Of moaning, dragons and road kill

The rest day flew past far too quickly. We spent it overlooking, in Bob Dylan's words, the aqua blue sea. The beach was white and the drinks wet. Without close scrutiny you could easily miss the tins, plastic bags and other rubbish merrily bobbing on the shallow waves. If you didn't put your glasses on you could also miss the mangy dogs eating the intestines of dead fish lying stomach up on the sand.

Reality kicked in and we cycled about 500km in four days under the grueling sun. This took us over the islands of Lombok and Sumbawa. The cycling is manageable except for the excruciating heat. Yesterday during a particularly trying 10 km climb the temperature on my Garmin soared up to 47C. I was a tiny bit hot and bothered.

The mornings are early and we and the dead are woken every morning exactly 4.15am with blood chilling wails. The first morning I thought the sounds came from a divorced middle aged woman moaning in the next door room. But of course it was from the mosque which is always situated right next door. 

They say no matter where in the world you are you are always six feet from a rat. In Indonesia you you are always six feet from a Mosque.

On our next day we will have the chance to travel to the Komodo Islands, home of the so called Komodo dragons. After being married three times I have had my fair share of dragons dressed up as mothers in law. So I'll probably use the rest day to refurbish my toenails.

The breakfast buffet every morning consists of fried chili rice with yellow stuff which could be eggs, fried chili peanuts with minute sardines, heads still intact, fried chili vegetables and some more fried rice. All this washed down with pitch black sweet sandy unfiltered coffee.

Road kill spotted so far in hierarchal order, one buffalo, one goat, one baby monkey, three dogs, one chicken, several snakes but luckily no middle class divorced women.