Bali, October 2007

Wow, what a trip!  I don't even know where to start with this trip...the good or the bad...  (And a warning:  I'm a bit long-winded here, so if you want to just skip to the pictures, I won't be offended.  That said, there are some hilarious tales from this adventure that are worth finding in the story below.)
 

Our adventure started with a looooong day of travel, caused by poor planning on our part.  Saturday the 20th of October, we set the alarm clocks for 2:30 AM to be ready for our taxi at 3:00 AM to take us to the Bangkok airport for a flight to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.  Then we had a seven hour layover before flying to Denpasar on Bali.  During the layover, I tried to use our ATM card.  It didn't work.  And I left my American ATM card at home in Thailand...this was not a good omen for our trip, as we didn't bring a ton of cash.  So we ate lunch at McDonald's (yes, they have McDonad's in Malaysia.  It tastes the same.)  Then it was back to the skies in our AirAsia.com jet.  Did you know that AirAsia.com is the official budget airline of Manchester United?  I didn't either.

We didn't arrive until quite late, got our bags, paid our $25 Visa fee and found a taxi to our hotel.  Once we got to our hotel, we discovered ants all over the room.  (I won't mention the hotel, as they were quite nice about it.  It was not a budget hotel...it advertised itself as a "luxury resort" so we figured we could expect ant-free beds.)  They found us another room.  We pulled back the sheets and found more ants...so it was off to another room.  Finally!  No ants.  And a nice big room.  So Devin goes in to take a shower and the shower head is broken!  What a night.

The next day we took a taxi up to Batubulan to look for stone carvings.  Wow, this is a cool place.  The art was amazing.  Devin found a statue she really liked.  Hmm...not sure how to get a 35-pound stone statue home, when the weight limit for our luggage is 30 pounds each...and our carry-on limit was 15 pounds each.  Hmm...Oh well.  That's a problem we can figure out later.  Then it was off to the pool and the beach for some snorkeling.  I looked out at the water and saw what I thought were coral reefs.  So I grab my snorkel and hop in.  Sea weed.  Not coral.  Bummer.  Until I look around and see two juvenile moray eels and a few other really cool fish.  Then David joined me for snorkeling.  He loved it, until the jelly fish started coming in around us.  Luckily, we didn't get stung.

That evening, we headed to Uluwatu to see the Kecak and Fire Dances at a temple.  Wow, the dancing was amazing.  And the setting was stunning!  You'll see in the pictures below.  This is why we came to Bali.

Well...that's why Devin wanted to come to Bali.  I wanted to come for the scuba diving.  (Don't worry...I actually thought the Kecak and Fire Dances were one of the highlights of the trip.)  On Monday I headed out to scuba dive with Crystal Divers.  The plan was to hit Manta Point and dive with Manta Rays.  But in the words of George Castanza, "The seas were very angry" that day.  Too rough to dive Manta Point.  So off to Nusa Penida and Toyapakah for a beautiful dive.  (My scuba pictures will be posted later.)  Our second dive was a drift dive off Nusa Lembongan at Jack Point.  This was a fantastic dive, and included a short visit from a whitetip reef shark!  Woohoo!  It was beautiful.  Heck, I even got some video of it going by us.  It was swimming against the current with such grace.  After a bumpy ride back to port, I caught up with the family for a relaxing dinner.

