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Trip Start Jan 20, 2008 Previous
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  Bangkok, Thailand
Monday, June 9, 2008

Hiya'll!!!

I'm starting a rating system for my blog entries now so people can determine if they, or their children (Megan!) want to read it. This one will have a rating of R for a bit risque or for RIGHT ON!, depending on the person that is reading it. So parents read it first, then decide. I think your kids will LOVE to read this stuff...personally.

Sorry for the lapse in blog entries lately. We tend to get distracted from time to time. I'll try to catch up the highlights from Day 1 through the rest of the motocycle road trip. 

After the big scare of day 1, day 2 settled in quite nice. We made the most km's of any day and i drove most of them. Day 3 we had to stop and fix the bike 3 times, so we didn't get very far in the day, but I did get to see the coolest Indonesian fish market. One of the biggest in all of Indonesia. It was like being on a snorkel/scuba diving trip from hell!! There's not a fish that I did not see...DEAD! Even the beautiful reef fish, sting rays, sharks, blow fish, sea snakes, you name it. It really was amazing, the energy and the price for a big  6 pound red snapper, the whole thing, 3 dollars.

But I failed to mention that this was the day that after eating all the roadside shanti's and drinking some of the Indo "Montezuma revenge"esc water, i had the power squirts much of the night and most of that day. The following is the only reason why i didn't buy that fish and have one of the shanti's cook it up for me. My first encounter with the infamous "asian toilets", the REAL ones not the touristy upgraded ones, was at the motorcycle machanics shack. 
It's basically a hole in the corner of the floor and wall, which spills out into the alley next to their shack, which runs down to the open sea with the rest of the trash, yuck. There is a barrel of water with a scooping type bucket with a handle, like ones kids play with in the sand box, except you wouldn't let your kid near it or anywhere near this whole stanky, no door havin' room. Did i say i had the runs? I don't know how many of you guys have crapped out in the wilderness, but that is a big slice of heaven in comparison. First your doing your business on the concrete floor which causes a nice splatering effect, because it's diarhea! Second there is no toilet paper. SO you have to use the sand bucket water pourer, which also causes splattering...think water fall from your coccyx (tail bone). This is why the floor is a nasty brownish green color. Luckily though, thinking this out before in the nicer toilets, i realized the best approach for this "cleansing" is to get naked from the waist down, so the sewage doesn't splash onto my dropped drawers. SO here i am open-door dumping, wait "fire hosing" with sound effects, all the people hanging out at the mechanics place. About six in total i think. They were about 10 paces away, tops. You see why all Indonesians and most asians are very comfortable sitting in a deep squat position because this is the best position to be in for the least splash. Secondly, they don't eat, point or do much of anyting with the left hand, cause that is the hand that makes sure the water is doing what it is supposed to do. They tell you in the Lonely Planet travel book not to eat with your left hand or shake someones hand with your left, or anything with it. They say it's rude to them, and now i know why...first hand. So the last and one of the worst things you don't think about until it's time, after you do the cleansing, and feel very clean, cause especially when your new at this, your very thorough, but then it hit's you. There is no TP, no towel, and my asz is as wet as if i just came out of the shower. If i put my pants on like that it'll look like i did my dirty business in my pants! But then like a beautiful epiphany, it came to me...I LOVE my hippie pants even more! I used the back of one of my hippie pant-legs and dried it good. 
I only hope you are all lucky enough to experience this all first hand. Atleast you'll have the knowledge necessary to get er done!

So after all that, we were stuck riding in the evening. It was absolutely horrifying again, so we pledged never to night drive the rest of the trip. Some other interesting tidbits on this little motorcycle diaries trip were:

I ate lamb brain...and skin. One was like soft tofu and the other was chewy, bouncy. Can you guess which was which? I only tried a small piece of brain, cause i thought i would never have the chance to do it again...wait i probably will have another chance but it is checked off the list, and won't be entering my gullet again, if i can help it. I actually thought the lamb skin was a green pepper spicy salad. I was eating it, going, "these are really chewy green peppers, kinda like hard gummy bears". I said, "Yudi, what is this?", He asked, she replied, and he said, "Skin". I wasn't expecting that one. Oh well. All in a days journey.

