Recount

The boat ride from Panang (Georgetown) Malaysia was over the night and I arrived in Medan in the morning. I rode my bike a few miles into Medan and got a hotel where there were a lot of travelers staying. Medan is the third largest city in Indonesia but there were no skyscrapers. There was a Mcdonald a block from my hotel which I was excited to eat at. I hung out in Medan for a couple days and went to the indoor shopping mall. It wasn't like a first world shopping mall because the stores were a lot smaller and the building was old, but there was a multiplex cinema on the top floor where I saw some movies. I always go see movies in the theater whenever I can because it is cheap and a good way to escape back home for a bit when I am traveling.

I spent my birthday there riding tricycle taxis around to different places drinking with some other travelers. Then I rode down to lake Toba is one day because some nice truck drivers offered to drive me about 50 miles down the road.

I spent my new years on on an island on lake Toba, the biggest lake in southeast Asia. It has an island in it the size of Singapore. The little tourist town I stayed in was on a little peninsula that had nice bays for swimming. I got a nice room right on the shore in a little bay where the water was calm and there was a booey where we swam out to. Rented a motorcycle and paid a kid who takes people on tours to see the local indian villages. We saw the tribe do a little dance for us and I saw their traditional A-frame houses lined up on the main street of their little village. Later we soaked at the hot springs in the town near the causeway where the island connects to the mainland. The kid was really annoying though. Later he wanted to take me on another tour or something but I said no, so he came to my table where I was hanging out with some other travelers and got mad that we were ignoring him so he sat down and yelled ''blah blah blah'' as loud as he could until we got the girls who worked there to kick him out. Indonesians are really friendly, but they tend to be very persistently annoying.

For the new years party about a hundred tourists and the locals all ate mushrooms together and danced all night long which was a blast. At one point I was the dancing entertainment which gave me new career prospect ideas. This Indonesian kid told me he was going to canoe around the island with me at midnight, but he got too drunk and I ended up drinking until three the next afternoon with a British kid, who I later canoed around half the island with. The Indonesian guy took me to his house where he lives with his grandmother, mother, and sisters. He told me his grandmother was 130 years old. That was a typical thing for an Indonesian to say because later I found that Indonesians are chronic liers. They were all sitting in the living room. They had these crackers that he told me to eat at loud as I could so I did, and they were all looking at me. Then we had the minute of silence for when the clock struck twelve and I realized how tripping I was. The mushrooms there are different than the American ones; in Indonesia they are very thin and not as strong.

The canoes there are carved out of a single piece of wood and have a flat rounded bottom with no rudder, so they are difficult to balance and very difficult to control because if you turn it, it continues to turn all the way around. I remember one time I went out on one behind my hotel and an Indonesian woman wanted to go for a ride because she said she had never been in one (which surely was a lie). When she got in she started to deliberately rock it back and forth and started to laugh and tell me she was afraid for her life because she couldn't swim and asked me if she fell in if I would save her. I remember barely keeping the boat afloat from swamping because it was so easily tipable. When I did my canoe trip around the island we filled it completely up with water so see if we could sink it and it just floated there like a log full of water. I remember one time I was our a couple of fishermen approached me with a huge bag of weed, enough to last me months of smoking, and wanted to sell it to me for like three bucks. I didn't buy it because at the time I wasn't planning on smoking, but a couple days later I changed my mind and bought some more for not nearly as good of a deal.

A couple days after the new years I canoed around half the lake on some more shrooms with a British kid who was on a break from teaching English in Bangkok. The second half of the day was very difficult because there was a lot of headwind. When we got to the kilometer wide causeway to the mainland, we didn't know what to do to get the canoe to the other side, because we couldn't carry it because it weighed like three hundred pounds.

After I saw my buddy off I found some people to haul the canoe to the other side and paid a guy to guard it for the night. Then I took the bus to the local hot springs and soaked for a bit and got a room. I got up at six the next morning and took off for the second day. After a little bit I got into a good rhythm and was going faster than when I was with the English dude. I remember I would paddle on one side until the boat turned, but it turned with so much momentum than I would have to paddle like 15 times on the other side to keep the canoe from doing a 180 degree turn. For the entire 17 hours that day I was struggling to keep the boat pointed forward my paddling on each side for a few seconds. I got into a really good rhythm though and was going really fast. The island was about 100 miles in diameter, and we did like 40 miles the first day, and so I did about 60 miles the second day. My English friend took his sunscreen with him though, and I forgot to buy more for myself and got burnt to a crisp so that my nose was one giant scab and my legs and arms boiled up with sin blisters that filled with water all over me. I think the water has an energizing effect because I didn't eat anything the whole day but I wasn't hungry and didn't get tired at all. I did suffer though because my stomach shriveled up and squeezed all of my stomach acid out into my throat and so I was in excruciating pain with all the burning. When I got back to my hotel at eleven that night my Indonesian buddy was there with some girls who worked at the hotel and they were looking at me like I was superman, and I think he said something like he didn't believe that I really did it.

Nias

A couple days later I rode my bike to the town where I could get a boat to Nias island to learn how to surf. The ride was nice because it was really green and hilly on nice narrow roads without too much traffic, however there were a lot of tree farms with rows of trees as far as the eye could see. I remember stopping for my weed breaks in the trees and it would suddenly start to rain like it did everyday for a bit. I would get really cold, but instead of putting on a windbreaker I would just start riding and the wind would warm me up. I remember one time I was smoking on the top of a pass and it started to rain and I got cold, so I just got on my bike and coasted downhill and warmed right up. The few hamlets I passed through seemed quaint with their animals and banana trees all over the place. The descent to the town was beautiful. From the beginning of the descent I could see the whole town and all the boats out in the water. I got a ferry to Nias that was pretty basic but got me there.

I spent a night in the town where I arrived and went to a movie with a couple of the kids who worked at the hotel I stayed at. They invited me to go with them, but then invited me to pay for them, which was alright because it was only like 20 cents per person or something. It was a pretty big movie theater and the movie was Indonesian, which is interesting because usually in foreign countries most of the movies in the theaters are American. In the middle of the movie for about thirty seconds an American porno was cut in but nobody in the theater seemed to mind.

Indonesians are a real piece of work. They are definitely one of the most annoying people in the world, but there is a lovable innocent humanity inherent in their outgoing noise and excitement. They try to be cool, but real. I'm thinking about the hawkers. Dean came by tonight and we talked about religion. He was in a good mood and he told be about the 10 commandments, he said in the Indonesian Bible the sixth commandment of Moses is to respect the elders. He studied the Bible in high school and most Indonesians go to church. That's cool. A lot more religious than I thought. He's smart, I want to talk to him more.

