hey again!

hello again my little lovelies!
i had to get to a computer and write again as so much is going on that i want to share that if i don't write it now it'll end up like last time and me forgetting everything so heres a little re-cap!please don't be angry if you have sent mail and i haven't replied as it's very expensive here for internet and the computers here run on thin air and are not very fast so i have to write this pretty quick!now i left you in kuala lumpor in malaysia and headed to the airport with my trusty companion rossco in a very smooth,efficent and economical natural gas powered taxi,which was cool and a first for me i must say and an experience in itself!we rocked up to the airport terminal jumped out with less time than we thought to spare to check in and with the taxi driver not having enough change,it all began here!with rossco having to run around the terminal lookin for change to pay the driver this is where it all went a bit downhill! : /
so,we payed the taxi and started to look for the required airline desk but upon asking people still having no luck!(this is the funny part!bit gross but funny and all part of the story so i have to share it!) on pushing the trolley piled with our stuff yours truly had a sudden strong urge to pass wind!upon doing so (you guessed it!)whoops the unthinkable happened,right there in the middle of a strange airport terminal and with little time to spare i immediately gave ross the look of horror and say sternly "rossco,can you see a toilet dude?"repeated about 5 times in 3 seconds!instantly he knew what had happened and luckily enough we found one in quick time,although walkng like a penguin was a bit embarassing so i faked a limp to cover it up,although the security looked at me a bit strange!hehe now i'd thought id gotten away scott free after the mass of different curries i'd eaten in the deli the night before!not the case it seemed!man,the luckiest thing was,for some unbeknown reason i'd decided,for the first time in what must be at least four months to wear underwear and that is the only thing that trluy saved this from being a truly world class nightmare!
anyway,haha all sorted,shorts in tact we journey on and find ourselves to be in the wrong bloody terminal and with only 30 minutes until the boarding gate closes and the next terminal being 2o minutes away panic stations kicked in!ok now,into the lift onto the ground floor of the airport to look for a bus to the terminal,(stand 49)where do we arrive at?stand no 1!!we couldn't even see stand 49 it was so far away and the time was ticking on!seeing a random guy in a people carrier we ask him for help and on saying that he said 40 ringit!on saying that,i replied 30 ringit!(weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelllll theres always time to haggle even when you have a plane to catch and on agreeing we set off!also catching a glimpse of the f1 race circuit on the way!(and we only missed the world superbikes by a couple of weeks too!damn!)ok,now we rock up to the terminal with minutes to spare and the desk we want the furthest from us!running through the airport backpacks and guitars etc!a little confused on the lay out i literally ran straight through x-ray security section and stood at the check in desk!phew!unbeknown to me ross had stopped to put his bag through the machine and then thought sod it and followed me!i didn't see them guv!honest!now how can you miss two shabby looking travellin bums with two massive bags,two guitars and a didgeridoo running right past you i wonder?who knows but we weren't pulled up for it luckily and just made it to check in so all good here then!upon checking in we were told(forgetting its a low cost airline and the maximum baggage allowance is less!)that we had to pay excess!man this just gets worse!extremely luckily i had some ringit left and payed it off!
ok now through to departures and everything scanned(this time!)hoping theres nothing sharp or owt in our luggage the security then decide to take my didgeridoo and tell me something bad about not taking it on the plane!now,by this time,sweat dripping fromn every pore i just tell them to keep the bloody thing(not in so many words as you know im not like that : ) and be done with it,but eventually all was delt with,we finally ate some breakfast and got on the flight!pheeeeeeeeeeeew!thank god for that!about a 3-4 hr flight to bali and on the way as the sun was setting over the horizon of clouds we saw the most magnificent view!there were what seemed to be mountain tops poking up through the clouds in the distance and on mulling this over i thought that it must be the volcanoes in java which for me was the only explanation and on asking the captain he then came on the tannoy and clarified our thoughts to be true and a few minutes after we actually saw an active volcanoe with smoke drifting hundreds of miles!now with this skyscape over the clouds at sunset it was a truly awesome spectacle i can tell thee!what a cool laid back airline too!it was more like a school bus with everyone walikn around and having a laugh!even on descent people were still walking around and the hostesses were so friendly and happy!why can't all flights be like that!?
