From one Paradise to Another - Bali Part 2

From my diary.....

It is a peaceful tranquil morning in Ubud. Right now i am laying naked on a daybed overlooking a lush jungle valley. All i can hear are the sounds of birds and running water and the odd cricket. We got here yesterday afternoon and the beauty of this place captivated us both entirely. It's just total perfection. We have our private villa with breathtaking views of the valley, a private outdoor bath surrounded by lush foliage plus out own private deck with a plungepool where it feels great to be naked; surrounded by jungle and the smell of frangipani's and the feel of the cool breeze on your skin. 

Ubud is so enchanting and serene. we spent a day walking through rice paddies, villages and 1000 year old temples in the jungle. We explored the streets of ubud watching beautiful hindu rituals and eating delicious foods. yesterday we spent a decadent afternoon in a day spa where we were massaged, scrubbed, and washed and then we had a long soak in a petal filled bath overlooking the valley while sipping herbal tea's...ahhhh heaven!

some moments in life are so perfect that time melts away - you forget everything of who you are and your life and there you are.....just you and life. one to one. face to face. No fear, no thoughts, no time. just complete oneness with the moment.

Our last day in ubud we went on another walk through stunningly beautiful, steeply terraced ride paddy fields. never have a seen so many shades of green! maybe we got distracted by all the beauty because we got lost and matty nearly fell in a river. Well thats what our Balinese rescuer thought was happening. he was a tiny kind little farmer man who climbed down to us and showed us the way to the path we should have taken. his name was roui and he grew fruit in the area. he could hardly speak english but we sat and talked anyway and we smiled alot and laughed together and it was one of those really special travel moments that you treasure. he gave us a blessing and we gave him some little gifts and we parted ways. it was a wondrous morning - now back to saminyak and the city and bustle.

Saminyak - We spent out last days being massaged, shopping and dining at the most incredible restaurants. My favorite part though was just being on the back of the motorbike while matty weaved us through busy streets dodging dogs and people and cars. I loved just soaking up the smells and sights of urban bali. I like having my arms around him as we ride too. it feels like one long hug while flying through space.

Our last night we went to the KUDETA party which was wildest of wild funs! it was like tribal raw heaving party and my feet are sore from dancing and matty puts the h in hangover this morning after. our adventure ends tonight when we fly out. we'll be back in not to long though....bali rocks!

Bali pt 1 - In paradise, monkeys sometimes bite your head....well they do!

5 days after our arrival in paradise (Bali) i finally got a chance to write in my diary...looking back on it now - my hand writing was rounder and curvier than usual and had no sharp edges at all. it even had swirly whirls at the end of letters. i think the flow and ease in my writing reflects the state of bliss i was in by that stage. the romantic jungle book wonderland around me had already enveloped me completely in its beauty.

Here is my entry...

It's so relaxing and energizing here, I feel like a different person. The first few days we stayed with Sam and franca with sams dad (who lives in bali) in the rural back streets of Sanur. The house was very simple but comfortable. It was next to a little rice paddy field where cows roamed and cobra’s hid waiting to ambush their prey. It was so wonderful to stay with them for a few nights and get a feel for what life in the village was like. We had long relaxing breakfasts on Sanur beach each morning. We visited kuta beach and swam and drank and lounged and ate. Sam got a kerosene massage of a nice lady. ..but then obviously he smelled like kero the rest of the day. We did a little partying and a little sun baking and it was altogether fabulous.

After our stay in sanur we traveled the long winding dirt road to ‘dreamlands’ and our secluded cliff top sanctuary which was called the temple lodge. I almost died and ascended to heaven upon entry. We were high up on a cliff over looking perfect turquoise ocean and surrounded by lush foliage and bright tropical flowers of every color. All about us were shrines and Buddha statues and the smell of incense and frangipani’s filled the air. In all of this was planted a handful of gorgeous Balinese bungalows. Our bungalow – the coral cave – was literally a cave in the side of the cliff with no walls (just a little baliconi) overlooking the sweeping ocean below. It was the most beautiful room I have ever stayed in!