So up to this point, things had gone relatively smoothly.  Well, other than the long layover, the ants, the broken shower, and the ATM card that still didn't work and a money supply that was running out.  Tuesday morning we wake up early to catch a ferry over to a small island called Nusa Lembongan.  We were going to ride the "public" ferry that left at 8:00 AM.  We planned on leaving our hotel at 7:30 AM.  No problem...we'll get there in plenty of time.  That usually works if you tell the taxi driver the correct harbor for the ferry...  So after arriving at the wrong place at 7:45 and finally pulling out our guide book... Doh!  So the driver hustles us over to the correct port; just in time to see the ferry leaving!  Oh well.  So we bought tickets for the 10:30 ferry and our driver took us back to the hotel for some swimming and relaxing.  I figured I'd try the ATM again...to no avail.  Back to the ferry.  And we see that we have to schlep our gear through the water on our heads to reach the boat and jump on an old wooden sloop that barely looks sea-worthy.  So where are the life jackets?  Life jackets?  We don't need no stinkin' life jackets!  After the crew cajoled some of us passengers to help push the boat off shore, the engines were started and we were off! (I didn't volunteer...I was already a bit peeved at having to pay porters far more money than I expected to haul our bags to the boat when I would have done it myself.)  Looking back at the captain smoking a cigarette while standing over about twelve huge (and hopefully full) gasoline cans made me cringe a bit.  But the ride wasn't too bad, actually.  We made it safely into harbor on Nusa Lembongan, where I refused to pay the porters, so I carried most of the bags myself, but a few guys helped carry some "free."  One more adventure down, with another about to happen.  Standing on shore waiting for us holding a sign that said, "Devon, Linda Bungalows" was an employee about to transport us to our bungalow.  On a motorbike.  All three of us, and our luggage.  Including the 35 pound statue in a suitcase and a big bag of scuba gear.  Luckily, they had two motorbikes.  Hehehe.  So one guy took my scuba gear and the lopsided suitcase on one bike; Devin and David hopped on another bike with the employee.  I wish I'd have had my camera available to take that picture...  Then they returned for me.  Wow, I didn't know these motorbikes could actually take me.  So we're heading back to the bungalows when we come across a huge crowd of locals walking along the road.  My guide says it's a ceremony.  I ask what kind.  A funeral.  Oh.  Um...let's stop and let them pass.  So as the crowd goes past, I feel as though I'm in a display case, as every single person stares at me, making gestures about how tall (and/or wide) I was compared to all of them.  One of them asked me, while laughing, to carry the drum they were playing.  It looked heavy.  Thankfully, he wasn't serious.  If I wasn't a bit worried about whether my scuba gear, and my family, made it safely to the bungalows I might have taken them up on the offer.  So we proceed to the bungalows where Devin and David are sitting in the cafe drinking a soda.  All was well.  Our room was quite nice, although it lacked AC.  Yes, we're spoiled Americans.  But the bed was comfortable, even if the shower was only cold salt water.  Yes, we're spoiled American travelers.  But we had a great time. 

