Update of my travels...

Afternoon all,

Finally another update...

I have been quite busy recently so have not been able to update the site as often as I would like. Since coming back from Lebanon I have been to Jakarta, Derbyshire UK and am on my way to Menorca in the Balearics. That last one is a holiday... A week bummin around on the beach with my missus doing next to nothing just soaking up the sun and the booze.

The trip to jakarta went fine. I went to a place near Bogor south of Jakarta where I worked a week for Indocement. The job all went fine. I had to go to Indonesia with a new suitcase as Air France managed to loose my suitcase on the way out to Lebanon. It has taken them 4 weeks to find my suitcase and still no apology or money or refunds or anything... The usual nice customer treatment from the frogs...

When I was in Jakarta I did realise that I had forgotten to take Malarone with me. This anti malaria medication is quite important in tropical places. So I tried not to get bitten by mosquitos but unfortunately they managed to nibble me a bit. It is now two weeks later and I still don't have fever so I guess I managed to avoid it... Thank f^%$^&%k...

After Indonesia I finally got a job in the UK. I worked at Lafarge Hope works in Derbyshire, its close to the Ladybower Reservoir. The work there went fine. It was nice to do training with a customer that spoke the same language as me....

Last weekend the missus and I went to Jaywick on the Suffolk coast as it was nice weather and we sorta realised that this could be the last day of summer so we had to use it. We took the mutt with us and he had a great time there. Especially when he found out he liked Mr Whippy icecreams...

We have had some bother with Jay recently. A few weeks ago the neighbours cat came to visit Jay in the garden with disastrous results. He chased the cat into its own garden where he managed to catch it and then he tore it apart limb from limb in front of its owner and their children. Hmmm, not a good way to ingratiate yourself with the neighbours... They were actually really good about it and they were aware of the fact that we have a murderous greyhoud as I told them that when they moved in last year... Never mind, cats are from the devil anyway hahaha...

Look! Butter wouldn't melt in its mouth, right? So nowadays he is on a leash whenever he is in the front garden where there could be cats.....

These seaguls hung over Jay when he was hoovering the ice cream... All in all we had a nice day on the beach and Jay certainly enjoyed it.

Tomorrow, friday, me and the missus are off to Menorca. We need a holiday and we scored a real cheap deal online that couldn't be refused... 7 Days of rest and relaxation is just what the doctor ordered methinks.... So probably no updates again for another week while I try to drink the Island dry...

More at a later date but even that is doubtful as I have an enormous load of trips lined up in the near future. I gotta go to (amongst others...): Indonesia again, Philipines, Macedonia, Sharjah, Libiya, Saudi Arabia and more... So busy busy busy...

Cheerio,

Alex.

Indonesia Revisited....

Afternoon,

I forgot something when I was writing the Jakarta entry. I had the most bizarre taxi trip I have ever had.

On thursday morning Mr Marwin Ng (yep, that is how you spell his name...) of the rep company called me in my hotel and asked if I wanted to go for lunch in some restaurant down the road. As I am always up for some free grub I said yes. He told me that he would send someone to pick me up from the hotel. At 12 there will be somebody there to pick you up. OK, no worries, 12 o'clock in reception.

I get down there at 12 and the bellboy of the hotel points to a car and says there is your ride. I get in, this guy drives off. He drives, further, further and further. Suddenly I realise we are on the road to the airport. I try asking the guy where the hell we are going but he only speaks hurgy-flurgy so no luck there. He just keeps smiling and saying sorry sorry... strange....

So we actually get to Soekarno Hatta, the international airport for Jakarta. The guy stops, opens the car door and points to some door. By this time I am pretty much confused, maybe Marwin wants to have dinner at the airport. As soon as I get out the taxi driver slams the door and tears away. Hmmm.... this is starting to look strange... Luckily I have my cell phone with me and I call Amir, Marwin's dad as that is the only number I have with me. I tell him, I am at the airport, where is Marwin? He goes, -Why are you at the airport? -Well, your driver took me here. -No he didn't, he is still waiting for you at the hotel! Fuck buggery bollocks.... So I tell Amir that I will go back to Jakarta and I will see him that evening for dinner. So there I am, I am at the airport, I haven't got any ID on me, not much cash and no creditcards, brilliant.

So I jump in a taxi to get back to town. At least this taxi driver, Sirot, spoke a bit of english, well, at least enough to laugh his head off at me.... As we are cruising down the toll motorway to get back to Jakarta there is a hold up at the toll gates. My taxidriver stops, unfortunately the woman driver behind him doesn't. She slams into the back of this crappy Datsun with her huge 4 by 4. A lot of bits fall of the Datsun and the cab driver is out of his car in a jiffy. He starts shouting and screaming at this lady in the 4 by 4 and she calls the police. Great. I am sitting in the back of the cab, am the only foreigner there and I am not arrying my ID... this is not turning out to be a good day for me.

Luckily after an hour of talking between the pigs, the woman driver and the cabbie all seems to be sorted and finally after 3 hours I am back in my hotel. ( I just kept quiet in the back of the cab because when the pigs see a foreigner at a car crash you normally end up getting stung for money... I guess they missed me...) What a mess...

Later that evening Marwin, Amir his dad and myself have a good laugh at it all over 49 beers. What puzzles me is Who was that cab for? It must have been a private cab as I didn't pay the guy?!?!?! So someone must have missed their free cab and possibly their flite as their ride to the airport was hijacked by me. Never mind, some you win, some you lose...

I guess the moral of the story is check your ride before you get in...

Taraa,

Alex.

Indonesia Rules!

Off to Indonesia...

Some local style houses in Pedang, Sumatra, Indonesia.

