Just another hellride (Gili to Labuanbajo)

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With England crashing and burning out of the World Cup the dream once again was well and truly over. I gave that side way to much faith, a shocking set of performances. But in doing so this gave me a chance to sober up again and move on and take part in some slightly more productive ventures. For the past week I have been based in the island of Gili Trawangan. A beautiful little island that draws a fair crowd, the kind of crowd you really need to enjoy a game of football at a bar with. Had some good times here but definitely time to move on. My plan being to head to Flores. Initially wanting to fly but that was ruled out as I would have to trudge all the way back to Bali in order to do so, I might as well just get on with it I thought knowing full well that the proceeding journey ahead was going to be one big fucking cunt of a bastard. The journey would take me no less than 36 hours, ferry-bus-motorcycle-bus-ferry-bus-ferry. A lot of pissing about to be had.

Getting off after the 45 minute crossing to Bangsal harbour via boat just across the way from Gili you get mobbed by people pretending they are part of your ticketing company even when they are not, trying to lead you a way to ride their horse and cart to the bus stop a short walk away. I hung about a few minutes to see where the beer swigging masses from my boat were headed, a few got picked off but if you keep an eye on the majority you can get some bearings as to where the hell you are meant to go to pick up your next transportation fix. In doing so I got a bus to Mataram where my arm was used as a pillow and a driblet by some English pisshead. Mataram being the capital of Lombok, bustling just as Denpassar of Bali was, and ugly. The sooner to get out the better, unfortunately I had a 5 hour wait until the public bus would leave for the ferry terminal to connect to Sumbawa the next island along. Just as with the Philippines, Indonesia being a collection of islands spanning a country it can be a bit of a dickache to navigate, problems occur and waiting around is just something you have to bear with.

In Mataram I was given a motorbike ride to the bus station on the other side of town, well I presume it was the other side of town, with no bearings of the place it’s kind of hard to judge, but in my head...it definitely felt as if it was on the other side of town. There I was linked up with two female western travellers. One I remember meeting in Gili, Natalie, a French Italian, she was getting boned by this Russian guy called Ivan on the Gili Islands, I seriously must have stayed on Gili way too long, knowing all the inside goss of the island, locals calling out my name and greeting me as I pass, when this happens you know that its most definitely time to move on. But anyway I bought up the subject of Ivan to Natalie and she pretended not to know what I was talking about, it was definitely her though, for that there is no doubt, I never forget a face. Accompanying Natalie was Milla from Sweden, a bit of a stunner, quite a punkette look to her, ear full of rings and studs and shit in her face, I definitely would. Not much of a conversationist though, a bit drull, maybe one of those birds that knows she’s so damn fit that she didn’t need to waste her time talking to skinhead Englishman like myself, not that she knew I was English, she never once queried my origins. My first conversation with her went a little bit like this:

Me: Ah, so err...where you from then?
Milla: Thailand
Me: Oh, what do you do there?
Milla: I work in a dog sanctuary
(I’d actually heard of this place)
Me: The one on Koh Tao?
Milla: Koh Samui
(doh!)
Me: Right, right yeah, how long did you work there for?
Milla: 10 months (begrudgingly, not actually once looking in my general direction, I was killing her, ok just one more I thought)
Me: So where abouts do you come from originally
Milla: Scandinavia
(Jesus can you be a bit more specific, so I just guessed, she had to be)
Me: Sweden?
Milla: Ya.

Ok your turn I thought, I’ve just excelled myself, but it never came, just a redundant and near deadly silence, more silent than a moth corpse under a bed. Returning the same boring questions is just part of the travelling ethos, I mostly hate it myself, meeting people and drilling out the same questions and answers, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles, its courtesy, that’s what it is. But if she wanted silence then silence it was, that’s fine by me. Sniff my exhaust mate.

Anyway with some hours to kill me and the females went for a little walk around the sweaty bus station area. A lot of prying eyes upon us and random hollering, I got the impression that the locals thought I was a little bit of a cunt for parading around with two attractive women, you can just tell from the glint in some of their eyes. That same glint that is given out anywhere when for example you would see some guy that looks like a complete dickface and he’s got a really fit bird on his arm, ‘What the fuck’s she doing with him?’ or ‘How the fuck did he manage that?’, those kind of looks. So I guess on this occasion, I portray the dickface.