The next day I rode down to the beach on the southwest end of the island and got a hut and surfed for a month and a half. After three fascinating weeks of learning how to ride the wave, I learned how to surf which is a really cool feeling. However I quickly got bored with it after I figured it out. That coupled with the fact that I was all the local Indo kid surfers new best friend which became very annoying because they were always yelling my name and waving to me and trying to sell me stuff. I love Indonesians for their fervent outgoingness and genuity, but they greet you from all distances like they either want to kill you or you are their long lost relative who they thought was dead. They also make animal sounds and repeat the same stuff to you day after day after day, which gets more annoying every day. I knew it was time to go when I lost my cool with a tout just because he wanted me to give him a piece of candy. Maybe the fact that they are all descendents of head hunters causes their intensity.

That island has a pretty intense history of tribal warfare. Until about a hundred years ago they were basically in constant warfare for heads. They used heads from enemy tribes for everything from the christening of the chiefs new house, so someone's marriage or funeral. They would train for war by jumping over tall piles of stones that they had in the main street of their villages.

When I left Nias I took a bus across the island back to Medan because I don't like to ride the same route twice.

After Singapore

I took a boat to Sekupang on island of Batam which is about as big as Singapore but scarily populated. I had to weight a few days for the next boat to Jakarta and Sekupang wasn't really a town, so I rode by bike to another part of the island where the town 'Batam center' was. The whole time I was there I didn't see another foreigner and really felt like I was 'far from the empire'. The ride over across the island was interesting because the road was a large two lane highway with a large medium with grass planted on it, but there was no traffic at all. It was as if someone put it there expecting the population of the island to mushroom in a couple years. I got a very basic room in the town and walked around and a few girls approached me and invited me to go to their house up on the hill. One of them could speak a little English and she invited me to go to her house the next day and give me the address. So the next day I walked up into the hills where her neighborhood was and looked north and could see the skyscrapers of Singapore, which was strange because I knew that none of the Indonesians could ever go there and see what a first world like city with skyscrapers is, but they saw it off in the distance every day.

I asked a grungy woman for directions of the house I was looking for and she told me to come to her house and they could help me, so I walked down the side of a steep hill to some one room dirt floor shacks that were nothing more than sticks tied together with tin nailed on the top. The women lived alone and one of them had a baby. One of the women was trying to get me to sleep with her there and was acting really weird like a drug addict or something. They couldn't help me so I hiked up the road a little more and found the house.

I met the girl there and was hanging out in her living room. She lived there with her whole family in the small house of a couple rooms, and pretty soon the whole family and friends of the family found out that I was there and came over and hung out with me for a few hours. I was treated like a celebrity and they asked me all sorts of questions about what it was like in the states, and I had to correct them on a lot of misconceptions they had, unfortunately I don't remember anything specific. It got late and they asked me where I was staying and I said there. But apparently the girl didn't tell them what she told me and they said I couldn't because of the cops but then they changed their minds and told me I could stay in the office. The next day after I said chow to them I walked back to town and did a walking tour of the town. I saw a Playboy movie at a movie theater but it was a totally crappy TV movie. That was one of the most interesting things for me about Indonesia. They loved the crappy American movies. Their movies were better than the American movies they played. I remember one Indonesian movie I saw on the boat ride from Batam to Jakarta that was hilarious. It was about some Indonesian city guys who got lost on a small island and came across some Natives who were all dressed up with face paint and g-strings, and they were terrified that they would eat them so they ran all over the place trying to hide from them.

When I went back to my hotel there were some old Indonesian women there who were trying to hit on me and telling me they wanted to sleep with me which shows how fearless and outgoing the Indonesians are.

I got up really early the next day to catch the boat but it was like three hours late. I got a bed in the common passenger room next to a happy group of cops. The boat ride took about a day, and we entertained ourselves by sitting about the beds eating and talking and watching movies.

When we docked in Jakarta, the boat ride from the port to the city was fun because I got stoned and was riding my bike weaving through the tightest traffic than I have ever seen. I got a dorm room in a hostel on a street where all the cheap hotels were. I saw some other travelers there. I must have not slept very well on the boat because I slept really well in the hotel. I suddenly woke up at like ten in the morning totally naked laying on my back because my sheet fell off and one of my roommates was standing over me organizing his stuff on the bunk above me, but didn't seem freaked out by the naked guy there. I stayed in Jakarta a few days to renew my visa because mine got wet and ruined.

The first day in Jakarta I went to the huge central plaza that had an observation tower that I went up to have a gander at the skyline. The tall buildings went as far as the eye could see, as Jakarta is the 12 largest city in the world. I had a reminder of the insane rules of space Indonesians have. When we were waiting in line to get the elevator down there were a couple of boys waiting behind me. There were only like five people waiting, but the kid behind me was totally pressed up against me including all of his legs stomach and shoulders. I looked around to see if anybody noticed and everybody acted like it was natural. Then I looked at him in the eyes and he looked totally natural; he had no idea.

When I went to the Embassy there were about a hundred Indonesians waiting in line, but I didn't have to wait after them because I was just getting a new passport.

One day I rode to south Jakarta to the zoo and rode an elephant, then I went to see a giant model of the archipelago but the place was closed. In the end it was a really bad idea to ride my bike through Jakarta because it was about as polluted as the bad parts of Katmandu, and I was riding all day long. It was polluted so much because there were a lot of three wheeled simple taxis all over the place that spewed out black smoke, which made Jakarta about ten times worse than Bangkok and twenty times worse than Santiago or Mexico City. Because of that day I got gravely ill with an respiratory infection for a couple weeks and had to go to the hospital in Sulawesi.

Another day in Jakarta I went down to the historical center of the town that the Dutch had which was right on the shore. That was interesting because there were old Dutch buildings all over the place on a grid system like I was in an old European town. There I visited the war museum and saw what my Lonely Planet book said was the largest fleet of sailboats in the world, but it didn't seem like it to me.

One day I went to the Mosque next to the plaza and was about to take a photo of it and an annoying guy was saying ''no no no'', and said I couldn't take photos of it and wanted to give me a tour of the mosque, so I let him, but it wasn't worth it because most of what he said was pure lies. He said he gave president Clinton and tour of the Mosque and that every morning at five it totally filled up with thousands of worshipers who prayed in the direction of Mecca. I tried to get up at four thirty the next two days to see if it was true because I found that hard to believe, but I am sure he was full of shit. When I paid the guard the money to get in he didn't give me the change so I told him to give it to my tour guide and but he didn't and the tour guide said I had to pay him too, so I did. But after I rode away I got pissed off and came back and made the guard give me my change back.

