Skip to navigation

Mark Moxon's Travel Writing

Indonesia: Wild Mood Swings

A water buffalo
When you're down, nothing appears interesting, even the fact that you can wander through somewhere like Bori in Tana Toraja, and bump into a water buffalo like this right by the road

After some 30 days of fairly hectic and intense travelling in Indonesia, I had totally lost the plot and was basically at the end of my tether. It's a travel trap that I've fallen into before; if you push yourself too far too quickly, you'll burn out, and the whole experience suffers as a result. When I got to Ampana, I was almost ready to throw in the towel and fly back to London. Let me elaborate.

Pretty miserable, eh! On the other hand, rereading the above after the low patch had passed didn't make me press 'delete' and start again, something I normally find essential if this travelogue isn't going to be just a collection of moans and groans written at a bad time of the day. No, these whinges are pretty valid, and not the result of illness or exhaustion, so I've left them in.