When our bus arrived I found myself inconveniently placed on the back row of 3 seats, 2 Indonesian chaps stuffed by the side of me, to my left the bogs, behind me a collection of bags with oddments sticking into the back of my head every time I leant back, boxes and bags on the floor so my feet were up in a higher space to what they should be. The engine started and on came the Karaoke music, loud as you like, brilliant. Another problem being at the back is that you are above the engine or something and it gets really hot and stuff as well as also getting a bit fumy from both the exhaust and the shitter to my said left. I put on my iPod to drown out the god awful Indonesian music, it doesn’t get any better the Asian music, anywhere I go, just total vomitus pap. The toilet door also failing to work properly, swinging open all the time to reveal some gnarly state of affairs, also when out of use it would clang to and throw, nobody really bothered about it, stuff like that for me just irritates, I got angry and tried to fix it at one point but then someone wanted to go for slash so they fucked it all up again, so I gave up, defeated, by a toilet door. The bowling style bag close to my feet an issue, when it was put down everyone seemed to keep looking at it as if it was something amazingly significant, like a bomb, a trip to martyrdom, this was just a foolish judgement, but I decided to dwell on it for some time all the same. Definitely a journey with a lot of small things that seem to build up and up to the point where you just want to snap. When the Karaoke session had finished its second run through some guy in front decided to get out his mobile phone music, I can’t stand that shit either, you get all this shit from chavs back home, nobody wants to listen to your crap tunes, keep them to yourself, their awful, never once in my life have I heard a chav put on a tune on their mobile and I’ve thought, ‘yeah this guys cool, he’s got it going, I wish I was his boyfriend’. If you do things like that, no matter where abouts in the world you are from then you’re just a twat. What else, oh yeah, the toss bean next to me couldn’t stay awake and his head was thrashing about all over the gaff, needless to say he ended up kipping on my shoulder, this however I was beginning to get used to, I must just have a naturally comfortable shoulder. I tried the art of sleeping on the bus myself a couple of times but to no avail, the moment I begin to nod off I smash my face into the window, and that’s just no use to me.

Another thing that keeps somewhat religiously sat at the back of my mind on such epically long journeys is when and where am I going to have to unload my bowls. One of my biggest fears is the squat job, especially after some downright gruelling experiences in China, squatjobs suck. I just want to sit down and relax and let the contents of my colon slide out with grace and dignity, not put all the concentration and strain into crouching down using muscles and anal directives to make sure that I deposit my anal birth matter into its correct location or that the grimy water doesn’t splash all up my jaxy. I know that this is how it has been played for years but it really is quite the challenge having a shit out here, I feel like I need a diploma for it.

Arriving at the ferry terminal linking Lombok with the next island Sumbawa I was pretty damn hungry, only having had a measly banana pancake for breakfast. Whenever a bus stops for a while and remains stagnant piles of people flood aboard selling their wares, I saw a lady with some homemade crisps, I fancied them, but I wanted to challenge her for them, I was determined to win one of these bartering competitions. I was going to settle for 3,000IDR. I pointed at the crisps, ‘How much?’ I enquired doing the bunts gesture with my finger.
‘5’ she replied
‘3’ I backfired
‘5’
‘3’
‘5’
‘ok, no sorry’ we both lost face and she wondered off. My stomach still starving. I waited about 5 minutes then a guy came along offering similar wares. ‘How much?’ I enquired again.
‘8’
‘8!!! 8!!! I’ll give you 5’
‘8’
‘5’ looking him in the eyes, never letting them go.
‘7’ Wow, this was working, I kept looking directly into his eyes.
‘5’
‘6’ nice, nice I thought.
‘5’ raising my voice ever so slightly almost feeling my own intimidation.
‘5’ he said, WOO! I win! Kind of.
I gave the good man his 5,000 IDR and I got munching, they tasted like shit.

