ANOTHER TRIP AROUND THE WORLD (?)

It's true, again I left Holland for a long trip to the unknown. I am not gonna write some bullshit story about every day. I will try to keep the story as short as possible :-)

Friday, the 6th of January; The start of a long journey and a hard goodbye

A few days of in Holland this year. Celebrated most of my holidays with Renske. So Friday afternoon she had to drop me off at the airport after having eaten those Dutch food specialities. Schiphol Airport...it was like expected...quite hard to say goodbye to a person who became so special in just a few months. Renske, you already know that I will miss you a lot...we just have to be patient for a few months or wait for some idiot to contact one of those TV-shows :-)

Just 1 minute in time to catch the flight. In the afternoon we discussed dirty old men in planes touching young good looking girls. Well I experienced in this flight a woman at end 40's who wasn't that attractive, flirting with me and trying to get closer and closer. When she found out that I didn't react on any of her attempts, she drunk a lot of red wine for some new attempts. 17:00 London Gatwick, finally. Like always they have to make issues here. Yeah I definately put loads of drugs in my nose spray! Pff... Waiting for 5 hours to catch my 2nd flight. I can't here that annoying English 'Oh really?' accent anymore :-) Flying with AIrAsia means being ripped off with you luggage. I'm quite sure their scale was not correct, but strangely they counted 2kg exceeded luggage. With almost everyone. So I had to pay 50 euro's extra to take my stuff. Luckily they didn't see my small backpack which had exceeded at least 6 kg. The distraction trick still works :-)

The 12 hour flight to KL was better. Next to a funny Ozzie from Perth who told me some of the wild stories of the European Tiki-bus. The Taiwanese chick in the middle tried to get into the conversation, but failed.

Last week made me sooo tired :-) ... so it was easy to fall asleep in a plane that is not made for tall people with Dutch shoulders. More than 1 hour delay, so it was pretty close to get my connection in KL. Just smile to those Asian Security guys and they will say it's ok to skip the line. A nice Ozzie family helped me out by inviting me on their table and buying me a few drinks. After not drinking for 20 hours!

3rd flight to Medan. 45 minutes. Rega, John and Cath were already waiting for me. No motorbike pickup, but a good car to explore the city by night. Well explore...I've just seen a spicy Indian restaurant, an ATM and a hotel. Did I missed something? Sleeping? No Bintang?...Never mind :-)

Hotel Cherry (Medan, Indonesia, Sumatra) Included. Twin, hot shower.

Sunday, the 8th of January; Long long drive, wind it up!

Good Morning sleepy staff and security!!! No matter how much noise you made, they just didn't wake up...6 AM is early. An 8 hour drive with a boring driver who can't speak more English than just 'little little' very little English. But I have a good view of Sumatra now. Cath was enthouiastic with her tracvel sickness pills. I can imagine why! Winding roads? We didn't count, but thousands of curves over the large volcano. Lake Toba (one of the world largest crater lakes) was covered in clouds. The first Indonesian food stop didn't look that nice, so better off just ordering some Mie Goreng.

Arrived in Singkil, we had to wait for a few more hours for Adi and his speedboat...uhm... It was something flaoting and it had an engine with the power of 40 little pony's :-) Just a few more hours on the ocean in the waves to get to the last island on our way with some sort of civilisation; Pulau Balai. An island that was hit hard during the 2004 tsunami and the 2005 earthquake. Trying to stay awake.

Homestay Putris. Included. Double. Food included.

15.000 Food & Drinks

5.000 Water

Monday, the 9th of January; A special Full Moon

Adi and Eja told us to be early. We forced our homestay to make early breakfast. Hungry? Pretty much, after trowing everything out last night. Yeah, just 1 day in Indonesia and I already got food poison. It was the start of a journey with many kinds of sickness... So we were there, but those sleepy buggers were nowhere to be found...yeah, in bed! When we finally left with a 1 hour delay, we had to wait another hour because they forget to arrange a bottle of gas last night. So off we went. A few hours in the white raft with an engine. Sunny so take you clothes off. Not a good idea when you haven't seen sun that close for a while. The wind made it refreshing. Later on you will notice that even I can get sunburned and have a little sunstroke. Having that nice dark color is painfull, so stop being jealous everyone!

