Since the wet, crowded, crazy days of Java, the world that passes around me has altered dramatically.  I can finally understand the labels on food, step outside without peering up at the skies wondering how soon I'm going to be very soggy, and when I stop I can hear nothing but silence.  I can even watch cricket and eat a Chocolate Hob Nob.  On one particuarly momentous occasion I was able to do both of these things at the same time.  Oh life is good!  Perhaps the biggest change that has occurred is that I have stopped cycling.

After a short, urine scented ferry ride to Bali, I was expecting to find an island overrun with lager fuelled Aussies, obnoxious Lonely Planet fuelled backpackers and who-knows-what fuelled hippies.  I was therefore delighted to be surprised on the upside when I discovered that these tourists were trapped in small pockets on the island.  The change from Java was huge.  Roads were so much quieter, the regular wailing from the mosque calling folk to prayer were less abundant, shrines and statues provided something for the eyes to regularly feast upon, cows seemed much more prevalant and chickens were much healthier than their very scrawny Javanese cousins.  I also found a new word on the menu: 'babi' which is pork in Bahasa.  After spending the last while in muslim areas, it was so good to eat a bit of pig again.

After studying my map, looking at possible routes to get down to Denpasar, I cast my eye on a road that climbs up into the crater of a volcano.  After slogging up the steep northern slope of the volcano, my bike computer suggesting a maximum gradient of 30%, gushing with sweat and being hounded by a couple of pesky flies, I was disappointed to find that the crater looks more spectacular on the terrain setting of google maps than it does in real life.  The problem was that trees obscurred potentially good view points and it wasn't until I had decended the other side the following day that I read that there were good view points from another road.

Over the past year my cycling skills have improved, as you will notice by the reduction in my falling off regularity, and I've even got to the point where I am descending mountains with my eyes closed.  After a very opimistic application of suncream, I began my increasingly frightening descent out of the crater as the skies emptied rendering my brakes very ineffective on the steeper sections.  The rain also washed the suncream into my eyes which became impossible to keep open for more than a fraction of a second due to the stinging pain, or wipe as my hands were both locked on the brake levers.  It was therefore with great relief that the road started to flatten out so I could come to a complete stop with the assistance of dragging my feet along the floor and not to rely on the aid of an unseen tree or the foot of a cliff to reduce my speed!

I spent my final couple of days in Asia in Kuta, the Aussie version of the Costa Del Sol.  It was one of the last places on the planet I ever wanted to step foot in but happens to be right next to the airport.  Up until that point I had crossed all water by bridge or boat and all land, but for a couple of border crossings, by bicycle.  I would have loved to have continud in this fashion but couldn't justify spending five times as much to ride on a cargo ship than a flight cost.  It's also pretty much impossible to hitch a ride on a yacht this time of year so I found myself a cardboard box, took my bicycle apart and spent hours scrubbing it with my toothbrush in order to please the Australian immigration officers, then left it in the hands of the Indonesian baggage handlers.

As I collected my torn box with my precious bike inside from the floor of the baggage reclaim as it had fallen off the conveyor, I proceeded through immigration and into the quarantine/customs area to show off my very shiny, hopefully undamaged steed.  After so long scrubbing I was pretty disappointed when the official said "G'day, is your bike clean?" then just waved me through when I enthusiastically replied "it's spotless, do you want to see?"

After piecing my bike back together, thankfully uninjured since I laid eyes on it last, I set off into Perth to buy a new toothbrush and to meet Paul, a good friend from uni days who had come to visit me and was kind enough to appreciate how shiny my bike was.  After a few days of fine food, fine wine, fine cricket and fine company, Paul headed off to watch the Aussie Open in Melbourne and I set off in search of an apple to pick or something similar that would allow me to refill my piggy bank a little.

So here I am sat in my new home, a youth hostel in Denmark, waiting to start my new job on a potato farm tomorrow.  For the next three months I think, I shall be plucking rocks and rotten potatoes from a conveyor belt on top of a potato harvester.  But do not worry, the lycra based adventures will return.

(Queue Stars Wars soundtrack)  To be continued...

After ten and a half months of saddle sores, numb hands and the unpleasant odour that often seems to follow me around with increasing regularity, I'm coming home.  On my last day of cycling before Christmas, I passed the 25,000km mark which by my very rough and unscientific estimation is about half of the total distance I am going to cycle before I can peel off the golden lycra shorts for the last time, dig out my white, pointy shoes, and try to integrate back into society again.

Christmas was a strange one.  Full of the festive spirit, I was generous enough to give myself a few days off at a hostel in Jakarta run by an Englishman and an Irishman where I hoped it would be celebrated in this predominantly Muslim country.  Not much evidence of Christmas had been present up until this point in Indonesia.  Despite the Christmas tree in the corner, the traditional roast dinner, the watching of Christmas films and even the taste of a Marks & Spencer mince pie that I had somehow managed not to devour since it was given to me in Singapore, whilst all of this enjoyable, it just didn't feel right.  The weather wasn't disappointing, silly games were not played and there was no family there to share it with.

New Year felt a little bit less peculiar.  After riding for a few days through the wet, busy and potholed roads to Yogyakarta in Central Java, I arrived at the hostel I had booked, hoping to find other people to celebrate it with.  I discovered that I was the only one booked into the dormitory over the New Year but at breakfast on New Year's Eve I met a gay Muslim from Sheffield who invited me to join him and a group of other people he had met the night before to celebrate in a bar with a live reggae band in the center of Yogya.  As we walked into town, the streets were packed with people sitting quietly and soberly, waiting for the New Year to come upon us.  A very different and slightly refreshing atmosphere to that of Britain where drunken revelers stumble noisily through the streets, bottle in hand.  New Year was brought in with very dodgy fireworks, one of which flew into the crowd in the entrance to the bar we were in, giving one unfortunate punter a shock as it struck her face but thankfully doing no serious damage.  When my new friend headed onto a gay bar, I thought it was time for me to head back to the hostel for my first sleep of 2012!