Whilst I was doing my hardcore save a penny bartering Natalie and Milla had left the bus for a slash. They had been gone a good 10 minutes or so when the bus started off without them. ‘Shit’ I said to myself, I waited 4 seconds, ‘shit’ I said to myself again, I should...might have to say...do something...me! Or I could just sit here and keep saying ‘shit’ to myself on an average of every 4 seconds, yet that could only solve a certain amount of nothingness. I looked out the window to see if I could scope them out, ok...ok...I couldn’t see them, what the fuck were they doing? I’m going to have to tell the bus driver to stop the bus...I don’t want to be doing that, that’s a bit rich for me, I started to slowly walk down the aisle scoping as I went. Kind of hoping that something ingenious would happen, and then it did, the bus suddenly stopped and the girls they came a running, good good, I sat down and eat some more shit crisps. Taking photos they were apparently.

The ferry crossing between Lombok and Sumbawa took about 2 hours, again I found myself idyllically placed next to a chav with his gay mobile phone music blaring out, this music was really weird sounding though, it had loads of chicken sound effects in it, like some sort of chicken hard house rave kibosh, awful. Arrival on Sumbawa saw us rush off the ferry to find our bus, then away we went at great gusto, the bus driver driving like a complete cock, there were 3 buses and we was at the rear of the bunch and they were basically racing on these really narrow shitty little roads trying to overtake each other, it was utter madness. Not giving a toss for the safety of the passengers on board, and it was dark, fuck knows what was going through their heads. Then we approached some sort of motorcycle gang that looked like they were wearing KKK cloaks, they had big tree branches in their hands and were bashing the bus as we went past, as we did pass there was a massive fire on the side of the road, I could feel the intensity of the heat as we whizzed by, this was all in about the first 3 minutes of being on Sumbawa, the place seemed like a complete madhole. After those initial first moments of madness however the Sumbawan action did actually calm down somewhat.

About an hour and a half or so on the road in Sumbawa and we stopped for some munch. Here I thought I would try my words of wisdom on Milla again.

Me: So, what’s your favourite Thai dish? (Pathetic, fucking pathetic)
Milla: Massaman Curry

I was kind of testing almost to see if she would ask me mine when I realised that my favourite Thai dish was also actually that of Massaman Curry, and I make a mean one at that, about the only thing I can make. But by the time I had realised this a few seconds had passed and I found myself thinking about how my favourite dish was Massaman Curry but not actually verbally announcing this fact, so much so that the time to say ‘Mine too’ was very close to exceeding, too much thinking young man I thought, then I saw a man doing something with a bottle on the other table, couldn’t quite work out his motive and then there was a cat laying down underneath a table and I think it might have had kittens with her.

Me: Yeah me too
Milla: What?

My response time was way out, she now didn’t know what I was going on about.

Me: err...nothing.

Another serious bombing on my behalf. She just looked disgusted every time I opened my mouth to her as if she wanted to vomit all over me, which in some circles would have been kind of hot, I think the Swedes are quite into all that as well, but at this moment in time, that’s not my bag man, that’s not how I roll yall. But whatever with her. But I do feel on serious bombings such as this that I need to prove myself in some way, like scoring a goal for England or something and then coming back and saying ‘did you see that? I just scored 8 goals for England in 1 minute, did ya see? Likemelikemelikeme!’ But I had to come to terms with the fact that my football career if you can call it that has been defunct for years now. Maybe I could work on saving some villagers in a fatal landslide accident and then track her down with newspaper clippings giving evidence of my heroism, ‘look I’m awesome, I pulled this fat baby out of the rubble all by myself! likemelikemelikeme’. Just got to find me some landslides and some helpless villagers, that’s all.

But anyway getting back to the order of realism, as well as daydreaming I found myself sub-consciously speaking to Natalie, who incidentally would chew the ears off a dead dick...I mean dog. So I was content to let her gas to me about all things spiritual, she’s in her late 30’s I’d say, travelled all over the gaff, quite an interesting woman, a bit of an oddball at times, but that’s ok, look at who’s writing these words after all!