Crossing many small and big virgin islands, it really looks like paradise and it really feels like travelling to the end of the world. Arriving at our destination; Pulau Bangkaru. Jumped off, put the group of Russians in the boat with all their luggage and there we are...Paradise. The basecamp was covered in the dense jungle, only a little red-white Indonesian flag was a sign of human life. The basecamp is a small wooden building with a few rooms with bunk beds, a smelly kitchen and something that they call a shower/toilet in one. Surrounded by Papaya trees (the only fruit you can eat on the island) and my all time favorite: chili pepper trees whooh! I scored some men-points with eating them all the time.

At 8 PM the night patrol starts. It's nothing more than collecting data of the sea turtles that come to the beach at night and trying to lay their eggs. It's Full Moon and the atmosphere is special tonight. The light of the moon, huge bats flying around all the time, the sounds of the jungle, the massive waves that clash on the beach, the high pointy rocks sticking out of the sea, lizards crawling around, huge weird insects, crocodiles and snakes along the walking track and more. January is the month of the Leatherback, the biggest sea turtle in the world that crosses thousands of miles across the continents every year. They live deeper than any other turtle and always come back to the same place where they were bourne. Of course we were lucky enough to spot one at our first night. 1.45 meters long and with those characterisic long front flippers and spots. It was amazing to be there next to her while checking the eggs. All of a sudden we see baby turtles crawling out under her...huh?! This Leatherback was laying her eggs on a nest of a Green Turtle that was starting to come out. So we helped the baby turtles a little bit. The night was followed by loads of big Green Turtles laying their eggs. It was quite busy tonight. The 20 minute walk back through the jungle was worth some concentration. And what happened when we got back? Nothing! No little Full Moon party. Just a bit of Milo and cookies and getting into a deep sleep...Zzz

Tuesday, the 10th of January; feeling hot hot hot!

Morning patrol!!! But first pancakes. With coconut and colored 'Hagelslag'. Tasty, but we seem to get this every day. Just like the fact that we eat those small packs of noodles every day and if we are lucky some fish.

Morning patrol is basicly writing down some data of turtle tracks and nests that were made after we left the night patrol. You don't see any turles coming to the beach by day light. If you are lucky you see some of the weaker baby turtles getting to the sea.. But they will be eaten by crabs, sea eagles and lizards with day light. The other thing that we do with morning patrol? Collecting all the rubbish on the beach: plastic, cans, bottles, dozens of flip flops, toys, ropes, glass, needles etc. And all in the burning heat of the sun. And it will get even hotter. Way over 40 degrees Celcius is the average temperature when the sun is up. January is the last month of the raining season, but if it rains it's mostly during the night. Oh, be carefull if you leave your backpack at the beginning of the beach. I wanted to pick it up when we went back and it moved! Although it was closed, there was a long tail sticking out...Monitor Lizard...expert in digging up turtle eggs, but also in opening backpacks.

The days that followed...

We live with just 9 people on a remote island far away from the modern world. 3 funny staff members who's English is even more rubbish than the rubbish we collect on the beaches everyday day. Then there is an English couple Cat and Jonny and the 2 non-stop smoking Canadian sisters Teagan and Leanne. Personally, besides a few short conversations, there isn't much socialising going on. With 3 groups of people that are so close with eachother, it's quite hard not to feel lonely. You can talk to the crabs, lizards and mouse deers maybe, but the only reaction will be that they will run away with your food. And that's the other thing. Running out of food. With only a bit of noodles and rice and eggs, the menu is not that energetic. That's what you will feel after a couple of days. Getting exhausted of the lack of food with some vitamins. Also, we're running out of water. And nobody seems to have a clue when the next delivery is coming.