We spent lots of time their just lazing on the big daybed on our balcony watching the surfer’s ride the perfectly formed waves below. Sam and franca were staying not far away and we all played on the beach some days and we all ate lots of nasi goreng and we also went on some great motorbike adventures exploring beaches and watching surfers at the various breaks around the bukit peninsular.

We visited a monkey temple and fed the monkeys there. Most of them were really cute and the temple was ancient and fairytale like but it’s all fun and games until someone gets bitten on the head by a monkey aye?! Poor matty!

In our travels around the temple we uncovered a scam on of the locals was making her living off. She had a trained monkey (with a pierced tounge!) who would steal peoples hats, glasses or anything it could grab, then she would get her son to "chase" the monkey and recover the stolen item from the monkey and give it back to the tourist in exchange for a bit of cash. the monkey pounced on my head at one point and took my hat but we weren't about the pay and matt told the boy to rack off.
I don't think the local lady was impressed as later on she got her little monkey to jump on matts head and pull his hair and bite him!!

We have actually seen quite a few creatures since we’ve been here. Monkeys, sea snakes (matty nearly trod on one), eagles (the owner of our bungalow has 2 pets ones!), crabs (we’ve been racing them), butterflies, bats, huge colorful bugs, squirrels, monitor lizards and much more. This place is teeming with life.

We have been taking long beach walks and exploring the cliffs and beaches and forest around us and getting a few coral cuts and scratches but hey, that’s a sign of a good adventure!

We have also been taking long naps in the sun and just letting the cool breezes caress our skin. It has been so romantic here and so peaceful. I feel whole.

I wrote this on the last day of our stay at the temple lodge -

Some moments in life are so perfect that all time melts away. You forget everything of your life and who you are, and then there You are…just you and the moment. One to one.
Face to face.

No fear, no thoughts, no time. Just complete oneness with the moment.

Just you and life

The very last day there was my favorite, the four of us motorbiked around the peninsular up random dirt roads past colourful roadside warungs and through cute ramshackled villages and found beautiful lookouts, secluded beaches and a ate at a hidden cliff top restaurant which was being terrorized by naughty monkeys. Toward the end of the day matty and I found a secluded white sandy beach and clambered down a cliff to it and proceeded to watch clouds and cuddle for hours….ahhhhh. As if that wasn’t a perfect enough day, we ate the best seafood meal of my life that night on the beach under the stars with cocktails!

Japan - Quirky, Crazy, Kinky!

We recently went for a very short trip over to Japan and we managed to go just when they had a sumo tournament on which was a great stroke of luck. They only have a handful of tournaments each year so we were stoked to be able to go.

Here is my diary entry

22 March – I am sitting on a train from Kyoto to Osaka right now, watching Osaka’s urban sprawl zip by in a flurry of grey skies and, flashing lights and steeply pitched triangle roofs of every colour.

Yesterday was an incredible day. Our first day in Osaka. We ate cold salmon, miso soup, wasabi broccoli and cold egg parcels for breakfast (yum!) Then we set off to buy our sumo tickets which ended up being easier than expected.

We then wandered the streets eating ramen and exploring random trinkety stores and marveling at all the quirky bits of Osaka – A man in pajamas smoking on the sidewalk, posters of cartoon lettuces with bulging eyes, dried squid jerky, toilets that spray your bum and much more! It’s all those little things that make Japan so fun.

We also made the mistake (or was it?) of exploring a 6 floor Japanese porn store. Some of the stuff they had in there really haunted me. They had anime kiddy porn magazines and they had stuff on the cover that made my blood curdle. Lets just say that people in Australia would go to jail if they were found with those images on their home computer. The scenes involved toddlers and grown men. Not good. We couldn’t believe that they had this in the store!