After munchton we hit the road again, if you can call it that, couldn’t see a thing outside as it was dark but I was pretty sure we was climbing some very dodgy and twisting narrow roads into the mountains, and when we was coming down the mountain it pretty much felt like we was just tumbling down the mountain. I’m kind of glad that it was in fact night as in daylight it would have been quite the white knuckler, I wouldn’t have had to worry about where I would have to be laying my faecal matter that’s for sure, oh look I’ve graciously lowered the tone again, fancy that!

A couple of hours in and I awoke to Milla sat down on the steps near the toilet looking hellishly sick. ‘Shit, she don’t look good’ I thought, ‘I wonder what’s wrong’, before noticing that I HAD JUST WOKE UP! That means that scientifically I had been sleeping, brilliant so I closed my eyes and tried to go back to sleep ignoring the fact that Milla looked like she was going to pass out, I just pretended in my head that I didn’t notice her. What a man!

Nope, it was no good, several seconds past and guilt struck me, I would have to be James Bond, I had no choice in the matter. So I went to see what was up, she said she had been vomiting the past week and wasn’t too sure what was wrong with her. I thought maybe she’s got malaria, but didn’t tell her that though. I gave her a plastic bag for vomitus, some bogroll and a bottle of water and the old compassionate pat on the back ‘there there petal, it will be alright’, then let her get on with it. So it wasn’t me that made her feel sick after all, she’d been sick a while, that’s alright then, self righteous confidence restored I tried to go back to sleep, but couldn’t, I was fully awake again.

We got to a place called Bima where we transferred to a local bus, filled to the brim with bodies and cargo, people and crap just crammed everywhere, Natalie curled into the foetal position and went to sleep just as she had pretty much been doing the entire journey. Hard to believe her and Milla where friends, she didn’t really seem too bothered about her friends illness. Milla sat on the steps with the door open puking up, I was just behind holding onto her bag strap across her back to prevent her falling out onto the road due to all round insane bus driving. An old lady just above her and next to me witnessing this took a turn for the worse at seeing the site of puke, she began to gag, great I was about to be rewarded with a steaming great pile of Indonesian vomit on my head. However I escaped, she puked in her own hat. I thought this was kind of funny and was struggling to hold back some form of laughter, the fact that it smelt so gross countered my urge to laugh at this poor ladies misfortune. All the while someone’s cock rubbing up against my leg....cockerel that is.

Roughly 2 hours passed and we arrived at the port town of Sape where I would take a ferry to Labuan Bajo in Flores. Milla and Natalie would remain here, Milla needing to get some sleep and ideally a doctor. What became of these two I shall never know, these are the unsolved mysteries of travelling. You meet so many people for short and long term periods whilst on the road that it all becomes part and parcel of the travelling experience. Exchanging both stories and advice for the journey ahead, you stick together for a while then you disband, sometimes reuniting again en route at some point, sometimes not, more often not.

I said my farewells and boarded the ferry. It’s this next leg where I discovered that Indonesian people are probably amongst the nicest people I have ever met. Always very friendly, greeting you and enquiring about you. ‘HELLO MR’ seems to be the order of the day, and once even I received a ‘HELLO MRS’. Only small problem I had on this ferry journey was the fact that I was absolutely shattered, and with everybody on board wanting to be your friend it makes for some quite hard work. And as soon as I tell them that I am from England the conversation goes in the direction of the World Cup and I get told how awful the England football team are. ‘England no good’ I would be told, very very true I might add, but these things are just best forgotten. Many Indonesians though loving to gamble losing a lot of money on the English during the World Cup, as like the rest of the world they was expecting England to perform, which of course they didn’t. But anyway let’s not start banging on about all that now, it’s not the time of the place....and never will be.

I t was now again daylight as we passed a series of baron looking uninhabitable islands. I was desperately seeking somewhere to sleep but every crevice was occupied. So I just stared into oblivion and waited....and waited.

7 hours passed and Labuan Bajo revealed itself to me, upon docking I piled off the ferry and dumped myself into the first guesthouse I could find, a dingy sweaty hut for 125,000IDR a night, a complete rip off but sleep was all that mattered to me now, but before sleep, I had to use the internet. And in my near comatose state, I did just that.

In the internet cafe I saw a nice face.

The End.

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