The boat ride to Sulawesi was about a day and was an unforgettable experience that made me really wonder about Indonesians intelligence. When I got to the ticket office I asked for a bed in the common area like the one I got before, but the lady said it was all sold out and I would have to just buy a ticket and fend for myself by sleeping on the deck or the hallway or something. But when I got on the boat and saw the room with the beds they were totally empty. I slept that night on the deck in my sleeping bag because every square inch of the boat was used up. There were so many people in the hallways that it was difficult to walk around them and they were even packed in the flats between the flights of stairs. The second day I looked in the room of hundreds of beds and it was still empty.

I got out of the boat and rode into Surabaya which is the second largest town in Indonesia. I rode fast and felt fine, but the next day I was sick as a dog and ended up staying there for like a week because I was intent on riding my bike to Bali. I stayed in a small hosted in a dorm room and met a few other travelers. While I was there I saw a few movies and checked out the indoor malls. I hung out with one kid in the mall one day who invited himself to a pizza with me, but he was pretty boring. I went to a bar with a cool American guy while I was there and was hanging out with this really cute bartender girl. I also did a lot of reading.

When I finally got better I rode down to the base of volcano Bromo and got a bus up to the little town at the base of it. The town I stayed at had really powerful and peaceful energy. There was a lot of mist and their was lush jungle everywhere, probably from the volcanic ash. It was expensive though so no one was hanging out there. I stayed there one night and rode into the moonscape of the crater the next day and walked up to the smoking caldera. In the distance I could see the big volcano. Then I rode my bike down the hill which was beautiful and a very long descent. At the base I took a bus to Bali and was talking to some Indonesian girls in the back of the bus for the ride.

Bali

When I got to Denpasar, the capital and only city in Bali, I rode my bike down to Kuta beach where all the discos and tourists are. I got a hotel room there and went dancing at the disco. The disco was cool because it played good American music with the videos on large screens. The people kept to themselves though. I went to a couple more discos. When I came out of one a couple of young hot Indonesian prostitutes came up to me and offered to do me for eleven bucks, and I was kind of drunk so I went to a hotel room right there and screwed her. Afterwards she wanted me to wait for her and leave with me but I was embarrassed for doing a prostitute and left. I shouldn't have though, maybe I could have hung out with her afterwards. It seemed like the prostitutes there didn't have any pimps or anything and seemed relatively level headed. I went to the beach the next day and wanted to go surfing but it was the most crowded beach I have ever been to, and there were literally hundreds of people surfing in the waves. So many people that they must have been running over each other left right and center, so I opted not to surf there. The town of Kuta was cool because it had a tourist, festive atmosphere and a lot of tourists on weekend trips from Australia. I got a massage from an Indonesian woman in a massage booth, it was OK. There were a lot of cool restaurants there.

After Kuta I went to the other side of the southern peninsula because there was a surf beach there but the waves didn't look that good and the people were asking too much to rent the boards, so I rode over to Ubud.

I got a really big room with a big bed on the second level of a restaurant-hotel owned by a nice Hindi woman who did smoke smudging every night to ward off the evil spirits. I stayed in Ubud for a couple of weeks because there were a lot of things I wanted to do but I needed to get up early and couldn't. But I enjoyed myself. I rode up to lake Batus, the largest lake on Bali. The ride up to the lake was beautiful and different because there are green plants everywhere and the road went strait up without any turns. The lake is in a deep caldera and is between two mountains, one smoking through a big caldera, and one is 10,300 feet high. There was a little town on the top of the caldera. I rode up there a couple of times on different routes. One time I rode down the candera to the lake and past a lakeside town to another town where I took a boat to their grave yard where they don't bury their dead. I saw burnt looking corpses behind bamboo cages so the birds didn't eat them. The Indonesians claimed they were only there a couple of weeks but they looked too decomposed for that. Who knows. Indonesians aren't very good at telling the truth or being accurate. The lake was beautiful. It would have been nice to take a canoe across it.

I wanted to go to a beach on the northern end of the island to see dolphins that where supposed to be there all the time, but I could never get up on time.

While I was in Ubud I saw a sign for massages outside of a hotel-restaurant a couple meters down from my hotel and I saw some cute young girls working there so I asked for a massage. I waited in a dark little room that doubled as a dorm room, and a senile old man about 80 years old came in and poured freezing water over my head that smelled rotten and then motioned for me to take my shirt off and then put his hands in the water and put his hands on my head and my back and sort of smacked me and squeezed his hands a little. I sat there for like fifteen minutes trying to figure out if it was a joke or if he was serious, then I couldn't stand it anymore because of the coldness and foul stench of the water and gave him half of the money for the massage and he took it and just sat there with a blank look on his face. In retrospect I should have said something because there is no way they could have been serious. They must have been doing some kind of practical joke or something.

One day I rented a motorcycle and rode up to the Hindu monetary called Borodhupur way up on the side of the highest mountain in Bali to climb the mountain but it was on a special day that only happens once every ten years and I couldn't climb the mountain. The monastery was beautiful though. It was huge with a whole complex of temples and statues, and large groups of dressed up Hindi nuns walking around. After there I rode on a tiny paved road really fast and crashed into this guy who turned in front of me without signaling. I broke his rear light with my tire and he all these people came up to me and were trying to tell me and everybody was telling me it was my fault, but I said he turned in front of me without signaling so it was his fault. But they didn't understand me so I drove off. I went up to another monastery that was way up switchbacks up the mountain to try to climb the mountain by bypassing the trail, but I couldn't get around anywhere because the whole mountain was in thick jungle and on the side of cliffs.

Then I rode down to the old Hindi capital of Bali which was in a town east of Denpasar and did a tour of the palace. The palace wasn't that big, but it had interesting open rooms with all kinds of religious paintings that he explained to me. I remember some paintings he described to me. One was of what happens to you when you die; it you are bad you are reincarnated into an ugly deformed person and if you are good you are reincarnated into a beautiful person. His speech was kind of funny because it was all scripted and he said it really fast as if he was trying to belt it out as fast as he could so he could get on to the next tourist. He did a good job though so I gave him a good tip.

The motorbike ride back to Ubud was interesting because most of the vehicles on the road were those little motorcycles and in the stop lights they would all bunch up together haphazardly like they were in a race. And when the light turned green they would all take off and ride really close and pass each other. I treated it like a race and managed to get through to the front of the pack by the time I got to Ubud.

One time I was riding my bike around Denpasar and I saw hundreds of people doing laps on their motorcycles in a showing for the female who was running for president. I rode up behind them for a little but they were going to fast and got away from me.

While I was in Bali I saw a sign for classes in the book A Course in Miracles which I had just read so I went to the place and the guy was a long haired Vietnam vet who had been turned on to the book by this Australian woman who was with him. He was telling us about the different exercises in the book but and I tried to philosophize with him but he didn't want to talk about anything other than the book and the woman kind of annoyed me with a speech about how you have to take the book seriously or something. So to me they were just like the fundamentalists and the Bible, with a one track mind following their own Bible. This guy had a nice little house though with a nice backyard.

