Honduras - Roatan Island; West End

I'm currently on this little island on the carribean sea off the east coast of honduras where I've spent both my christmas and new years. It was a typical island christmas; not much festivities, but a whole lotta closed shops, hanging out at the beach, and random christmas parties littered here and there. It was kind of a non-event for me. I can't even remember what we did that day; it doesn't stand out from the rest of my week, and I didn't even write in my personal journal about it at all other than saying who I was with and the name of the island that I'm on; Roatan.

What's good in Roatan? If you're not diving, then you're immediately a minority. I truly mean that. Everyone that's here seems to be coming here to get their diving certification on the cheap (I hear it runs about USD $250 and takes 3 days; $20 more for the published materials).  I did not get certified, I didn't even snorkel here, and i didn't get a ride on the submarine that I only just found out about here. That sounds pretty radical, and surprisingly cheap if my source is to be trusted.

I've been staying at a great place called Georphies. It totally rules for a backpackers. The dorms are $10p.p. (they sleep 6 on bunks), 3 room sharesies have a kitchenette and are $15p.p, and then the more gangster pads are also avail for something between $25 - $60 a night. This is CHEAPER than the 3 roomer if you're a couple but you have a shared bath/kitchen with the other half, but then there's the fully private ones. There's hammocks on every porch, and it seems like a cat self-assigns themselves to their own territory. My favourite we named Jackson, but found out his name is CatCat. ha.

The islands main street is dirt / sand, and although I've heard rumours of it being paved, apparently those rumours have been around for about a decade, so I see the road plans are on island time. Favourite baleada place in town? CINDY's. Second, the little lady and her kids who set up next to the Cannibal cafe at 7om every night. She's amazing. I want to say she's my favourite because she's so rad and I love supporting her with my business, but Cindy's really does have the mackin-est Baleadas. Avoid that yellow and white shack next to the Blue Marlin. What is a Baleada? It's a flour tortilla with beans, powdered cheese, and avocado if you order the veggie one, but at Cindy's the veggie one also comes with onion, tomato, and sometimes some yellow or green bell peppers (capsicum)! (20 Lempiras is USD$1)
Prices (if you order a veggie): Cindy's 30 Lempiras; Lady in the Lot: 20 Lempiras, Yellow shack 30 Lempiras, guy on the dock by the King Crab restaurant 30 Lemps. You can totally overdose on Baleadas, so pace yourself and make sure you get more sustenance when you can.

Some places i liked in town:
Sundowner bar - happy hour is 5-7pm, and the monkey La La is their signature drink, although it seems like a lot of places serve it, and I'm told it's baileys, vodka, ice ... some other stuff i forget all whizzed up into a icey bevvy. The restaurant next to georphies .... not rudys, but the guy next door; BALLING burritos. Not so Mexican in style, but packed full and tons of yum veg. My buddy got the chicken and was stoked with it, but they're famous for their rotisserie. Actually, I think the place is named Rotisserie Creole or something. The little wooden A frame sign is missing some letters so I didn't really pay attention.
Tranquil Seas (Catch a cab there!; about 35 lemps a person if you're sharing a cab), a pimp nice place with a private beach that is great to go to on Tues or Thurs for their Paella, or do like I did and go there when there's free live music, order a drink, and play games - they had scrabble, cluedo and some other fun ones. OH!. Earth Mama. Organic smoothies and a phat yoga studio out the back. I only went there for the smoothies and the free refill coffee! Smoothies are L100-120, coffee is L30. If you are lucky and scored a kitchen, then do like we did and make some cheap eats along these lines:
1 can coconut milk, soy sauce, peanut butter, veggies like onion, zucchini, carrot, bell peppers, etc and some noodles. Mix BOTTLED water with the peanut butter slowly on a hot pan to make a sauce, then add some coconut milk and soy sauce and mix it up, then add the veggies and cover to cook it all, add the rest of the coconut milk when the feeling suits you, cook the noodles and drain and then ta da! super yum feast.

Also, for the cheapest way to get around the island, the best way is to walk to the main road and flag a cab there - it's immediately cheaper! if you get one on the dirt road in the West End, you seem to get the lazy tourist prices. Haggle with them, and avoid being ripped off. One guy will try to charge you $10, then the next $1.50. For water taxis, it's a fixed rate of L50 ($2.50) from west end to west bay and vice versa. If you get a slower one though, you might be able to get away with sitting on the bow for en epic ride and best seat in the house!

And if you come to Roatan or Utila, don't expect to get between the two for less than $50p.p. Stink, but true. There's catamarans that do the trip, otherwise it's take the ferry back to La Ceiba for 2 hours, then the other ferry to Utila for another hour, and that'll still be around $40-45 or so and some possible sea sickness. People were totally barfing on the way over, and it was fairly calm. These Hondurians seem to be down with barfing. They had plastic bags and paper towels being handed out for those who may want it by the staff.

walking around at night seems fairly safe, but there are some dodgy dudes who like to sling words your way from their beer perches, veg being sold out the back of trucks, and of course, guards with shotguns are a common sight (as is in the rest of central america I've heard). I saw so many on the mainland, and even saw a guard outside of Pizza Hut guarding what... their secret sauce?

So tomorrow at 7, the ferry takes us back to the mainland, then it's a 7 1/2 hour bus ride back to Tegucigalpa before heading to Nicaragua. Here's to a bit of crazy, and I'm on a tight deadline to reach my 30 countries before 30 on my birthday in 16 days. Wish me luck.

abandoned lanterns

 

I was playing at a volleyball competition on Jeju Island, South Korea when I found out all the cool stuff you could see from the beach was an abandoned lantern festival that just was left there rather than being taken down.