My time in Indonesia started with one of the most uncomfortable ferry journeys I have ever taken.  In true adventurous and scrimping fashion, I had booked an economy ticket from Bintan (an island just off Singapore) to Jakarta in order to travel as the locals do.  I carried my bike with all luggage attached up a flight of steps onto the ferry and into the economy cabin where I joined a hundred or so Indonesians.  I was trapped there in the very warm conditions (no air-con or fans) with cockroaches scuttling around all over the place for the next 30 hours as people stared at the weird ginger bearded white man with a bicycle.  When we finally arrived in Jakarta an announcement in Bahasa was relayed over the intercom and everyone stayed where they were.  Over the next hour traders came on board and walked round trying to flog their pink stuffed bunnies and dodgy rolex watches.  By this point my patience was starting to wear slightly so I stood up and took my bike to the exit to see if I could get some special treatment and be let off the boat.  I was hopeful that I could pull the special white man card and escape as so far I had been given special care by being forced to take double portions of the rather unpleasant meals we were provided with, and the people around me were very glad to have this excess shared out between them.  As it turns out, the announcement had been that we had arrived and that anyone getting off in Jakarta should do so at that point in time.  Despite the people around me knowing where I was going, no-one thought to relay this to me.  It transpires that everyone else in the cabin was going onto the next port!  For the next two hours I stood with my bike waiting for a chance to carry my bike down the steps and off the boat but a constant stream of cargo being loaded onto the ferry prevented any escape.  Finally, a big guy took pity on me, took a couple of my bags and cleared a path to make good my escape.  As it was getting late I battled into Jakarta through the absolutely mental traffic, chasing a girl on a motorcycle who decided that instead of telling me how to get to the cheap area for accommodation 5km away, she would lead me there in true Indonesian riding style.

After a day off to recover from my ordeal and from the cold I had developed, I headed west and into Sumatra to make the most of the time I had before I was booked to be back in Jakarta for Christmas.  My delays meant that I didn't have time to get up to the National Park I was hoping to visit so instead I decided to revisit my primary school topic of volcanoes and our case study of Krakatoa, this time in the flesh.  Krakatoa is a volcano just off Sumartra which blew itself apart in 1883 to leave a group of small islands behind and 'the child of Krakatoa' (Anak Krakatau) has been emerging from the sea since the 1920s.  As I was unable to cycle out there, I had to rely on an organised tour.  The only other organised tour I've been on during this trip so far was in Vietnam and didn't go as well as hoped so I crossed my fingers that this time would be different.  I was expecting to join a group of other tourists on a reasonably sized vessel.  I was therefore slightly surprised to arrive at a fisherman's house and to be taken to the small, narrow boat which was going to take just him, his crew member and me across the Sunda Straight, which was a little lively that day, to Anak Krakatau.  On the active volcano we came across the largest lizards I have ever seen.  Not as big as a Komodo Dragon, but still around 2 meters in length.  I read later that these lizards are carnivorous and are from the same genus as the Komodo Dragon.  We walked up the first level of the volcano before heading back down and to another island for snorkeling at the coral reef.  The mask I was given was very ill-fitting and I ended up inhaling water a couple of times before calling it a day.  The little boat survived the waves and rain and as we headed back to shore.  Despite threats from the waves tossing the little boat around, the volcano, the dragons and the water inhalation, the only time I feared for my life was when we arrived back at the shore where I was met by a crazy 12 year old who was providing my 15km ride back to the hotel on the back of his scooter!


Resolutions for the revolutions

We have arrived at that time of year where resolutions are made and if we are lucky are not yet broken, so I thought I would make a few of my own to try to adhere to whilst I am cycling for the second half of my trip:

One of my most frustrating habits is the choosing of locations to stop for food and supplies.  Over 95% of the times that I stop, it is on the side of the road I am cycling on and when I have not passed it yet.  If a perfectly reasonable cafe or store appears on the other side of the road or I am past level with it then my fingers will remain away from my brake levers and my mind will tell me, 'oh, lets just go onto the next one'.  This has led at times to hungry and thirsty periods as I realise that it was the last opportunity in that town to stop.  My mind seems determined to save time by not having to cross a road twice, even if it is a really quiet road, or turn back the 10 to 20m which would add 20 to 40m to my day's ride!  Totally ridiculous and a statistic that needs improvement.

Another frustrating statistic is that my 4th Kindle of the trip will be waiting for me when I arrive in Perth, Australia.  I somehow managed to break the screen on my latest kindle on Christmas day so that is two broken screens and one theft!  Thankfully it is still under warranty but in the days since then I have been reduced to playing solitaire on my ipod and sitting on floors of internet cafes (for some reason many of them don't have seats) in order to provide my evening entertainment.  I therefore resolve to pay more care and attention to the object that keeps me most sane on my trip.

Finally, my taste in music is straying towards the absolutely detestable end of the scale.  Recently I found myself singing Lady In Red by Chris de Burgh through the Javanese traffic and it led to me taking a serious look at myself.  I have admitted that I have a problem and hopefully this is the first step to recovery.  I am very ashamed indeed! 

Please note that if you have any suggestions for other resolutions I should have, particularly involving any items of clothing or facial hair, please keep them to yourselves!