I would like my mom to retire there for a year or so because it is so peaceful and cheap and beautiful with all the greenery around because it rains like every day.

I was hanging out with some Canadian girls while I was there too, and I went to the monkey garden and saw movies at the restaurants and read a lot of books.

Ubud is a really cool town because it is full of all kinds of artists. It has a lot of interesting museums with good paintings, and tons of wood carvers with their goods displayed at their workshop-houses all over the place. There is a bit of an artsy ex-pat community there also, but they didn't seem consolidated as I didn't see any ex-pat hang out places.

Ubud is also a center of the traditional Hindu dancers who put on shows. I went to two of them and they were pretty cool. In one they pretended that they were a bunch of monkeys fighting each other. One monkey man would scream ''pow!'' and everybody else would fall down as if they would dead, and then they would get up again and jump around like a bunch of monkeys again. I saw another one where they all danced their stereotypical Hindi dance like what you see the Indians do in the movies. I don't know how all the Hindus got to be living in that beautiful island in an archipelago full of Muslims and Christians, but they seemed to me to be a bunch of Indians living in the heart of Bali. My two Canadian friends went to another show that I missed and told me it was a total joke though. They said that there were just a bunch of Indonesians sitting in a circle talking and they changed good money to have a bunch of tourists sitting around watching them like a bunch of idiots.

While I was there I met an Indonesian guy who hooked me up with about a quarter ounce of pretty good weed that I started smoking which didn't do me much good in my quest to get up early.

When I was done with Ubud I went to Denpasar to buy some essential oils for my mom. The woman there who was an Australian woman who I didn't actually meet because she had Indonesians maning the shop told me that the oils were %100 natural, and I didn't know the difference at the time, but when my mom got them they were synthetic. But the price that we paid was OK. I stayed one night in Denpasar and went to the movie theater. Denpasar was kind of boring because there was no city center, and there were no tourists there at all. I did meet an indonesian guy at the internet place who had been to Boulder though.

After Bali

The next day I got a boat to Timur which was a memorable experience because the whole trip was ridiculously chaotic from beginning to end. For the boarding of the boat the doors didn't open all the way for who knows what reason so people had to duck and climb over the half opened doors with their chickens and babies strapped to them. And when I got on the boat it was so crowded that there were people sleeping on every square inch of the inside of the boat, from the hallways to the stair landings to the outside deck. If that boat would have sunken it would have made the Titanic look like a swamped raft. The first night I slept on the deck, but the second night I slept inside because I met a group of Indonesian soccer players who were going to New Guinea for a game and had a wide section of the hallway and offered me to stay with them there. I passed the time by hanging out in the bar on the upper deck with these crazy Indonesians. I talked a little with them with the little English they knew, but they certainly paid a lot of attention to me. They were an extended family, and there was a teenager there who was totally off the wall the entire time making everybody crack up with all of his antics making fun of everybody. They were talking about the disco party the night before that I wished I had known about. I manages to stay stoned on the boat from going in my sleeping bag on the deck and smoking inside of it.

The lower decks of the boat were people slept was a pretty crazy scene because there were entire families totally packed together and mixed in with all the bags of goods and near the engine room so your could barely hear the next person talking to you.

It was absolute chaos when we docked because everybody packed up against each other on one side of the boat waiting for the door to open but the other door opened so everybody turned around and pushed and in their fight to get out first. I had my bike with me and a lot of people were pushing my bike and making some people in front of me pissed at me, so I had to start keeping the brakes on trying to maintain order. When I finally got to the outside of the boat I met the crazy family and they asked me to stay with them at their house and told me to wait for them, but I wanted peace and quiet so I just rode into town.

I spent a couple days there waiting for the plane to Darwin. The town was kind of boring because there were no bars or restaurants or libraries or movie theaters or anything. I met one cute local girl in a sandwich shop who had been living in Hong Kong and told me she didn't like Indonesian guys because they were boring. She gave me her number in Hong Kong in case I ever went there.

I rode to the airport a few miles out of town and was surprised to see that there were some other white people waiting for the plane because I didn't see anyone like them in town. Needless to say I was super excited to get on that plane and take off to the first world again.

Journal

Nias

1-7-99

I changed money today. I realized that travelers checks are too expensive of a way to go. This is the last batch of travelers check I will ever use.

It is 120 Km's to Telukdalam, I will start before down tomorrow. I tightened my spokes on one side today, probably too much. I won't be surprised if I break one tomorrow. I got more sunburned the other day than I have ever been in my life. The skin just boiled off my body. I lost a whole layer on my forehead, I took a picture. Every body is looking at me, my nose was a giant scab and I even had a sun blister on my leg for the first time. I just looked and my whole lower left leg is a giant sun blister. The sun must be stronger here at sea level at the equator than at 11,000 feet at 40 degrees. Either that, or I got really sensitive skin from being indoors for so long. I did 200 pushups and 600 sit-ups today. It was harder at first but turned out to be a lot easier than the last time I did it 9 days ago. Then I went to a Hong Kong kung food movie with two kids who work here. They invited themselves and then suggested I pay. I didn't have any objections but it disgorged me from wanting to do it again. Even though it was only 1000 for the movie. These kids have never left Nias.

1-9-99

I am at Sorake beach on Lagundri bay, on Nias Indonesia. I came here about a day ago. The ride was very bumpy but I managed to make it here in six hours. I chose the sun beach Losmen because it was one of two that was in the lonely planet. The boy here Dean is very nice. He is 18 years old. his cousin Johnny I bought a board from for 150 dollars, but I have to give it back to him when I leave. My losmen is very nice. I have a shower, a tub, and porch overlooking the sea about 50 away. This morning I bought booties for $30 and a carved pen for $1.70.

I am waiting until my tub is full before I go out, but the water stopped coming. There is nobody on the waves now. I am in heaven, one of the best surfing beaches in the world, and there is nobody here. It looks like I will be able to live on like 10 bucks a day.

There are two Brit's next to me who also just got here and two Germans who also just got here. I may want to stay here hour like 5 months. I just saw the German go out. I think I will catch up with him soon, he is a beginner also.

I am still recovering from that canoe trip. I have this strange kink in my shoulder that gets tight when I extend my arm, but when I massage my shoulder I cannot feel any thing. I also have a spot so sore on my inner right wrist that I'd think I'd a been whacked.

