Gator Boots

The internet spot I’m currently sitting in is no joke blasting “This Endless Love” (I know anybody who ever attended a wedding in the ‘90s knows what I’m talking about) so I’ma try to keep this short in the interest of not cutting off my own ears. Here we go.

Malaysia happened a week ago and I have to say I was a little underwhelmed. To be fair, it really didn’t have a chance to begin with since it was monsoon season so it poured rain in KL and all the supposedly amazing islands on the east coast were inaccessible due to high waves.
So note to self: monsoon season in Asia is not the same as monsoon season in Arizona which basically translated to the skies might open and it could rain the 2 out of 3 times it rains all year. Maybe.
After getting soaked in KL for a day, moms and I decided to skip out to Langkawi on the west coast where the rains are supposedly reversed. After Thai beaches I should’ve known nowhere else really had a chance but don’t say we didn’t try. Fortunately my mom was impressed so it wasn’t a total loss. Also fortunately, I live to tell about the 3 days there after the croc farm incident.
After a day of moto riding around the island, we decide to try to find this crocodile farm/zoo where they apparently breed the beasts to be made into goods. Gator boots, handbags, all that good stuff. After a few wrong turns we find the place and scope it out. They got baby gators & crocs (I’ma just refer to them as one and the same from now on), deformed ones of which my mom was given a free postcard, big ones, old ones, you name it.
Out of nowhere in one of the pens (?) we see this small Malaysian dude just chillin’ atop the biggest one in the park just havin a leisurely smoke. LIKE HE’S NOT SITTING ON TOP OF A GIANT GATOR. I wanted to tell the kid, you really need to think about making some changes in your life when a gator back is the best spot you can think of to have a cig… but unfortunately I was interrupted mid-thought as his buddy announced that I too could have my turn on the great beast.

I’m sure the gator appreciates being used as an ashtray

Once again - not of my choosing - I find myself entangled in a ridiculous situation involving wild animals. Unlike last time, however, this critter never had a chance to be cute and normally would most likely just swallow me straight up. With these circumstances in mind, I obviously decline… until once again interrupted, this time mid-sentence, by my mom. Taunting me.
I’ma let you finish, but let me just say, Beyonce had the – sorry, what I meant to say is that let me just say that a mother shaming you into what is essentially a sure-death situation amounts to peer pressure the likes of which few can say they have ever experienced. I really didn’t want to do it, but come on, when a 59 year old lady is telling you not to be such a chicken and just get on the gator’s back, you saddle up and you get on the damn gator’s back. The woman did give birth to me after all.
And yeah it doesn’t make sense to me in retrospect either.
So for a mere $5, I put my life in the hands of the smoker kid who gave up his place on the gator’s back to stand in front of it with a 1-inch wide BROOMHANDLE on gator’s jaws/face. I felt so relieved to know dude was protecting my life with such sophisticated equipment.

At the end of it all, I sat on the 33-year old, 2000 lb. gator’s back for max. 65 seconds but only because that’s how long it took for me to revisit the events of my life and realize I didn’t want to die so young. From now on I’ma just stick to wearing gator.

Other than that, we chilled at the beach and tried to nurse my mom back to health. Turns out people really do get swine flu. Who knew. Good thing she lied about being in the vicinity of anyone with the disease within the last 2 weeks to get into the country. Her justification – "I wasn’t near anyone who had it. I had it".
And now we see where I get my logic skills. Care of my mom, the Meek family can now add “importing disease to a foreign country” to its illustrious resume.
After a return trip to KL to pick up my cousin A, we rolled to Bali and sweet glorious sunshine. Bali is awesome, though I still think Thailand had better beaches. I promise that’s the last time I’m gonna say that.

The first, last & only sunrise I will have ever gotten up to see.
We started in Ubud for the first few days, hiked around, saw more monkeys, took part in a Hindu procession to the temple (and pretty much had no idea what was going on the whole time) and prayed with devotees in holy baths outside the city. After, we rolled to the east part of the island to Amed to snorkel this US shipwreck site, then Lovina in the north to see some dolphins and finally Sanur in the south. Covered some ground in 10 days…
Also, we stayed here:

Free lesson for the kids: turns out it's actually a Hindu/Buddhist symbol for good luck/wealth/good fortune… But still. I couldn't help but feel a little awkward walking in and out of that place. Yipes.
In unrelated news, I may or may not have fallen off my moto in Amed going a little too fast down a hill into a sharp turn… sand shoulders really helped my cause. Fortunately the road rash was minimal and I managed to keep it under wraps from a worried mother for like, 45 minutes til we went snorkeling and she busted me when she saw my elbows, foot and whole upper right quad scraped up… Don’t tell Dad?

Pink Helmet. What more can I say.

Since moms & A left on Monday I biked down to the southern tip of the island to peep the famous surf spots – Ulu Watu, Padang Padang, Dreamland etc. It was cool and I meant to take lessons but it never quite worked out so I just watched people that knew how to get it done. Lame yes, but maybe next time. I also figure what with my having to get back in the gym in a month, maybe I should avoid more injury-inducing activities… K, no that wasn’t really it. I mostly just didn’t want to get up at like, dawn for a lesson so I’ll just go with the first more legit excuse.

I finished up in Kuta aka dirtbagville for a night which was taken over with Aussie schoolies gettin drunk off their chops. Unpleasant but I had to chill before I fly today to Yogyakarta, another city in Indo on Java. Someone try to tell me that doesn’t sound like a pretend cartoon place.