The land of the bum gun

So after the living hell that was Kuta, I got the funk out of there and met televisions nicholas woodman at the airport and we decided to plump for Ubud. It was around lunchtime so the obvious thing to do was drink the remnants of the king cobra whiskey. It's head had been exposed for a few days after it leaked so it was probably begining to rot a little bit. Mmmmm, yummy.

Even got my own bed like

Ubud is a lovely place, we were told that a lot of famous musicians (mick jagger, david bowie) used to go and hang there in the 1960's, I can sort of see why. Nick broke the news to me that it was his holiday so he didn't want to stay in shitholes, so with a quivering wallet we went in search of accommodation. What we opted for was the nicest place I have stayed since i've been away, it had a swimming pool and trees, which for me have been optional extra's that i've yet to induldge in.

The day was still young and I decided that we should hire a moped and go and watch the sunset over the famous rice terraces. I asked some bloke on the street where they were and he game me some fairly straightforward directions. We managed to catch a glimpse of some terraces but we assumed that there were good viewpoints etc. So we started to onwards and uphill for what seemed like an eternity (the scene echoed the scene in dumb and dumber where they're going over the rocky mountains) but development was becoming sparse and it didn't feel quite right. We stopped and asked a bloke in a car for directions and he literally laughed in our face, we were basically on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere. On the way back we took a detour through some medieval looking villages who looked like they'd never seen two douchebags on a moped before...

That night we went out for a few drinks and I somehow managed to offend two lebonese girls, after I started discussing the Isreali's, who I'd been hanging out with for a couple of weeks a while back. So that was perilously awkward and they left really quite quickly. Shortly after I have vague memories of using a terrapin as a mobile phone. We decided we'd only do one night there so set my alarm for 6.30am for a lovely fastboat to the Gili islands. After 10 minutes on the minibus I realised that I'd left my fucking camera charger in the room so I imediately engraced myself on to the rest of the passangers. On the plus side drive let us smoke burns in the van, so it panned out okay.



Tic Tac sir

The Gili's are awesome, it has much more of a feeling of being on holiday that travelling, which I guess is a welcome relief in a way. Accommodation is relatively expensive here (obviously three pounds a night doesn't seem quite so steep for Nick), but we found a place that seemed okay. It took us a good twenty minutes to realise that our bathroom didn't have a ruddy sink. So for the past 6 days we have been using the bum gun to brush our teeth. The lack of hygiene involved in this is too mind boggling to even comprehend, so we try not to dicuss it so much....

The bum gun is possibly the greatest revelation that I have experienced. For three months I have been looking at this little gun attached to a hose that most bathrooms have and thought it was just there to clean the bog. I have recently been informed that this contraption is basically a hand-held, aim-able bidet. Mazin. In a part of the world where 50% of the transient population is shitting gravy, this little beauty is a godsend. I feel a genuine feeling of elation every time I go for a dump that resembles a poo (it may even border on pride). When it doesn't, and when other things such as sweat and sand are factored in, the prospect of using toilet paper is somewhat unattractive, and this is where the gun really comes into its own. I'm not sure if its benefits would strictly be transferable to England, but as the UK's no.1 advocate of the bum gun, I feel that I'm strongly placed to obtain the UK licence for its import and share this gift with my compatriots.



Take for example yesterday. Me and Nick have been drinking with three girls from france for the last few nights, and we'd met them on some leather day beds just off the beach. We'd had a heavy night, and I really needed to fart. We were outdoors so I didn't consider it to be such a faux pas, as long as they weren't aware that any fallout was on my behalf. So I concentrated so hard on letting it out silently that I accidently did a little bit of poo in my swimming shorts. A quick crab walk up to the toilets and I bum gunned the pain away.

The first night I had gone to use the wifi at a bar and was sat having a beer when this english bloke came crashing over and started talking to me at 300 miles an hour. He was giving me too much information to process, but from what I could glean from the conversation he used to be the manager of UB40, was a child actor, created echo beach on Bali (named it after an album), owned three bars in the Gili's, including the one I was sat in) and had recently just purchased two islands, which he is selling off to investors that include Mick Jagger and Carl Cox. Natrually I thought this guy is full of a new level of bullshit that I'd never previously had the pleasure of experiencing, but then he started getting me free drinks from behind the bar so I took an interest and even went and got nick so that he could meet the legend that is Nigel. Over the course of the next few hours he'd given us the full tour of his 5 star establishment, he'd showed us the water that he bottles and sells as organic water, but is actually just some stuff from a river in Lombock (Del Boy), he'd told us that he used to own the local newspaper (he bought it because the local press was angry with him about something - may be they once met him or something), he then owned a production company and a clothing firm. All of this after he'd told me that by trade he was a pipe fitter (he was an utter pikey in essence). After a couple of hours of drinking he decided that he was going to take us out on one of his 3 boats, but he ran off sulking when his captain couldn't get it started. Bizarre character.