I had a dream that I was with Wyndham in Boulder, we were coming home from somewhere to the Balsam house. Dad was driving us in the Tornado and we passed Casey Junior High but it was a bigger building and I think there was a body building competition happening right before that on the hill up to it. Wyndham pointed to a building and said that was where he, Ian, and Evan were taking Tae Kwan Do lessons. Then I said, "Remember his sister, she hated me, and he said "Yea, she is in school in Cicely, I think she is dating Graham this Saturday. Then we got to colony market and Wyndham said he wishes he had a hand phone and I said in Korea everybody has hand phones. Then I noticed a magazine that said "Tall women in here," so I got excited and opened it up. I don't remember seeing any women but at first Wyndham was watching me, then he went away and I got a boner so I sat down and it got so big it stuck right out of my shorts and I had to tuck it in again. Then I went upstairs again and was talking to Wyndham. I must have just come back from my trip because he said Biscuits fine, he is getting old, though, and I said "Biscuits still alive?" He said "No, he's dead" and I said "he's dead?" and he said "No he's still alive", and I got excited about seeing him.

The dream I had before that I was at a fair ground and was partying with a lot of 50 year olds and then I was in a small trailer as it was up with Steven Tyler and another kid. I asked Steven Tyler how old he was and he said 50, and I said "You look good for 50". I saw a picture of you in a magazine with your shirt off", and he said "Thanks".

1-12-99

I went on a 3 day or 5 day boat trip to some of the little surrounding islands with six other guys. Eric the surfer from Tahoe, Mark the tree planter from Victoria, and Julian and Andrew the board makers from Dover, England, and Philip the jeweler and Michael the electrician from Germany. Yesterday we went to Pulau and surfed waves a little bigger than Nias. It was fun. I stood up three times but couldn't stick it, I think because I didn't have any wax. I feel good now about getting on and caught in the waves. Now all I need is to stand up. Mike, Phil, Mark, and me are beginners. Those guys have ridden waves. I like these guys. The Germans have very pleasant energy, and are totally happy and worry free. Eric is totally controlled, a Jedi master, Mark reminds me of Arian wheeler by his facial expressions and the way he talks. He is the entertainer, the one who makes comments on everything. Julian is the oldest at 30, he has kind of rough edges and judgmental but I like him. He pays attention to you and is at peace with himself. Mark and I are the only ones who are stoned all day long; the Germans smoke at night, and Andrew did last night. Andrew is the youngest at 19, he is very quiet, but totally at peace.

I just got back from surfing, I don't know how long for because I lost my watch in the waves. I wish I waited instead of just buying this board and rented because after spending days trying to stand up without success, I did it on my second wave on Mikes Malibu. I can sort of stand up on my board. I am happy with my board. It is 7 feet and is very sleek. Eric says it is a "bullet". Perfect for tubes. Who knows, maybe I will be able to ride a tube. I could still see my self here for 5 months. When I first went out today, I was stoned and rode my first wave into some rocks and got a scratch on my right shoulder. Then I couldn't get back into the water because the waves kept crashing against me. and knocking me off my board. Then I remembered to just be on it and paddle and duck under the waves until I get out.

I made major breakthroughs today. But all in baby steps. First I rode one of my knees for the first time, then I stood on my right foot in front and left foot top down on the back, then I stood up at the end of a few waves, and when Mike went in I took his board and actually rode a wave. Then my nose started hurting and my arms lost their strength so I came in. I am not going out again because of my nose. When I get back I will buy water proof sun screen and stay out of the water. My legs are red also from the burn.

Yesterday after surfing here we went to another island and parked next to it. Eric, Philip, Mike, and I swam ashore and walked to the other side and collected shells at the shore and watched the sun set. They walked through the island back and I walked around it. I ran and beat them.

There was only one light on the boat and we took it and then Philip broke it. When we noticed our food wasn't coming I went back there and the leader of the pack of 5, Senali, said that they didn't cook because there was no light. So I asked him to show me the stuff so I could cook because I was hungry, and he said he didn't feel well and offered to cook it with two other guys while Eric and I talked and watched. It sure was nice when we got our roman noodles. Next time I do this trip I will just have a Captain and do the cooking ourselves, it will save money and is less of a hassle.

Last night I slept on the roof of the boat. Everybody else was inside the boat in mosquito nets. I wasn't hassled though. The Indonesians took their time cooking our oatmeal, we didn't leave for here until about ten; another reason not to hire cooks. We had hopes of catching glassy waves in the morning but I don't think we hit them until about noon.

Surfing is quiet simple, but I have so many little things to learn. First, you have to get used to paddling on the board, then you have to learn to read the waves so you know which ones to take and at what time, then you have to learn how to paddle onto it and get on the board and stay up. Paddling back through the waves is also a chore that takes practice. But it is all so fun and keeps you swimming. Its a great workout. When I am too pooped to catch the wave I go in.

I don't think there is anything wrong with combining sit ups and pushups to this, especially with my burns keeping me out of the sun. The bruise on my arm was acting up again also.

The five Indo's and the seven of us aren't talking to each other. Senali hasn't hung out with us at all. I don't like the Indo's here as much s in Tuk Tuk. They are more up tight and don't care about us, only our money. They tell so many lies you cannot take them seriously. Here on Nias Dean said Johnny is his cousin but the other surf shop owner said that is a lie. That guy also said you can't trust any one here and Dean said that also. Johnny said he was the only one with boards when almost everyone has boards. These Indo's have done rotten things to these other guy. Mark bought dope the other day and smoked it and hid it in the sand, then another guy went to him and showed him the film canisters and said that someone saw him stash it in the sand and was going to call the cops but he talked him out of it because Mark was a nice guy and was going to do Mark a favor and have him give him a hundred bucks to not call the cops, so Mark went and told his hotel owner and they all got together and talked about it and told Mark not to give the con artist money, but the next day the kid came back and told Mark that he got in trouble with the cops for digging it out of the sand so Mark should give him three bucks because it is his fault. Mark told him he wasn't going to give him money, so he started causing a fuss and pushed Mark so Philip gave him the money and told him to get lost.

Eric said he gave a guy money for a board rental to give to his friend and he never did so and Mark had to hunt him down and get the money from him. Because of all this, I am not going to associate with these Indonesians. Just living here is enough association for me. This is the perfect life though. I wouldn't rather be doing anything else.

1-17-99

I didn't surf much yesterday either. I got up late and didn't really have the motivation to go out right away so I stayed in and read and then went out but the waves were huge and it started raining hard. I tried to surf a big one but it was way too big like 10 feet tall, and I got pumped in it, held down for like 7 seconds and I had to swim like 5 feet to the top and breathed through the foam and got a breath right before the next big wave hit which I didn't even think about bringing my board under. So I went in and didn't go out again.

