sign of life

indonesia is awesome. right now i'm in bukittinggi and so far my trip has been nothing but fun. i'm not posting all my stories yet, since i obviously need to post pictures also and this computer doesn't really look that capable of doing that fast and i don't want to be stuck here for hours...i've been hanging out mostly around bukittinggi the past week after my three days in padang. it's a little bit colder here than what i'm used to so i've got a little bit of a cold going on and i've also spent seven days at siberut island, hanging out with the (not that) primitive mentawai tribe. it was raining almost everyday and i didn't have any dry clothes left after a couple of days, and also walking around in the mud, freshening up in the sandy river and sleeping on the floor doesn't do much good for your health, but i'm starting to feel better. i took a trip on bike to lake maninjou with a guide i met here named Lala, looks like an eighties rock star and is also a painter. we stayed at Lili's home stay right next to the lake and it was just the best place in the world. i slept in the tree house with a view of the lake and there's just something about that place which makes creativity flow and a lot of musicians, writers and other artistic people are somehow always drawn to Lili's place. she's also a writer/musician artistic person and it was really nice to hang out with her. but i'll tell you more about that later.
i came back from the lake this morning and tomorrow i'll be heading to harau valley with another guide i met here called Eric. really nice guy and he speaks a little bit of dutch also. he knows a lot of stuff and likes to talk about his culture and he's always very happy and enthusiastic. then thursday i'm taking a bus to lake toba up north with a girl i met at my hotel here who didn't have any plans yet and thought it would be cool to also go up there. so that will be nice, since it's a 17 hour bus drive and that can get quite boring if you have no one to talk to...
i also booked a flight back to singapore, so i need to get to medan on september 13th. i still haven't figured out how yet, but once i get to lake toba i'll check it out.
time goes way to fast here. i kinda feel like i've been here for months already, maybe it's all the moving around every couple of days, but probably also just feeling completely at home. people have been so incredibly nice and i feel really safe and just uhm, really calm i guess. peaceful. when i first got to padang and settled down in the home stay i felt a little bit lost, thinking what the hell am i doing here. but after that first day i got used a little bit more and found my way of doing things. then bukittinggi was just a wave of laidbackness. this place is really chill, lots of skate shops, young people, backpackers, awesome tours you can do, cool restaurants with an alternative feel and also places to escape from everything and get overwhelmed by the gorgeous mountains, rice fields, jungles, rivers, clouds, trees...

it sucks so much that i've missed lowlands, i hope it was incredibly bad and boring hahaha. (but i know that it really wasn't)
so how's everything back home? my cousin had a baby girl btw, woohoo!!! i still need to get pictures though (hint hint).

ok, it's time to go find some fried noodles somewhere :)