That wasn’t all though, the 6th floor was an entire floor of what I can only describe as horror porn – It involved a lot of blood, razors, ropes and even the odd corpse. It was intense and some of the images burnt into my mind. I had to shake it off!

Matty took us to don don town (electric town) after that and I had to endure a lot of gadget shops. Then it was off to sumo and it was SO amazing. We got to watch over 20 rounds of gstring clad fatties sumo wrestle. They’d come out and do their little stomping ritual, slap their tummies and thighs, stare eachother down and then BOOM within 30 seconds one had body slammed the other out of the ring.We drank choo hai and cheered loudly all night. so fun!

The next day we went exploring the streets of Osaka looking for more noodles and then jumped on a train to Kyoto.
We saw our first cherry blossom trees on the trip there; pink and white ones blasting color into the grayness of the urban Japan. That afternoon we settled into our little traditional ryokan and then went on a fairytale like walk through ancient temples and through the back streets of Kyoto beside a meandering canal. The canal was lined with cherry trees and there were traditional old wooden houses lining the streets around us.

As the sun started to set we found a tiny pub to rest our feet in and drink Japanese beer. We ended our night by visiting the lively gion district and had a fabulous meal and got fabulously drunk before getting home right on our 11pm curfew.

Our second day in Kyoto was full of adventure. We visited a vibrant market that morning and sampled crazy food like this agadashi chewing gum dish that almost made me vomit and some strange pickled foods….not really sure what they were but yuk! Red bean pancakes and seed biscuits and more. Needless to say we felt ill by the end of it but it was an adventure. There were also antiques being sold – swords, kimono’s, traditional wooded geisha thongs, incense and Buddha statues.

Our feet were so sore from 3 days of walking so at the end of the day we decided to take a train ride into the mountains to this amazing mountain top onsen. Up we wound through valleys, chugging our way past tiny villages and green fields and autumny coloured trees .When we finally arrived at kumera we decided our feet were rested enough and we very ambitiously decided to take this apparently gorgeous hour long walk to the onsen.

To cut a long story short, we went entirely the wrong way and ended up spending an hour wandering around in the bush but eventually we came back to the station just as a bus was taking people to the onsen –hoorah! Finally we soaked our naked tired bodies for an hour and then we stuffed all of our change into the massage chairs in the foyer whilst sipping beer. ahhhhh

Rejuvenated and energetic again we made our way back to town and had another crazy night of exploration, great food and crazy sites. We got fed pork in every “vegetarian” dish we ordered, we saw a giant plastic octopus and also we saw 2 real life giesha wandering through back alleys.

I was feeling a bit craptastic the next day from all the pork and sugary drinks plus I got some crazy asian flu and my period all on the same day….uuuuughhh. I wasn’t all sparkles and joy that day let me tell you. While I wallowed in my crapulence matty got us all packed up and we made our way to Tokyo. We were planning to have a longer trip away but business drama meant we had to come home early and head to tokyo.

The bullet train there was super super fast and the views were great. After finding a hotel we hit the streets of shibuya in downtown Tokyo just before dusk. I still felt yuk but the flashy neon, crazy eccentrics, loud music and strange smells drew me in like a moth to a flame. So much to see, taste and touch! It’s sensory overload. I loved it but after an hour or 2 it was bed time for me.

While I ate udon noodle room service and got an in room massage at the hotel matty drank and shopped and drank some more. He came home at 1am with presents for me drunk as a skunk. He bought me socks with cartoon peanuts on them. They are the best socks ever! I love them! He also bought me a crazy doll with a Mohawk - the ones you put on your mobile (well thats what japanese do)

Our last day was spent sampling every bizarre food we could get our hands on and then shopping at takeshita street (yes that is the street name!!) checking out the crazy goth and Lolita outfits and buying trinkets and chocolates for our familes.

Short but sweet holiday but you’d be surprised how much pork a vegetarian can eat in such a short space of time!!

