Two Weeks Down

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Hey Yall, so I obviously have not written as much as I thought i would because email is practically non-existent here. As a result of the lapse though, as any of you who really know me could predict, this will be long. You could read it in installments, as if I wrote it that way, or you can think of it as a non-pharmacological sleep aid. And excuse the lack of punctuation, caps, proper spelling, this keyboard is terrible.

Starting July 8th?? we finally started to travel. None of that tourist, shipped-from-bus-to-ferry-to-bemo-hold-your hand crap, it finally felt like traveling. to the locals, of course, we are still tourists, but I finally felt that truly alive sensation. The previous six days on the Gili Islands were incredible, don't get me wrong. there is nothing like papa smurf blue skies, rainbow coral, and crashing, metronome waves to chizzle away at the freneticism of USMLEs. And nothing can take the productivity out of your step like hanging out with a gili local named Chess whith island in his bones and an asthmatic laugh that says "ya mon."That being said, it was time to go.
i would also like to translate what I meant when I said "started to travel." When translated it basically means "shit hit the fan." Actually it was not that bad and the damage was mostly self-limited, in large part due to the fact that the electricity is spotty here and most of the excrement was left to drip slowly off the fan blades.
To the point. We left Bangsal near the gillis at "quarter after-ourl-little-wooden-boat-that-could-and-little-boat-motor-that-could-barely-barely-avoided-stalling-and-surfing-the-feef-upsidedown" o'clock (I don't have a watch and so have to refer to the time in relation to incidents). We negotiated a bemo (kinda like the moped of buses) for a decent price but were only allowed on after we were sworn to secrecy as the poor bastards in front of us paid double, a wopping 3 american. In Bayon, a few hours later, we fanangled a public bemo (kinda the moped of bemos) to labuhan pandan. We planned to stay the night at a bungalow recommendd to us by the brother of the owner who lived on gilli meno. I learned two things on the trip to labuhan pandan. first, i have always thought myself to be especially infexible, but thanks to the seating arrangment I found that not only can i touch my toes buyt i can wrap my knees around my ears if necessary. the second thing i learned from all the locals we talked to (unsolicited) was that Siola bungalows (our destination) was definitly the place to be. When we arrived six bone crushing hours later, something told us it was not. Namely, the owner, who said it was closed and the throngs of laughing and pointing children. His neighbor, however, was definitely open for business, he said, so we set off down the beach (after 15 minutes of male posturing with an "english teacher" out to build himself up in front of his students). Three kilometers later we reached his neighbor's estabilshment famished and excited to put our bags down. We were greeted by a friendly man (and hundreds more laughing eyes) who proptly told us that "this bugalow is not for tourists" but he knew a " great place 3 km down the beach" and pointed in the direction we come from. Just then we way the same obnoxious teacher and his little pack of 10 year old hoodlums appear seemingly fro nowhere and we decided it was tiem to get the F out of dodge. At the main road we jumped a public transport, an open air truck bed with two facing benches filled with smiling old ladies and produce, and wedged ourselves in an dunder a pile of papayas the size of elephant testicles. The 8 km trip took 45 minutes as we had to back down a dirt trail to stock the roof with bundles of sticks, which i helped them load. this elicited squeals and incredulous looks from the betel nut gallery (the Indonesian equivalent of a penut gallery; betel nut is a delightful red pasty stimulant chewed by oldladies all over SE Asia which makes the chewers mouch look like they brushed their teeth with beet red oil-based paint). I don't think they had ever seen whitey work before.
We arrived at the turn off to a guest house owned by an Indonesian-Kiwi couple an hour before sunset. This time we were informed that this bungalow was closed by the burned out shell of a restaurant and stripped down bamboo huts. We were soon to learn that there was a nearby place where we could stay, or at least that is what we assumed was meant by the rapid stream of Bahasa Indonesianya spoken by the beautiful teenager dressd in full muslim garb who found us standing among the ashes. She took us to her home where a hilarious, if pathetic, attempt to communicate with her mother and multiple sisters ensued. From the side of the estrogen soaked family there was something that resembled group schrades although there was plenty of banter to go along with it; on our side arduous, mispronounced indonesian dripped out, most of it completely issing its mark. the woman of the house kept pointing to a three walled structure, which was met with dismayed laughter from out escorts sisters. Not wanting to boot a family of girls out of their beds we politely declined and then did the "where is the bus" dance in an attempt to get out of there. throughout this discourse the patriach of the household stood back with his arms crossed and the same reservation I'm convinced men vastly outnumbered by women have everywhere in the world, the look that says "hey, don't look at me, I'm staying out of this." All the Islamic paternalistic dominence in Indo is no match for 7-8 women in one family.
We finally found a place to stay in the harbor, abandoning our previous plan of arranging transport to one of the surrounding deserted islands for a couple days of living off the sea. Even so, it was a good day, and there are over 17,000 island in indonesia to explore. the next morning we arranged a bus to take us across on the ferry to the island of Sumbawa and then the 9 hour drive to Bima. It was a beautiful drive across Sumbawa, especially since we shelled outy the extra three dollars to get a real bus with reclining seats. the sunset was amazing that evening, the best of the trip so far. That evening we listened to SaulWilliams tell us how it was while watching the full mon rise over 2500 meter tall volcanic mountainside and i couldn't imagine a better place to be at that moment. We arrived in bima late that evening and founda guesthouse that an extended family of cocroaches were gracious enough to share with us, even though they were already leasing to a small flock of mosquitos and we had not given them enough warning to change the sheets. the next morning we set out to find internet access so our mothers would not run out of clean sets of pants (I know laundry is not your favorite chore mom) It turs out internet is a bit hard to find here, and at every place we were told it was broken. one moto driver then offered to take us to the school to use their internet as he knew one of the officials. Assuming school was on holoiday we both hopped on and went with him, only to find that school was still very much in session as we walked once again in front of a sea of staring teenage eyes and "hey misters" (Since entering the more muslim parts of indonesia ihave learned that i remind everyone of someone named mister and Lynda reminds those same people of a very well washed window). And, once again, feeling like douche bags and 'very important tourists', we found that the internet was also broken here due to cybercrime (I am not certain whether the indonesian version of tom selleck was referring to hackers or a government sensorship crackdown). it was becoming apparent that there was no internet in the whole town of 200,000 + so we decided to head to SApe to catch the ferry to flores before we got any offers to disrupt a university or military estabishment.
