again.

June 4th, 2009
One thing I had to stop doing was thinking Indo was Thailand. Obviously, they have similarities. But they are very different places. Indo is more expensive, for one. As in most things bar cigarettes and seafood are similar price as Australia. And the people are much different. They aren’t as crass or rude as the Thai people, but they are infinitely more annoying. I think the whole culture is based around being a sweater. They mean well, but they just remind me of seagulls sometimes. They have no concept of time, it’s like it’s on a exponential scale – 2 min equals 30 min, 5 min equals an hour, an hour equals three hours. They also talk to you way too much. Like if they serve you food, they stand around asking dumb questions while you try and eat. And they treat every transaction like a drug deal. Even if they are selling you a hotel room they act like it’s illegal or something. But in some ways, Indo is more innocent or something. There isn’t whores on every corner (in fact not one sign of that stuff anywhere), and the people don’t try and rip you off at every corner. So it took a while for me to get my head around that especially – that you can actually trust the local people. In Thailand, I’ve met only a handful of people that I was sure wouldn’t shoot me in the head for 2 dollars.

Anyway, this is the day we jumped over to Lembongan – an island off the South East tip of Bali. I love this island (and the two south of it) so much. The trip there was easy too. Had a nice lunch at this little fishing port while we waited for our boat.

HAS ANYONE TRIED RIDING ON A BOAT RECENTLY? That Lonely Island song just gets stuck in your head the whole time. It’s brutal.

After a narly boat ride over we arrive in this cute looking town on the water. It kinda reminds me of Greece for some reason. Maybe it’s the fisherman vibe and the boats everywhere. We get off the boat and find a sweater to recommend hotels. These particular sweaters are rad, they wait by the boat and take you to whatever kind of place you want and take their commission from the hotel. They aren’t tied to any particular place, so it works. We each get a cheap motorbike lift over to Mushroom Beach. This place is the place of dreams. A tiny little beach with a few boats in it and two mini headlands on either side. The water is so blue, trees so green and sand so white, it almost looks like it’s not real. It’s really quiet, and out to sea there are little reef surfing breaks and great places to snorkel.

We stay at the Mushroom Beach Bungalows – an Indonesian run little restaurant, bar and set of hotels. The staff were so nice, and there is a little massage parlour over looking the Ocean. The actual restaurant is on the mini-headland, meaning all day every day we had the perfect view of the beach and ocean. I never got sick of looking at that.

Unfortunately Rohan isn’t feeling well. But this is made hilarious because of his decision to come to Indonesia wearing a sailors hat every day. I think he planned on having it as a kinda funny gimmick, but the plan backfired due to every single Indo person believing themselves to be a funny prankster and constantly calling him “Captain”. Like everywhere. Every single Indo. And none of them said it once, they’d say it every 15 seconds over and over again. Just ruthlessly. The ultra-sweater Indo’s used it to zone in on him to sell him stuff. So we told one of the bar stuff he wasn’t feeling well, leading to them all calling him Captain Diarrhoea. I’ve never seen a place backfire as badly as the sailor hat gimmick.

Me and Ryan went down to a little bar on the water and grabbed a few beers and talked about how stoked we were to be there, and eventually when Captain D arrived we grabbed a buffet at said bar.

Everything at Mushroom Beach closes at 9pm and the lights all go out. So we had an early night.

Captain Diarrhoea

White like Gandalf

June 5th, 2009
One of the big concerns for me is that the NBA Finals started on this day and my beloved Lakers are the favourites to beat the Orlando Magic. It’s been seven years of disappointment for us, including two finals losses in that time – so I didn’t want to miss out on what could be Kobe Bryant’s redemption. But finding places to watch a game at 9am seemed like a bit of a stretch.

Nonetheless I get up early, hire a motorbike, and high tail it into town. I’m riding down the main strip and see a bar called Scooby Doo with a satellite on the roof. I walk in, sit down at the bar, and ask them if they have ESPN. BAM. Game is on, and tied at the end of the 1st quarter.

