THE worst fruit!!!!!!

I guess I gotta take the good with the bad after finding the amazing Custard Apple, but I think this one far out weighs the good. Its called a Durian, it should be called "worse then eating shit, more like stinky cheese then fruit, fruit" It has a texture like warm cream cheese and smells worse then limburger cheese, if you've never ventured to put that to the test, limburger cheese IS as bad as they say it is. I'd describe it as smelling like week old dried armpit stank, and this "fruit" (in my humble yet blunt opinion) is far WORSE. And the crazy thing is, they LOVE it here. Its on damn near every corner. I picked one up cause I had to try it, and i heard that it was rough but if a whole island loved the stuff I thought I could stomach a taste test at least. NO WAY, ended up giving the rest to a local I met and he was happy to receive it (but not nearly as happy as I was to get away from that smell).

So there ya have it, THE WORST (by far) fruit on earth

And if there is anything worse Im sure ill find it!
I hope(?)

Stuff Ive seen

Some cool stuff ive been seeing:
-old lady taking a bath in some crop water
-amazing views of cities and grassy hills
-Balinese carrying unbelievable amounts of goods on scooters, whether that be rugs, chickens, dogs, food vending machines, or their whole family. Overloading couldnt be more of an understatement
-Dogs in Bali arnt as much pets as they are fellow scavenging citizens. They dont react to people like they have been pet much, when you throw them food they flinch instead of try and catch, and id say about 90% of them have at least one leg causing a limp, understandable with all the crazy motor bikes swarming like flies on hot shit.
-Marijuana plants,
-Flatbed full of ginormous pigs with gallons of piss flowing out the back
-Young kids driving huge trucks with cigarettes in their mouths
-And that was just one day of driving, my butt pad has never hurt so bad after a full 9 hours on a late 80s unkempt scooter that i paid $3/day to hire.

12/27
Stayin at a nice hotel (nice for me anyway), its about 25$US/250,000Rp (thats correct, it is NOT fun keeping track of all those zeros) AC, TV, and best of all, what makes it soooo worth the extra coin, the kid @ the front desk, he is super cock eyed and and and (get this) he switchs it up on ya, you know when you meet a cockeyed person, everybody just trys to member the one thats actually lookin @ ya, and the one that is just, uh, lazy. Well this kid will be using one eye the first second then as your trying to keep your train of thought and reply to him he totally switches it up on ya, he looks at you with his other eye! Some might say a freak of nature, I say super human!!!
Think of the ability he has over all(most) else, (to totally distract me, for one) he can be looking @ one person in a group then just focus in on somebody else w/o even moving his eyes! Let alone his head. Well maybe not super human but definitely fun at parties.
:) This kid threw my off so many times it was great.

Bali (Indonesia)

Bali!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Beautiful island, and amazing people, but ive come along way since getting here. My first day was pretty rough, money changer slipped off 50$ and found out afterwords, taxi from the airport ripped me off, then he took me to only $$$ hotels with all my shit in tow so i succumbed (hot/humid, disorientated with place/people, and tired (overnight flight)), it was a nice place but 40$(!?), bought a European carry-all and it broke in the first 5 min, thought a good meal would help but I think they over charged me on some taxes, tried to ask about where to find a map/lonely planet and everybody said they knew but they just pointed me into 3rd floor when i was on the 1st, and 1st floor when on the 3rd, literally (I dont think they can say "I dont know" so they just give it their best guess, or most just default to "yes" or point to a distant direction), and worst of all the beer isnt all that cheap, and that was just the first day!