Since day 1 on the island I'm attacked by all the insects. Especially the ones on the beach. Nobody get's really bitten here, maybe a small mosquito bite. But me? I'm not talking about a few or a few hundred bites...but thousands! All over my body. The itching part is making you crazy, but some of the bites burn like hell. And the feeling doesn't become less after a couple of days. No real medicines or something, so you just have to deal with it. On Thursday it became damn serious. High body temperatures follewed by shivering (even though it was +40 degrees outside). I'm starting to feel seriously bad. No energy sometimes. Being liked is fun, but not liked by everything. So everyone that thinks that I'm enjoying a wonderfull life in paradise...might be wrong. It's a challange to go on like this. I'm already thinking about ending the trip sooner than anyone expected. I've seen so many things all over the world already. I've met so many interesting people. Actually it's the first time in my life that I'm missing things from home. Escpecially some good friends and ofcourse a special person in Amsterdam. Not being helped by the Dutch meomories on this island: pancakes and hagelslag every morning and the magnet from Amsterdam in our kitchen. If you live a life like this, you have to enjoy it, but even how hard I try...the complications at this moment don't make it that enjoyable... I'm just a week away from 'home' and it feels like ages...

After all this sadness you should almost forget the good moments. The funny and naughty Indonesian staff members Eja, Uzar and Irwan. The weird radio conversations with the fishermen, the jammin' every afternoon with the guitars and drums, laughs with the episodes of Inbetweeners, Jonny trying all methods to catch a fish but never succeeds, Cat showing up in a naughty turtle t-shirt (baby turtles crawling out of to big eggs just a the exact same place as her boobs), the endless cheating with card games like Uno, Geneva and Low on the Hole, the unsucceeded attempts of Uzar and Eja to flirt with Teagan, Eja running around in his tight underwear most of the time and heaps of more things.

The 4th night patrol was magic. It was pitch black, but with a bright sky you could see all stars. Not that special, but together with all the fire flies it became more magic. A lot of turtles tonight, the beach was washed away for most of the places. And in the water there was some sort of bacteria that lightened up in the dark, so millions of little lights in the sand and floating in the water. And as a bonus there was the biggest Leatherback you could ever see here. 1,79 meters long laying around 140 eggs. This creature weighs around 600 kilogram. Because of the bad spot, we had to remove all the eggs and replace them somewhere else. The eggs feel quite different than you expect, a bit soft. After following this huge dinosaur (it's the only warm blooded reptile in the world) back into the ocean, it was time to get back to HQ after a long night.

What do you also learn here? Eating things you think you would never like. Fresh dried Octopus in a tasty spicy coconut garlic onion curry. Absolutely magnificent! And I thought I was allergic to all sort of shells and prawns...NOT. The crayfish that was fried, was delecious. How do you catch 3 full buckets easily? Just walk into the deep jungle, put some netts in de river and put some sort of poisopn in the river. The crayfish will try to get out of the water, so you can easily grab them. So quite nice, still we are running out of everything after 8 days. Using all sorts of chlorids, just to have drinkwater that we can 'trust'.

We start to realise that there is a big problem at the island; the lizards. The population is getting big and they have no enemies on the island. They are digging up most of the turtle eggs and eat them. We have to find a way to solve this. Because every night we see many turtles laying eggs and after 8 days I've only seen 1 small nest of baby turtles coming out. And every day you will find a lot of egg shells and deep lizard holes. They are trying to stop egg poaching by humans, but the problem is something else right now.

Monday, the 16th of January; week 2 of surviving on a remote island

They socialising is getting better and better. Although Cat and Jonny are leaving the end of this week. But I'm happy that more single travelling people come to the island soon.