the ferry to flores was a 9 hour trip on a rusted old two story bateau that looked like it was on its last sea legs. the atmosphere on board was similar to the other ferries we had been on since arriving in indo. the air smelled of fried noodles and was thick with the smoke from the pungent clove cigarettes that seem to be the favorite here (maybe because they cost 30 cents a pack). There was the group of adolescent boys singing and playing guitar for tips in front of our cabin. And, of course, there was the flurry of peddlers running around peddling their products before the ferry left port. they sold bababas, fried noodles and rice, eggs, clothing, jewelry, wind-up monkeys banging on little drums (that one was tempting), and anything else you could think of. There was on especially persistent salesman trying to sell me a traditional male muslim hat (not sure what their called) that he called "osama bin ladens." I bought a watch from him for 3.50 (@3:30 pm). When the ferry left port we went downstairs and set up my travel hammock among the trucks, motor bikes and produce, and slept almost the duration of the journey to Labuanbajo.
We reached the port around midnight to find every establiment in town full. We were lucky enough to run into a friendly and honest young guy who owned a tourist info shop down the street who offered to let us post up on the floor in his back room. And as coincidence whould have it, it turned out to be the very place recommended to us by the roaches in bima (once again owned by his brother). Apparently, though, like our previous family tip-off in labuan pandan, the roaches had largely abandoned the 8 by 8 square of tile, undoubtedly due to the noise pollution from the hoards of mosquitos entering through the whole in the floor. Still, it was a place to sleep, and nothing some earplugs couldn't handle.
The next morning (July 13th?), we woke up early and hopped on a boat to Saraya Kecil (Small Saraya), a small island about 1.5 mles in circumference one hour away by boat with only 10 grass thatch bungalows and a fishing village of about 50 people on the opposite side. In short Saraya was paradise, and exactly what we needed. It was full of many of the 'ests of our trip. The sand was teh whitest and softest, the snorkeling was the best I'd ever seen (up until that piont), the snapper in the restaurant was the flakiest, the sunsets were teh redest, and the rising moons were the biggest. The island also had the most interesting wake up call II'd ever had. To start with there was a family of goats that lived under our bungalow (it was on stilts), and the kids in the family yelled "maaam, maaam!" louder than a 4 year old American kid at walmart and more punctual than the local roosters. What really made ti strange though, were the three Asian deer that were tied up 20 meters away for no apparent reason who chimed in with the goats with what you you imagine the sound of a 200 kg mouse. We spent most of the three days rejuvinating and snorkelling. I have no idea how many species of fish and coral were there but the number was no doubt in the multiple hundreds. We saw sting rays with huge flourescent blue spots, black fin reef sharks, lion fish, large and aggressive bump-head parrotfish, eels, and a huge assortment of other colors and intricate designs. The only thing we didn't see were teh sea turtles there were purported to be there, and we had already seen two at Gili Meno.
We headed back to the mainland after three days to book a trip to the Komodo islands to see the dragons. THe same morning we hopped a two day trip, starting with Rinca and ending on Komodo Island proper. IN Rinca we saw about 10 dragons on our 2 hour guided hike. They're incredibly lazy bastards but striking nonetheless. The way they kill their prey (which include huge water buffalo, wild horses, monkeys, wild pigs, and in a couple cases, humans) is they lay beside game trails and use their camo to strike at the legs of passing prey to disable them, and then sit back in the sun and wait until they succome to the infection from their dangerous oral flora. I'll try to post pics at some piont.
That night we camped on the boat next to a mangrove that was full of fruit bats teh size of your average hawk and played with the abundent phosphorescence which seemed to mirror the incredible southern hemisphere stars. Although that night and the dragons were a trip, the highlight of Komodo Nat'l Park was again the snorkling the next day. We first went to Red Beach, which was beautiful and every bit the world class snorkelling it is touted to be. The best, though, was a huge reef we went to in the middle of the bay where we were lucky enough to swim with a huge 3 meter long manta ray.
We're back in Labuan Bajo now. We are heading to Bajawa (on Flores) to do a trek through some traditional Ngari villages. They have a culture that is completely based aroudn circular symbolism, with a sacrificial alter in the center of huge circular agricultural centers.

Well, that was ridiculously long, even by my standards. I hope I was able to contribute to some good sleep. I guess part of the reason I went into so much painful detail was less that I am delusional enough to think that you all care that much about my daily activities than it was to impart how long the days really are here. I've only been here for two weeks and two days and it feels like 10 times that much. Also, I just realize how much of it seems like I am complaining about living situations, etc, that are really that bad, but I don't intent to do so. I am having a great trip, even more so on the days things don't go as planned. I hope all is well back in the states or wherever you are right now. The best of luck with your rotations, work, school, and relaxation of your own. Take it easy, Andy
p.s. with any luck i'll get some pics posted, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

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