Hiking in Flipflops

Last week we undertook the three day ascent of the second highest peak in Indonesia (Grunung Rinjani) which is essentially a massive dormant volcano with a large 5km crater lake at the top, and a smaller (active) volcano within the lake. The summit of Rinjani reaches up to 3,726m with the last 1,000m be largely volcanic ash, rocks and other crap which you have to scramble over in a two steps forward 1 step back fashion.

The second day was an eleven hour slog beginning at 3am with the final ascent, our guide was a 28 year old who said he had climbed the mountain at least 350 time over the past 10 years. His calves which were the size of a small country served to emphasise the point.

Phot form in the crater:

Setting off half an hour after a Kiwi couple, and 10 minutes after two French guys we joked with the guide that we had to beat the French to the top. A joke which the guide took all too seriously! The 3 and a half hour final slog to the top was absolute hell, with the last 300m taking over an hour due to the nature of the volcanic ash we were walking on, the freezing cold (very bizarre when in a tropical country), and the wind that seemend hell bend on blowing us from the precarious ridge that we were trudging up. But we did our bit for national pride and beat them all to the summit by 20 mins. The Kiwis blamed their slow guide but I am not so sure.

As I have already done all the hard work, I will give you the benefit of the view for free:

In addition to ourselves and a guide, we were (unknowingly) supplied with three porters by our travel agent! We felt like colonial English explorers on a full expedition. This is a photo of our porters taken at approximately 2600m. These guys carry loads of up to 40kg tied to bamboo poles. They are wearing flip flops!!

There were some other strange sights on the mountain including thieving monkeys who have a liking for cameras and anything shiny, and perhaps even stranger - stray dogs at least a days walk from the nearest house. They exist entirely off scraps provided by the porters on the mountain and are inexplicably well trained!

Cheers Bigears

Wow, so its been a while since the last post they will be coming thick and fast from now on...

Next stop Gilli Islands (off the coast of Lombok) for 5 days. As far as I can tell, in between hawking magic mushrooms to local tourists and playing the guitar - the sole occupation of the 700 people on this island is sleeping.

This is also the only place in indonesia where if you say "cheers" to your waiter, you will find yourself recieving the reply "cheers bigears" or "cheers moite" in a London stylee, for somehow, all the inhabitants seem to have learned cockney! They seem also to be very fond of "chicken curry don't worry", which I am not sure I have heard before!

The Gilli islands are one of the few islands who have no police, and you can tell pretty much straight away. I wasn't quite sure if the inhabitants were eating the mushrooms they were trying to sell, but there is definately something in the water!

Anyhow, we did some snorkelling, saw some giant clams and turtles, met some cool people, but most of all - did a lot of this: