ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY

Estee Lauder once said that "There are no ugly women in this world, just lazy ones!" Well Miss Lauder forgot to put into this equation a woman without amenities. For example a woman who has slept on a deck of a boat for 4 days, which has no shower, a hole into the ocean for a toilet, which makes all her clothes damp, then she takes a 12 hour journey on a crap local bus, on which she throws up a total of 4 times, to arrive at her destination in the rain, stays in a damp room, with no hot water, to takes another crap bus the next day, to a village that has no running water (All she wants is a sodding shower!), stays in a flea bit of a guest house, climbs another bloody volcano, gets back, still no water, catches another bus, arrives in a crap port town, gets a boat, its covered in cockroaches, sleeps on deck again (less cockroaches!), lots of locals spit on deck (Not nice), clothes now smell like someone died in them! This is a very ugly woman indeed, this is a woman without amenities, this woman was me! Luckily I haven't seen to many mirrors in the last 2 weeks and then you just get past the point of actually caring. You will be glad to know that we have arrived in the city of Makkasar in Sulawesi and have managed to have all our clothes cleaned and had a shower, so now feel human again, but the last 2 weeks have been quite tough. I'm not complaining though as I think I have seen this world at it most beautiful recently and the roughness is part of the enjoyment as well. As said went on a boat for a couple of days from Lombok to Flores. The leaflet that advertised the trip was very interesting with its spelling and description of our journey ahead, with such sentences as:
"Ficture of boat"
"Meet the daragoons" (means see the Komodo dragons)
And my favourite "Have meal together like one big happy family"
There were nine passengers in total, me, Jan, the two Swiss guys, Jurge and Daniel, who we met on Rinjani, a Danish girl called Tania (Scared of spiders), an American, Chris (Looked like Jesus), a Canadian, Jason (Rob Mayors twin), and a Dutch couple, Ninca and Staso (completely mad). Over the next 4 days through snorkeling to komodo Dragons (The dragons did not seem to do much!) we all seem to bond. When we arr ivied at our destination Tania and Chris left us and the rest of continued around Flores taking on bad Beamo drivers (Taxi's), rip off merchants and terrible guesthouses together. We travelled nearly 2 weeks together and in the end we became that "one big happy family", if not an unlikely one. When we went our separate ways it was a sad loss. We are still travelling with the Swiss guys and have hooked with a French girl called Alice who is cool. Tonight getting a night bus (Not again!) to Tana Toraja, 8 hours north, where they slaughter a lot of Buffalo's, have open graves and some other mad traditions. Can't wait!

OBSERVATIONS

* Jan has started telling the locals he is from South Africa and that it is a very poor country, because he thinks they will rip him off less. No comment!

*All Indonesia men seem to do, is spit and chain smoke.

* Indonesians live in very poor shack houses but still manage to afford a satellite Ariel for their TVs.

* Don't go to weight watches come to Asia. Me and Jan have both lost weight, which is good for Jan as I was worried that we could not afford the 2 seats for him on the plane.