I rode to Zita restaurant for some cake and there was no one as usual, but I saw Mike the English guy who I drank with with the Chauffeur. He was with a buddy and we agreed to meet later at Toho bar. I read a little more and then went there and hung out with the locals and drank wine and ate. This kid told me he would sell me a matchbox for 30,000 rupees, and I asked him

"how much do you buy it for?"

"What?"

"Marijuana"

"Sh, cops, might here"

I looked around and it was only people we had been hanging out with, "Whose the cop?" Then he went away.

There are big waves today and all the good surfers are going out to the deeps and I go to the mellow part where nobody else is. Its great, I came back because I go on a wave and couldn't see anything because my hair was in my eyes and I wanted to get the hair tie. I am eating lunch while I am here. I hope this tie works because it is a pain in the ass to have hair in my eyes all the time. Every wave I duck under the first thing I do when I come up is swipe the hair away so I can see, also when I catch foamy waves the water knocks my hair in my face. That would suck if I had to cut my hair.

1-20-99

I was kind of sick yesterday and worried that I might be today, but I was psyched that I wasn't, I just slept in after getting to sleep at 1 AM. I bought some of the green bicycle (weed) and just hung out with myself. Johnny came over and fixed dings on my board and then I went swimming with their mask. Tomorrow I want to rent a mask and snorkel and maybe fins and maybe a spear, and go exploring around the waves and see the waves pass over my head. Maybe I could get a crab. Then I went surfing at about 12:30 and came back at 4:30, the longest surf yet. Plus I got the most waves, about a dozen. Still have not officially stood up but I am coming close. I want to borrow the big Malibu when Johnny fixes it. Tomorrow I will also go into town and change $20 and explore around the villages in the morning. I need to remember to fix my bike first though, it was running perfectly but I left it all night on the rear derailleur with the rear wheel off in Gunung Sitoli and it got all fucked up.

1-21-99

I had a dream night before last that I was the son of a super rich Woman and lived in a castle on the top of a hill and she had a Porsche 911 and a Mercedes but wouldn't let me drive them. One day it snowed and I took out the dark red Mercedes and although it drove like a dream, I could barely move because there was so much snow. She was really grumpy, and had servants and a fence and every thing.

Last night I had a dream that I was in a bus with a bunch of kids and then we were running from the law and were caught. Then I had a dream with my brother in a nice hotel room and then there was a beautiful girl there who wanted me so Wyndham left and she took al her clothes off and was very excited and coming to me with ashamedness and then I suddenly remembered that I had the cock rash and showed her and she got upset and left, then I woke up.

This morning is raining and my nose is fried again, I think the Chloroquin is causing it because I never got burnt this easily in Colorado; I was only out for four hours. I will read until it stops raining then ride into town, but first I will shoot the rest of the roll.

1-23-99

I didn't sleep very well last night because I was cold because I didn't have my blanket on. That is why I haven't been getting up until 9. I just realized that today. I paid Papa 290,000 for last week and he bought me a monkey named Cody who lives on my porch. I read some of Ezekiel until 12 and then rented a mask, snorkel and fins for 15,000. When I go to Padang I will change 2 million and then climb the mountain and then go back and change 2 million from Singapore.

I had a dream a couple nights ago that I was in a van that drove off a cliff and flew about 100 feet through the air and crashed next to some campers. I jumped out of the car just before it became airborne. The guy who was driving wasn't hurt either.

Then that night I had a dream that I was in a giant swimming pool and doing the internet in it and there were old ladies there.

That Monkey is fascinating to watch bouncing around. He whines a lot and is only one year old.

1-25-99

I went to the doctor today and got antibiotics and cremes for my awful boils and cock fungus. I am going to stay out of the water until my cock

rot and boils go away. They were really driving me crazy last night.

I had a break through yesterday with the Bible when I found the summary section at the end. I also don't feel that good probably because of the sores. It made me want to read the new testament again.

Yesterday I rode into Teluk Dalam and bought things I needed that I couldn't buy here: clothes , sandals, candles, sunscreen, ointments, bug repellant, shoe lace, hair ties, a razor. But I forgot to mail stuff. I borrowed a Bible from the guy at the bank which was cool. I came home and read the rest of psalms. I want to finish the Bible and A Course in Miracles before I leave on the 13th for Singapore. I decided I would take the boat to Padang and climb the volcano and go to Singapore via Buttatingi and back. I have 27 more days here including today. I didn't have the motivation this morning to go surfing because I haven't been for so long and it is cloudy, so I ordered breakfast, after I eat I will go out. I will be excited by then. I wish I bought more dope in Tuk Tuk; I will when I go back there for my second visa run, but that is a very long way off.

1-25-99

I had a dream last night that I went to Prince Charles house who was the kind of England. He lived in the country side in a normal sized house surrounded by other joined houses forming a ring wall around it. I was hanging out with him, and was surprised how small it was for the kings house and I looked at him as if I was his mother praising him and he looked at me with pride and he looked kind of goofy to me and then said his child was too small. Then we ventured off somewhere else and I had a dream that I was hanging out with Chris Wherry and Bernie and they were ignoring me and kind of acting like asshole's. We were in a fast food place and I was friends with the owners who were oriental and we may have been I Asia, and Chris Wrote a message to meet his friend somewhere on the table top and the owner saw him but didn't say anything and I that I was hanging with them. Bernie told Chris he had found a poem which I guess was the cool thing to do. That's all. ...Small though, even my daughter is bigger than me now. We hung out a little more and then parted ways. he was very nice. I had a dream before that along the same lines, but cannot remember them. All in all, very wild dreams, especially the last one.

1-25-99

Today I am not surfing either because my nose hasn't recovered from the sun. I am having a sort of transformation into patience and innocence of thought. I was reading the Tibetan book of living and dying. And reading a course in miracles more.

Well I came back from the four day boat trip, it was fun, but we are all fucked off at the Indonesians, they are ruthless about money. This guy Sanali who took us out on the boat trip wanted us to pay for 5 days but we were only gone 4 because he said he borrowed the boat for 5 days from the owner. Therefore he is obligated to pay for it for 5 days. Plus they charged 10 thousand for a minute long boat ride to shore and 10 more for the ride out there. Last night was just that for Julian and Andrew so we went to surfer party with monkey and I drank five beers and puked when I came home and am doing nothing today because I am so hung over.

I had interesting dreams last night that I was in Indonesia but it was much nicer than now. Then I got in a van with some cute girls and dudes and drove to a dock and got in a boat with other people.

I had a dream last night that I went out to the parking lot and I saw Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, and another famous actor getting ready for a shoot out. They looked kind of goofy; then saw another gang of younger punks coming and there was a shoot out. But as I was watching a voice said "They aren't even hitting each other, just by standers''.

