Jungle Jill

Much to my surprise, I have spent the last week on Gili Air, and will be here for the next three months! I was all set to leave for Flores, and at the last minute (2 days before I was supposed to be there) the company I was about to do a consultancy with changed their mind about where they wanted me to be located and asked me to either rush through or cancel my Dive Master training and live at their lodge in Bali whilst working for them full time. No thanks! So I hopped straight on the phone to Miss Doro, my friend who is a German instructor with Dream Divers and 2 days later I was living in her house and starting my Rescue Diver Course. An exciting last minute decision which I have felt good about ever since I made it. Doro is heaps of fun to live with, I have even heard her say ‘Eff the Germans’. I have finished my Rescue course which was fairly physically challenging and my ankle is doing OK. Not great, but it hasn’t fallen off so that counts for something. Dive Master starts today or tomorrow! I am secretly shitting myself a little bit about it, but everyone says I will be fine. Lets not talk about the physics theory involved. I am happy to be here though, I thought it would be a boring choice having been here so many times in the past, but it is familiar and homey and I do have to pinch myself sometimes when I am walking around the island at sunset, or when it is insanely sunny and everything looks so clear and colourful and intense, and remind myself that I live here, right by the sea. It is amazing. I still feel unsure about what I am doing with my life, but I couldn’t think of a better place to work it all out! It is also the first time since I split with Onji that I have had 5 minutes to think about anything, and my mind has been particularly clear because I have been booze free since the beginning of Ramadan… I suppose the dust has finally settled & I know he isn’t around any more. xx

2 weeks in North Sumatra. The best I’ve had here ever. I arrived and we went straight to Lake Toba (largest volcanic crater in the Northern Hemisphere & incredibly beautiful) for a weekend of swimming, sunshine and walking around the big island in the middle called ‘Samosir’. The drive to Lake Toba from Medan takes about 3 hours, but somehow it took us all day… but we arrived and much to my sisters surprise I jumped straight in the lake even though it was completely dark. We had such a lovely time there, took a million photos and I found another lovely ‘ulos’ (traditional Batak woven textile died in indigo) for my collection at home. The next few days we spent in Medan, and my sisters decided to sleep sideways in their bed so they would be facing the same direction as me in my bed which is on the floor at the end of theirs. I kept waking up in the middle of the night to see them all sleepy and cuddly and had to stop myself from jumping in between them and tickling and squeezing them. I planned to visit Bukit Lawang this time, which is a 2 hour drive North West of Medan where there is a huge 900 thousand something hectare national park of jungle full of orangutans and various other amazing animals. I stayed at the Jungle Inn which was lovely and also did a 2 day overnight trek. The trek was an absolute hoot, except for the bit when we (me, another Aussie guy & his Spanish girlfriend, 3 Canadians, 1 American, 1 Dutch and 2 Indonesian guides - the best group EVER) had to jump off a steep river bank into a basically empty river to run away from an aggressive orangutan called Mena! The guide was screaming ‘go to the river! go to the river! NOW - but dont panic!’. Well, none of us worked out it was a fairly big deal until Mena was about 1.5 metres away (the recommended minimum distance is 7 metres!)… she was chasing us full steam ahead and had her baby hanging off her front the whole time. I went head over heels over a vine and ended up sliding on my back head first down the river bed. Its dry season at the moment which meant the river was more like a creek full of massive rocks which we had to jump over. I just remember one of the Canadians, Matt, saying to me when I stopped on a huge rock to turn around and see exactly where this orangutan was situated ‘I think you should go NOW, like NOW’. Anyway, we had made it across the river and started up the bank on the other side when I slipped and sprained my ankle badly in the root system of the tree I was climbing. Holy bananas it hurt. It really, really, really hurt and I couldn’t move for quite some time. So basically at this point, there were 2 options - go back to the river to brave the crazy orangutan and her baby only to have to climb up the massive mountain we had just descended or climb up an equally as high mountain on the side we had just crossed to. We My group was amazing and helped me up and down that mountain and about 50 million others that we had to climb up and down before we got to our campsite on the river. What champions. Matt let me lean on him the entire time and Matt’s brother Scotty was totally hilarious and kept my spirits high by rattling of endless ridiculous jokes- at one point he even called Mena a bitch and said she had nipples like pencils. All quite true actually. I emptied my wallet when we arrived (I was completely covered in mud, dirt, bugs, sweat and absolutely exhausted) and spent all my money on beer for them as a thank you for their amazing efforts. I am still limping almost a week later but very glad I had that experience and met those people. We swam in the river, were served up an amazing dinner and we rafted the whole way back to our hotels down the river with beers in hand the following day. Dad surprised me a couple of days later by showing up in Bukit Lawang to spend a night and a day there with me. It was so nice. He played guitar and sang for me and we visited our friends Jefferey and Sue who have bought land and begun to build an amazing place there. We went swimming and talked a lot and it was nice to spend some time with him just the two of us. As nice as that was, and as much as I LOVE Bukit Lawang, it was very, very nice to come home to my step-Mum Irma and my two gorgeous sisters who were open armed at the front door ready for endless cuddles and kisses. We had a big family get together on Sunday and I am only just now regaining hearing after all the raucous laughter and screaming that took place in our lounge room with 15 or so Harahaps around. I have two more nights here before I fly back to Bali and I know one thing - I am going to really miss my family here in Medan. I wont leave it so long until my next visit, that’s for sure. xx