I'm starting to learn a bit more in protecting myself. If I don't want to be as sick as in the 1st week I should wear some long trousers, diving boots and longsleeves. Not that fun if you know me...I'm already sweating when it is freezing outside. So I smell pretty bad up here, but I don't have to impress someone anyway :-) I will do a bit of research about what is attacking me besides the mosquitos. The thing that worries me a bit is that the old bite (from 2006 Australia) lightens up yellow exact the same spot and big size. The tropical virus that made me end up in the hospital and tried to kill me, let's just think it is something else :-)

We missed a few patrols because of the heavy storms last few days. But if you do a night patrol there is always something special. Not only laughing when Uzar falls asleep at the beach and being scared the shit out of him when a big crab runs over his face, but also incredibly amazing moments. Like wiping the sand of the turtles shield and while doing this the shield gives light at the places where you touch it. It looks really alien!

And about running out of food and water? Well Uzar and Jonny finally catched some fish again with the speargun. We are triyng all sorts of fish that we can catch because we need some proteines. I'm still thinking about trying to eat a lizard. Fishing can be seriously dangerous. Because the only spots where you can find a few are betweeen the coral and those parts here are in shallow water and the swirls are just smashing you agains the corals and rocks. You must be a bit creative as we don't have an oven an stuff like that. There is a big satelite dish in the garden with aluminium parts that reflect the sun, we use this as a solar cooker. If you put it in the right position with the sun and you hang a bowl in the middle, you can actually make a cake!

It's getting a bit more fun over here. Lot's of jokes with the staff members. I'm winning every card game, even if I never played them before...so it seems that I'm getting smarter. Or if the rest lost some brain cells in the sun? And Uzar is just very naughty with all this special movies on his phone. Now I realise what he does with a mobile phone on an island without connection. But everrybody is learning new things about nature here...LOL. I managed to become just as brown as the Indonesians in a week, I can't wait for the next border crossing with my special look (allthough the Kiwis are quite dark, I don't think I will have to m any problems there). About the looks...being bored seems to have a good infuence in doing exsercises, losing a lot of weight over here.

Sending messages in a bottle doesn't really work. Sorry Renske, but there was no way of communicating this month. The bottles washed up at the same beach the next day.

Tuesday, the 17th of January, dangerous nature forces

Well, new volunteer arrived today and also fresh water and food. Jonny went in for a swim and after losing a card game I decided to join him. The waves today are absolutely sick. At some point I heard Jonny screaming that the current sucked him further away and he couldn't get out of it anymore. Without a lot of thinking and informing anybody, I decided to get to him and give him a big piece of foam that floats. Just tp give him a bit of a rest. Maybe not the best idea, because now the incredibly strong swirls and current also caught me. We were sucked away further and further and the beach was looking smaller every seond. We were both exhausted and there was no way to get closer to the beach again, no matter how hard you swim. No energy to swim that strong anymore and being smashed under water a few times by the huge waves. For some moments I actually thought this could be over and out...The waves kept smashing us under water and we were filled with sea water. And nobody that knew what was happening to us. I was smashed against the coral. At this point I decided to dive under and reach the bottom. And once you reach the bottom, you can try to walk on the bottom, closer to the beach. Quite hard to hold you breath if you are exhausted and are filled with sea water already. But eventually it worked! Jonny still had problems. The floating foam helped him to catch some breath and get some new energy. Getiing him away from the coral and explaining him to reach the bottom... After some struggeling, coffing and stuff, we survided. But it scared the shit out of me. Nature can be fuckin' dangerous. Another experience on my list of accidents with water. Not to be proud of...it was a close one.

And what happened more in week 2? Not much to be honest. Oh, to complete the whole bug mania here I was just 'lucky' after changing beds. Why? Bed Bugs!

And who thinks that I enjoy wonderful snorkling every day here? Well, once a week I go in. Learned that here you have to take travel sickness pills first, because the waves make you sick. But it's cool to do some spear fishing with Uzar. Witness the fights with the Octopuss under water is awesome. Eja never goes in, the bugger can't swim!