Then I woke up and made a bong with Dean and got stoned with him and the monkey and then read some more and went surfing but the waves were too small and I don't feel like surfing anyway today. It is Sunday, the energy is slow and gloomy, raining now. That's fine, I am in a zoned mood now and enjoying just reading.

I am getting good writing ideas: One how my indigenous views changed and another the evolution of the world with I started, and a third, the confused state of the world now, and an interpretation of the old testament. Maybe I could finish the bible today, it is so weird. Hard to pay attention. When I am done and with a course in miracles I will write some more.

I am still getting used to these weird Indonesians. When I am done reading or whatever, I'm going to make it a point to have at least one intelligent or rather try to have intelligent conversations with these thick Indonesians. Get a load of this: This morning Dean said he has a friend who met an American who was always reading the Bible who told him that if he gave the dictionary worth 200,000 to him for free, he would have God bless him, so he did it. Dean was saying it was stupid to think that and I was amazed that this could be true. Then I went down to Zita to buy cake and I saw Juju there the kid who sold me dope and I asked him if he had the 10 thousand he owed me and he said he forgot again but he wanted me to buy him a piece of cake. I said if he paid me back I would think about it. The he said

"Oh book a bible, I meet an American a month ago who read the Bible all the time".

"Yea, somebody gave him a dictionary for free".

"Yea I did"

"Oh it was you, why?"

"What?"

"You gave it to him for free because he said he would have god bless you?"

"No, he said you shouldn't sell Bibles, they should be given away"

"I can understand that, but you gave him a dictionary"

"But it is good to give away stuff to the needy"

"But he is American, he has money, did somebody give it to you?"

"No"

He didn't want to talk about that anymore and asked me for cake but I repeated what I said before and started writing about my dreams so he kept repeating "cake, cake, give me cake". Then Antwon and his buddy came telling me to loan them my bike for a half hour and I said no, so the two boys sat next to me and started to try to beg a little.

I want to take a picture on these Indo's sitting around smoking cigarettes. For me it is sad seeing them looking at me as I pass by.

This morning when I went surfing I went to Johnnie's to borrow a big board for but his partner was there with an annoying guy who was trying to sell me surf cloths who looked like Johnny, I think he is his brother.

"I want to borrow a Malibu".

"In here take this one, the only one that works".

"Oh no leash," After I tied my leash on and was ready to go.

"Give me fifteen thousand".

"But Johnny said I could switch this out for any board here''.

"No".

"Only for today".

"No".

"OK, show me which boards are Johnnie's".

"None".

"This board (My board) is the only board here that is Johnnie's".

"Yes".

2-10-99

I'm not going to surf again today, when I was out before I was limping from the pain in my right foot who's toe rot for 9 months turned into raw flesh. Hopefully it will be bearable tomorrow when I hopefully go out early. Today is good for just reading and writing. Dean said an interesting thing yesterday. "Tourists are always reading, but Indonesians like to relax" He said it as if hanging out with your thumb up your ass is better, so I said. "When you read, you are smart, and when you are smart you make money. "Yea". But I don't think he really got it. I want to explain it to him later, but they don't seem to be capable of talking about anything real. When I go to Singapore I will buy a tape recorder to record the conversations, the only real way to document their mentality.

This morning one of the Indonesians said he wants me to take his CD player to the shop to have it fixed and I said sure and he said he will bring it by later.

These skin rashes are so bad I don't know if I will last 5 months here. I might have to get on antibiotics again. I am hoping I will develop an immunity to it, I seem to be the only one suffering from it. I don't have any desire to spend any time outside my hut and the waves because I will be hounded by annoying Indonesians wanting to buy them things and sell me things and making annoying sounds as I pass by. I won't buy any more dope from book boy Joju. Julian said "Book boy is full of shit". when I told him he said he won $300 dollars American in the surf competition and surfed the big waves 6 feet when they were here last week. "We didn't see him out there".

2-19-99

I bought books today and e-mailed and fixed my bike, did laundry, shaved, bought three tapes, ate junk food. But forgot to do the malaria test as I have been feeling slightly under the weather for a week or so. So I will do that and buy a new inhaler tomorrow which I also really need to do, I might leave tomorrow. I don't have the lonely planet for Malaysia so I don't know where the reasonable hotels are. Thank God they know English here. I don't like staying at a place for more than two nights; but I have done a lot here so its ok. I have such an urge to get a move on and keep it on until Australia. I could see myself settling down there or New Zealand though, maybe I will make enough money there to buy a sea kayak.

I suddenly got bored of this surfing small waves and sick of the Indo's, so I think I'm going to leave pretty soon and bike to Singapore, Brunei, and Australia which I also suddenly got excited about. I got u at 7:00 this morning because I spent last night in a mans office and he was going to go to work. I met a girl the night before and she said I could stay at her house so I went there and hung out with her family and they asked me what hotel I was staying at and I said here, but they were surprised because apparently she said I couldn't stay there, just hang out and they said their father who didn't even live there said I couldn't stay there because of the cops. But then he changed his mind and said I could. This morning I went back to the hotel.

2-27-99

I am now in Belawan Indonesia waiting for the; boat to Penang Malaysia. When I get there I will buy hydrogen peroxide, have a malaria test, buy a derailleur screw and two clip screw, do laundry, and buy a book if I can find a good one.

I am looking forward to the movies on the boat and reading and sleeping or whatever. As I have been sleeping here. I hope the boat arrives there with enough time for me to do those things today which I don't think so.

After Singapore

3-2-99

I was up until 2:30 this morning reading, my plan was to stay awake all night because I had to get up at 5 anyway but at 2:30 I got sleepy and decided to tape the alarm clock to my ear and just deal with the discomfort of getting up so early when the alarm rang I was surprised at how easy it was to get up and how fresh I was. At first I was a little nervous riding at night, but once I got going I was fine. It took me about 40 minutes to ride the 14km to Sekupang and it got light on my way there. I was amazed at all the people I saw up running, maybe 20. I saw a man and his 4-5 year old running. And groups of people hanging out under trees even before it got light out.

Of course the boat didn't leave at 7, but at 10. It was one of the huge cruise liners and I got a nice bed with a place to store my stuff and a TV playing horrible movies I don't understand why Malaysians and Indo's play the absolute worst Hollywood movies on these boats. The ticket was about 140,000, including good meals. Good price. I plan on staying in Jakarta long enough to get a new passport if I have to there; but hopefully I will be able to in Bali and enjoy myself surfing.

3-12-99

I hung out with another indo kid today, and reconfirmed my beliefs that they are very uneducated. I said

"How many people live here in

Indonesia?"

"700,000,000"

"No, 200,000,000".

"No"

"Where did you hear this?"

