Indonesia

 So I spent the next few days crusin' around with Ty, we met a pretty solid crew, hung out at some nice places with some nice views. 

Overlookin' Kuta.

We skated a bit too. The friend I met last time, Kurit, joined us. He was still rockin' the skateboard that I left him last time. And still could pump that bowl faster than anybody else. 

Due to reef cuts and lack of surf, plus the heat, Ty, David and I drove out to a nearby waterfall for a swim one afternoon. This place was located just inside a small village and it surprises me it isn't super well-known yet. The kids were stoked to swim and jump off the cliff, and had no idea this place existed.

Ty rippin' a gainer over David, and throwing kids around.

The kids loved it there, the played around, showed off to the camera a bit, and had little battles amongst themselves.

That evening we cruised to Segar for sunset with the homies, and to watch our friend Martina fire spin. She was unbelievably amazing. 

Indo

So I landed in Kuta, checked in to the ol' trusty Sandat to meet with Ty and Eddie before I even got into my room. We caught up for a bit then decided to go for a surf. I pulled my board out to find a nice hole in the bottom, sweet. That put us on hold for a bit, we went for some lunch, and got some rental bikes sorted, by then the repair was done, and then we cruised out to Nusa Dua for a super fun sesh. 

Ty and I left the following day to Lombok, and I must apologize for some missing photos, my camera was stolen and photos were still on there. 

We arrived in Kuta late afternoon, checked in to Yellow Flower and grabbed some dinner. Searched and searched for my little buddies from last trip, but it took a couple days to find them. Still as awesome as I remembered. 

Here's Thomas, everybody loves Thomas. 

 

We drove the horrid road to Mawi the next morning, completely neglecting that it was the rainy season, and when we pulled up to the dirt path that goes through the rice paddies we saw that the road now looked like a mud bog course. Ty and I looked at each other and spun out the whole way there. We couldn't even ride the bikes, most of the way was running in the knee deep mud with the throttle pinned. HAHA I remember watching Ty fall and get even more covered in mud than he was. (Unfortunately these are the photos that are missing...)

 

We got to the beach and it was super onshore and no one around. So we soon after turned around and did the whole mission again. Spent the next couple days surfing a crowded and small Grupuk, then after both of us were nice and cut up from the reef we took a couple days out of the water and hung out with our little homies. There was an annual festival going on, 'Nali' maybe was the name. 

We checked out a sunset with the kids, got held up by a parade, and skated a couple times in the afternoon. 

Mmmmmmm BAKSO

Ha, after wrestling and joking around for a bit the kids got bored and started throwing things at the people on the beach below.

One of the mornings I got up early to go out with my friend Kurit, a boat captain, to catch sea worms for this festival. That is what this thing represents, a famous princess jumping off a cliff into the ocean to avoid having to choose a husband, and now apparently if you eat the worms its a representation of her hair. It happens every year and thousands of people come to Segar beach for the festival. I tried some of the fried worms, quite tasty. 

One night when we were skating at the Swedish surf camp the guys came in from spearfishing with a pretty impressive catch. 

I have too many photos to go on so I'll continue on another time...

Philippines

Spent a few more days in Taipei before taking off to Philippines for Chinese New Year. 

Stayed in Puerto Princesa for one night, found the so called white sand beach, and took off the next day.

Spent 2 hours atop a super crowded bus through some amazing landscapes, and arrived in Sabang in the early afternoon. 

There wasn't too much to do there, the main attraction is an underground river that you can do a tour through by boat. It was pretty amazing. The only light was a flashlight connected to a car battery, so the photos are lacking. This hotel did have the coolest art piece behind the front desk. Made with shells all found on the beach out front. 

After a couple nights there we head more north to A popular town named El Nido. Checked in to a hotel a bit out of town, unfortunately the beach was nothing special. The sunset was nice though. 

The next day we tracked down a super sweet place located on an amazing beach, the whole hotel was ran by transvestites, awesome hosts, and there was the best monkey who lived there too. His name was Moi-Moi. 

The days were spent hanging around in the hammocks, playing with the monkey, eating amazing food and exploring the nearby limestone islands by boat. 

Moi-Moi was the friendliest monkey I've met, you could take him out on his leash and he would run around on the beach and wrestle with the local dogs, then come running up and climb on you when he started getting scared. The only thing was he hated girls, he would pull at their hair or show his teeth, he knows what's good. At night he would sleep sitting atop a post only 4 inches in diameter, and he would be so scared that if you went near he would clasp onto you and fall asleep and wine if you tried to leave.  So one day we built him a house...

He seemed a bit unsure about it at first, but by the end that house became his home.

Checked out a bunch of the nearby islands, this was was definitely one of my favorites, called Snake Island. It was connected by a walkway of sand and even at high tide you could walk from one to the other. 

 

 Met some cool acrobatic local kids, jumped off some cliffs with them, buried each other in the sand.

Even saw some of the wildlife hunting and fighting not to be someone's dinner. The snake won...