Tropical Surf Tour

Jogja.. It excites me. It has a great energy. Riding a taxi at night the place feels alive. Tricked up scooters gather around you in swarms at red lights, LEDs flashing, carrying anything from trendy teens, granddads, entire families. The curbs are painted black & white like a race track. There is a combination of the familiar from home, films & computer games in the passing scenery intermingled with the alien: a horse drawn cart perhaps or a noodle vendor wearing his Vietnamese hat & pushing his cart.
Computer games. That's it, that's the feeling. I feel as if I'm watching the demo of a street track from Gran Tourismo or Need for Speed slowly rolling by, the console waiting patiently for me to hit the button & start the race. Its exilerating, I think I'll be back.

3 Gaijin; rented shoes; a middle-aged under-cover cop trying to look like a teen; funky, uber-trendy Asian cyber-punks..sweeping the floor & cleaning the toilets, 30 minutes great dance music then teen band live set performing lame pop..Tom Jones anyone?
Taxi; city streets; Western? No. 3rd World? No. Dunkin' Donuts, McD, soup carts.
Hotel, swim, sleep.

An Internet Cafe that's fallen from William Gibson's Bridge.
Modern & ancient Cheek by Jowel.
Alcohol served & consumed by Muslims.
Persistant (but not aggresive) souvenier sellers.
Strange things are afoot at the 'Circle-K'.
(Dutch who look Irish & a very attractive German girl)

My last Sri Lankan sunset & it was beautiful. Two months in Sri Lanka have been & gone; from abstract dreams to memories seemingly in the blink of an eye.
Its been great. I've been really lucky with the people I've met, the waves I've caught & about a million other things.
I'm now in a guest house near the airport with only a German (wearing diamond patterned green+white socks pulled up 'under' scarlet pedal pushers) for company. This & the long chat I had with my folks yesterday is making me a bit homesick; perhaps 2 months away is enough? Of course not! Once I'm in the thick of it in Indo I'll forget the blues... But then I worry that I'll be further than ever from settling back into a normal routine in blighty. What the hell, who would chose to be a desk jockey when they can be a (talentless) surf bum? To the waves, & don't spare the (sea) horses!

I'm sitting in the calm of the bay on my board with a decision to make & my breath to catch. Do I paddle the 100 yards or so to the beach & end my session early? Or do I paddle back 'out back' to catch some more waves?
The reason I have to catch my breath is that I've just been caught inside, in the 'impact zone', snatching breaths where possible, for a short eternity. For those who don't know, the 'impact zone' is where the waves change from friendly blue hills into angry boiling whitewater in an explosive instant. Just on the mellow side of the thin line between the two is where surfers like to be. When you end up on the bad side of that line you usually take 3 or 4 waves (a 'set') on the head before there's a lull & you can paddle back into the calm. Not this time. Wave after relentless wave turned my world upside down & salty again & again. Eventually I escaped to the bay, a breathable atmosphere & the start of this story. So I'm wary of paddling out again in case I repeat the episode.
Another thing I'm not keen on repeating happened shortly before getting caught 'inside'. Jim & I were on that invisible line between the hills & the rage, sitting comfortably. Or so we thought. I noticed we were quite near a buoy that is usually miles further out than us. A quick check confirmed it was us not it that had moved & we'd better do something about it before we drift to India. So we began paddling for shore & we continued paddling for a long while. The rip current that had taken us so far wasn't keen on letting us go. Eventually we got back to the 'line' & resumed waiting for waves while feeling greatly relieved.
That was when the third thing that I don't want to repeat happened. A long way out at sea a wave appeared & made its way towards us. Jim reckoned it was about 12 feet high. I'd say it was like a house-side. Whatever, two things were for certain: It was undoubtedly the biggest wave I've ever faced & (bad news) it was about to break on us. Jim duck-dived & reckoned he almost hit the reef, the wave having sucked up so much water in rearing itself. I ditched my board & dived just before it hit. After a roller-coaster ride I resurfaced, saw that Jim had too & then laughed, a little crazy feeling.
Despite all of this, after catching my breath I paddle back out to the waves trying to convince myself that they are getting smaller & more manageable. Also, Jim's still out there so it can't be too bad?
As soon as I'm 'out back' again I regret my decision & long to be sitting at the guest house waiting for my breakfast to arrive. Also, there's no Jim. Oh! There he is, walking up the beach having had enough. So I'm out here by myself & the waves are crazy. Aaargh! I haven't got any red shoes to tap together so I'll just have to grit my teeth & catch some whitewater back in.
Here goes...

Since the last time I wrote the surf & weather have improved & I've lost interest in sitting in front of computers, sorry faithful followers! Here's a bijou summary of what I've been up to since last time:
*With Jim borrowed a local fishing boat & explored a mangrove swamp. The bottom of the boat was full of crabs & when Jim set about liberating them one bit his finger good & proper. Ow!
*Had fun with Dave (Fireman, Swansea), Tom & Emily (Both from the North's biggest Lesbian town apparently) 'body surfing' (ie surfing without a board) in the huge shore-dump at Hikkaduwa.
*Met the aforementioned cool folk & a Frenchman.
*Cycled a long way inland & found a tyre factory with a new, impressive temple. From it there were panoramic views of the surrounding countryside. Odd but cool.
*Been woken up in utter panic by a HUGE thunderstorm. I thought a bomb had been set off & was cringing waiting for the shrapnel. Part dream I guess. Seems like its been the last of the bad weather though
*Survived crazy seas.. see an update coming to your PC soon!
*Heard about Dubai's propaganda machine from a mole I befriended.
*Seen a 4” scorpion
*Been bitten by a centipede while minding my own business
*Driven a tuk-tuk. What a sharp-steering beast, I don't think I'll take one to the 'ring..
*Had a cooking lesson from Champeka, our guest house's chef. Hopefully I'll be able to cook the great food I've been eating this past month or so.
****BIG NEWS... decided to sell my longboard to a local hotel & buy a fellow traveler's shortboard. I will be a loglugger no more..