The host/guide suggested we go to a local reef for some snorkeling.  We wanted a shallow beach/reef for David.  "Mangrove Reef" would be perfect, he said.  Since we're not locals, we followed him down the beach.  And followed him down the beach.  Right here...  And followed him down the beach...it's right up here.  And followed him down the beach.  We almost got to the drop-off point from the morning.  Then we got on the boat (a smaller version of the ferry that brought us to the island) and headed out to the reef.  Actually, it's quite a beautiful setting.  Lots of stakes in the water for the seaweed farming, huge waves crashing on the outer reef off shore, a big volcano in the distance on Bali, and a cool boat ride to the reef.  Life is good.  We figured we're heading for a beach to have a nice afternoon snorkeling.  Hehehe.  Funny how what we figure doesn't always happen.  After tying the boat up to a few mooring lines, I jump in and see a very shallow, but extremely beautiful, reef right under us.  After cajoling David to get in, he jumps off the ladder while his life vest ends up right in his face!  Needless to say, he didn't have a great time with it and got a bit freaked out.  At one point, he kind of got his face underwater and wasn't breathing with his snorkel, so I helped him over to the boat and accidentally kicked the coral in my struggles to haul David.  (Note to self:  Don't kick the coral.  It's not good karma, and your toes will get infected.)  After getting David back to the boat, he settled down and watched Devin and I snorkel a bit.  Quite honestly, this reef was amazing.  And it was right next to a bunch of seaweed farming tracts.  Quite an odd picture, really.  David started to complain that he had to go to the bathroom.  And I don't mean the "pee over the side of the boat" kind of bathroom break here.  For you scuba divers, think the warhammer maneuver.  (Google it...you might be amazed...and shocked...and horrified...if you have a squeamish stomach, just keep reading.)  So we get back in the boat after snorkeling for all of five minutes, and I pull off my fins that were far too small, I noticed numerous cuts on my right foot and a few of my toes. (Note to self:  Bring your own fins.  If you can fit them in your luggage.  And still be under 15 kg per suitcase.)  As the captain looks at us with a confused look (you would too if you saw us...all smiles before getting there...snorkeling for all of five minutes, having our kid hyperventilate about being in the water, then ask to leave...), we head back to our bungalow so David can visit the porcelain god.  After motoring for about two minutes, we realized David probably wouldn't make it through the entire 20-minute voyage back to the bungalow.  So we ask the captain if he's got any buckets on board, while I imitate -um - going to the bathroom so he can understand.  (Our Indonesian isn't all that great.)  He finds us a small bucket, at which point we get David to squat on the thing and do his business.  All while staring at a beautiful volcano across the water, motoring by seaweed farms and beautiful beachfront bungalows.  After about a minute, Devin and I look at each other...and at the same time, we say, "Doh!  Toilet Paper!"  I suggest holding David over the side as if he's trying to barefoot water ski.  I figure he'd be clean in no time.  (Of course, he might have a salt water enema to go with it...but he'd be clean!)  Calmer heads prevail, and Devin remembers she has some wetwipes in our bag.  Yeah Devin!  At this point, all we could do was laugh!  One more story to tell for our adventure.  So we talk the captain into taking us to a local beach.  Why he didn't just throw us overboard with our crap (literally) I'm not sure.  But he delivered us to mushroom beach and we had a great afternoon. 

We had a great evening relaxing, had dinner by sunset and crashed early.  I could feel sinus trouble coming on, so I was worried that I'd have to skip the diving the next day.  Unfortunately, my worries were true.  No diving for me!  So David and I walked down to the dive shop to let them know.  Of course, they were diving Manta Point, as the conditions were quite calm.  Oh well.  I'll just have to go back and visit again!  After all that, we figured we'd just go back early and get to our next stop.  There were supposed to be boats going back all day.  Not so!  I saw the guy that sells tickets to the boats back to Bali, and he said the next boat left in 30 minutes.  Considering we were a 10 minute walk to the bungalow, a 20+ minute packing job (remember that stone statue?), and a 5 minute motor-bike ride to the ferry, there was absolutely no way we were going to make it.  No sweat.  I figured we could just catch another boat during the day.  Hehehe...funny thing about all this "figuring."  It was WRONG!  The next boat didn't leave until 3 PM.  And it was the last boat of the day.  And it was a speed boat.  So it was more expensive.  (Remember, we hadn't found a cash machine yet...and we were running out of money.)  So we get a boat to mushroom beach and enjoy the day.  Well, except for all the boats that keep coming to shore and anchoring right where we were swimming.  And washing the deck where the gasoline cans were stored, right into the water where we were swimming.  Oh well.  It's a working island.  We figured we had time to eat and catch our boat back to the ferry "dock."  All right up until our food takes about 45 minutes to prepare.  Oh well, we don't need the extra calories anyway.

Back to the beach to catch the speed boat.  No more porters this time either!  We haul our gear to the speed boat.  Us and the other 30 passengers in a boat made for about 20 people.  Oh well...  The crew, being nice, decide to invite me to sit in the back.  "More air."  What they forgot to tell me was, "More water."  The ride over was 10 slow minutes weaving our way through the shallows and the seaweed farms followed by 30 minutes of crashing through the waves, followed by 15 minutes weaving through more seaweed farms and fisherman in motorbike helmets.  (Don't ask.  I'm not sure why the fisherman knee-deep in water were wearing motorbike helmets.)  I was completely soaked from the ride, wondering how Devin and David handled sitting near the front, getting thrown about in the waves. After we all waded through the water to get to shore, and I hauled our bags to avoid paying the porters, we found a quiet spot on shore to call our taxi.  Um.  Hmmm...no cell phone.  So one of the porters that wanted me to pay him for not carrying my bags was kind enough to let me use his phone.  (I'm being serious with that actually...he did let us use his phone.  I offered him some money to cover the costs.  All was well.  Until he wanted me to pay him for the bags again.)  Oh well...our taxi was on the way!