Reflections on Summer

I have to say, there is no doubt in my mind that this summer 06/07 was the BEST summer of my life. Sydney always comes alive in summer and it is so exciting. All the amazing festivals and parties. The beach days, the long lunches in restaurants by the water, the bbqs and picnics…..ohhh it is just divine! Every summer is fun but this one was IT!

We went to Byron for a week over new years which really stands out in my mind as one of the biggest highlights of the summer. There were over 20 of my great friends in 2 houses right near wategoes beach and it was just the most fabulous party and reunion of old friends.

I also managed a week away with my 2 best buds from school, Katie and Kathmo. We went to Fraser Island in a completely unsuitable vehicle and completely unprepared so it turned into quite the ummmm, adventure.

For some reason I thought fraser island was sort of a big touristy island with lots of bars and restaurants. He he he, I suuuuure was wrong. Within about 130 seconds of being on the island we had the car bogged and a bus load of tourists helping us get out.

Within an hour of being on the island we had totally bogged the car (for the 3rd time) on a sand track and were digging it out with twigs while march flies bit our bums!

We were in good spirits though and we got rescued again by a jeep full of men and decided we had to stay on the hard sand beaches and set up camp. We had such an amazing week of catching up in our quiet campsite, eating lots of great food and going on little adventures.

Our trip was finished up with a crazy day at the gold coast good vibration festival. It had been a while since we’d all danced together and we had a bloody great time. There was a bushfire raging right beside fence and smoke covered the entire festival and made us all really dirty and smelly but we danced on and on and on. God I love those girls! So fun!

I also got more involved with the charity ‘Just Enough Faith’ over the summer and ended up being on the board that runs the charity (there are 5 of us). It is such an honor to do this work and I feel more fulfilled and happy and purposeful than ever before in my life.

We look after homeless people in Sydney and make sure they have a healthy meal every night. However, our objective is much more than just giving them a meal. It’s about giving them hope and helping them regain respect. It’s about helping them get back on their feet. We have loads of other services. Everything from meditation classes and job training to warm blankets and clothes for winter

I am so excited about what we might be able to do this year with the charity. We want to expand our services and help more people this year. We are about to open a free dental clinic for them and we have plans to also open a free legal centre as well.

check us out at www.justenoughfaith.org

I have also just started a program called ‘knitting for the needy’. We are organizing groups of knitters in nursing homes and elderly hostels to knit scarves beanies and blankets for the homeless for winter. It gives the oldies something they can contribute to society and gives them a sense of purpose. It’s a lovely program. I hope to get it Australia wide over the coming years.

Matty has become totally addicted to surfing and is getting really good. Every time he comes out of the water his eyes are sparkly and he has a spring in his step. I believe they call it the stoke!
I went out a lot on my body board and caught some good waves. I’ll have to learn surfing early next summer.

If it’s as fun as snowboarding it’s worth the learning curve just to feel the rush.

So Much Fun and So Much Drama. The Snow Trip That Nearly Took Mattys Life!

Me Matty and Sammy decided we would go on a quick trip to where ever it was snowing hard on the other side of the world. We found ourselves drawn back to whistler, our old home. Gosh it was great to be back in that gorgeous little village and boy was the snow on! We had a fantastic week of catching up with friends and Riding some awesome freshies but it had its fair share of drama and weirdness too.

On the very first day on the very first run I felt a bit weird and had to stop when I started seeing little gold stars. I called out to matty to let him know I was feeling weird and before you knew it I had passed out cold for no apparent reason! Very very weird. I haven’t passed out since I was about 12 years old! I took mit easy for the rest of the day and didn’t ride to hard. I couldn’t stop riding cause the freshies were far to good. The rest of that day was epic. Loads of good snow and we were just having a blast. It was great to sooth the muscles in the hot tub that arvo as well. God hot tubs in the snow are good!