This 'ere monsoon wot's arrived ain't the mostest fun thing in the world. It brings excitin lightnin but lots of rain. It rains most of the day. Its raining now. At least its not so hot & sweaty when its raining.
With it the rain has brought stormy seas & wind making the surf nasty & undesirable. Not that it matters thanks to my rib. This leaves me with plenty of time to notice the (even) greener landscape, the birds busy courting & nest building, the huge butterflies, the many many more bugs crowding around lights at night & of course the many more mozzie bites we're all getting.
Even fellow travellers getting into difficulty with masseurs, masseuses, rear ends & 'jiggy jiggy' have failed to pull me out of my funk (how cool a word is that? I'm glad I've had the chance to use it, silver lining eh?)
But...Then...I went surfing yesterday evening. I caught a couple of decent waves, I had a good, fun session & my rib only hurt (& even then only a bit) after I climbed out of the water. Suddenly this damp world is a brighter place!
The Sri Lankan New Year (13th & 14th) beckons & only 10 days after that I'm off to Indo; almost 1/2 way through the trip already!

So I'm back here in Midigama, surfing away happily. I've caught some fantastic rides. I've been just under the lip of the wave for the first time, boy is it a powerful, exciting place to be :-)
Unfortunately it seems as though the seasons are changing & its often too windy for good waves to exist in the evenings. This means more free time & to be honest there's not a lot to do especially with there being no one else at my guesthouse now. I have been reading a lot. Novels & also Bali guidebooks - its about 2 weeks before I leave for Indonesia now & I'm getting excited. For company I've been hanging around a slightly posher guesthouse which has annoying expats staying at it. Company nonetheless & there is good tea to drink & hammocks to lie in too. So its not too bad!
Unfortunately, I have even more free time than usual now. At the end of a ride I let myself drop off the back of a wave into clear, deep water. I come up with a pain in my ribs. Somehow this entirely normal way of landing in water has awoken an old kickboxing injury in my ribs. Damn! Hopefully a day or two's rest will do it good. If not, you'll be seeing an awful lot of innane rubbish here...
Niall

I’d just got back into the quiet life again when Jim & Anna (the other folk at my guesthouse) decided it was time to go on Safari in Yala. I had no burning desire to sit in a ropey old 4x4 being driven around an under populated & too hot Longleat but I thought I’d be stupid not to go.
After many hours in hot buses we got to Tissa, ate in an old paraffin depot (that’s how it looked & smelt), found a guesthouse & organised a driver & 4x4 for early next morning.
The 4x4 turned out to be a geriatric Landover with a diesel odour. It seemed to work OK though & soon we were bumping along & seeing a decent selection of wildlife. Deer, wild boar & monkeys were the staples. We stopped at a swamp/pond which was full of life. Terns, cormorants, storks & kingfishers gorged themselves while dodging the many crocodiles. Butterflies, dragonflies & other bugs buzzed around. A couple of eagles made appearances. We then went in search of elephants, but much to the driver’s annoyance we only found one. Along the way we saw two types of bee eater – beautiful birds - & a leopard, which is a rare thing to see. After this successful haul we ate breakfast & then retraced our bus purgatory (with a particularly insane driver) to get back `home` to Midigama.

What a hectic three days! I’ve crammed in: Surfing, closely followed by; 30 minute’s swimming back to dry land after my leash broke (& allowed my board to surf all the way to the rocks & pound itself against them until I rescued it. Good job I bought a Bic!); roughly 550km of motorbike riding on twisty slow roads; 1000m up & back down of mountain walking & finally a little bit of Delhi belly/food poisoning.
Saturday & the surf was good. I went to Midigama`s right-hander for the 1st time. The wave was quite slow but very predictable & long. As was the swim back to the beach once I felt the leash go `ping`.
In the afternoon Fen & I tuk-tuked to Hikkaduwa & rented 250cc scrambler type bikes then headed for Adam’s Peak. It was great fun. The bikes were ideal for dealing with the roads & the chaos on them. Where else might you hit a cow-drawn carriage, a snake, an iguana; a herd of goats or most likely a 1950`s bus? After several hours’ riding & a night in Ratnapura we reached Dalhouse & the base of the climb. Its traditional to get to the summit to see dawn break so off we went at 3:00AM. I was worried about keeping up with Fen-she’s just finished trekking in the Himalayas for god’s sake but I did OK. 2.5 hours, 7km of walking & 1000m altitude gained we were at the summit’s temple & witnessing the light coming up on the surrounding mountains. Once the sun appeared we ran around to the other side of the peak to see its triangular shadow grow shorter on the clouds below. Seeing the shadow gave a real impression of how steep & tall the mountain is. After getting our fill of shrinking shadows we went back down, hopped on our bikes & went a more direct way back to Hik. My bike had been gradually dying & it finally gave up 40km from Hik. I got a ride on Fen’s & decided that being a passenger on a bike is not fun at all!
We were both knackered & a bit ropey feeling when we got back so I’ll spare the details about the last bit of our adventure..
Tuesday arrived & brought with it Fen’s Dad, here for a 2 week break. Fen is obviously spending time with him & so a chapter of my holiday has come to an end & I’m `alone` again. She’s been a great travelling companion, I’ll miss her.