Dear god I feel tall...

Mildly disappointed not to have left a day earlier as that would have allowed me to miss the Norwich vs Southampton game which was dire to say the least. To say the most it was complete and utter balls from start to finish but I guess we've played well enough recently to have a few more normal days. Dinner later with Jean, Grodge and Angus (Di ) was much better, although having said that it could only really have been worse if everyone had taken it in turns to place a naked tramp on my plate.

The next 30 hours was basically just travelling, (including an impressive 1hr 45min to travel 15 km in Jakarta), however I did go out to dinner for a couple of hours during my 8 hour stopover in Dubai. Quite why Mel thought it would be a good idea to take me to what seemed at first, second and third sights to be an active brothel I've no idea. Needless to say the sight of 50+ yr old white men being entertained (thankfully not in the over 18 sense....at least in public) by 18-21 yr old Asian girls was a constant delight. I'm sure it's just coincidence that I would have quite happily stabbed every single one of them in the balls... Potentially underage hookers and mild paedophiles aside it was actually a really enjoyable evening and was a million miles better than playing count the trolleys in Dubai airport. (I've patented this game just in case anyone out there is planning on stealing it. In fact Noel Edmonds has already allowed us to use his face as the board which is great as it will enable participants to be pleasantly distracted while their playing partners are counting the trolleys.) Two further things stood out from the evening alongside the good company and hookers. The first was getting out of the taxi to be welcomed by a very smiley Arab saying "ah, I've been looking for a tall white man. Come in..." (I don't want to sound racist but he wasn't my type) and the second being Mel's mother totally forgetting that she existed. Well, actually she just forgot to pick her up as she went past but still it's never great to be overlooked like that, especially when said mother has prior form having left her behind on a beach aged 2.

Jakarta - More traffic than road in places and not much to do near my hotel once I finally got there except to go to the local starbucks. My first meal in Indonesia was bangers and mash which I'm sure will surprise everyone who knows me. My second was fish and chips. Oh well, at least I didn't spend the evening in a British pub watching a premiership highlights show...

Having stocked up on pain au chocolat from the hotel's buffet I did the fun traffic strewn trip back to the airport to catch a plane to Padang in Sumatra, a place which might have come to your attention last year when it got hit by an earthquake the same size as the one which hit Haiti recently. Thankfully the results weren't quite as bad here but as it's only 5 months on there are still a fair number of people living in tents next to the building materials which used to be their house.

Just a quick word on the driving here: At first sight it looks like Dante missed out a level of hell but in reality it's some of the nicest driving you could ever see, so much so that I seem to actually be writing about it which has just struck me as being slightly odd. It certainly makes a nice change from driving around in London where people would seemingly rather crash than let you into a queue ahead of them. It has left me wondering whether the fact that they're all Muslim and therefore don't wake up with hangovers has anything to do with it...

I'll be off to the jungle proper on Saturday for 10-14 days so no doubt will be full of stories when I get back to the office. They'll all be about rocks though in all likelihood so wait until you're already insanely bored before reading them.

keg



Funny tall person scorecard:

People who've asked to have their photo taken with me - 8
People who haven't asked but have taken it anyway - 5
People who've measured themselves against me - 7
People who've told me I'm tall -13
Mini markets full of people who've pissed themselves
laughing upon my entrance - 1
(I can only assume they mistook me for David Beckham which is understandable really...)