We found a good way to catch fish. Using Hermite Crabs as bait, fishing in the crocodile river and catch shitloads of tasty Catfish. Not too bad.

Life on the Robinson Cruseo island surprised me. The whole project surprised me. Totally not what I expected. At that moment not that professional in my opinion. Not seing loads of baby turtles getting into the ocean. No sunbathing on the beaches, because everything likes to bite (horse flies, sand flies and more of that stuff). The sun and the heat are just a bit to strong for being a bit active over here. The lack of food makes you sleepy and feeling out of energy. But most of all, it's the lonelyness that makes you crazy up here. It's an experience, although I must say I learned more about what I want in my life then what I learned about sea turtles.

Monday, the 23rd of January; week 3 to realise if helping here is usefull

Not many bites anymore, but strange painful ones. Whatever, the insect repellent seems to attract even more stings than my own sweety sweat.

Swiss Danielle arrived on the island and another Swiss (tourist) comes all of a sudden; Heiko. Heiko reminds me of Arnorld Schwarzenegger with his Swiss German accent...I'LL BE BACK he actually said!All persons have different reasons for their visit, but they are all interested in the turtles.

With all these changes, I'm becoming a loser in card games. So I decided that it is a waste of time to play cards all the time while you live in a sort of paradise. We still have no idea what's going on in the rest of the world.

Time for new activities. Deep Jungle Trekking with the big knive with Uzar. Spotting snakes around us, climbing in enormous ancient trees. But also rock climbing near turtle beach. Uzar doens't seem to realise that I'm a bit taller and heavier than him, so a few rocks broke off... And lessons in how to cook noodles with just a few packs of instant noodles, garbage and sea water. A great way of killing time. Our cook Irwan left us for a 10 day holiday, so hands on in the kitchen.

Further more we fix things, and play exhausting games like badminton. Eja is cheating again, how can you play if someone has a big hole in his shorts and his nuts are hanging out?! They are getting more thouchy by the day. And I'm getting a bit worried. Since the beginning my new nickname here is Bin Handsome (not Bin Laden). And Eja I don't know...in Europe and US they would say the items on his mobile is kiddie porn, but locals think different here; everything that you can see on the internet is legal in their eyes. Well, the staff have just been on the island too long I guess, they like to behave like crazy little kids. Naughty blindfold games, some limbo games (I'm surprised I got that far with my length), stretching all muscles with picking up small items from the ground with your mouth...aaaw painful the next morning. But it is good fun here, between all the naps.

Every morning you see squirrels jumping in palm trees. Steeling our Papayas. Well have fun with it, they taste like puke! Yeah, some fruits just taste a bit different over here. Although the rare bananas are damn tasty. I tried to trick the lizards by putting shit loads of chile peppers in the fish, they don't seem to care.

Wednesday, the 25th of January; What are we doing on this island?!

Today I've asked myself what is the use of being here. We already heard some stories just before we arrived on the island. Some political things going on in the Banyak region. But today we meet 2 locals in the Jungle, carrying an empty bag and a big hook. Strange? I already knew enough. These are egg poachers. Eja didn't want to say a thing. On Basecamp Beach there was a third person waiting in a boat. Leanne, Teagan and another staff menber followed them and recorded some movies. The actuall evidence? Locals stealing maybe a dozen of turtle nests (around 1.000 eggs, worth around 4.500.000 Rp in SIngkil on the market). And they have permission of the Chief in Haloban to do this. This is a corrupt system. The staff is too scared to do something, because of the reprocautions maybe. And are we allowed to do something? The staff tells us not to do, because these guys carry a big knife. Uhm sorry, we have huge jungle swords, spear, spearguns and more...that's not a strong argument guys. But in a corrupt system like this, you don't want to be involved. And also not protecting against the lizards worries me. My personal conclusion? Our help on the island seems to be useless at the moment. But the movie is copied several times and the right people are informed.