Finally, on our way to our last hotel for the trip, near Ubud.  After driving for a while, we missed the signs for the place and turned around and found it.  I was a bit worried we'd have another bad room.  So after Devin gave the approval, our driver was off, with a plan to pick us up Saturday and deliver us to the airport at 10 AM.  David swam in the pool a bit while I tried to shrug off my increasing sinus pain.  Not an easy thing to accomplish.  But we had a nice dinner and went to bed early.  In an air-conditioned room!  Woohoo!  (Yep, we're spoiled Americans.) 

We woke up early the next day with plans to go shopping in Ubud.  Problem:  Our money supply now consisted of enough money to pay our taxi fare back to the airport.  So how does one go shopping without any money?  In a place that doesn't take credit cards?  Hehehe.  So I tried calling my bank in Thailand.  (Oh yeah...I tried calling them earlier, but the connection to Thailand didn't go through...)  After looking at the website, I found an "international" number to call.  Problem was, I was talking to Singapore, when I needed to be talking to Bangkok.  And I didn't find out I was talking to Singapore until I'd been on hold for about 25 minutes.  At about $1/minute.  And they didn't even provide background music...hehehe.  So I finally called Thailand and found out that there were no problems with my account, and my ATM card should work properly.  Of course, it hadn't worked properly about an hour prior to this conversation, but that was a detail that didn't seem to matter to the person on the other end of the line.  There were no problems, and everything should work fine.  So I go back to the room and get ready to go for the day, wrapping my toes in some bandages with some antibiotic ointment, figuring that will take care of the increasing redness in two of my toes.  (Remember me kicking the coral earlier to help David?)  Off to shopping we go!  Buying things?  Nah, we don't need to buy anything.  But we stop at a cash machine anyway...and it worked!  I guess my phone call worked.  Woohoo!  Let's go buy things! 

And let me tell you, we sure did buy a few things.  Ubud is filled with incredible stores, shelves filled with amazing art, carvings, masks, cloth, hand bags, etc.  This is art heaven!  Almost every store we went into had beautiful masterpieces, all for amazingly low prices.  It was difficult to resist buying too much.  (Remember...luggage restrictions...15 kg for each suitcase...only one suitcase per person...and I already had one and a half bags filled with my scuba gear...and a 35 pound statue to fit in there somewhere...)  As I write this, I feel as though I've used too many outstanding and fabulous adjectives...but I'm running out of words to use.

On our first day in Ubud, I needed to see a doctor about my sinus infection.  (You know, the one that kept me from scuba diving at Manta Point and swimming with manta rays.)  So we found a clinic in Ubud and I got to "see" the doctor by talking to him on the phone.  Then he talked to his secretary, and I got the antibiotics.  Wow, that was easy.  All for one low price of $40.  Then we kept shopping until our shuttle back to the hotel came and picked us up.

Back in our room, I took my socks off and just about hit the floor.  (Remember the infected toes...)  Well, my two toes on my right foot were now pretty ugly.  As soon as Devin saw them, she told me I had no choice but to see the doctor.  Now I may not be as dumb as I look, but I'm not stupid.  Or something like that...  So when my wife tells me to go see the doctor (Kool Moe Dee reference, for all you old-school hip hop fans), I go see the doctor.  Luckily, our hotel had a shuttle to the local medical center, where I had my blood sugar tested (no lie!), and my toes inspected.  I guess being a doctor in Bali isn't all it's cracked up to be.  While I was lying on my back getting my toes wrapped, I was staring at the ceiling, noticing a long line of ants coming in the window, and a long line of ants heading back out the window.  Somewhere there was a food source...but it wasn't me.  Out the door with a bigger, faster and stronger anti-biotic, I was on my way home. 