Another stop on the way, I spotted a fresh cocunut stand. One of my favorites! They chop it open with a machete, give you a spoon and straw to drink the beautiful milk and then, scoop out the meat. What a treat. Well come to find out, that's what the young lady working the coconut stand thought about me as well. She didn't speak any english, but was chating it up with Yudi. She lived in the little 100 sqft or less area behind the front coconut stand and offered for us to stay the night with her. Or actually Yudi said, "she likes white men, she likes you. She asked if you would like to stay with her tonight." Mark, I think i found your next vacation spot!
I politely declined and we were off again.

Some other tough bike happennin's were: We ran out of gas twice. The fuel meter was busted. Luckily we were in a town the first time, and were able to walk it about a quarter mile to a shanti gas seller. They put gas in anything, old oil containers, absolut citron bottles, you name it. The other time we ran out of gas, the engine started cutting out and were lucky enough to be coming up to a service station and coasted right in. Then there was the third time, with Ingrid in Bali, the worst and best of all. We ran out of gas riding through the mountainous area of Bali, at night, no town in sight. But we flagged down a scooter couple, she got off and waited with me trying to teach me some Balinese, while Ingrid went with him to fetch gas. They were so fun and sweet, it ended up being a blessing!

I also had a wreck. The moped was a cheap one, so it had a few issues. One was a sticky throttle at times. We were in heavy slow moving traffic out of town, weaving through the big trucker traffic like all the other motorcycles, when right when i was trying to stop next to a few motocycles behind a big dump type truck, the throttle stuck and i was fighting it back with the brakes, but it was getting away from me, which made it hard to let off the throttle and control the bike so we flew up under the semi truck, turned it towards the road side and shot off the side of the road into a big set of bushes. Luckily no one was hurt, and only minor damage to the bike and my back pack, whose shoulder straps were anchored around the handle bars. It had to of been a pretty funny thing to watch from the other people in traffics perspective, cause we were never in any real big danger, but it looked like one of the keystone cops scenes. Especially since i am over a foot taller than Yudi. I'm sure it could have won on "Funniest Home Videos", if someone captured it.

Another crazy motocycle happennin' was with my helmet. I think we have a picture of it that will get around, but it was the crappiest thing ever. It had scrapes, duct tape, bonding agent repairage, and no fastener for the chin strap so I just had to tie it. Well, i didn't figure that part out so well at first, so one time when we were flying down the highway, Yudi was going to pass someone, so i turned my head to look for traffic, and my helmet blew right off my head! We stopped, turned around and were heading back to try and find it, when we passed an old man on a bike with it dangling from his handlebars. I gave him a thanks and 1000Rupiah, for saving it from being smashed. I know it sounds like i'm generous, but 1000 Rp is about 10 cents. He was still happy though.

The last thing I'll mention about the trip, was the most painful. My ASZBONE!!! Riding mopeds is a hoot, but 8 hrs a day when your not use to it, and the fact that i started the trip with my pack on my  back, didn't help matters. It sounds like i'm whining, but the few backpacker types we've run into that have done long moped treks as well, it's the first thing they mention. It really was completely miserable a lot of the time. So much that my arms were also completely exhausted by the end of the trip from my endless hovering myself on the bars that pass around the seat. I know what you all are thinking too, "If you'd put some meat on that boney asz of yours, it wouldn't be so bad!" Maybe so, but the BPer's that i talked to were not skinny. I'm just sayin'.

Ok. I think I better stop here. Hopefully I can get on a roll now and catch you all back up to now. Alot of it is being covered by Ingrid as well, cause we met back up after this adventure.  So i won't be as long winded next time.

Miss you all!!!
Heath

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