The circus attraction returned to the beach

As the few people who reads this blog knows from the previous update, I went to Ampana to do some work online. I finished the job in a few days and wanted to go back to Bomba/Poya Lisa as soon as possible. Easier said than done. It's been a quite stormy December/January and the waves continued to prevent boats from leaving the dock. The boats going to Bomba are quite small and made out of wood, so I really don't wanna be stuck (again) in one when the storm begins in open sea. So I waited. And waited.

In Ampana I basically can't go anywhere without being robbed out of all my energy in half an hour. They don't see many tourist in this part of Indonesia and the people are VERY interested in anything you do. Especially if you are alone. Sometimes even cars stop next to you just to have a chat in non-existing english or just to shout something clever at you, like Bule (white foreigner)! Or Tattoo! Yes to both and thank you of telling me, just in case I hadn't noticed. And I still don't get why random people want to be photographed with me, as they don't know me. Then again, I was showing some photos to a local girl here and on my laptop I had a photo of a pretty house in Estonia. She asked me who lives there. I said I don't know. She found it really odd/funny that I took a photo of a house of which I don't know the owner of. And here many people here want to take a photo with a person they don't know. Maybe we are all odd…

Puspita Sari, fastest connection from Ampana to Wakai. 

Never ask this boy "di mana kuching", where's the cat. He'll bring all the neighbourhood cats to your balcony.

After 8 days I grew so tired of being an circus elephant that I decided to skip Bomba and took a ferry to Wakai, the biggest village in the Togean Islands. I ended up staying there another 8 days, renting a room in the upper floor of a house owned by a lovely local woman and her english husband. And their madly energetic 5-year old son :) Hanging out in Wakai is mostly about eating crabs, fish, squid etc. and to flush the dinner down with a glass or two of Septikus. I don't really wanna swim in front of the village as the water is quite murky, but I did manage to go jogging early in the morning before the village wakes up. Running towards the sunrise on empty streets is quite fantastic.

Not a bad jogging ground.

I also scrubbed Ellys boat which has been broken for many months already. Not it's finally being fixed and after the wood work is done it can be painted, as the outside of the boat is bright and shiny. I did though escape from further work and went to Fadhila Cottages in Katupat for some beach&hammock treatment. Same place as when I was here in October. Nice corals in front of the beaches, excellent food and great staff. I forced Ida and the boys to play rummikub with me every evening and it was really interesting to follow how they try to cheat all the time but they still don't win. Hmmm... Maybe they should rather use the energy for following the game but hey, where's the fun in that.

I did two dives near Katupat but forgot my underwater camera housing in Wakai so no photos this time. Oh well... There will be plenty later. The internet connection is extreme slow here (2G with phone) so I'll add photos to this post later when I'm back in the main land.