Throughout my life, I have watched maybe 800 games of NBA basketball, but I have never been as happy as watching this one. The bar is on the beach where waves are rolling in, surfers are 400 metres out doing crazy stuff, and the staff are getting into the game (asking lots of questions). Every time Kobe scored (which in the Third Quarter seemed like every possession) they would all chant KOBE KOBE KOBE. I had a few Bintangs and when we came away with a 100-75 win I was as happy as they come.

Rohan and Ryan arrived at the end and we decided to explore the island. We went North through a couple of crazy villages, and then we took a small boat ride into these crazy mangroves. On the way back we checked out all the beautiful beaches on the island. One in particular, Dream Beach, was spectacular. It’s the most Southern beach of Lembongan and has a bunch of bungalows and the freshest water. We swam a bit, had some lunch, and played a couple rounds of pool. Me and Ryan started getting obsessed with pool by this point, and we began an ongoing points system. After this day he was leading. Ryan 4, Lukel 2.

From there, we went South to the less touristy part of the island. We arrive at a yellow bridge, about a metre wide. The bridge takes you to the next island, and is made of wooden planks that feel really rickety. As soon as we ride over, the whole world changes. People here don’t see visitors a lot it seems, and as we ride past locals they all cheer us, while the little kids give us five and small shyly as we go past. Before long we meet these two 18 year old kids – Wyan and Comma. They are sharing a motorbike with big goofy smiles on their faces. Wyan sports a Misfits shirt, which he has no idea is a Misfits shirt.

We immediately got one really well with these two kids. They take us up to this headland and show us around. They show us a bunch of abandoned half built buildings which was meant to be a hotel. An Australian tried to build there but went bankrupt and never finished it. We walk through this tight bush walk onto a brutal headland and a little bay called Blue Bay – the bluest water you’ve ever seen with crazy waves smashing through it. We keep exploring and talking to the kids. Wyan tells me of his love for metal and plays me an Indo band he has on his phone – they sound like Creed but he thinks it’s as heavy as they come.

Wyan and Comma take us back to their Grandmothers shop, a dirty little shack in the middle of nowhere. We buy a bunch of beers and all sit out front. We shouted the boys some beers and before long a few of their friends come over and we all talk as best we can. None of them speak much English but we gather than they are just finished school and have a band. They are huge Blink 182 and Avenged Sevenfold fans, but haven’t heard much other music. I give Wyan my Ipod and put on Bring Me the Horizon – he loses his shit. He sat to the side listening to the whole album while headbanging. He throws up metal signs with his hands every time I look at him.

Eventually after a few beers they ask if we wanna jam with them at a small rehearsal studio in town. This leads to one of the funniest moments of my life.

We hire the studio for an hour, and Ryan starts playing Blink 182 songs on guitar while this 13 year old kid drums. Rohan learns the songs and Ryan sings. I occasionally also sing for songs like “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. Half the towns kids surround the studio wide eyed as Ryan cranks out all kinds of cheesy solos. He then busts out a rendition of “Gangsta’s Paradise” the rock version. After a while it turns into him teaching young kids to play guitar, and they are all happy as larry.

We make plans to meet the boys at the bridge at 11am and they will take us to another island and a crazy snorkelling place called “Crystal Bay”.

That night we went back to our hotel a little boozed. As we eat dinner, Rohan finds these two American dudes – Andy and Jason – and invites them over for a drink. Over dinner and a bunch more beers we get to know them. Andy is an ex-straightedge dude who is now hired to chase down computer hackers. He travels around gathering evidence for an independent company so they can sue people who break the law via computers. Jason is still edge, and is a graphic designer. Both sweet dudes, and Andy gives me a yellow bandana to keep my stupid hair out of my face.

We invite them on our snorkelling trip, and get another early night of sleep.

The view from Scooby Doo. That’s what was behind me as I watched the Lakers win.

Dream beach.

Said yellow bridge

Abandoned hotel.

Wyan!

Blue Bay. Wonder why?

Hanging outside the shop Clerks style.

Wyan rocking out to Bring Me the Horizon

Hahahaha oh shit.

Andy and Jason.

More to come tomorrow…