"On the TV"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes" So I got out my lonely planted book and said

"Look this book says 200,000,000".

"I don't belief it".

"And you do believe the TV even though you don't remember who said it?"

"Well this book was published two years ago".

"So the population of Indonesia grew from 200 to 700 million in two years?"

"Yes"

"Are you sure, this book says by 2035 the population is projected to be 400 million".

"I don't know what I think". So I dropped it.

He had kind of a pained frantic look in his eyes and later ordered food with me and when the bill came said he didn't have any money so I had to pay 17 thousand for him which rubbed me the wrong way. I asked him what the most populated country is and he didn't know so I wrote the first four most populated countries down with their populations and then we had the population of Indonesia conversation and then I asked him what the most populated country in the world is and he didn't know so I told him to get the piece of paper, but he lost it so I made him guess but he didn't know so I told him again. His English wasn't very good so I couldn't talk about a whole lot to him.

I have been very ill for the last 5 days. Had lung problems again and was up for two days because of it and had o go to the hospital. I was up all last night with a fever. I am hoping I will be well enough to ride tomorrow. Although it just occurred to me maybe I should buy a tent here tomorrow. and a camera because I thing mine is broken or at least see if I can get mine fixed. This fever spread to my brain, I cannot think and I have been having nightmarish dreams. I had a dream night before last that I was %100 evil, I don't remember anything else, but I was being totally wacky.

Surabaia

3-17-99

I am still sick as a dog. I went to the hospital yesterday and got more pills. I have good blood and the doctor said I had a fever because of an upper respiratory infection, I have been hawking up a lot of yellow phlegm.

I finished the Arab book today. Here is at the summary: The Arab world is an OK book. the author wasn't opinionated enough with her hosts and didn't explain the causes of things enough, but it gave me a good picture of the place and made me really want to go there. Arabs seem very opinionated, so easier to have deeper conversations with than Asians. They are struggling with modernity because they have switched from small scale simple lifestyles to industrialization in one generation. Ending patriarchy and putting women to work, as well as changing other beliefs before upheld by the Koran, like seeing western sex movies and styles an coping with the fact that the west actually is more i touch with the way it should be regarding the relationship of the sexes. Their age old belief that they are the chosen ones because of Islam, mixed with the new world really confuses them. So they are actually much less settled in their ways than Americans. I think it goes to show how the Christian way of thinking is better than Islam, allowing for more freedom of thought and action; however their zealousness does give the conviction and comfort in being who they are. But it isn't worth it when you see it causes wars caused by superiority complexes.

3-24-99

There is a new book I want to write about a family who are all devoutly religious in different faiths. The mother is indifferent but the dead father was a follower of Alistair Crowley. And the oldest boy is Muslim, his younger brother Christian, their younger sister Buddhist, their younger sister Jewish, and the youngest brother a Hari Christina and the youngest sister a new-ager and the adopted son a brilliant insightful wizard who brings them all together. There is also a son who is an atheistic scientist.

Bali

3-27-99

I got three more books: The Australia lonely planet, the greatness and limitations of Freud's thought by Erich From, the Penguin Classics , and sacred origins of profound things by Charles Panati.

I came here to Ubud yesterday. I called mom and saw monkey forest, bought three books and a camera and saw two movies. I like it here, I half a nice big room for 20,000. I will be here about a week waiting for my new card. Then go to Timor.

When I came here I danced for 2 nights, it was pretty fun, but not like it used to be. I went to the beach but it was over crowded. I will take a picture when I go there next, and the waves weren't good, only rideable for a couple seconds, so I went to another surf beach but it wasn't good there either (sunur).

3-28-99

The dream I had this morning was fucked up. I was in a barn in the fields with Wyndham and other friends and these two guys I was living with said they were going to kill me and they had guns. I was scared and scared for Wyndham and the others. When they turned their backs I ran, but I could only run like 5 miles an hour through houses and fields. Then I hid behind a tree just before they came out of a house that I came from. They saw me just after I realized I left my dart gun on the log near by and I lunged for it but it was too late and I fought the guy and shot him in the ear, and then the other guy tried to shoot me but accidentally had it pointed towards himself and shot himself in the face. Then I grabbed a rock and bashed their heads in. I cracked one guys skull even though neither bled. I felt sick and couldn't do it any more and only did it because I wanted to make sure they were out cold. Then I woke up.

3-4-99

I am still hanging out in Ubud, Bali, reading sacred origins of profound things. After this and the Freud book I plan on taking a long

sabbatical from reading and just riding, writing, and pushups, sit-ups, stretching, eating, and smoking whatever I feel like doing. I still have ring shaped sores that itch on my leg (3) and one on my neck. I will get worm medicine tomorrow. Rob suggested maybe it is ringworm. Maybe I will visit the doctor about it. I have had it for 2 or 3 weeks now and it suddenly came and my stomach is kind of sore.

I went to the course in Miracles talk yesterday ad the day before with Nick and Carrie and learned some new things.

I spent the last 5 nights hanging out with Nicki and Regan, from Bamf, the first 2 nights with Rub too from Seattle. I like it here. I like my room, it is big.

I saw the cemetery lake and volcano and tried to climb Gunung Agung but it was closed for the every ten year God ceremony which I got good pictures of.

3-9-99

I am now done with my reading for a long time now as far as I can tell. I came to this point after talking to Nick and Carrie the course in

Miracles teachers. "Even though I felt kind of patronized and wiser than them, I learned from them that it is now time for me to start pursuing my mystical path of not reading and spending my time with a quite mind, soaking up my environment as I travel around the world and getting into the shape of my life and connecting with the mystical side of things.

I think the unpopulated landscape of Australia is the perfect place to be creative, open up my mind unaffected by the zeitgeist by the earth itself. Which will give me peace.

3-21-99

I had a dream last night that I was on a trek or something and then I went to a building and saw all these guys in Kayaks going down a river that was about 80 degrees or something with a 50 foot waterfall. At the end of this section that was a couple hundred yards long, I saw about 20 boats go down, about half of them empty. Then I talked to the kids who did it. "Is that class six?" I exclaimed and one guy said "yea". I asked them about it and they told me stuff and said a 12 year old kid tried it in a raft but fell in and got knocked out and died of a heart attack. He said it really nonchalantly.

I had an interesting dream last night that I was in Denpasar and went to a party and asked this guy if he wanted to climb the Volcano with me and then I woke up. But I went back to sleep to see if he would say yes and he was discussing it with his friend but I cannot remember what happened because I woke up again.

I also dreamed that I and some other guy jumped on a bar over a 10,000 foot canyon just for thrills and before that I was in a supermarket and saw a naked girl stocker and wanted to talk to her although her coworkers thought she was crazy, I thought she was interesting.