I had to fight tooth and nail to get here. I could not believe THE NERVE of some of the people I was forced to travel with on my Lion Air flights from Denpasar to Jakarta and then on to Medan. I have never wanted to push an old lady down a flights of stairs so much, nor have I yelled at people on public transport like that before… ‘JUST WAIT ONE SECOND!’. I say to them in English, just so I can feel slightly better even though I know they dont understand, things like ‘well you will just have to bloody well wait won’t you?’ and ‘will you stop doing that, its completely uncivilized’. Anyway, I got here OK. My lovely cousin Alvin who my Dad wants me to marry (I know, right? Key word being ‘cousin’) picked me up from the airport and took me back to Dad’s place. My surprise arrival was in the bag until about half an hour before I arrived, when my Mum posted all over my sisters’ and step Mum’s walls on Facebook about how I was about to arrive. So, ample time to get excited about it. They were all quiet with me for all of five minutes, and shortly after we had knicked off down to the rice field down the street to exchange all sorts of gossip. I love having sisters. They are like little grown ups. And I also get to boss them around a lot which is heaps of fun. ‘Louise get here and give me a big cuddle’, ‘Tara can you make me a cup of tea please?’… its great. We are making the 3-4 hour journey from Medan to Tuk Tuk, Lake Toba today - I cant wait, its one of my favourite places! We are staying at Carolina’s… swim swim, float float, sun sun. I am going to take a thousand photos!

I’m pretty excited about the next part of this year. I sometimes need to remind myself that it is ok not to know exactly what I am doing (even though that is how I have felt since I moved to Bali)… but it seems that everything is going to work out just fine. Better than fine in fact. I have a few options in front of me - and they are all really good ones. In the meantime, this will be a good test to see if my little sisters in Medan actually read my blog (I dont think they do)… but I am planning a surprise visit to see them next week. I will be up in North Sumatera for a couple of weeks and hope to visit Lake Toba for a couple of days with the whole family (Dad, my step mum Irma and two sisters Tara and Louise) and the following week I will make the journey to Bukit Lawang where my orangutan friends will be waiting for me! My Dad’s friend runs a gorgeous place up there, aptly named ‘Jungle Inn’… so I believe a visit is in order! I was fairly keen on a camping-in-the-jungle option, however, it seems that I cant resist this place. But the whole idea is to go trekking and see some wild orangutans, maybe some elephants, tigers, etc. I hope we see all of them! HOW EXCITING! Whilst I am in Medan it will become clear exactly what my next move is. I am either going to move to Labuan Bajo, Flores to do my Dive Master Training and work part time for an Eco-Tourism organisation that has lodges all over in Indonesia (including Flores, Bali, Kalimantan, Sumatera) doing some capacity building and marketing… or if that doesnt work out then I am going straight to Gili Air to do my Dive Master Training there with Dream Divers. It could be worse really! Either way, my Dive Master will be done in 3 months or so and I will have technically finished two Masters in one year which I figure is a pretty good effort. I am super super super excited about doing some serious diving! Today, I am headed to Bali Scuba to book my Emergency First Response Course and buy some gear! Woo. x

