Darwin at Dusk

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

We've been in Australia less than 24 hrs and Hedda
is already getting attacked by cross-dressing footy
players. It's gonna be interesting driving straight
through the guts of this place.

We're off to Australia tonight

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

I still can't believe I was able to spend the past five months here in Indonesia. What a dream. Hedda thought we'd be here for two months at the most. I didn't want to break it to her then that it was going to be a lot longer than that. Still, our marriage has survived, I've surfed some of the best waves of my life, and now I've even got her considering a trip to the outback surf destination of Cactus in South Australia. I really got lucky with Hedda... Check Hedda's blog for a Best of Asia review. Above is one last look at the Bukit.

Dengue Hospital 2

, originally uploaded by ladyhedda.

Waking the next day at 4:30am to the mullah's morning calls I knew I had to contact Hedda and let her know where I was. The 5 or 6 teenage girl nurses were basically useless. It wasn't till after a few days had passed that I realized they were giving me sleeping pills in the morning. No wonder I felt so completely out of it!!!! At one point during the day I woke to discover my IV line was blood red. Thought that was kind of strange... The nurses had been coming in to monitor the level of the IV bag and had been replacing it when it got low. I was knocked out. Probably due to the daily dose of sleeping pills I'd been given that morning, so I hadn't noticed the drip. I was blown away once I realized that instead of receiving the nourishing, hydrating fluids from the IV, my blood was actually being pumped out of my body and was filling the IV bag!! There being no call button for the nurses at this hospital, I grabbed a flip flop from the ground and started whacking the wall trying to get someones attention. Eventually a couple of nurses came in and nonchalantly took the IV needle out of my hand. No worries, this happens here all the time I thought. I decided I had to call Hedda right then. I explained to the one male nurse that I needed to make an international phone call. There was no question of doing this from the hospital since they didn't have a working phone line. I got on the back of his motorbike and we rode over to the Telkom office a couple of miles away. This was one of the most difficult phone calls I've ever had to make. To call the one you love half a world away to tell her you have contracted some scary tropical fever is not easy. I really didn't want her to worry about me. I also began to realize just how serious my situation was. Hedda was incredible. She stayed calm, organized the insurance and began to chart her own flight changes to come to me. After finishing the phone call to Hedda I actually felt much better knowing I wasn't completely alone on that island out there. The photo above is of the Hospital in Medan where I eventually met up with Hedda after a week in the Clinic on Simuelue.

Dengue Hospital

, originally uploaded by ladyhedda.

That first night in the hospital was hell. I was still alternating between sweating and shivering under the blankets and was suffering from a major headache as well as pain throughout my body. I was woken at 4:30am. My room was about 50 feet from the hospital mosque so, five times daily I had to endure listening to the call to prayer. Aaarrrggghhhhh!!! Once the sun came up I had my first good look at the room I was in. On the positive side of things, my bed wasn't bad and the sheets seemed relatively clean. That's about it on the positive side. On the other side of things...... A/C was not working no matter how many people came in and fidgeted with the remote control for it. No fan either. The temperature hung right around 90 degrees Fahrenheit day and night. My room was in the corner of the building with two sets of windows so I had plenty of natural light. Now I know you might think this is a good thing but unfortunately because there were so many curious Indonesians constantly poking their head's into my room to stare at the sick foreigner it wasn't. The walls were absolutely filthy. On my left side the wall had fingerprints of blood sliding down it along with some sprays and splatters of blood that had never been cleaned up. Unbelievable!!! The toilet was a typical squat situation which I nearly fell into that first morning and was filled with mosquitoes. There was a TV with Indonesian language channels but at that moment I couldn't move let alone try to read or watch TV. Dr Leo drifted in at some time during the day to tell me his first diagnosis of Malaria was incorrect. I actually had Typhoid. Loads of anti-biotics and other pills were given to me. I later discovered the nurses were mistakenly giving me sleeping pills during the daytime. Huh??? Who knows what else I took... Some involuntary moaning slipped out as I lay there drifting in and out of sleep/consciousness, hallucinating about tall dark figures striding towards me whenever I closed my eyes.

Dengue Fever

Originally uploaded by m_hagen

The call to prayer at the mosque across the street let me know dawn was not far off. I hadn't slept all night, racked with body aches and sweating like crazy. I knew right away that morning I was in trouble.... The moaning call to prayer actually sounded almost as shitty as I felt. As soon as I heard some life waking up downstairs I grabbed the railing to the stairs and made my way down to let Mama know I wasn't well. A'an from the Losmen drove me straight to the hospital. The two main buildings were shut down from the recent earthquakes so the reception had moved into one of the smaller buildings. The nurse unwrapped a sterile needle, they took some blood, and told me to come back later. A'an took me back to the Baroqah Losmen where I lay down, alternating between sweating and shivering in the 90 degree heat of the afternoon. I didn't take any meds since I didn't know what I had at this point. It was a very long and painful afternoon at the hotel. Later that evening, A'an drove me back over to the hospital. After waiting a few minutes for Dr. Leo to finish playing badminton, he came over to give me his initial diagnosis of Malaria. Wasn't too happy to hear that.... He said hopefully it's not Falciparum which people can die from. Um yeah, I said let's hope it's not that. You might not be able to play much badminton the next couple of weeks if it is. Back into the emergency room so they could draw more blood for more tests and then they hooked me up to the damn IV drip. They laid me down in a room an hour later at about 11 pm after giving me a Panadol for the pain and fever. Great! Give me some damn morphine!!!