Later on that night we met an indian couple who had just got married, she had some crazy temporary tattoo's that are part of the ritual. At the time we met them they'd just purchased a bag of mushrooms which they were going to try for the first time. We didn't see them again, I assume they made it through the other side... Everyone is trying to sell mushrooms here, they are legal so there are these hilarious signs everywhere, but I don't think either of us plan to induldge...

Get your tats out

The place is only very small, we walked the perimeter in 2hrs, and this is the biggest of the 3 islands. It is very beautiful and there is a good vibe to the place. When we had walked around we'd noticed a bar which looked nice but it was completely abandoned. We asked Nigel about it and the owner had built it, invited VIP's etc and then had a heart attack and died during opening night. Pretty eerie

Now I don't like to make sweeping statements, but everyone in South East Asia seems to be constantly sweeping. I get woken up every fuckinjg morning by the sound of sweeping. I'm not a good moring person, and this noise drives me fucking crackers. So after being woken by the soothing vibes of brush on floor we took a walk down to the beach and got chatting to one of the locals (every bloke on this island seems to know our names, the majority I have no recollection of speaking too)... Within around 3 minutes of speaking to him he told us that "he only likes to fuck local girls because his cock is too small", possibly the most brutally honest admission I've ever heard. He is an insanely happy young chap who has no home, he crashes where on the beach or guest house day beds once the party has finished (and sells drugs during the day!). Nick has been endeearing himself to the tat sellers and hawkers. Everytime they approach us he just points at me and says 'he wants one', so then I have the awkwardness of explaining that I really don't want a pearl necklace. I tried to pick one of the locals up the other day (like a baby), and it didn't go down well, he thought I was trying to kill him or something judging by the way he ran away. Another asked me if Nick was my husband.

We've been getting pretty boozy, I'm basically living a champagne lifestyle on a coca cola budget. The french girls we've been drinking with are mad for it. It has taken me 3 days to learn their names. For the first three days I was calling the one called Audrey 'Amy' (none of them are called Amy), and I was calling the one named Emily 'Audrey'. The only one I obviously remembered immediately was Fanny. It has been the source of some very, very awkward moments.They had their drinks spiked the first night and two of them were running around crying, waterway to have a good time. They got tattoo's for three pounds last night, got to stay away from this temptation

Dans' a great bloke

Speaking of awkward, I met a bloke on a booze cruise in Cambodia who I didn't speak too, but I remember him by his perfectly oblong shaped head. He has the squarest jaw I've ever seen, absolute blockhead, he looks like a mediteranean desperate dan. I spotted this guy on the beach and pointed him out to Nick, and we sort of acknowledged each other. For some reason I have no interest in even knowing his name, but after acknowledging him I now see him every 5 minutes. I've been studying him intensely, there is something about the squareness of his head that fascinates me. I'm pretty sure he's clocked me staring at his head on a number of occassions. He has one of the most indetermiateable nationality of any man i've met. After five days of awkward encounters I said to Nick that I'd love to know where this man comes from, so Nick walked straight over to him and said 'my friend wants to know what country you come from' (whilst pointing at me). I mean, how badly can you phrase a question?! It turns out he's from Sweden, which would genuinely be the last place I'd guess that he was from.

I think that the best thing about being back on a beach is that, to my considerable relief, the sand has finally managed to get the bright red spraypaint off my toenails that I got tubing about a month ago. And the downside of this of course, is that the lack of spraypaint reveals what lurks beneath. But for the first time in about 4 months I don't have any injuries (aside from the 3 month old swollen ankle that is). It is nice not having any cuts to worry about. I wasn't aware of this until recently, but I bought a bottle of Dettol to put on my wounds from 7/11. I think the brand recognition was the decisive reason for me selecting it, although it wasn't really in the medicine section. Two months later, after using it almost daily, I'm informed that it is a kitchen disinfectant, no wonder my wounds have been healing a little bit strangely. Tidy on a friday like. Last night I experienced a first when a fucking ghekko fell out of the sky and landed on my neck, it is not easy to keep your cool in such situations. But my highlight from the gili's was nick overhearing four lads from Essex discussing what they were going to be wearing tonight, classic