LOLBATZ

OMG LOLBATZ!

Right now I am eating what seems like a gallon of oatmeal.  At some point this will cease to be about reducing my cholesterol and will be more about stuffing myself full of goo.  Mmmm….goo.  The good news is that I finally started doing my daily excercise routine again and I feel much better.  My back was starting to complain a bit.  What forced me to start exercising again was the fact that my bed at the hotel is essentially a box spring.  Apparently the Taiwanese (and Chinese) are way into really hard beds and this hotel is Taiwanese owned.  I requested a different bed and they put a cushion on top of it and its much better.  Its WAy better than the first bed I had in Yap which was like a bed of nails.

So it looks like I am getting on another liveaboard here in Palau before I leave!  Heavily discounted no less!:

Mmmm....boatz....

I just need to move some plane tickets around.  I have already changed my plane tickets SO many times that I could probably fly to London on the money I spent on rescheduling fees.   I wish it would happen sooner rather than later but I can’t really pass it up.  Darn it.  I do need to start figuring out how to spend less money though.  I was hoping I could go sit on an island somewhere and camp but that involves renting camping equipement and I would want to rent a kayak too and….there is no air conditioning.  I know I know…that is rediculous but I have to say I am digging the air conditioning here after being out in the humidity.  Its seriously MOIST here.  There I said it….MMMMOOOOOIIIIIIISSSSSSSTTTTTT. Blech.

I should probably do it anyway because there is some epic kayaking out here.  I am not sure if I am allowed to fish but that would be pretty cool if I could catch my own fish and eat’em!  Catching reef fish and eating them is not really cool though.  That is, after all , why I came here ya know?…to see fish…not necessarily to eat them.  The more people eat reef fish in the restaurants, the more people will go fish for them.  Duh.  I think I will still go on a mad kayak quest for the crocodiles, birds, and fruit bats though.  I need to work out how to go at low tide so I can see the crocodiles hanging out in the mud.  I also need to not get eaten though.  Hmmmm….

I did go on the “Jungle River Cruise” already but it was REALLY lame.  I mean really lame.  It lasted about an hour and the highlight was when they fed hotdogs to a 6 ft. crocodile.  Its not a great idea to feed crocodiles in the “wild”.  I suppose I did take advantage of the opportunity to snap some good pics and video though so I guess that makes me part of the problem.  Oopsilly Doopsilly.

Mmmm....hotdogs...

What really bothered me was the fact that had a fruit bat in a cage just sitting there on display for you when you arrived.  I was really tempted to free it.  Upon reviewing some of the video of it I realised it was making good progress in chewing through the strings that tied the door shut on the cage.  I am tempted to go back and free it in the name of Fruitbats First! Or maybe I should just buy the bat and set it free.  Maybe when I set it free, it will feel this deep sense of gratitude and accompany me on my butch bird watching tour  guiding me through the treacherous mangrove forests like some kind of Tarzan wild animal companion situation.  Ok I have to stop chewing the Betel Nut me thinks.

Mmmm....Bat Prison...

My friend George, many years ago, went on a crazy botanical tour of Australia, New Guinea, and various points in Indonesia studying orchids.  I think he discovered like 8 new species or something crazy like that.  He made a slide show of his travels and in one of the places where he was staying whilst studing various plants, there were these giant fruit bats that would hang out with them.  They LOVED the car ride into town apparently and would hang upside down (like ya do when you are a bat) in the windows of the car.  So just imagine driving down twisty jungled out dirt roads with a giant bat hanging in your window.

We ever so briefly saw a Biib, the national bird of Palau on the cheesy namby pamby jungle river la la cruise but to me it was but a flash of purple.  Here is a pic I found on the interwebz:

Mmmm....Biib....

Hopefully when I rent the kayak I can do some seriously butch bird watching instead of the aforementioned crocodile feeding sissy bird watching.  I mean, what fun is bird watching if there is no threat of being eaten by a crocodile?

So I am not diving today.  I think I am just going to find a good interweb connection somewhere and park it for a while.  I actually have quite a bit of travel planning to do anyway.  Its easy to let the time get away from you here.  It seems like when I go diving, I come up and days have passed.

I just realised that I am NOT being eaten by mosquitoes as I write this. Woo!  BUT I am next to the dump and it stinks!

Be well people!

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Tags: Agressor, Biib, crocodile, cruise, Fruit Bat, jungle, LOLBATZ, Palau, river