This evening, we decided to go see the Barong and Kris Dance, performed by the Raja Peni troupe at a local temple, Pura Dalem.  Now for a quick Indonesian culture lesson:  Barong is a lion.  Kris is a dagger.  In the Barong dance, the lion scares away evil spirits.  In the Kris dance involves multiple "fight" scenes, with order in the galaxy finally restored.  Truthfully, this was a great performance with incredible costumes.  But it wasn't quite as cool as the Kecak and Fire Dance we saw earlier in the week.  (And as I write this, I'm burning a DVD with video, so I've watched them over...and I'm still of the opinion that the Kecak and Fire Dance was the highlight of the trip.)  This performance actually had an orchestra to accompany the dance, rather than just chanting.  Overall, this was a great day.

For our last full day in Ubud, we decided to visit the local library to take some classes.  David took a painting class.  Iit was supposed to be three hours, but we were afraid of attention deficit hitting after about 20 minutes, so we just signed him up for an hour and a half.  Big mistake.  We should have signed him up for the whole three hours.  David was fully engrossed the entire time.  Well, except for when he was interrupted by my mistakes while learning how to play local Balinese instruments.  One is similar to a xylophone, and requires one hand to strike the bars with a mallet similar to a hammer, while the other hand has to stop the vibrations of the bars just after they are struck.  Wow, this was difficult.  The other instrument is a bamboo "gamelan" that also requires ambidextrosity that I simply don't possess.  (Ambidextrosity.  How's that for a cool word?  You say it's not in the dictionary?  Oh well...you knew what I meant.)  My music class was very cool.  And awesome too.  Any other adjectives you can think of for me, just drop an e-mail.  Thanks.  While David and I were learning about local Balinese culture, Devin was reading a newly purchases used book.  Some cheesy romance novel.  (Her own words, by the way...)  Then after music and art class...guess what we did next?  Shopping!  We found some more art that really needed a good home.  We could have spent a lot more money, but for reasons already well documented, we had to skimp, and only buy four or five more things this day.  Then when we got back to the hotel, we found more cool stuff!

For our last evening in Bali, we visited a local temple to see a Wayang Kulit, or shadow puppet play.  Devin had wanted to see one of these since she was in college, and that was a loooong time ago.  It was really cool, but our lack of understanding Indonesian language really hampered our enjoyment, as the play is really intricate.  Regardless, we were impressed and amazed with the skill and fortitude of the puppeteer and orchestra.  They had to sit in the back of the shadow-stage with a fire going.  I'm guessing they were sweating just a bit.  The artistry was beautiful, even if our understanding didn't match.

Then off to sleep, only to wake up early to get the toes re-wrapped for the trip home, while Devin tried to solve our luggage problem.  (She did, by the way...but I won't tell...ancient Alpine secret.)

So with all of that, if you made it this far...I am impressed by your persistence. 

To summarize:  We had a ton of problems on this trip, all documented to the umpteenth degree previously.  Yet we can't wait to go back to Bali.  It has an allure that is hard to capture in 4000 words or less.  Maybe the pictures below will help you understand.  They say a picture's worth 1000 words.  So below, please find 88000 words more.  But I'll leave you with this:  I've never visited a place with such a vibrant artistic culture.  (Yes, some of it is to attract tourists, but it is all based on history and culture.  Heck, we saw two cremation ceremonies going on.  They don't do those just for us tourists...these were real family ceremonies.) 

Check out the pictures below.  Remember you can click on each image to see a larger version.

Well, there you go...I'm sure I left out some details of our trip.  If you haven't already figured this out, we had a fantastic time, and we're already planning a return visit in the coming years.