I'm a little bit in love with Indonesia...

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Yes!! I completed the whole boat trip without any sea sickness! Time to celebrate with a shower (first one in 4 days, washing in the sea is not quite the same) some proper food and a Bintang. Paradise bar was certainly that with its burgers and reggae band. The plan when we were on land, well I wanted to explore Flores for a few days, which unfortunately meant saying goodbye to Hilka after an amazing 3 weeks of being together. Had such a good time with her and definitely made a friend for life. The most refreshing thing about her, was her positive outlook in everything but in a very realistic way. It was infectious and a lot of people could benefit from being around her for a few days. Lots of laughter, lots of stories shared, amazing girl. I think Hangover 3 and Mr Chow will forever be out movie with 'I believe I can fly' being 'our' song.

I met two guys on the boat trip, Rich who is English and Raymond who is Dutch, both also wanted to explore Flores so we planned to stay together for a while. Ray and I hired a scooter to explore on the first day and we found a really beautiful waterfall/canyon. By the time we started the 30minute walk to reach the waterfall the heavens opened with crazy big drops of rain. As we were wet we decided we may as well jump in, well I had to pretty much be dragged off the edge as it was a little higher then I liked but I got down in the end. By the time we had got back the rain had stopped to unveil some really beautiful scenery, with a lush green trees in every direction. The dominant religion in this region was Christianity with some really cool looking churches, they reminded me of the gospel churches you see in America. It was also a poorer looking place with not a lot going on compared to other places I'd seen so far in Indonesia. The drive back involved a lot of stopping to take pictures of the hills as we descended. I will attach some pictures where you can see the sun going down in the gap between several islands on the horizon.

The next day Rich sorted out a road trip for the 3 of us to see the 3 lakes on the other side of the island and take in a bit more of Flores. The car arrived to pick us up and the driver had obviously decided to make it a themed car. It was definitely a reggae car, number plate: 'one love'. We prepared for the 7hours that it took to get to various sights including an Arak farm and some beaches along the way. Wow that stuff is strong and I expected a whole host of ingredients but actually it is just made from coconuts and we saw how they get it from the cocnuts, which included a 12 year old scaling up a 15m tree to get the liquid. Whilst we were there I played football with some of the local boys and dazzled them with my keepy ups! Rich, who I had only known for a short time, got to experience the competitive side of me during this time. This was due to the enforced rule that we weren't allowed to stop until we had done a good stint of keepy ups. Fortunately, he was a rugby player so had some competitive edge as well and didn't think I was a complete weirdo! That night we stayed in a local town and we went out for some dinner armed with a bottle of Arak we ended up getting quite drunk and finding some locals playing a little street 'gig' with a few guitars and a ukulele. They were unbelievable. It was the Flores version of a Will Owen/Paddy Mills party after Mcdonalds and Second Bridge!

We finally arrived the next day at a really local village as our base to go to the 3 lakes from, which we needed to do at 4.30am? This village was really beautiful and green with farms and small houses spread along the road that ran through the village. We arrived for sunrise at the 3 lakes which gets its name because they are 3 different colours: Blue, Turquoise & black this is due to the minerals in the lakes. Was very surreal to see the different colours of the lakes from the viewpoint we climbed to. It's a shame we couldn't have gone to the edge of the lakes but this wasn't possible. Apparently the deepest lake is 100m deep, not sure I'd be keen to dive to the bottom of that one! We had breakfast and prepared ourselves for the 14 hour drive back, thank goodness for laptops and movies. It was an epic drive back to Labuan Bajo which included us breaking down twice, one of the times we drove with the hand brake as our method of stopping, which was interesting. We stopped in a village to fix it and I think it was a big moment for them as I am not exaggerating when I say about 50 people gathered in the car park. Not sure they see too many white people! Luckily, our driver was a mechanic as well so it didn't stop us getting back. Rich had wanted to stay and doing some diving whereas Ray and I wanted to head back to Lombok so we decided to brave the land and sea route back: ferry (7hrs) bus (8hrs) ferry (2hrs) bus (3&1/2hrs) all for £15! It wasn't too bad and we were entertained by a local man who wanted pictures with us and had really long fingers!? To kill some time I also tried to learn some Dutch so Ray tried to teach me body parts, my favourite word is the Dutch for eyelashes - vimper, don't know why but it makes me laugh every time. It was really good to travel with Ray for lots of reasons, one of which was the fact he can speak some Indonesian which really helped in lots of situations and the local people really appreciate it.

We got back to Kuta Lombok and hung out at the beach, surfed and just chilled out but based in one place which was really good after we'd spent the past 10days zooming around from one place to the next. Surfing was fun even when I managed to smack the board in my chin at one point which wasn't my finest moment. Whilst waiting for some waves a guy heard I was English (I was apologizing to a girl I whacked with my board?!) and he started speaking to me and it transpires that we know some of the same people. Such a small world! My final day saw us spending the afternoon with a local family Ray knew and eating dinner with them. The whole family and other members of the village came and we ate the watermelon they grow and drank coffee before having some fish and rice. I even embraced the eating with my hand element of dinner. Was fun to just get mucky and shovel it all in!! After dinner we headed back to Kuta to have some beers on the beach as it was our final night together. We sat and reminisced about how much we had managed to do in the last 2 weeks!

Well that's 3 months in Asia done. Without a doubt I have fallen in love with Indonesia. The people - who sometimes just touch you on the arm to touch a white person and call you beautiful (yes that happened to little old me several times ha), the beaches, the place, the surf, the lifestyle, the culture. I genuinely felt safe, welcome and happy every day I was there. I was laughing to myself (sure people sat next to me now think I'm weird) but the whole travelling by 'myself' has so far involved me having 2 nights alone in 3 months! I really can't express how lucky I feel to have met the people I have whilst in Asia. I am confident I wouldn't have had such an amazing time if it wasn't for them. I know I will see them again for sure. Crikey welling up over here. So Australia for 3 weeks is up next. I have a work placement for ten days in the Blue Mountains in a hostel. I will work for 4 hours a day in return for accommodation and food. Pretty ideal as it is based in the National Park which is beautiful from what I remember and good for my budget. The owner said the recent bush fires have put people off coming to the area which has led to very few visitors to the hostel. So obviously getting me in there will encourage the masses, think that's their plan :-)

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