I dont really know what was going through my mind when I decided that depriving myself of all food and only drinking juice for a week was a good idea… I have so much going on right now I can barely think - adding starvation to the list has certainly not helped. But taking the piss out of it has. So lets recap on how its gone so far… Day 1: Woke up feeling pretty good about the idea of this detox and down my first juice. The juices are delivered daily, and all I have to do is add some weird hippy powders and potions and sip away deluding myself with the notion that these drinks are satisfying my appetite when all I really want is a cuppa and some vegemite toast. At about 9am I decided its was great idea to go to Bedugal, in the mountains of north Bali with a Balinese friend of mine to get amongst the Galungan festivities. Galungan happens twice a year here in Bali and involves lots of pigs dying in the name of various delicious pork dishes. Holy moly, did I chose the wrong day to start a detox! I arrived in my friend’s family compound and make a bee line to an old lady making offerings from palm leaves and various pretty and colourful things and decide this is how I will spend most of my day. Avoid the piggy? No, not so lucky. The woman didnt speak any Indonesian, only Balinese, so when she was saying ‘you must eat, you must eat!’ I was nodding and smilling and, to my surprise she brought over a huge bowl of rice, and pork prepared in a million ways incuding these little pork and coconut satay sticks which TASTE AMAZING. So I accepted and ate a few mouthfuls much to her disappointment… ‘eat, eat!’ she jeered at me even though I had no idea what she was on about. Anyway, then the suckling pig happened and I figured it would be entirely culturally insensitive of me not to try a little bit. But, in the end, I really escaped having only induldged in about 8 tablespoons of food. Day 2: Drank all 3 juices and ate no food. Contact with my newly ex-boyfriend and visit from my lovely friend Sarah led me to 4 cigarettes. Gah! Day 3: Despite waking up feeling like I’d had an ashtray emptied into my mouth, I was feeling as on track as I could possibly be at this point, withstanding Galungan and a few fags during a stressful and challenging time. Drank my first 2 juices and went for a walk to run errands… I even sat throught breakfast with a friend who ate banana bread with butter and fruit salad whilst I sipped on a baby coconut. Then Lisa and Troy got back to Ubud from their romantic getaway to Amed in north Bali at about midday. After sitting on my bed and discussing what on earth I am doing for the next month or so, they begged to take me out to dinner as a thankyou for my tourguide efforts over the past couple of weeks. I declined, saying I can only have miso and suggested a lovely Japanese restaurant that has a gorgeous garden and amazing food. Well, this afternoon of lunch followed by desert followed by dinner and sprinkled with cocktails, warm saki and 3 bottles of French red was dubbed ‘THE RETOX’. Jesus. I died and was born again. Photos of the ridiculously decadent food to come… tuna sashimi salad, rare wagyu beef steak, prawns, eel sashimi, octopus sashimi, tuna sashimi, sushi, tempura vegetables, tempura snapper, vanilla icecream, chocolate pudding, cheesecake, and I even managed to fit in a bowl of miso!  Day 4: Tail between legs. But back on track. As tomorrow is my last day of this ‘detox’, I am determined to stick to the rules. Whatever they are.