Karol, my best mate, is also my original travel partner. Our first trip together was twelve years ago on summer break from our first year at university. We worked all summer in part-time jobs and scraped enough money together to inter-rail around five countries in Europe. We were on such a tight budget we usually took night trains to save the price of hostels and lunch was often supermarket bread and canned tuna on a park-bench. But we’ve both been seriously bitten by the travel bug (and many other types of bugs) and have continuously and often independently traveled different parts of the globe.
It was great he flew all the way out to Indonesia from London to travel with me. Lots of good times, though Karol doesn’t show it on camera. And plenty more of trips together to come no doubt. Sorry future wives.
Here’s a couple of random vids from my phone. The first is me and Karol on a motorcycle getting a taxi ride to our home-stay. This was hilarious. We were both so hungover and exhausted that we couldn’t think. Some guy on a motorcycle kept bugging Karol to buy trinkets. He was so exhausted that he was in fits of laughter as this serious-looking peddler tried to sell his wares. But forever the wheeler-dealer himself, Karol managed his exhaustion and negotiated seriously with him. After twenty minutes or so of this, I started walking home. Another ten minutes later and I heard a little horn beeping. Then “Mark, Mark”. I could see a motorcycle with an helmeted Indonesian rider. And from behind that body I could see a big white arm flailling about in an attempted wave to get my attention.
Karol had not only got an amzing price on the hand carved whatevers he’d just bought, but also negotiated a taxi ride home for us. We all made it back in one piece, but the driver didn’t look one bit happy. Nor did the suspension on his bike when we got off.
The second vid is simply an empty beach in southern Lombok where we spent a couple of days. Pretty boring unless you’re a surfer. But we had one special experience when Karol called in a public taxi to take us to another town as all the private operators were rip-off artists. We learned the hard way why none of the local hospitality workers would call us a taxi or even give us the phone number. The whole system is run by gangsters. We had experienced this before on Lombok at the ports. Really dodgy places and even dodgier gangsters trying to scam travelers through monopolising the taxi system, lying about boat departure times and other petty, but effective methods.
Here however, it nearly got bloody as the local gangsters all ganged up on the one public taxi driver we had arranged to pick us up. Luckily Karol was able to sort it all out before it got violent. And I, even more luckily, enjoyed a long shower oblivious to the whole ordeal until it was over.
And this last video is self-explanatory. A cool cafe we found while hiking the rice fields around Ubud with the German girls from out Rinjani hike.
It was great he flew all the way out to Indonesia from London to travel with me. Lots of good times, though Karol doesn’t show it on camera. And plenty more of trips together to come no doubt. Sorry future wives.
Here’s a couple of random vids from my phone. The first is me and Karol on a motorcycle getting a taxi ride to our home-stay. This was hilarious. We were both so hungover and exhausted that we couldn’t think. Some guy on a motorcycle kept bugging Karol to buy trinkets. He was so exhausted that he was in fits of laughter as this serious-looking peddler tried to sell his wares. But forever the wheeler-dealer himself, Karol managed his exhaustion and negotiated seriously with him. After twenty minutes or so of this, I started walking home. Another ten minutes later and I heard a little horn beeping. Then “Mark, Mark”. I could see a motorcycle with an helmeted Indonesian rider. And from behind that body I could see a big white arm flailling about in an attempted wave to get my attention.
Karol had not only got an amzing price on the hand carved whatevers he’d just bought, but also negotiated a taxi ride home for us. We all made it back in one piece, but the driver didn’t look one bit happy. Nor did the suspension on his bike when we got off.
The second vid is simply an empty beach in southern Lombok where we spent a couple of days. Pretty boring unless you’re a surfer. But we had one special experience when Karol called in a public taxi to take us to another town as all the private operators were rip-off artists. We learned the hard way why none of the local hospitality workers would call us a taxi or even give us the phone number. The whole system is run by gangsters. We had experienced this before on Lombok at the ports. Really dodgy places and even dodgier gangsters trying to scam travelers through monopolising the taxi system, lying about boat departure times and other petty, but effective methods.
Here however, it nearly got bloody as the local gangsters all ganged up on the one public taxi driver we had arranged to pick us up. Luckily Karol was able to sort it all out before it got violent. And I, even more luckily, enjoyed a long shower oblivious to the whole ordeal until it was over.
And this last video is self-explanatory. A cool cafe we found while hiking the rice fields around Ubud with the German girls from out Rinjani hike.
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