Days 13-18 (approximately 3 weeks until go to Roti for the first time)

Well this week has been fairly laid back, we’ve been off language school due to a religious festival to mark the end of fasting. As a result I haven’t been up to too much, we have been in the VSO office on Monday and Tuesday.

In something of an ingenious move last week I mentioned to one of the office staff that I lived near hardy’s supermarket and she quickly offered us a lift home as she was she was going to get some shopping. IN we hopped to her car only to discover she was actually going to a hardy’s at the other end of town (how was I supposed to know it was a massive chain? Apparently we were quite lucky, there is another one in the middle of nowhere!)

We now are fully equipped with push bikes and helmets so getting around is much easier. I was riding home the other day and saw two cats in a sort of crouched stalking position in front of me. As I approached I thought I could sort of scare them away and save the life of whatever poor rodent they were planning to savage. As I got closer they saw me and ran off and I turned to look at their target to get quite a shock.

It was a full on, massive, Indiana Jones, snakes on a plane style, huge snake! It was coiled up but at a guess I reckon (and genuinely with no exaggeration) about 5-6ft long and with a circumference something thicker than a cucumber, almost as big as that of a 500ml drinks bottle. I suddenly found a new burst of energy to make it back to the house! I would have taken a picture had I had my camera with me making use of the zoom function I can assure you. I realised rather than save the target from the cats I suspect that I saved the cats from rather a grim fate. On the whole it hasn’t freaked me out too much although I do think twice now when I walk home in the dark.

On Wednesday we went cycled over to Kutah which is the more toursty side of the island, about a 20 mile round trip on the bikes (well including when we got lost on the way home). I learned a valuable lesson, merely having sun tan lotion with you and putting it on in the morning does not stop you from getting burned by the end of the day even if it is factor 50. It was a really nice day, the sea is amazing with many waves to jump into and generally horse around.

In the afternoon we paid an Indonesian bloke to teach us some surfing for an hour. I didn’t do too badly for my first attempt, I managed to stand up and ride some waves although admittedly, I was much better when the teacher gave me a shove to help me get up to speed as the wave came, it turns out my puny arms are something of a disability when it comes to paddling yourself forward surfing. It was a little disappointing that as I was conquering a 15ft wave (okay, a slight exaggeration) I was forced to jump into sea to avoid being decapitated by my fellow volunteer Dorothea’s board. But on the whole a very enjoyable experience.

Having not really learnt the sun tan lotion lesson until it was too late, I have spent the last two days confined to my flat really with aftersun and paracetamol and rather vampire like only venturing out when the sun has gone down. Its mainly been spent doing some language homework (although not as much as I should) and generally reading and doing boring domestic things like washing. I managed to remain more of a pink than an outrageous fire engine red however I guess we’ll have to see how it goes.

Shopping here is rather an odd experience, my local supermarket and indeed all the ones I have been to have Indonesian sales people with megaphones trying to outdo each other by yelling though them about what I assume are various special offers despite all working for the same organisation, I can only assume they get commission. It does mean however yet another of your sense are bombarded as you shop. Also there appears to be no demand for shampoo for people with greasy hair, it’s all anti dandruff, I don’t know if there is any significance to this. However I’m guessing most of you aren’t all that interested in that, I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t if wasn’t for the fact I have greasy hair, no problems with dandruff and needed shampoo.

Tomorrow Sam has kindly agreed to come and try to watch the football with me, kindly as he’s not that into football. For those of you who don’t know, Blackburn are playing Man United at home which is one of two rovers games in the season that Rovers are almost guaranteed to be on TV here in Indonesia with the other being Rovers vs Man united away.

I have realised that I must have come to the worst place in the world to watch football, they are all football crazy however it really couldn’t be a place where all kick offs are so badly timed. This game has been moved to a 5:15 kick off (cheers sky/setanta....) which means it won’t kick off until 12:15 am local time and once you go back onto GMT instead of summer time, 01:15. This means 12pm kickoffs are okay, 3pm kickoffs are awkward, 5:15 kickoffs, difficult and evening kickoffs near impossible, if the time difference was more or less it would be easy to accommodate. Sorry for you none football fans, rant over.

Anyway, hope all is well, I have an Indonesian sim card but it doesn’t seem to like sending texts to England, however if anyone wanted to Skype me it would be very cheap, e-mail/facebook/text my English number if you want to.