Flores to Lombok

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Hello! God i never have the time to do this... and i forgot to mention about the beauty of Hinduism, the hilarity of dave's instant sunburn, and probabaly a million more things!! We did do more than go to bars. Honest.

Anyway, from bali we fles to Flores, which is a few islands east. We just went to the port town of Luabuan bajo (or something similar), and from there we got ourselves on a 4 day boat trip westwards to Lombok, calling in on Rinca and Komodo to wander the jugle-y land and see the dragons (oooOOOOoooo). They are in fact pretty massive. and pretty dangerous - you're not menat to go too close... which dave neglected to realise when he tried to take a photo, not realising that the camera distance, and the real distance are not the same thing.

The trip, in a little ramshackle boat, crewed by about 20 Indonesians, got off to a dubious start when we got stranded in the fiirst place we went with busted motor actually i can't remember what it was, before dave corrects me). They had to send off two of the guys in a little emergency boat, well a canoe, to paddle off back to Flores! Hours it took, but you know what, having been standed on the M25 before, i really didn't mind swimming in the clear sea, with a boat and a beautiful beach, and the sun shining. Dave was happy too... he played daredevil games with younger boys, jumped of boats and trying to do somersualts. The little indonesian boys kicked his arse every time.

The best bit for me was snorkelling at Red beach. I snorkelled in mexico, but this was amazing! Saw all kinds of crazy fish, all different colours.... we saw a ray, and purple starfish... my best though was this massive black round one with a florescent blue outline, and MASSIVE bright red lips. Are you imagining it now? Are you feeling it eh? The beautiful imagery was ruining for me, as it will be for you, when the crew returned from spear fishing, and dumped a bowl of wrigthing multi-coloured fish in front of us. This would be our lunch. MMMMmmmmm. It was cool though always eating what was caught that day - fresher than tesco's eh?

Ooo! Also guess what we saw? No, try again. Almost right.... Give up? (haha i'm so funny its like we're really talking but we're not. Ha. Yes...) DOLPHINS! Bloody loads of them! Jumping around, swimming under the boat. Crazy bastards. I got a few crappy snaps, which i put on snapfish, but I should be getting sent some better ones soon - you can hardly wait i know....

Those of you that know me well may be thinking, hmmmm, doesn't karen get seasick? What an amazing feat to overcome such an affliction - Hoorah! Yeh, not quite! I was ok for the first few days, but on the last day, when we hit the proper sea and it got all rough, i did feel a little er 'off'. But you'll be delighted to know that i did not vomit. Good to know eh? Another thought for you to dwell on, something i want to share with you my dearest friends (and family), the toilet on the boat was a hole into the sea.

I'm well at one with nature.

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