The view from the Red Top Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Morning all,

Again I'm a bit behind as I haven't had time to update... Bloody work....

I spend 10 days in Indonesia a few weeks ago. The trip out there was crap. The main reason was that I flew KLM again. This airline seems to be doing its utmost best to become a low cost airline like Ryanair. This was a 12 1/2 hour flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and then a two hour hop to Jakarta. On their crappy plane no personal entertainment system, no nothing. All they had was a few monitors that all looked like they had been bought at a car boot sale. They all had different colours, well... shades of blue... And another thing that is starting to piss me off is that when they serve drinks they now even don't give you the can when you get a drink, just a small plastic cup... wonderful... Cheapskate bastards...

When I arrived in Jakarta I was pretty much dead, 17 hours in economy class wedged between fat american holiday makers... The sales rep was there to pick me up and he took me to down town Jakarta to the RedTop Hotel. This place was good. Good restaurants and a good bar.


I stayed in Jakarta for 4 days and had a good time. It's a big, smelly, noisy, chaotic place, ace! One of the guys that worked in the hotel took me around Jakarta when he had a day off.


The food was exceptionally good. Loadsa good hot spicy stuff and all at low low prices. I ate all sorts of wonderful stuff. Frogs, crispy eel, fresh river fish, spicy noodles, chicken satay, spicy pickled veg, all bloody good. It must have been good as I didn't get, ehh.... ehhh.... you know, the Tijuana Quickstep, the Delhi Trots etc.


After 4 days in Jakarta I went to Padang on Sumatra. The job there went fine. Only the guesthouse of the cement company was crap. I arrived early in the morning, slightly hungover, slightly overheated as it was 35 degrees with a 100% humidity. Then they tried to put me in a company guesthouse which was overrun with ants, no airco, no curtains, dirty etc. I made it very clear to the, very friendly, guesthouse people that I would not be staying there. I sorted my self a good hotel in Padang itself. So an hour later I was settled on the beach in the Bumiminang Hotel.

After 12 days eating my way around Indonesia it was time to go back to the UK. I endured another 17 hours of shite KLM flights with rude and uneducated cabin crew.

Then at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam I had a run-in with the Dutch Customs Gestapo.
In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia while I was in Transit I had a bought a nice bottle of Vodka.
When I tried to check-in in Amsterdam for the Heathrow flite the wanking dutch tossers of the customs took my bottle of me. I had the bag in Kuala Lumpur sealed for customs so I could take it through security. What annoyed me even more that if I had bought it in Amsterdam in THEIR duty free it would have been OK, total f&^&^%king arseholes. The woman who took it of me was trying to patronise me by telling me that Malaysia is a different country then Holland... That was when I raised my voice quite a bit and started to refer to her family lines etc. After a while of bickering I gave up and told them to have a good party on my stolen booze and I even offered them a solution of what to do with the empty bottle. Needless to say they did not agree with my idea of sticking it up one of their body cavities.

So KLM are doing their level best to annoy as many passengers as possible, I hope they fucking go under as soon as possible, what a bunch of dumb bastards!

OK, more later,

Alex The KLM fan.

Passport? What passport???

Afternoon!

I am at Heathrow Terminal 4 waiting for my flight to sunny Indonesia. Going there for 10 days. First to Jakarta or near there and then on to the Island of Sumatra to a place called Pedang. Should be good for a laugh or two...

This trip nearly didn't happen because of dutch penpushers...
Last week I noticed that my passport only had 4 months left on it. After checking with the Indonesian embassy it was clear that you need 6 months validity left on it. So I call the dutch embassy to find out how to go about getting a new one. This is always a bit tricky as I am dutch but living in the UK. First shock was that they told me that it will take 4 to 5 weeks to get a new passport. What???? Even in the UK they can do it in a day or two... So I ask about a fast track procedure. All I got was the bloke laughing down the phone. 4 weeks or nothing mate...
So The next day I go to Harwich to see the dutch consul. He just confirms what the first joker had told me on the phone. He did have another option though. If I could go in person to the dutch embassy they could do me a Laissez Passer which is some sort of emergency travel document. So the next day I drive - bus - taxi - underground it to Hyde Park to the dutch embassy. Well, that was a right laugh. In the queue with about 150 somalians, ethiopians, Nigerians, all with hordes of crying kids, my idea of a good time....

After queueing for an hour I finally make it past the front gate. There the dutch consul tells me that I CAN travel to indonesia on my passport. I tell her that she should check her doumentation and after she does that she tells me that I am right, I can't travel. Right. That is why I am there you silly moo cow. Then I ask her about the Laissez Passer that the consul in Harwich was about. She informs me that that is only good for getting you back to Holland from wherever you are abroad. Great. When you live in Holland.... Then she tells me that it will take 5 weeks but of I pay her extra she can do me a temporary emergency passport valid for 1 year?!?!?!?! Well, I don't care about the money so I nearly snap her arm off agreeing to this. So 3 hours later I have my application for a new full passport in and a am holding a new shiny temp passport. Excellent.

By the way, it is the gayest passport you will have ever seen. It is bright pink and only 10 pages thick but hey, if it is going to get me into the country of Satay Ajam, Kroepoek, Babi Pangang, I am not complaining.

Today is gonna be a long day, I have a flight to Amsterdam, then onto Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, then on to Jakarta and then possibly on to Pedang. I don't even know yet if any one will be picking me up in Jakarta when I arrive tomorrow afternoon, never mind, if there is no-one there I will find the most expensive hotel and go to bed and let them find me!

OK, more later, there is free booze to be hoovered here in the business lounge!

Cheerio,

Alex.