Home is where the heart is

Next, after about ten days of surfing, chilling, scootering, swimming and fooling around Lombok, we left. Dutchies Jaap and Wanda, Anna and me, got a bus, another bus, a ferry, another bus, another ferry and arrived, pretty much dead, in Labuanbajo, Flores. There we found a dodgy hostel, with the cutest puppies and three very nice Spanish peeps, who wanted to join us on a boattrip to and around Komodo. So, after negotiating and being f*cked over (no, that boat is definitely nót suitable for seven people excl staff, NO), we got onto an awesome boat. We snorkeled around, saw an amaaaaazing group of huge manta’s and hundreds of other species of colourful fish. And yés I was attacked by a triggerfish. And nó the boys did not safe me, but only cared about how they could shoot it to eat it later. And yés I saw two sharks, one of them looking at me as I was just almost shitting myself because I saw another triggerfish. And no, I did not shit myself, but it was a close call, hahahha – I had to put some shit in this, sorry, you know me guys :p - Anyways, it was totally awesome! The Spanish Paula even learned me how to freedive, which made everything even better, as you can see it from up close, just like proper diving. Plus, it gets even better: yes, yes, we hiked on Komodo and Rinca, and saw Komodo dragons! Even a baby! Funny fact: Rinca island hosts more dragons than Komodo island itself, how random. Moreover, afterwards the group scootered around Flores where we saw amazing forests, got soaked in another rainfall and saw the spiderweb ricefields. The last are traditionally divided between all the members of the family, everyone owning one ‘pizzapoint’, and are very pretty.

After traveling around with Anna for over 5 weeks and saying our goodbyes on Bali, I decided to go to the island next to Bali, Nusa Lembongan for a surf alone. To get there I had to take a boat from the harbour city Sanur on Bali, where I met the lovely Indonesian Vera and her family. Even though I’d already been struggling with the differences between us, western people and many Indonesians, or maybe especially because I was already struggling with that, Vera’s story hit me hard. She was born and raised on Java as a muslim, but fell in love with her hindu now-husband. Because of this her whole family stopped talking to her. As the couple struggled to get a profit from the small shop on the beach which they had been given by his grandma, his mum got jealous and started spraying rumours about them. So her side of the family wasn’t talking to them, and neither was half of his side of the family. As they asked me where I was going and explained, they told me they would never even have the money to go there, while it’s the next island. I felt horrible and wanted to help them out, but remembered a westerner trying to help an Indonesian family, which made all their neighbours envious and ended up them stealing everything off the family. I definitely did not want to let this happen to Vera’s family, and so spend my days with them, buying their food and sharing stories.

Then… I… got on a plane… to… Australiaaaaa. Or, to be specific, to Melbourne, where James picked me up and showed me around. The first few days I could not really enjoy Aussie, as I needed to get used to the cold (20 degrees colder all of a sudden) and the extremely western, white society. This also had to do with the impact Vera’s story had made on me and therefore, when the French Kevin asked me to come along on a small trip to Philip Island, I definitely made most of it. I felt I owed it to Vera to enjoy it as much as possible and so I did. We had pretty beaches to ourselves, saw heaps of kangaroos, koala beers and some interesting birds. A few days later the American Matt whom I’d met on Lombok, and I went to Torquay where my Australian friend Dave lives. Dave picked us up and made us feel at home. We surfed and went for a Footy game (the Australian version of rugby) on Anzac day (the memorial day for WW1 and 2) and á drink, yeah júst á drink(ing session of over 12 hours full on). From there Matt and I cycled the 250 km long Great Ocean Road for five days. It was an awesome journey. From time to time Matt and I had to pull each other through and I cursed at hills and crows for a bit during one, dark climb, which was hilarious, but it was só worth it. Every time we climbed up a hill we knew we were doing it for some beautiful look out over the ocean, the cliffs, beaches, trees and sometimes even a rainbow to complete the view. I got tears in my eyes every time I got up such a hill and saw what I’d climbed it for. During the second day especially I had the most extreme moments. I’d heard my grandpa had had an accident and was dying and so I was literally thinking of getting a plane back home, when a group of about twenty bright red and blue parrots flew over my head. It felt sacred. As we later got to a campsite, I found out my grandpa had recovered and was doing fine. Still it made me realise that, while I had been falling in love with the country and was thinking of getting a job and renting an apartment with Kevin who was also looking for one, I did not want that. I had been feeling as if I was not really on the other side of the world, or as if it was not thát far and it felt like home all the time. But it wás far, namely over 30 hours of traveling. And so, after another week of staying at the apartment of Kevin and Ofir in Melbourne, which was loads of fun and felt very comfortable, I left to properly travel again. On my way back home, which would take me months. Or at least, was supposed to take me months.

And so I left east, to Sydney. In the train I ended up talking to an ex-ice-addict, who reassured my feelings of enjoying life as others could not enjoy it (e.g. Vera). While a lady checked whether I was fine talking to him, I felt horrible for the guy. But he focused on the book I was reading, the Happiness Project, which I had gotten from an Australian friend, Joel. We agreed with the book:
‘One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy; one of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.’
And so I gave him the book.
Once in Sydney I spent the next few days cycling around: across the Harbour Bridge for a great view upon the Opera House and the city centre, into Newtown, through parks to the famous (and therefore full of ugly buildings) Bondi Beach and the next, more beautiful beaches. I also went to the Blue Mountains for a day, where I hiked for hours. I felt in hiking-heaven if such a thing exists, as it was superb and I only met three people, excl the heaps of tourists hopping of their bus for the Three Sisters.
Sunday I got on a train and bus to Port Stephens, where I cycled around to the sand dunes, beautiful look outs from immense hills and some beaches which were only reachable with 4WD AND me and my bikey, haha! Plus I stayed in a camping where they’d adopted a kangaroo from some foster home and she loved to cuddle! After a while I decided to get myself informed at the info centre on how to get to Byron Bay from there. But……… Blabla, it was impossible. I basically had to get all the way back to Sydney in order to get on a train to Byron. Luckily these Canadians Jon and Adam got to be my heroes and offered me a lift. Once we got to Byron they showed their true selves though and started screaming ‘Welcome to Byron Bay’ instead of ‘Welcome to New York’, true Taylor Swift fans as they are. We met up with my friend from uni, Lara and went for a surf. I was the happiest girl alive. Next thing we know, the guys bring us to Surfers Paradise AKA horrible shithole full of Las Vegas type of hotels, casino’s, fake boobs and bodybuilders. From there Lara and I went to Brisbane, where we ate shitloads of truffle pizza, chocolate and pancakes with ice cream, but mostly the place where we rented a car. Our Toyota Corolla. I drove 1500 km in five days with Lara as my energetic partner in crime. Mainly enjoying the view, but also supporting each other in our battles. Because for me, home might be coming sooner than expected as I’d heard that my mumma got a breakdown, had stayed in the hospital and basically needed me home. I was still gonna enjoy these five days of amazing roadtrip though. We saw the countryside that sometimes looked like the hills in Canada, sometimes like Italian vineyards, sometimes like rainforests from Brazil, other times the desert from Oman. I loved it. And basically wanted way, way more of it. But mum got worse and pretty much begged me to come home. Of course, when I got the news that she had dialled the emergency number again, I bought the first ticket home. Now home I’m glad to be here, as I can help her a lot. And so I do and keep on doing, even though it’s a struggle. I do wanna go back to Australia and many other countries, but for now family obviously is more important and I’ve got many more years to live, no rush.