My body was so stiff and sore I could hardly move the next day so I just had 3 more hot tubs and lovely cups of tea and naps. Ohhhh I love days like that. The boys went up and had a good day

A day later we all went up together again and had another fantastic day of riding. We spent lots of time in the tree’s and got loads more fresh snow. Its was a really really fun day and a really full day. As me and jimmi and suz set off to go home at the end of the day matty and sam decided to go and do rabbit tracks – a very hard, very out of bounds run and they had no certainty about the condition of the run at all. The track out of there was of particular concern to them as if it hadn’t been tracked out by someone else it sure would be a hard slog out of there. Anyway of course in the name of adventure they set off on this run just as the mountain was closing and I went back to the hotel for a nice long tub. Well I hot tubbed, I bathed, I prepared a meal, I read a book – the clock kept ticking and no sign of the boys. Hours past and the sun started to go down….ok now I was starting to worry. I called them and found out they were still way up the mountain trekking through waist high powder. The trail had never been ridden before that year and had loads of heavy snow for them to get through and now it was dark. At the pace they were going they were still going to take many hours to get down they said, and they were already very tired from a long day of riding so they wanted us to call a rescue - otherwise they were pretty sure they’d have to sleep out there the night. We called the rescue place but they said it would be a couple of thousand bucks and not only that but also they said they wouldn’t be able to get up there right away – that it’d take an hour or two. The boys weren’t happy with the news and decided to just push on and try to trudge their way out of there. Poor buggers. Anyway to cut va long story short they ended up walking all the way down and got home at about 8.30pm completely exhausted and we threw them in the hot tub and fed them loads of food. The collapsed in a heap pretty quickly after that.

Another relaxing day off and then we were all up the mountain again and loads of snow about and we had already had a great day of riding when we started down the run that I passed out on that first day. It was great snow and matty was particularly playful that day, riding lots of mini waterfalls and launching of things and getting into mischief as he does. Falling over lots and giggling lots. I was riding just behind him when he fell off the top of a big rock into a river bed ditch sort of thing. He fell kind of weirdly as his feet were up in the air but his head was down in the ditch and as he fell he got completely buried in snow over most of his body including his face. Only his feet were sticking out. Because he was right down in a ditch he was very hard to see but I saw him shaking his feet and went to check if he was ok. When I saw he was buried I launched into action somehow keeping pretty calm. It was hard to get to him because he was in a ditch and the closer I got the more snow fell on him so I had to lay flat on my belly and kind of slide to him and quickly dig him a breathing hole to his mouth. By the time I got to his mouth a he got some air he had already been under a few minutes and was coughing because he’d breathed in some snow. What a relief that he was ok in there!! Next we pulled his head out and I just held him there for a while till he calmed down. By then suzi was with us and was taking his board off so we could get him out. It ended up taking us 15 or 20 minutes to get him out of there. It was one of the scariest things that has ever happened to me. The thought that I could’ve lost him if I hadn’t seen him fall in there send shivers down my spine. Of course we all kept riding but quite a bit more carefully.

I had nightmares that night of losing matty of me drowning in snow and didn’t sleep well for the next 2 nights. I was quite shaken. We take so many risks on the snow and often we ride alone. Even though this experience was frightening it gave me so much more respect for the mountain and made me a safer rider as I will be much stricter about safety now and never ride alone.

We spent the last day shopping for new snowgear wich was really fun and really really cold (minus 15). Matty had been riding with gloves that had 19 layers of duct tape holding them together so we had to sort that out!! He he he. It was a crazy wild adventure! this trip but we all managed to get home in one peice.

BURNING MAN!!!!

Burning man is one of those experiences that people tell you they can't explain to you but you just HAVE to go because its just soooooooo special and mindblowingly spectacular. Thats what sam had been telling us for years and years but we never seemed to get ourselves together enough to organise flying to the other side of the earth to camp in the lifelkess harsh desert for a week. Maybe the princess in me was a little afraid of the dust and the heat and the lack of showers and all the other hardships i had been told about; but anyway after many years of nagging finally we packed ourselves up and headed for black rock desert (a few hours out of reno, nevada)

We arrived in reno and met sammy (with his newly bleached hair-do) at the airport and then set about going shopping for all of our supplies for the day. Since we are going camping in the desert for 7 days we had to take absolutely everything we'd need. 14 gallons of water each, lots of food, tents, pillows, cooking equipment, toilet paper, torches, batteries, glowsticks, face paint, bits of fabric for costumes and so on. It took us the best part of the day and just as we were ready to take the long drive out ino the desert the truck started making funny ticking noises. You always have to have a drama at the start of these kinds of trips aye? Well we spent the next 2 hours driving it around tring to get people to look at it but it was the end of the day so it was hard to find any help. eventually a guy looked it over and said he thinks it might be ok but he's not sure. There is a possibility it will break down on us too. Oh well, we just decided to run the gauntlet and take to ticking truck out into one of the harshest environments possible and of course we made it!!

After all the preparations and car hassles we finally arrived at Black Rock City at night fall. Black Rock City is the name of the city that the burning man festival forms. aprox 40,000 people come out for the festival and form the 3rd largest city in Nevada for that week. So Anyway when we arrived BM (burning man) was Engulfed in MASSIVE dust storm and it was almost impossible to see more than half a meter in front of you. I was glad to be in the car and not outside at that point. the people outside looked like sand monsters. we handed them beers out the window (then quickly wound it back up!). I'd never seen anything like it....ever! How Sam managed to navigate us to our camp still mystifies me.

But the drama's of the day were not over. The shade structure sammy had set up the day before we arrived had blown over in the strong winds and dinted our camp neighbours car. In the spirit of burning man they were very forgiving and gave us some glowsticks and smiles so all was ok. We set up camp for the night and braved the dust (wich had settled quite alot) and went and got amoungst it!
We intended to only go out for a quick look and then go to bed but we were like little kids in a giant toy store once we got out there! As we walked the dusty streets passing pirates, topless glittered girls and giant pink mushroom cars we realized we wouldn't begoing to bed any time soon. We visited lots of bars and drank free alcohol all night and visited a massive wooden structure called the waffle. the bigest structure that had ever graced the playa and had a huge bar and dancefloor inside it, then we met fire blowing rainbow bearded dudes who took us to a 'vampire' bar where they were serving port out of bloodbags hanging from the roof and was full of people dressed as vampires and there were naked girls with shaved heads pole dancing. they were mesmerizingly weird. I ended up getting to bed just after 4am and they boys stumbled home after the sun was up.

Day 2 we slept most of the day and cracked a beer shortly after waking, had a bit of food and headed straight back out to see what the new day held for us. The way of burning man is sort of like being a child. You do something for a while till something else grabs your attention (like a man on fire riding a bike or a crew of multi coloured aliens wanting to abduct you) and then something else and again and again and thats the fun of burning man. So night 2 found us watching a chainsaw that had been converted into...ahem, some girating genitalia. it also found sam riding a skate ramp whilst simultaniously playing a trumpet in the middle of a dust storm and before long my top was off and my boobs were painted and we were dancing the dusty night away. I managed to have a pretty hectic bike accident that night and was cut and bruised nicely. Thats what you get for not wearing lights on your bike at night. The dust got into my wounds and i still have the scars months later!

Day 3 was wilder again because the festival was really starting to ramp up. more people were arriving and there were more art cars and wild tents being erected. there were wearwolves, robots, pharohs and fairies all over the place. there were beaver eating contests, naked twister, thunderdome fights and all kinds of other wild shanangans errupting all over the place! We woke in the afternoon and cracked our beers for breakfast and then I spent a good 2 hours dressing the boys up. Hair dying, body and face paints and bright coloured fabrics were all involved and then i donned my cop outfit complete with leather hat and big studded belt and boots and off we went. This was the first day i saw the water truck wich is used the wet the streets to settle the dust but everyone uses it for amobile shower. sam and matt has there clothes off preety fast and ran under it. i kept mine on but got nice and cool under the spray. then after i arrested and whipped several people for loitering we found a giant see saw to ride and then the biggest dust storm whipped up and so we decided the only thing for it was to seek shelter in this cute little cowboy bar with no walls but just salloon style doors sitting out the front on their own. these cowboys gave us shelter from the storm and some warm pink sweet stuff with high alcohol content. I painted faces for people there but it got so dusty that you could hardly see the paint and everyones face had the same pale grey dust mask. It was about that time i started arresting more people and giving public whippings. i ended up with quite a line up of people waiting to get a lashing from me. i gave em some serious welts but they loved it...he he he

After the pink stuff changed to brown stuff we decided to move on to an exciting and lively bar nearby and we danced and had loads of fun. i'll just leave it at that for this story as some things at burning man must stay at burning man (or at least not published on the internet) ; )
We sure had fun though and somewhere during the night it got cold and i found myself in a blue onepeice ski suit (given to me by a hot poledancing chick named goergette) that kept me warm (the suit that is). It is so hot during the day in that desert but the nights can get absolutely freezing cold.

By day 4 my hair was starting to form dreads and our tents were getting a bit dusty but we were having the time of our lives. We had taken to having cute little bird baths in the nuddy in the mornings with a bucket and a washer and matty would carefully wash my bike accident injuries. what a bummer that i had roughed myself up so much. Burning man was getting really full and atmospheric now. More art cars, more people, more vibe. We had become good freinds with our tent neighbours. We had a really fun boy from South Carolina with a really cool deep south accent right beside us. one of those "heeey yaaaa'll" accents. Then we had a talented spanish guitar player who would play guitar while on his unicycle and even went off a jump once on his unicycle while playing to guitar still...very impressive! All our neighbours were great and we often had people sitting around our camp with us eating dinner with us or having a drink or just a chat. It was such a nice little community we had going. Today was a mellow day of resting and in the night we decided to have a bit of a more chilled night & just walked all over the playa just taking in all the artworks and watching little shows and meeting people. It was beautiful. We went at checked out this massive metal serpant artwork that moved and breather fire, then we checked out a huge tent full of psycodelic artworks and watched a movie about the painter that was fascinating, we visited the thunderdome where all night they have fight matches and the two fighters get strung up by bungee cords so they are kind of weightless and they wack eachother with padded foam bats. that was incredibly crazy vibe. We saw many Incredible art cars that looked like dragons, venus fly traps, monsters and boobs. The other thing that happened that day was the tornado that ripped through many peoples camps and came close to destroying ours. We saw it coming and it was one of the coolest things i have ever seen! As it was coming right for us we had to rush to get anything that was loose and throw it in our tents and then we were getting ready to put all our weight onto our shade structure to keep it from flying away but luckily for us it stopped a block or two away from us and just hovered there a while and then went a different way...phew!

Day 5, After a sleep and a bird bath found us hanging out at center camp wich is a huge communal area. It was a bit sad that when we were there there was an accident that involved some guy falling off some railing he'd climbed up and injured someone he fell on. The guy he fell on was hurt couldn't feel his legs or walk and was wheeled off. It was a reminder to me that burning man is about radical self reliance and total responsability for yourself. If you want to climb up onto art cars and onto structures you can but if something happens to you out in the middle of nowhere then you'll be in a pickle. The people who make these structures aren't necisarrily going to be making them 100% sturdy and safe and you have to keep your head about you. People get injured every year cause they get high and then go 'play with the art' a bit to much or dehydrate and stuff like that. After my bike accident i was already a bit cautious and feeling a bit fragile and sore. That afternoon we went and watched the critical tits parade where about 6 thousand women do a topless bike ride with decorated boobs. what a cool site!! it sure was hot this day i remember. That afternoon we found out that our unicycle riding freind had earned a fight in the thunderdome (the people who run it loved him cause he was doing his jumps on the unicyle while playing guitar trick for them) so we all sat around at camp getting him amped up and the boys were drinking dark rum - not good for sammy cause rum seems to get him a bit crazy and agro and boy oh boy...really loud! Anyway it was good for going to the thunderdome to watch our freind fight so we got rummy and climbed up the thunderdome walls (i had to take my pants off and climb up in my undies cause my jeans didn't have enough movement in them he he he) and watched him get absolutely cained when it was his turn to fight. poor little bugga. After the fight sam had mellowed a bit from screaming and yelling at the thunderdome and as we roamed the playa looking for our next adventure we found dr megavolt!! Now seriously this is one of the coolest things i have ever witnessed. Picture a truck trailer with 2 MASSIVE tesler coils on it and this guy walks out in what looks like a space suit and they fire up the tesler coils and massive bolts of lightening come out and zap the crap out of him in this suit. the noise it makes is sooooo cool and he does this little show where he manipulates the lightening bolts in differnt ways with differnt objects and its just mesmerizing. never seen anything like it!! We also saw this weird artwork thing that blew an intense green flame out the top and made a scary highpitched noise like it was about to explode. then we danced at the waffle with brian and watched some great fire dancing and then saw the most amazing drag show EVER! it was a giggly wild night. i went to bed early and then boys came home well after the sun came up looking pretty rough indeed. he he he

Burn Day! day 6, is what burning man is all about. The burning of a huge wooden man stuffed with fireworks. The party is now in absolute full swing and there is electricity in the air. Every art car is out and every ones in fancy costumes and on their craziest behaviour. Now our tent in really dusty and we can never find anything cause our tents are so messy but we are very happy little campers. We went and slept most of the day in a big communal airconditioned tent that is decorated to look like a forest. Man that was nice. That night we headed straight out to the man and soaked up the great vibe. They had a ring around the man of about 800 or so fire dancers and when they set the man on fire it was incredible. there was such electricity in the air as the fireworks exploded and the flames grew huge. All these fire tornados started coming off the fire and ripping into the croud in one area are spraying hot ash all over them. What a site! We had a little mosey around but had a fairly early night as we had exhausted ourselves the previous night.


Day 7 was our last real day as tommorrow we had to pack up and leave. We were lucky to organise a lift back to reno with our mate brian because we had to give the ticking truck to sams freind hannah so she could drive it to sanfran. phew. Now i do have to admit that the heat, dust, dready hair and all that was starting to get to wear me out a little and i wasn't sad to be going home the next day. The thought of a shower and a nice hotel bed with clean sheets were very appealing indeed but i sure am glad we stayed because that night they burnt the giant waffle structure and this thing was the bloody size of a sideways skyscraper so to see it get burn was really incredible. i doubt i'll ever see a fire that big up close again! During the day we packed up lots of our stuff and then went on a fun bar crawl involving margarita ice cones and matty got shitfaced. We went and watched the burn that night with our mates georgette and sean who are a fun and sexy and inspiring couple from reno. It was a great night but you could see that many people had left BM already and there was lots of packing and a constant stream of cars leaving.

Day 8 was a real chore day. We packed up and it took a lot longer than we thought it would and it was hot and matty was hungover the poor boy but finally we got it all packed and got in the 4 hour cue to leave. That was a pain in the ass, and then we had a long drive to reno as well but we ended up getting a hotel room with the clean sheets and i had 2 showers and got all the dreads out and then we ate at a nice restaurant and it was soooooooooooo good to feel clean and eat food in an airconditioned restaurant. brian nearly fell asleep on the table at the restaurant cause he hadn't slept in almost 48 hours but he held out for the green tea icecream. he he he

After burning man we me sammy and matt flew to l.a and spent a few days in huntington beach to relax and unwind wich was perfect after BM. What a great adventure!!