I arrived in Colombo on 29th May 1998 having just escaped the overthrow of Suharto after two years living in Indonesia. Fortunately I had friends in Sri Lanka and my first escapade in the country was to play golf in Nuwara Eliya and stay in the colonial era hotel, the famous Hill Club. Not a bad introduction to Sri Lanka, certainly different from my recent experiences in Indonesia. But I had to find a job. I had been teaching…
My time in Indonesia was coming to an end. The dictatorship of Suharto was also coming to an end. My last few weeks were punctuated by riots and general unrest. I’m not sure why, but I had decided to leave Indonesia by boat but I also had to get to Bukittingghi in Sumatra to get my passport. So on Saturday 16th May 1998, I said my goodbyes to my housemate Jim and me and Lis got on the bus from…
I’d been in Bandung for about six months and I’m not sure how it happened (my diary says nothing) but I decided to go to Sumba for three weeks on holiday. Back in 1997 it was way off the beaten track and saw very few tourists. It was apparently famous for slavery, fine ikat cloth and horseback fighting festivals. It was also famous for its megalithic tombs – not just from the past, they were still erecting them and I…
I was going to call this page Sunda as Sundanese is a very common adjective for all things around Bandung: Sundanese people, Sundanese food, Sundanese language but the place is never referred to as Sunda. Odd. Anyway, here are a few motorbike and bicycle trips I did while living in Bandung. They were mainly to the East and South of Bandung towards the south coast of Java, the heartland of “Sunda”. I’d arrived in Indonesia in March 1997 looking for…
I’d arrived in Indonesia in March 1997 looking for a job at a language school. It was the wrong time as it was at Idul Fitri, and the schools told me to come back in a month. So I headed off to Sulawesi. Returning to Bandung I managed to get some teaching hours first at TBI (The British Institute) and then secured a part-time contract with EEP (Executive English Programs). I was initially staying at the Hotel Sahara which sadly no…
I had arrived in Indonesia on 10th February 1997, fresh off my TEFL course and keen to start my new career as an English teacher. A friend of mine had a contact in a school in Bandung so that’s where I headed. I had spent two months travelling through Indonesia in 1989 so knew the country a bit and liked it. Pre-internet days though and so no chance of organising work in advance so I just had to arrive and…
Once I was across the river there were minibuses to Almirante. And from there, transfer to a speedboat to Bocas del Torro ($3). I walked to the end of town and found a really nice hotel. Doug told me there are only three places in town and this was the cheapest and best. I got a room for $16 with en suite hot shower (something new for me!). The decor was interesting: two walls were bamboo, one with a picture…
It was Wednesday 20th March and I’d spent just over a month travelling from Hawaii through the USA and Mexico and now I was walking along a dusty road into Guatemala. The first person I saw was a smiling man who was able to fleece me of my Mexican Pesos. Anyway, with a wad of cash I hopped on an old American school bus (common transport in Central America) and headed off. Before I knew it the bus was packed…
Coming through the turnstile from USA, Mexican Nogales not surprisingly seemed very different. There were lots of dodgy looking blokes on street corners looking very macho. My diary simply notes that the hotel was OK, $15. The following morning I got a local bus to the main bus station – I had been learning Spanish before I left so I knew it was the Central Camionera. I had been told that the bus I wanted was at 8.30 so I…
This is the first leg of another of those trips down memory lane. Between February and April of 1996 I hopped from Hawaii to Las Vegas and then southwards through Mexico and Central America to Colombia. I’ve scanned the photos from my dusty albums and tried to match the photos with entries from my old diaries. Being from pre-digital days one thing I’ve noted is how few photos there are. Developing reels of film was expensive in those days. I…