anyway,on arriving to bali i felt an instant warming to the people who were warm and inviting and the place had great energy to it!we went straight to the closest and busiest resort of kuta,but a little up the road at legian and got ourselves a room for 10us dollars a night with swimming pool etc.now we'd been told about this place(being like the aussie ibiza n all) and it all true infact i thought id got on the wrong plane n ended up in spain!so the life we left behind was a far cry from this place so we decided to book a 8 hour trip to the gilli islands in lombok to chill out and get back to the life of a little hut on the beach and cheapness!after walking around shaking our heads for a couple of hours feeling sorry for ourselves : ) we headed back to the hotel but a short distance away we encountered a little drum shop with some local guys sitting outside offering for us to join them.now this can be a little intimidating at times but in these situations you have to go with your instinct and intuition and they seemed a good bunch(pretty much like everyone here to be honest!so we joined them and they fed us full of the local moonshine called arak (i think but dont quote me on that!)now these guys were sooooo genuine (again,like everone here it seems!)we had a great time with them and ended up spending time with them every day since!i have bought myself a large african djembe drum (nan,its in the post,sorry,had to send it home as its too big to carry so it'll be with you in 2 months!sorry!love ya : )
the waves here are the biggest ive seen and the other day i decided to test the power of them,dodging surfers here and there.they must have been a good 10feet these waves and when they break,they break hard!great fun!i wanted to test the power of the tube crashing and after getting used to them and diving under and out a few times i let one break right over me and for a split second it was an amazing moment being in the tube of a massive 10ft wave.
and then it broke..............bang!it tossed me around like a ragdoll and i felt the immense power that they have and have great respect for surfers that catch even bigger waves!needless to say i didnt need to do that again as once was enough!but very fun!
ok so we booked tickets to the gilli islands,and were supposed to be picked up from our hotel at
6am the next morning and looked forward to it but somebody mentioned about hotels in lombok not being safe and many rooms being robbed!ok we thought,the islands are ok!then a few more people mentioned about lombok,even one of these local guys if from there and doesnt go there!ok we thought.we go back to the hotel to get some sleep before we head to the islands and on remembering to pay our bill,the guy behind the desk says! "aaah,you go to gilli!?be careful,bungalow not safe!" now,this sort of thing usually doesnt worry us but we now start getting paranoid and (before we booked the tickets we had nothing to stay for,by this time though we now have many great local friends,one drum teacher teaching me javanese,balinese and african drum rythums good place for me to learn to surf and lots of other great reasons,and the fact that you cant surf on the islands!) after all,why go to a place that you been warned about thefts when you wont want to leave the hut!we'd have just been paranoid the whole time!plus the possibilty of getting your drink spiked with mushrooms also!which i must say,wouldn't be all that much of a bad thing! : ) anyway so in the end ross just flipped a coin and we went with that!luckily it was heads and hence we are still here!
im being taught some drum rythums and have a contact now to ship drums by the container load back to england so if anyone wants on let me know!at first this place was really expensive with eating in restaurants etc but after learning a minute segment of the language to order food etc i can now eat fish n rice etc(my favourite called nasi boukous which is yellow rice with chilli and fish wrapped in banana leaf!mmmmm)and only 3000 rupees(about 17p!excellent so all in all im now happy here as we are being pro-active and productive and its all good!weve even been offered the chance to fly to java to stay with friends families etc which is great!above all in bali for me the people are some of the most genuine,trusting,happy and hospitable that ive ever ever met and for now im very happy and feel that i have just made fiendships that will last forever!
today im going to hire a board and teach myself to surf!10ft waves here i come wooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhooooooooooooooooo
you all take care and thanks for reading thus far if you have!: )
much love to you all!
dimson xx : )