Journal entires and Photos

Hello There!! After 30 + hours of trekking in under 48 hours we are here in Bali.
Its been a true adventure, bus breakdowns, mindaltering motorcycle rides, and Moonscapes on the surface of the earth.

I will let you all read my journal enteries from the past few days and then you will be relieved (since I know you live to read this thing) that I will be able to upload millions of pictures.

Backtracking...

Pandangaran-

After surviving Mad Max Asia, I roused myself early and checked out of the person's house I was sleeping and into a neighboring hotel. I wandered around still adjusting to the time difference and eventually I found myself back in my hotel room sleeping four more hours to get rid of the bus residue in my brain. I woke up and walked down to evening on the beach, meeting two absolutely wonderful dutch girls, both on an extended holiday between school and newly aquired jobs back home. This was the first of many conversations to follow about American politics...you never realize how identifiable all the problems of a country are till you are looking at it through someone else's healthcare system. Loes, a nuero psychologist who I share a mutual love of Oliver Sacks with, and I discussed how concerned they were for us as a nation in our inability to care for the burden of sick people.... I ofcourse did nothing to help their impression of the States providing them with further and further dismal statistics. We went on to discuss the problems of the Dutch, the issues with Arab immigrants that all of Europe is facing and the recolonizing of the colonialists...It was all very fascinating and I was so deeply happy to meet two very forward thinking young people from accross the seas.

From them I was introduced to a young playful British couple named Emma and Phil who were flying kites against the setting sun. Things felt a little better, as I practiced my Bahasa texting with my bus boyfriend.

I went BACK to sleep again in my hotel room still recovering from two days solo travel with my back pack. And woke up just in time to run down to the Bamboo Cafe (a favorite hangout of beach dwelling foriegners) and catch the tail end of the final world cup game. The place was mostly packed with Dutch people, praying hard for their little team that couldn't, and young Indonesians routing hard for Spain. It was an uneasy balance of former colonizers and formerly colonized glued to a screen with sudden outbursts of joy erupting from both sides....always to the discomfort and dismay of the other.

I found myself colonized by mosquito bites and went home to treat my rashlike marks all up my legs.

The following morning I woke up early finally well rested and comfortable with my headspace. I took off for a walk on the beach to see some of the damage left by the Tsunami. Much to the credit of the people in Pandagaran the place has been rebuilt with absolute efficiency. Only one or two hollowed out structures remained and I turned back after making it down about 4 KM of coast land.

Upon my return I was summoned by a substantial group of old white men who I had seen the day before posted up at one beach side bar. They asked me if I was Brazilian... ( I said to myself no Brazilian would have this hair cut....without at least attempting suicide) they are apparently a group of men over 60 from The Netherlands, Germany, and one from Alaska, capitalizing on the availability of Asian women. They left me feeling nauseaous and resentful of my own skin.

At lunch it was insisted I join an old dutch man with a General Custer Moustache and his friends. They were an older couple from Amsterdam, she was a Dutch born Indonesian and he owns a sewing machine repair shop that he is running remotely from Asia. The man with the moustache has apparently been living in Jakarta for fifteen years, he was down in Pandangaran on the money he'd used to rent out his place in the city and to stay and relax with his old friends. He was, I was told, in his 80s although I found it a bit shocking since he felt the need to complain about everything the Indonesians did to rip him off on the Bus ride down (a difference of 2 dollars US)....internet scarcasm intended.

He launched into a tirade about Obama and all his failed promises to remove us from foreign wars ..."why do they kill the arabs?? WHY?" He got further heated. I was touched by my desire to defend my elected leader...more because I felt the man's arguements were reductive than because of any lasting feelings of patriotism... but still because I feel as though Obama might as well be rebuilding the US from the rule of Milosevic with all thats been heaped on his plate. Unlike the young women the night before this group of Dutch went on to explain how much they hated their own country for the Morroccan mayor of Amsterdam who continues to let Arabs in .. and increase the crime rate.. I was happy when my meal was over and continually rejected the offers of the sewing Machine repairman to learn to ride his scooter, take a walk in the national forest, etc etc even after he had followed me into the water for a swim.

I WAS SO GRATEFUL to find Emma and Phil and would not for the life of me let them leave my sight... insisiting we go to dinner and spend the evening/ next day together...shockingly I'd had my fill of creepy old white men. I bonded with them while emma got a delectable beach side massage and the conversation turned to yet another session of "I knew things sucked in the US but I didnt know they were THAT bad, how do you people live?!" This time in regards to the cost of University education and the extraordinary amount of debt young people in the US are routinely faced with... I was beginning to sink into a depression. At dinner we were joined by my future partner in crime Ms. Rebecca Ross ... a blond Oxford grad with a lean, tall stature and an adorable crisp accent. We discussed the intersection of our two countries with the BP oil spill, ate some really bad food for the most part and felt warmed on the inside from each other's happy sun soaked glows.

We agreed on a trip to the green canyon the next morning and paused for a drink at a beach side cafe where we met five Aussie, Kiwi, and one English pilots. They had been shipped over and paid well to fly a new Indonesian airline. This was supposed to be their first week of training but the plane was experiencing difficulties and they were being paid for a week of R&R. We made nice with them talking about music and our respective visits to each other's countries (Rebecca has spent the last year living in Australia temping). Eventually Becca and I traipsed off to bed and begun to bond over the possibility of a travelling companion.

The next morning we took off for the green canyon and were told by Emma and Phil that the tallest of the pilots, a rawkus kiwi surfer, had sat down next to one of the local Indonesians a young deaf girl and began feircely mocking her handicap. Small little Phil stepped in and said "You're not going to do that" causing the other pilots to pipe in with whatever chivalry they could manage (having been put greatly to shame) and agree that he was well out of line..

I was so proud of our our little group, and Phil's bravery... and secretly deep deep down in my soul...happy to have found some people with worse behavior than an American.