http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/lostwon/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from lostwon en-us Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:15:03 +0000 Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:15:03 +0000 Its kind of like apples without oranges Santa without his scary little elves the Lone Ranger without Tonto or in some obscure way God without El Diablo. The story of our time spent on the Indonesian island of Flores would not be complete without first mentioning the time we did on her neighbor Sumbawa. Having spent just under twentyfour hours on the Island That ShadeRain Forgot I am hard http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Flores/blog-339856.html It must have been about the time that the sky finally took a break from urinating on us that I actually woke up from my abbreviated cat nap. 3am. I had about another hour or so to toss around on the camp pad who was doing his best to impersonate a piece of cardboard and try to convince myself that I was actually getting some rest. Ever since the three of us climbed into our tent yesterday ev http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Lombok/blog-339849.html Bali. From my experiences Bali is kind of like that really popular girl that you know back in high school. She always seemed to have everybody convinced that she was just a little prettier than she really was but for some reason everybody still wanted to be with her. Fortunately for us Bali is not exactly like that girl in high school we all knew and it has some redeeming qualities. For me http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Bali/blog-334546.html A thought crossed my mind while sitting in the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur. Ive found that foreign embassies are the perfect places to just sit and think especially when you spend the entire day waiting for your ridiculously high number to be called in order to then find out your fate concerning entry into their country.ldquoIf all goes according to the new ldquoplanrdquo we sure http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Java/blog-332548.html Note After a severe and prolonged case of writers block I have decided that it will do no good to try and force myself to write a new entry. What follows is a collection of postcards that I wrote to an imaginary friend of mine while traveling through Sulawesi. I hope that you can follow along and make sense of the babble. Ill get my act together one of these days.Hey Suess long time no co http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Sulawesi/blog-318486.html ldquoFarang SongrdquoThe words proudly rolled off the tongue belonging to our most recently acquired Thai friend with the excitement of a child learning his first dirty word in another language. It took only a second for my attorney to realize that our 5rsquo6rdquo middleaged companion had stretched his inadequately short arm over both of our laps and into the glove box. Retrieving fro http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Central-Thailand/Bangkok/blog-287274.html Chapter 8 In which the author and his redneck trucker buddy Beergut find themselves in yet another strange land full of all new foreign markings customs hard to pronounce words sights and gastrointestinal treats. The latter of which possessing the capability to not only scald you on the http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Central-Thailand/Ko-Chang/blog-282466.html Not much more than a few weeks have passed since the General and I found ourselves happily sucking down substandard Singaporian swill and stuffing our faces with Roti Cani in the capital city of Malaysia. ldquoHow did I get here This land of ancient temples endless rice paddies and unexploded ordinence.rdquoIt turns out that three days two bus rides a twentysix hour train journey m http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/Central/Kampong-Chhnang/blog-275356.html Its almost like it could be the plot of a really illplanned b movie. You know like the type that goes straight to video and never quite seems to hit theatres. Maybe like a Kurt Douglas flick that you think you have heard of but when you rent and watch it it becomes frighteningly apparent why you have never heard of it. This particular piece of cinematic wizardry might be called something lik http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Sabah/Semporna/blog-266618.html There is something shall we say unnerving about being completely defenseless in a city more known for its violence than its colorful mixture of native cultures. I guess that if you think about it if you open the blender that is the city of Port Moresby and you throw in a few thousand immigrants from some 800 distinctly different cultures add a heaping portion of poverty a good amount of di http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Papua-New-Guinea/Milne-Bay/Alotau/blog-262824.html As I stand on the end of the dock in Seghe the most southern point on New Georgia Island with all my worldly posessions straped to my back I can feel hat all too familiar feeling ball up inside of my stomach. I recognize it instantly as a twinge of insecurity as I watch the Solomon Express slowly turn and with a belch of unhealthy black soot groan away from me. A desparate reapprasal of our http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Solomon-Islands/New-Georgia-Islands/blog-256908.html Its Magic After staring clueless at a miniature sickle shaped blade for nearly 20 minutes my attorney has taken his life into his own hands and plunged the blade into a can of Solomon Island tuna. Food This act of courage has ended our current diet consisting of mainly bread and doxycycline. Ahhh protein Now that I have a full stomach and can think somewhat clearly again I have begun to re http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Solomon-Islands/New-Georgia-Islands/blog-249783.html Wersquore going down.As I looked out the tiny window of the even smaller Air Vanuatu Twin Otter all I could see were the hundreds of coconut palm trees lined up in perfect rows getting closer and closer at a speed not unlike the speed attained by a downed WWII DC3. A quick glance at my attorney Buckskin Benn revealed a look of calm and sedation that only people who jump out of aircraft after http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Vanuatu/Malekula/blog-247159.html Ohh man Im brand new to this fancy schmancy blogging thing but Im going to give it my darndest. Ill try to use this format in order to let any of my family andor friends basically anybody who cares to read some sometimes incoherent babble and waste 10 15 min of their perfectly good time know what is going on around this side of the planet. I hope that I dont let ya down... Here goes....We http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Vanuatu/Efate/Port-Vila/blog-240579.html