1 bad meal, 30 hours of travel, far too many toilet stops and a 5m long snake

Milton, Bangladesh's very our Basil Fawlty bids us farewell...

I’m sat in Crystal Coffee in the car park of Medan’s International airport where it’s surprising to learn that I can’t get a straight black cup of coffee. Surprising as I have just left Aceh in the north where I tasted the most beautiful locally grown cup of coffee prepared in the most elaborate way including the final act of dropping the drink from a great height into my cup (which is apparently essential). Good job Benjamin and I cleared out the shop of their stock and have packed every crevice our luggage with the stuff to keep us energised for the long winter ahead back home.

Meanwhile back here in Medan I have settled for a ‘tehbotel‘ which is possibly the most disgusting brand of ice tea quite blatantly flavoured with cheap perfume. I have been stuck in bed for most of our time here in Indonesia due to some questionable food I must have eaten on my last day in Khulna and so the tehbotel has been my drink of choice after the doctor told me to stick to bottled water only.

I saw this in the paper just as we were leaving Khulna...driving in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The trip from Khulna to Bireuen was hellish and included a two hour bumpy bus ride along Bangladesh’s crazy roads to our flight in the same broken plane we arrived in. Upon arrival in Dhaka airport we were treated to a serious bout of mosquitos coupled with some of the most toxic paint I have ever smelt to choke down on for a few hours. Bundling ourselves onto the flight to Kuala Lumpur I was just hoping I could sleep as I felt like my insides were exploding but instead it was a fairly short flight followed by what felt like the longest layover known to man.

Prior to this we had talked fondly of our time in KL airport, a place where we could kick back and wash some tasty food down with an ice cold beer. The reality was that I felt terrible and spent the entire nine or so hours trying to sleep in-between toilet breaks. Our flight to Medan in Indonesia was quick and painless and I was trying to be as positive as I could while we stood in the stinking hot queue for our visa but it was the nine hour car journey we had next that I was really dreading. We did get there in the end but it really did feel like the longest car journey I have ever taken and as the time we arrived all I wanted to do was crash out..

Does anyone have an idea what these drugs are for...?

In reality it wasn’t that simple. We had been invited to stay at The Major’s house for the evening (think the local mayor but more important) and had to meet and great followed by joining him for dinner. He was an interesting guy and as Benjamin and The Major ate he told of his time negotiating peace in Aceh and his obsession with Starbucks before casually dropping into the conversation that he had been sent to jail for twelve years for speaking out against the Indonesian government. I was never aware of the situation that existed here in Aceh, their struggle for independence and the role that the tsunami played in the peace keeping efforts in the region.

On my first full day in Aceh the only thing I got to see was the garish bedspread adorning my new bed, the doctors surgery and the inside of my eyelids. Benjamin gave me the day off to die quietly and thankfully one of our hosts took me to the doctors to get me fixed. Twenty four hours later and it had been three days since I had eaten anything but I was finally on my feet again. The bad news was that I now had only two days to shoot all of pictures and video that we would need from here in Indonesia.

This is the last fishing hut before the beach and would have been totally destroyed when the tsunami hit. Beautiful place to work though..

The village we spent most of our time working in was almost entirely destroyed in the tsunami. Only five houses remained in this town of well over two hundred after the wave came in and yet the place is once again thriving. They have a great farming community here with shrimp and fish which you’ll be able to find on the shelves of your local supermarket back in the UK. Finding my way through the maze of ponds to the beach and it was truly amazing to stand and look at the vast ocean ahead of me bearing down on the endless miles of flat land that is so many peoples homes and livelihoods. It’s humbling to think that all the people working away in the searing heat around me would have experienced such a catastrophic event and that they literally picked up the pieces, rebuilt their lives and homes and got back to their lives.

It took me a while to realise that everyone had left me behind on the beach as the sun started to set over the mountains in the distance. This wouldn’t normally cause much concern apart from the warning I had been given by a local farmers wife earlier to ‘Watch out for the 5m python on the way to the beach’. She even refused to walk that way…which was a little disconcerting. I hadn’t exactly let this slip under the carpet and had protested insisting we took the car and went around the long way but everyone seemed to ignore the pasty white guy and continued onwards and so I had to make peace with the snake warning. I never did see the huge python, thank goodness but did use it to have a laugh the next day as I saw Benjamin crouching down near a pond to pack away some audio gear… I really wish I could post a video of his response as I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone jump so high in my life! It was hilarious.

More fish, this time in Indonesia. Yum!

It seems strange to be leaving Indonesia now as I really feel like we just got here. I’ve only tried one coffee house and a few different local dishes which were all amazing and I feel like I’ve only just started to explore this wonderful place. I guess that’s the trade off of a great job like this. You get to travel to an amazing place that you may never see again but you need to get a job done and that is the absolute priority. It’s travelling in a whole different way though and you get to meet the most amazing people, definitely an experience worth treasuring.

Right then. Just another ridiculous number of hours travelling to get back to the lovely warm British weather…actually couldn’t send this from the Crystal Coffee house and am struggling with the bitterly slow KL airport wifi………………..it’s like dial up all over again…

Yes that is Benjamin and I cracking into a well deserved BEER at Kuala Lumpur airport. Nothing else to do here but wait for the slow arse internet!