Newsletter 6 (26 november 2002)

Hi Everybody,

Long time no hear from me (almost 8 weeks), so here we go again. The last you heard from me was from Melbourne. The day after that i flew to Indonesia. The first week i acted like a lazy tourist, laying on the beach and spending money on beer. A good life though. Then: the Bomb. You all know how close i was and i guess you have all had my reaction the day after to tell you guys that i was (physically) all right. I don't want to go through all the details of that night, but let me tell you that i was shocked. I deliberately spend 4 more days in Kuta, just to talk it over with people that had had the same experience and i went to some memorial concerts, so that i could get it off my chest. I think i have done enough of that, so i don't have the bomb on my mind anymore. Spoke a lot about it with Andy (hi son), a young guy from NZ who was in the same hotel as i was. We spend like 3 days together and a lot of people thought we were father and son. We didn't make them any wiser and when Andy had left i told the people who asked about him that i had send him home. After Kuta the good days came back in Padangbai. Lovely little village and the best place to chill out you can imagine. And i needed that as you can imagine as well. The best beach i had ever seen (3 meter waves, yes you should have been there Andy), very cosy, very cheap and a lot of musicians. You can guess what happened: in less then an hour we were jamming and playing music. I even played together with Komang (i hope i spell that right), who is famous in Bali. I felt really honored and he liked it as well. Also did a boattrip (6 days), hopping from island to island which was great as well. Saw the comodo dragons, did a lot of snorkling, nice deserted beaches and a group of great people. After the boattrip one more week of beaching and making music in Padang bay and then back to Kuta. I thought i would be wise to be there to reconfirm my ticket and indeed that seemed to be true, coz my flight had changed (due to the bombincident of course) and i had to go to Sanur, to get a new ticket. It all worked out fine, but it turned out to be a good thing that i was in Kuta a few days before the plane actually left. Spend the last days in Kuta with Jim (we had met in Padangbai already and ran into eachother in Kuta again, which was really good) beaching and drinking our beers. Then to Singapore: the best example of an 24/7 society you can imagine. And very expensive. Met Sherlynn there (again, coz i had visited her 2,5 years ago too), which was nice of course. It was nice to be back in a society, where everything was so well organised. And it was the first place i went since 7,5 months where i had been before, so i knew where to go and so on. Actually that was a strange feeling by itself after such a long time of buying maps, asking peaople where to go and so on. A nice week, apart from the costs that is, although i also bought new contact lenses, which were really cheap there. Now i am in Thailand. Visted a friend here as well. Very nice to meet her after having emailed for so long. I felt very welcome by her and her family, when they picked me up from the airport and took me to their "school" where they do good work for children that don't have such good changes for a proper education as we have (had). Great work lads, keep that up. I spend 3 days there, taught some english, played some guitar for them, and then went back (with Pareena) to Bkk, to get a visa for India. Right now i am waiting for that visa, which i can collect on friday. After that: to Kalasin, to see Pareena again. More in a month or so. Hope to see you all again one day and have a nice winter.

Huggs,
Jan.