The final countdown

I now have less than two weeks left of this part of my adventure. It has taken me to some incredible places and I have met some incredible people. When I think back to the highlights and the low points, I have reached the firm conclusion that it is the people that make the places. All of my main highlights have correlated directly with the people that i've been sharing them with, and likewise, the low points have predominantly arrived when i've been feeling a tad lonesome or when travelling with some utter douchebag that has been picked up along the way.

Take for instance Kuta. When I first came here a few weeks back I was on my own (I got Nicks arrival date wrong, so I ended up here a couple of nights early). After missing my flight from KL I was irritable, out of pocket and had no one to vent my anger to/on (the blog definitely helps on that front!). So I made a vow that I would not be sociable for 48hrs, as I was running low on cash and my body needed a break from constant partying before Nicks arrival. As you can probably tell from my previous post that I had a pretty miserable time. Yet a few weeks later I am back with a great group of people and I have had a great time. The French girls and Flo have all been here, nick for one night and I'm rooming with m,y mate ollie, who I met on our diving course.

Team Kuta

Every night we have gone out and got smashed and we have developed genuine, long-term friendships during the course. The fucking donkey raping shit eating hawkers are still there trying to sell me viagra and crossbows, the assholes on their mopeds with surfboards are still trying to run me down, and the ho`s are still a ho`ing, but this time it just forms part of a wider joke and is funny as opposed to blood boilingly annoying. For all of its faults, Kuta has been a blast (god bless you sky garden and your liver crippling offers).

The free tequila is administered from above

The time that I have spent with close existing friends (the 3 L`s from Bristol & Nico) have been right up there, as have the time I spent with the Padi guys and the Israeli`s. I have been asking around and there is a general consensus that the people make the places. I think that people who travel with groups of existing friends are more likely to judge a place on its individual merits, whereas the lone traveller accredits more to the people they are with and thus, their state of mind. When you are with friends you can cope to a much greater extent with the negative aspects of a place, and they are accentuated to a greater extent when alone. Whilst thankfully, I have not spent a great deal of time on my own and have not suffered any sustained periods of being lonely, it does happen from time to time. But I think there is huge value to to travelling alone, such as the freedom to escape people and make quick decisions on where you want to go and how you want to get there.

I have developed a great deal of respect for some of the 18/19 year olds I have met who have come away on their own. At 29 years of age, and even with my added life experience, I still felt fairly intimidated and a bit insecure about coming away on my own. I took quite a big risk quitting a decent job and leaving everything behind, but I can hand on heart say that I have no regrets (except maybe not purchasing a fucking lonely bastard planet guidebook),I can only offer words of encouragement to anyone considering doing the same.

So I`m down to my last couple of weeks, and as you can probably tell, i`m feeling a bit reflective as I`m about to leave another group of great people and friends to head off on my own again for the final time. In the spirit of this reflection I have compiled a couple of lists. The first are the things that I will miss about SE Asia, the second deals with the things that I will not miss about SE Asia, whilst the third.is the things I am looking forward to


Things I will miss

Buckets
Riding a scooter
Meeting new friends each day
Not knowing what day it is
Getting abused by monkeys
Breakdancing with locals
The bum gun
Dan
Buckets
Going to bed at 5am
Getting up at 3pm
50p burns
3 pound tattoo`s
Bikinis
Pooing my pants
Not knowing where or who I`ll be with next week
The food
Buckets
Street dogs
Oceans without turds floating around in them
Being allowed to wear a vest (for a reason unbeknown to myself it is unacceptable behaviour in England)

Things I will not miss:

Crouching over a hole to have a crap
Night bus journeys
Mosquito`s
Hawkers
Hookers
Bangkok chickboys
Deet
Crossing roads with no traffic system
Bleeding toes
Fucked ankles
People trying to grab my bags and make me go to their hostels straight off a 15hr bus journey
Sharing a bunk bed with weird old bearded men
Sand
Carrying a rucksack with a broken foot
Having perma-shakes in my hands
French-Canadian gay cage fighting physicists
Disposing of soiled pants
The pack of douchebags tracking me across three coutries
Pillows that smell like dick cheese
Being woken up by people sweeping
The Vietnamese
A douchebag with a guitar
Bed bugs
Haggling
Rats
Skype conversations whilst trying to work
Irate Indonesian migets
trigger fish
Ants in my pants
Bob Marley tracks
The smell of a 10 man dormitory at 9am

Things I am looking forward too:

Seeing my bulldog, my new niece, friends and family
A cup of tea
Being able to flush toilet paper
Having a secure wanking facility (Dad, prepare the garden shed for my homecoming)
A pint of cider
Bangers breath
Calculating how many thousands of pounds over my budget I went
Getting amongst the dole queue. I can talk to them about my travels and they can talk to e about their smack habit, then we can all go back to my place and watch an episode of Micheal Barrymore's `My Kind of People`
Investing in a good spying ladder
Being able to fart without fear of soiling myself
Annoying people with travel stories
Carrying around my lucky nut from Kuala Lumpur
A bathroom with a sink
Clean pants
Traffic signals
Exercise
A 6 hour stop over in Riyadh Airport, Saudi Arabia, lovely place, so welcoming 
Getting to watch Nick in Doctors everyday
Going to see an actual Doctor to find out if my breakdancing career is over
Trying to hand a cashier two pounds to pay for a meal, two beers and a pack of 20 burns
And, of course, South America and Benicassim

I am sure there a a hundred more things to add to these lists, which will become apparent over the coming weeks. Whilst mosquito's are well up there, for some reason they have become less relevant and apparent, and the general irritation attached to them has gradually subsided as time has progressed. I remember at one point during my first week in Thailand that I was seriously contemplating coming home because the bites were driving me fucking crazy. I was using 100% deet, which was melting lighters in my hand and felt like I was covering myself in toxic waste, but I was still getting peppered in bites every night. I was close to breaking point, any time I saw a mosquito I couldn't settle until I had smashed its ugly fucking face in. Whilst I am still getting bitten, I stopped wearing any insect spray weeks ago, and I only realise that I've been bitten if I see the lump in a mirror. Maybe the body just adapts, the locals are certainly not affected by them, which was something that I was quite curious about, but perhaps now understand (I hope this is not the only thing that I've learned). They are still a big pest, my mate Tom who I met on the fun bus to Chiang Mai has recently contracted Dengue fever, which sounds like a fun one. He is fortunate to have his girlfriend with him, it would be a lorra lorra fun to be on your own with that affliction.

Last night I was walking down an alleyway and I heard a weird noise that was approaching me from the rear at pace. When I spun around I was stunned to see a monkey on a bicycle hurtling towards me. It had the same look in its eye as the vicious little fucker that bit me in Thailand. If it had not been for my crippling post champions league final hangover I would`ve turned and run. Just as I was about to scream and kick a monkey on a bicycle in the face it was tugged back on a lead by a bloke a couple of meters back. I`m not sure how this monkey came to be in the possession of his bike, but it even had its own little monkey helmet (not pictured, but I stopped the bloke to get a video where it puts on the helmet itself and then jumps on the bike - I couldn`t leave that situation without closure on whether I`d been spiked with mushrooms or not).





The situation reminded me of one of my long standing aspirations, and I think it outlined how important it is for me to make this happen. My original objective was to train a monkey to ride my bulldog, but after witnessing their aggression I`m not sure if I`m up to the training part. Granted it`s a rather modest ambition, but nevertheless, it is probably the thing that I aspire for most in life. So if anyone knows of any monkey`s pre-trained to ride a bulldog, then text the words `It`s not animal cruelty if it`s amusing` to 84221.

A little bit of rain

I have spent most of my time in Kuta in Sky Garden, which is what a nightclub should be. There are 5 levels satisfying every possible requirement. There is a huge beer garden outback which has two huge screens and drink all you can beer from 6pm - midnight for about 7 pounds (aka the bloody blokes area where I watched the champions league - I was the only englishman there supporting barca, I think I know who had the last laugh). Then their are various sky terraces, dance rooms etc. When we left the other night it had rained so hard whilst we were inside that when we came out, we had to wade in water upto our shins where the road used to be. After ollie had swam in it for a minute or so I realised that the drains must be flooded, so we were basically frollicing in faeces.

I wondered why I woke up with a strained thigh

When Nick left I discovered that he`d left a pair of shorts in the wardrobe, which I know for a fact haven`t been washed for about 2 weeks. Needless to say I am now wearing these. I note that they are waist size 29 inches. I was wearing 34 inches when I came away, all of which are now hanging off me, whilst the 29ers are a tidy fit. I seem to have developed a tidy beer gut concentrated solely above the waistline. For any Nicolas Woodman fans out there I shall be selling these shorts unwashed on ebay on my return, so unless you're outbid by Nick, then you too can sample the unique blend of fausty sweat and bum hole.

I have decided that I will spend my remaining time passing through Indonesia. I will visit the volcanoes of Java, go diving at the Karimunjawa National Marine Park (an archipelago of 27 tiny islands, mint) and finish up in Jogjakarta. Tidy like

That is all