Obviously, I snuck in, tried to flick the breakers to make the lights turn on to no avail (can you IMAGINE how cool that would have been?!), and snapped some photos I really love.

At the feet of Bhudda

 morning prayers

Last night I slept under the stars again, this time part way up a volcano on the south west coast of Jeju; where a bhuddist temple is located. I was passing by after dark, and couldn't resist stopping, thank God. I wandered up where a bunch of people wearing strange yellow hats and organising flowers were; turns out the next morning was some sort of special event; but either way, I wandered up and let curiousity get the best of me, so I headed all the way to the temple at the top. This temple turned out the be a natural cave formation in this lava dome, with a sweeping archway stretching itself toward the heavens, and a likeness of Bhudda was placed atop a set of stairs lined with tallow candles and lotus casts. It was breathtaking; and my camera battery was dead, so I headed down the volcano, grabbed a fresh battery and headed back up again to capture this beatiful place as best I could. I was completely absorbed in the atmosphere; of the majesty that surrounded me, and the peaceful solitute of the night, and watching the fishing trolleys off at sea; I was definitely staying here the night.

So I camped out, and had a realy good sleep, waking only twice - once to do my best to be avoid being chewed on by a hungry mosquito, and again at about 4:15am to the beatin of temple drums and the gonging of ...well a big, loud gong. Thankfully that lasted no longer than about 15mins, and stayed asleep until I awoke for the sunrise just after 6am, when I hoofed it one final time up the volcano. I was so glad I had gone the previous night, there was now a cleaning lady taking away all the offerings that had been left the previous day, as well as the keen bean early bird prayer warriors, but the majesty of the night and stars glimmering off the cave walls was a bit dimmer in the sunlight. I came back down for another breakfast of champions (this time I was out of crackers), and watched the early morning event that was on, and then watched get torn down what I had seen put up the preceeding evening.

inside the temple at night

                                               inside the temple                                  the mops next to where i slept

Sleeping in a playground

Secretly, I've always wanted to sleep in a playground, especially after seeing this Japanese movie a few years ago where a homeless highschool student sleeps most nights in a slide that looks like a poo.

Ha. Ok, small dream, but whatever. So I slept in a slide last night.It wasn't the most comfortable sleep I've ever had, but better than last night with mr.creeper and waking up every hour just to make sure I was still alone. I woke up every few hours, either to adjust or

because the outside elements had changed - I was a little worried it would rain again, since it had poured a lot the previous day, but instead it was just really windy. I much preffered waking up to the AMAZINGLY clear stars, than a strange old man trying to get into bed

with me. The sunrise this morning was a beautiful purple haze (I'm on the west coast of the island), with gradient shades of clear blues painted across the sky in pastel hues, and an orange burnin sun rising over the volcano in the middle of the island. I ate my champion breakfast of canned tuna and crackers by the sea and black lava rocks that trace the outline of the island. This place is a beautiful dream.

Sleeping under a pagoda

Last night, I had three sleeping plans.

#1: Get taken in by someone

#2: Sleep by the beach under a pagoda

#3: Sleep at a plaground I had passed.

It was raining and due to rain more last night, and as I'm traveling sans tent, I wanted to be somewhere with good coverage, and since noone had taken me in yet (I did a bunch of messaging on couch surfing), I found a pagoda by the beach to crash out under, and had my things all set up for the night, and was just waiting for a few people to head off before crawling back under to sleep for the night. I was being a little more cautious than normal since I was literally surrounded at aft and fro with 'no camping' signs, so I was hoping the
last two stragglers staring off to the sea would hurry up and head for their respective homes.Then one holding a large heavy duty flashlight started heading straight for me, and at first. I thought I was totally busted. Turns out I was, but instead of telling me off, he said a girl would die of cold out here alone and to come stay at his house, which was just  across the parking lot behind the pagoda. I happily packed up and headed after him, bike in tow which got parked outside his side window. Meanwhile we we went inside and watched tv in his room and talked a bit; he just tapping my shoulder every minute or two to get my attention to talk again. This was a really small little place - two rooms and a bathroom and that's it (mind you that's still bigger than the average Tokyo apartment), so we're hanging out talking on his bed.
 

Then he tries to tell me to be more comfortable and lay down; even to the point where he pushed me down, but I just sat back up and said I was happy like that. I went in the other room and set my bed up on the floor, and ten came bck into his room to keep watching the movie, but apparently forgot to flick off my light switch, so he got up and turned that off, and his as well. He was laying down sideways on the bed, and when I readjusted my legs, he tried to tell me again to lay down and share a pillow with him. At this point, nothing seemed too sketchy - he's like a 60year old man who seems to just be typically Korean in the way that the older generations are a bit overbearing with kindness and looking after the younger ones, but I still only hung out for about 30mins before saying i was tired and going to bed at 10:30.

A few hours later, I wake up to him in my room in the dark trying to get into my floor bed with me, tryin to get up on my business. HELL NO. I just told him '안대!' a whole bunch in Korean, which translates to 'no permission', or 'do not do'. Ew. I set my alarm and got up just after 6 and gapped out of there without having done anything but hastily pack my bag and saying goodbye. The irony is that this old pervert had been telling me how there are a lot o unsavory characters on Jeju island and to be careful. Little did I know I would have to  exercise this advice in his own house, just 2 hours later.
Good job, buddy.