There is a website called IMDB.com (The Internet Movie database) that I frequent. It is basically a site letting film and TV fans know all about the goings on of their favorite actors/TV series/films etc. In fact, if you type in an actor’s name, or a director for that matter, it comes up with an entire list of the work that person has on their CV. Can you tell how impressed I am by the internet sometimes? Anyway, you can also see a brief synopsis of every episode of a certain TV show. These can range from great big paragraphs to only a mere sentence. I love the way on high-tech shows like 24 for example, whole hour-long episodes can be summed up in one line.

Jack finds Kim

Makes it all seem a little trivial doesn’t it? So, instead of writing about my feelings and what we’ve been up to, I’ve decided to give our travels the ‘IMDB’ treatment. Who says I have too much time on my hands?

1. Alex and Dante check into their 50^th accommodation in Bajawa, Flores
2. Dante glares at a Chinese man who sits right next to him in a restaurant and starts smoking while Dante is still eating
3. Alex and Dante spend 10 hours in a car with a couple who live in Germany. Jesse is a scientist, Gunther is an artist.
4. Alex starts to have violent stomach cramps and a migraine.
5. The cramps and migraine continue.
6. Dante sits in an internet café with the slowest computer EVER, and because the heat is 45 degrees Celsius, he is forced to take his shirt off making him look like a common westerner.
7. Dante and Alex charter a boat to Komodo island, and have a relaxing 5 hour ride through the island studded water.
8. Dante and Alex see their first non captivity Komodo dragon. It is 2.5 metres long and lies within a few feet. Dante jumps like a girl.
9. The duo go on a five hour trek up a mountain for views of Komodo national park. The view is spectacular. Dante almost dies due to lack of breath. The humidity is high, and the sun is blazingly hot.
10. Alex is still suffering from Cramps, stomach ache and a migraine
11. Dante witnesses and records the park rangers feeding a stray dragon, despite the literature proudly announcing that they do not upset the eco-system in that way anymore. (A few years ago, they fed goats to the dragons).
12. Alex wades through waist high grass on the plains of Komodo. He imagines he is in that scene in Jurassic Park where they stumble across the poorly Triceratops.
13. Alex and Dante arrive back on Flores and promptly check into the only hotel in town with air-con.
14. Day 5 of Alex’s epic migraine. Apparently, Ibuprofen doesn’t work anymore.
15. Alex and Dante go diving in and around the Komodo national park. Dante comes within a few feet of an enormous Manta ray. Alex would have said ‘wow’ had he not been 13 metres under the sea.
16. Dante struggles on in the ‘hot-as-hell’ internet café, researching places to go, while Alex gripes and gets snappy about his headache. (They later kiss and make up)
17. Alex and Dante watch the Simpsons movie on the laptop. It is much better upon second viewing.
18. Another two dives with ‘Reefseekers’. Dante spots a huge Cuttlefish, and Alex spies a shy octopus in amongst the rocks. They are hailed as the best ‘spotters’ of the dive. Dante gets kicked in the head by another diver. He blacks out for a moment underwater, then surfaces. Alex is disappointed that he cannot claim on the life insurance.
19. Dante has a ‘Black Forest frappuccino’ from a swanky coffee shop. He is very impressed. (But then, when you pay a tenner for an icy drink, you bloody well better be impressed!)
20. Alex’s headache is finally gone, after a whole week. Dante is glad that the whining is over. Dante soon starts feeling the symptoms of the same tummy bug.
21. Dante and Alex discuss plans for the trip to come. They come to an agreement that a beach on Thailand would be nice.
22. There is a huge storm in Jogjakarta, which floods the streets, but provides Alex with his first viewing of ‘forked lightening’.
23. Alex and Dante book tickets for a course where they make their own sliver rings with a local man with 30 years experience of silver-smithing.
24. The duo prepare for some well earned rest, whilst eating posh food in a decidedly middle-class boutique hotel.

See, my life is far more exciting than a season of 24, (although thankfully, no problems with expensive explosions or government spies. Or for that matter, no convoluted episode-filling plot twists and unrealistically attractive female terrorists).

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