AMSTERDAM, GILI, UBUD, and DOUBLE 6
1023AM 13 JUN 04

After an hour and a half of waiting and three phone calls, I finally met not Mr. Jack, but a friend of his and got my plane ticket. So despite being a bit dodgy, things worked out alrite. Spent the rest of my six hours in the airport getting a massage for about $6 and watching Portugal lose to Greece in the opening match of the Euro. Am off from here in another two hours to Lisbon.

The trip out to Gili last week was, well, quite a trip. The 11 hours of travel went smoothly as one could expect, and we got to Gili Tarwangan around 6pm. The island has no motorized vehicles, and all transport is by foot or horse cart. Small enoungh island as its only about 4 miles around. A bit of an oddity for Indonesia as the three islands are somewhat self-governed, and there are no police on the island, and havent been since 1996. Given that, its become famous for magic mushrooms and marajuana. So one cant walk 10m down the street with getting some local coming up and offering some goods. Despite this, and its reputation as a party island, it was actually quite chilled out. Diving and snorkeling are the main activities, and sharks and sea turtles are plentiful in the waters around the island. Due to my laziness, I didnt wake up at the crack of dawn to do any diving, opting instead for a bit of snorkeling and laying round on the beach. An Irish pub on the island has small pagodas with TVs and a selection of a few hundred DVDs, so spent a few nights lounging around eating and watching movies. Saw a few great sunsets, a sunrise on departure day, and an incredible moonrise over a volcano on nearby Lombok island. We were going to sort out a overnight hiking trip to the volcano, but the sketchiness of the operation left us heading back to Baliand and Ubud instead.

Ubud is about an hour north of Bali, few of shopping and cultural type things. Our bungalow there cost $6/night and had a third floor patio looking over the city and under the stars that we ended up sleeping on to overcome the heat. On Thursday we went on a tour of a few temples, rice paddys, and volcanos. All the temples were in bad shape, and visitors had to wear sarongs as they were holy locations. Yet, the locals could mess about playing football, selling stuff, begging for money, and just about anything else. Basically all just a scam to sell a few more sarongs I figure. That night we saw a traditional performance. The first show was about 100 men chanting various things while a few in costumes acted out a Balinese legned. The second had two young girls "entranced", and dancing for a bout 20 minutes, in sync, while never opening their eyes. Pretty impressive. The last was a man riding a stick horse, again entranced, around a fire of cocunut husks, which he proceeded to kick around and walk on until it was nearly out. Better him than me.

Left on Friday morning for Kuta Beach, to sort things out before leaving. Went out for one last big night at a club called Double6 which had a 44m bungy jump over a pool. So of course that was the first thing we hit up upon arriving. Absolutely amazing, going up 44m, seeing the ocean in the moonlight, then falling over the edge for a good 5 second fall, plunging into the pool about head to waist deep, then up again. Great times, and got the T-shirt to prove it. Ended up hanging out with some fellow jumpers til around 8am, leaving me crunched and a bit tired heading out the next day.

Times out on my net card, so I'm off to Portugal to crank it up with the Hooligans as England plays France tonight.