Well I got a good nights sleep in my 60 degree room, took off the "sucker" sign from my forehead and started fresh in the morn. Made alot of ground the following days after learning the essential rule: everybody wants to become your "friend" and by friend i mean take you to a hotel/restaurant/motorbike hire of their friends so they can get a cut'o'cash. In Kuta this is the way of life for most locals a tourist comes in contact with, althou I did meet alot of cool Balinese people. This old guy, who i bought lunch from, showed me around a bit, to cheap hotel rooms down mushroom road, he said he'd make me majik mushroom soup if i want, he says he takes some when feeling down and makes him feel better :) REAL people, they seem happy too, and i found a lonely planet for SE Asia, finally! Its still difficult cause there are no maps with all the street names and, from what i can tell, the straight streets sometimes change names randomly, multiple streets by the same name! Crazy, so basically you just keep your general scence of direction and ask for help, but not just once, because they will just point you in a direction even if they dont understand you, so you need to get a popular majority (at least 3 or more) to get anywhere. Found a cheap hotel (8$/night), so I spent some time in the same area so I could learn the ropes and get my feet back under me. Kuta has all you could want (and some you dont want), full body massages (heh) for about 5$, discos open all night, cheap beer specials, great sea food, cheap internet, cheap hotels (if you find them yourself), the beach within walking distance with great surfing. There are hawkers on the beach under the trees that sell cold beer with a chair for you to sit and enjoy (as long as they can have the beer bottle back for return). The bad: you will hear "hey boss" at least 50 times on your walk to the beach, some along with "you want massage?" some with "what you looking for?" and some with " you want transport?" which is probably the best way to get away from the harassment. Renting a motor bike is about 3.5$/day and the easiest way to zoom past all this and into the crazy seemingly disorganized world of scooter swarming but it all works, somehow.

More to come............

My new fav fruit!!!

Im sure you all are dying to know about my new fav fruit. Its called a Custard Apple. It is sooooooooooooo goooooooooooooooooood. Its grown in tropical regions and is about the size of a mellon, at least the one I had. Matt (from Couchsurfing) took us to one of his neighbors near his fam's farm. They had a real full time farm operation and gave us a bunch of stuff to donate to the Sea Shepherd and a Custard Apple for us to try. They have a very meaty texture but you have to get it when its ripe other wise its more like an apple then like custard. Its kinda juicy but not like an orange and kinda sweet but not really sweet. Ill have to get many more when im in SE asia to help explain them better :)

PERTH

Flew into Perth the night of Dec 2, didnt want to pay for a hostel cause we landed near midnight so I found an open spot near the baggage claim to try a sleep a bit. The next day I took the bus into downtown and found a great hostel. Its an older building with high ceilings,a swimming pool, a bar, free brekie and diner too (if you buy a beer). Perth is a pretty cool city with a really big parks, and the weather is more moderate because its a bit further south.

Last weekend was great, I met up with a guy from Couchsurfing.org and he took me and a car full of other travelers from France to go to his cabin in some mountains for some fruit picking, swimming in his pond and gerneral hanging out (also tried a pretty good local beer Little Creature Pale Ale in Freemantle (near Perth)). We got to met some of his "neighbors" (the closest live about 3km away) so they could donate fruit and vegies for the sea shepard. The Sea Shepard is a boat that keeps an eye on ships that may be attempting to whale hunt and uses various tacticts to prevent them from continuing.

Heres what wiki's gotta say about it:
"Operations have included scuttling and disabling commercial whaling vessels at harbour, intervening in Canadian seal hunts, ramming other vessels, throwing glass bottles of foul smelling butyric acid on the decks of vessels at sea, boarding of a whaling vessel while at sea, and seizure and destruction of drift nets at sea."

So it was pretty cool to be able to load all this food onto the big black ship with white skulls and a helli on top at the steve irwin docks in freemantle.

Check out thier website:
www.seashepherd.org

Matt (from CS) is letting me stay at his house for a couple of days to save on $$$. Matt works alot in western australia to help with the green movement and the night we dropped the food off he went to some sea shepherd diner gathering. He had a coworker over the other night that was talking about just barrelly missing the opportunity to be in on a meeting with one of the guys in the music group Pearl Jam who wanted to know more about the western australia green movement. It was interesting to hear thier political views althou Im sure much was lost due to the political terminolagy, the unfamiliar names, the thick accents and ie's being attached to random words.

One thing they did suggest is for me to claim Canadian citizenship instead of US. They asked if i had had any troubles while traveling and that they have had some problems in other countries for the same reasons as americans do. I guess not many people have a problem with canadians so I dont feel as bad that every time an australian or fellow traveler has tried to recognize my ethnicity it was Canadian. I attributed it to MI being so close to the boarder but I guess when I actually say "cAAAAnaduhh" they pin me as an Uh-merrrrrcan.