Dengue Fever

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

The call to prayer at the mosque across the street let me know dawn was not far off. I hadn't slept all night, racked with body aches and sweating like crazy. I knew right away that morning I was in trouble.... The moaning call to prayer actually sounded almost as shitty as I felt. As soon as I heard some life waking up downstairs I grabbed the railing to the stairs and made my way down to let Mama know I wasn't well. A'an from the Losmen drove me straight to the hospital. The two main buildings were shut down from the recent earthquakes so the reception had moved into one of the smaller buildings. The nurse unwrapped a sterile needle, they took some blood, and told me to come back later. A'an took me back to the Baroqah Losmen where I lay down, alternating between sweating and shivering in the 90 degree heat of the afternoon. I didn't take any meds since I didn't know what I had at this point. It was a very long and painful afternoon at the hotel. Later that evening, A'an drove me back over to the hospital. After waiting a few minutes for Dr. Leo to finish playing badminton, he came over to give me his initial diagnosis of Malaria. Wasn't too happy to hear that.... He said hopefully it's not Falciparum which people can die from. Um yeah, I said let's hope it's not that. You might not be able to play much badminton the next couple of weeks if it is. Back into the emergency room so they could draw more blood for more tests and then they hooked me up to the damn IV drip. They laid me down in a room an hour later at about 11 pm after giving me a Panadol for the pain and fever. Great! Give me some damn morphine!!!

Somewhere up north - part 2

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

The next day I went back to Matanorong first thing in the morning and it was clean and overhead. I surfed for hours and hours this day. Spit out of two barrels this day, once in the morning and once again right at sunset. What the wave lacks in size and length it more than makes up for in intensity. The reef set up feels more Tahitian in the way it draws water off the reef as a set approaches. Lots of barrels..... Even on a head high wave you'll get tubed easily here.

Another day, outside of the bay on the exposed south coast, I took a two hour hike to have a look around the corner. Along the beach ten foot swells exploded onto dry reefs lifted 6 feet out of the water from the recent earthquakes. Incredible beauty in the waves power. I climbed a small cliff and found a local path cut through the jungle. Every hundred yards or so a clearing with coconut husks in a pile would appear. Dense jungle for another 45 minutes. I could've used a machete to cut through it was so thick. I eventually arrived on a clifftop overlooking a bay. I scrambled down some loose volcanic rocks, sliding on my ass half-way down and successfully slicing open my right heel and the one of my fingers on my left hand. At least I didn't ding my board.... I decided now would be a good time for lunch. I cut my papaya in half and salvaged some smashed bananas from my backpack and looked out at a left breaking into a gorgeous sandy bay with no roads, no villages, no people along the southern tip of a beautiful island somewhere in Indonesia.

An Island somewhere up north....

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

This island is pretty amazing. The entire time I was healthy and surfing the only surfers I met were either staying at the surf camp or passing through on a boat trip. There's only three guys at the camp so that makes for a crowd of four if we all decide to surf at the same time. The island is about half the size of Nias and I surfed alone most days at the main wave on the island. The guys on the two boat trips I saw, land by plane from Medan, have lunch at Baroqah, (if they were brave enough to attempt the local cuisine) then jump straight on a boat for ten days. How sad it is they have almost no interest in the local people and how they live. Air conditioning and DVD's on a boat. What a ridiculous excuse for a surf trip. Where's the sense of adventure in a trip like that???? Anyways, I'm getting off the subject. I've been renting a motorbike from Bapak Hamdan and exploring the southern reaches of the island in search of waves. Luckily on my first day some local kids showed me around some of the more obvious spots. As well as the best wave I've surfed so far, Matanorong. What an ass-numbing day that was. Holding onto my board with one hand and the back of a banana seat with the other is a helluva way to get to the surf. We must've ridden over 50 miles that day checking the place out. Of course at the end of the day we headed back to Matanorong - the first spot we'd looked at. The surf was really clean, but small. Head-high peelers ending up on fingers of dry reef. Still really fun and the local kids were stoked to watch someone surfing their spot.

Aceh Sudoku

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

Last night, after dinner, one of the teenage boys who works at the Baroqah Losmen came over to watch me sweat over my Sudoku. He seemed pretty interested so once I finished the puzzle I was working on I started teaching him how it works. He did not speak a single word of English... Pretty damn difficult to explain Sudoku in Bahasa Indonesian when I can barely order a coffee in a cafe. He had been watching me finish the last puzzle quite intensely so I set him loose on the next puzzle more or less on his own just saying,"tidak or ya", when he asked where a number should go. You wouldn't believe how excited he was when he finished it. Another Sudoku addict.

My God!!!

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

All the kids on Simeulue keep calling me "My God." No matter how many times I try to correct them by saying, "No it's Mi-chael", they just can't get it right. That's just how they pronounce it. So, I gave up and am going to assume the role they have given me.