Jim's Thoughts

09/22/2003

great stuff, man, great stuff! i'm back there again, in my memories.

i traveled across those islands with a maniac welshman named jason. we got forced to pay extra for a boat near komodo, and when some tourist lady protested, an indonesian cop on the boat pulled out his pistol and fired a shot off toward the sea. she paid up.

when we arrived at labhuanbajo, all our best friends were waiting on the boat, and we saw them all there at the gate as we strode up the ramp, and jason said 'come on!' and started to run straight at them. we both broke right through their ranks as they gawked. we kept on running up the road with our packs on, and a few gave chase. we ran until there was just one guy huffing and puffing and laughing along beside us, and so he was our man. ended up being a great, cheap homestay, lots of laughs. especially when jason took his big rambo knife out and started throwing it at a tree - he was good and usually it stuck. he made our homestay guy take us to the local brothel, which he did reluctantly. lucky for us, the ladies were too backed up with local boys (who got fresh with us while we were waiting) and refused our business.

it was on sumbawa, i think, where i stopped at a bank to cash some travelers checks and meanwhile jason started talking to the security cop about his pistol and said he had one just like it at home and could he have a look at it? and the damn cop actually handed it over. he looked at it and handed it back - he was such a con man!

we got to maumere about a month after the big quake. the land had sunk a few feet so there were buildings now standing in the waves. nearby we visited a refugee camp and had a look at their half- submerged village, where guys in boats were still going out to the houses to salvage stuff. there were maggots floating in debris. supposedly a whole island sank somewhere nearby.

i've been giving thought to hiking with a combo waist-pac and back-pac, putting the heavier items in the waist-pac and using just it for day trips. _ _ ______________________________________________________ _ _

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