`I want you to cook me a fucking pizza`. Its not something you`d expect to hear on Christmas eve on an isolated beach in Indonesian Borneo. Actually you don`t normally expect to hear someone be so verbally abusive to their wife in front of other people. But Charlie was very pissed and Charlie was a little bit different to say the least.

I wasn`t expecting much from Christmas. I was actually trying to avoid it a little bit. i`ve been really surprised by how many Christmas signs and decorations I`ve seen during the past month in Sarawak. I was even more surprised, and depressed, about the amount of Christmas carols I heard playing shops. This is a predominantly Muslim country. it just isn`t right. So after spending too much time in Kuching watching DVDs I decided to leave earlier than planned. Instead of having Christmas dinner and getting pissed with a bunch of Iban guys I`d try to get to Kura Kura beach in Western kalimantan. Christmas in Sydney is always a beach day. Go for a swim and then back home for Christmas lunch. Kura Kura had a great write up in Lonely Planet. It described the place as one of the nicest beaches in kalimantan, white sand and chrystalline water. it sounded pretty tempting and I figured Kura kura was as close as I could get to a Sydney Christmas without actually being there, at least the closest thing in Borneo.

I had tried to call the resort a number of times from Kuching but the phone was off everytime. I figured it was closed for the holiday period and I was thinking that i would end up stuck in pontianak or another smaller town bored out of my mind, the only tourist around. I figured I might as well go to the area anyway so I crossed the border on the 23rd and landed in Pontianak. After being woken at 5am to receive my breakfast (seriously why wake anyone up that early who hasn`t asked for it) I caught an early bus to Singkawang. I met a nice guy on the bus who got off with me at the turnoff to pasir Panjung (means long sand), the closest beach to the resort. We waited at the warung there for his 2 mates to show up and I got a lift on one of their scooters to the palapa hotel. i didn`t realise that christmas is a public holiday here so i was a bit surprised that the place was booked out. It was a good thing though as the room prices were a lot higher than I thought. We asked about other places and it turned out that the resort was actually open so i jumped back on the scooter and we drove about 3km down some rough dirt tracks to get to the resort. The beaches we had passed on the bus and on the scooter all looked horrible. very little sand and dirty brown water that looked like raw sewerage. I was pleasantly surprised when we got there that there was a nice stretch of off white sand and cleaner looking water. It was still brown but apparently its that colour during rainy season. the best time to go is after march when its a normal greeny/blue colour.

I hopped off the bike, thanked the guys who had totally gone out of their way to help me out and was introduced to Charlie. Charlie was a a grizzly looking 50 year old originally from somwhere close to Glasgow. his skin was a leathery brown from years of too much sun and his eyes were the kind of blue that i wished the water looked like. The first thing he did was offer me a beer. he had clearly had a few too many and was obviously keen to have another drinking partner. rather than get the beer himself he called over his 3 year old son Sandy (what else do you call your child if you`ve lived next to the beach your whole life) who brought me the beer and then to my surprise proceeded to use a bottle opener to open it for me. he was a smart kid. not long after I was offered some arak, the local rice wine which packs a punch and tastes simil