The last night was an unecpected surprise! After not seeing baby turles or tracks for weeks, Uzar discovered a few weak baby turtles during night patrol. They were taken by smaller crabs. Unbelievable if you feel how strong the baby turtles are. We saved all 5 of them and followed them into the sea. Finally something that shows we are protecting endangered species. A very good feeling after crossing the beach with extremely high tide and a bit of moonshine.

And this week we didn't eat a lot of fish. Where was all the fish that I catched with a broken fishing rod?! Was is fed to all the lizards like Rocky, Broken Rocky (big lizard with cut of tale), Little Rocky etc. Or was it the staff? MAYBE, MAYBE NOT....

At least they stopped cheating the card games, after we spotted their tricks every time

Friday, the 27th of January; goodbye Bangkaru

I decided to leave a few days earlier. Change of plans, being sure with the weather conditions on the ocean etc. Danielle is going to be sooo lonely with Uzar and Eja for 2 weeks on this island. So team Canada and Belanda stept in the boat with Adi, for a 2 hour trip to Pulau Balai. Perfect weather. And awesome to surf with a small speedboat on incredible high waves. The waves just clash into the forest of Haloban.

On our way we cross many tropical (deserted) islands. We stop at Pulau Thailana for a refreshing snorkle. Well, also here you see the results of Tsunami, earthquake, coral bombings and the rising of water temperatures. It's only the dark basic hard coral that is left, not many (big) fish. After so many years, the area still didn't recover. Thailana is a nice paradise island, stroll around in 20 minutes, meet a few tourists that stay there and have a chat. Again no Bintang. Just when the sun drops into the ocean we arrive at 'beautiful' Balai. After running out of petrol 1 km before the island. Balai is still 1 big garbage belt. None of the locals seems to be aware of the impact in the environment and nodbody seems to care. During our nightwalks people are staring at us like if we were from Mars. Oops, strickly Muslim here...so no showing knees or elbows. Loads of cosy bars, but no alcohol. But, the owner of guesthouse Putri was a bit of entertainment. Just like all the other weird locals here. Discussions with locals that say it's good to steal and eat turtle eggs, because it's good money...damn, there is still so much work to do here...

Saturday morning there is a big storm. It stopped raining and Tagsis took us (without Heiko) with a small orange speedboat onto the bumpy ocean, heading to Singkil. Stunning to see how long the flying fish actually fly next to you. At some point Heiko overtook us with a faster speedboat. Ofcourse we were all in for some compition. But is was a lost challenge, to heavy loaded. We got a nice surpise anyway just before we entered the ugliest harbour in the world, Singkil. A group of dolphins surrounded us and jumped out of the water. It all went smoothly so far. The private taxi was there, we overtook Heiko again who was enjoying a slow Bemo ride :-) But it took us 9,5 hours in insane Indonesian traffic to reach the hotel in Medan.

Just a few things that I still remeber from Sumatra? If you have a big car, you just squeeze yourself in and push other people of the road. In the night you drive without light of you cruise around in a fucking flashy driving Chistmas tree. Green traffic lights are more dangerous than red. Everybody looks the same. They still have to invent rubbish bins here. Sitting in a food stall is not that enjoyable while little kids climb around naked in everything. They really need proper dentists here. They don't know the difference between Ms and Mr. You can burn everything. I still don't know how you can eat instant noodles every freakin' day. Waiting is normal, even if it's 3 hours. Bring Rp, because ATM's are rare outside Medan. Petrol prices always stay the same: 4.500 Rp at Pertamina / 6.000 on the road... exactly the same as 1,5 year ago. Pollution, what is that?! They all have Honda motorbike, satelite dish, big TV and 2 mobiles in a huge house, but they don't have money for a simple table and a couch?! Everyone is laying on the floor. A matress is not a single pice of carboard on wooden planks. And I can go on for ages :-)

After having some chicken and french fries with Magmut, Rega, Cat, Jonny and team Canada it's time for some serious planning and a confused stomach.

For the moment, this was a short update. Pics will follow ASAP.