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Ladies moving dirt to a construction site (this picture should have been in the last post) |
We have left Ubud and moved to the small village of Kalibukbuk located on the north coast of Bali. The road between Ubud and Kalibukbuk winds up through mountains and is probably has the most curves of any road I have ever been on. Loreen and Keenan both got a little car sick by the time we got through it. It was built by the Dutch and I think it was probably laid out by a drunk following a broken backed serpent through the hills. Kalibukbuk is quite small, a main street and two side streets to the Indian Ocean. There are some good dive sites here and the dolphins come every morning just off shore, so these were the draws.
New Years Eve Day we went for a bike ride to a local waterfall and to some hot springs. Unlike the bike ride in Ubud, this one was not mostly downhill and we got a good workout going on the way to both the waterfall and the hot springs. We missed the waterfall as we seemed to be having trouble convincing the local village "Mafia" that we did not needs guides to walk up a set of stairs to the top of the mountain. They were persistent, for as soon as we had convinced one of them we did not need a guide, suddenly his buddy would be on the trail in front of us selling his services. We just turned around and went back to the bike park to pay the donation for parking, where one fellow asked for 50,000 rupiah. There was a young fellow, sitting on his motorbike, that shook his head and said "no $50,000, you pay what you want to donate". It is different here in that some folks will try to see how dumb you are by asking for more money and others are so honest.
So back down the mountain to the main road and on to the next mountain trail up to the hot springs. There were three pools of varying heat degrees all with spouts under which the locals stand for the massage effect. We tried them all and the one where the water drops about 15 feet gives you quite a massage. Although you are not allowed to use soap in the pools themselves the locals all bring soap and bathe in the out door showers. Adults with their clothes or bathing suits on and the little ones stark naked. These are quite different than sitting in the hot pools in Banff in December, looking out through the steam at the snow covered spruce trees and every one with frost on their hair. Here you look out at coconut palm and banana trees.
New Years Eve night we went to a beach restaurant and then moved out onto the beach for some quiet drinks. There was quite a thunder and lightning show taking place, with no rain. It was a unique experience watching the waves break on the shore through the flashes of lightning.
I think every man and boy child in Bali had fireworks for New Years Eve. The fireworks are loud and do not give much of a color show, just noise. They started setting them off about 9PM and it went on until about 1AM, first on one side then the other, sounded like we were in gun fight in a war zone. Every one wore ear plugs to bed that night.
Did not do much on New Years Day but wander around town and do e-mail and stuff at an internet shop. It had started raining in the middle of the night and never let up all day. So out with the umbrellas and did the quieter things.
Keenan and I went diving on the second of January much to Loreen's angst. She went snorkeling and they split us up with Kee and I in one boat and Loreen in the other. Loreen was also a bit worried about the dive boats, wooden hulled, no life jackets and some with part of the aft structure damaged. Her group waited on the beach for us at lunch time for about half an hour and she had both our funerals planned by the time we got there.
(You cannot even imagine my horror when we pulled into the national park where the dive site is located and I saw these decrepit, falling apart, old wooden fishing boats that they were using to transport us out to Menjangan Island... It was beyond my belief - but I was still hopeful that there would be a fancy dive boat tied up at the island that would be taking my family to the depths of the ocean. But that hope was soon squashed when Danny and Keenan carried on around the island in the fishing boat to their first dive site. I honestly did believe I would be coming home alone!! It was a stark contrast to the $1million, new, state of the art dive boat that Keenan received her diving certificate on in Belize. Anyway, it all ended well and I was for sure thankful to the Balinese Hindu Gods! Loreen)
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Loreen's Boat Leaving Us! |
It was my first time diving, Keenan has her open water diving certificate, so it was quite an experience. I just did an introductory dive to see whether I would like it enough to get my certificate. It was pretty cool and I enjoyed it a lot. I had to do four skill tests at about 9 feet deep:
1- take out and replace your air regulator, and clean the water out before breathing- no problem
2- fill your mask with water and then drain it under water- big problem, I think I left my instructor on the bottom about four times while I panicked and just pushed the inflate button on my dive jacket. That'll teach him for trying to slow me down when I pointed my finger at the surface! He gave up on that one and took me for a 20 minute under water swim at about 18 feet deep to let me relax. And then we broke for lunch and I kind of got my head back together. After lunch went under about 12 feet and kept my act together, flooded my mask and blew it out about three times.
3- pretend to lose your regulator, recover it, replace it in your mouth and blow the water out- no problem
4- do cut throat sign to say you are out of air, get rid of your regulator and have your buddy give you his spare, clear the water, breath and buddy up to surface- no problem, just that damn mask!
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My dive instructor and I (decrepit dive boat in background) |
Then we went for an awesome under water tour along a coral wall. We were down for 35 minutes at around 35 feet deep. Saw some amazing and colorful fish and amazing coral formations. I never knew it could be so alive and pretty. The instructor kept moving me into the wall and I kept moving away as I felt I was going to touch the coral with my legs or fins. Depth perception's really distorted as the instructor informed me we are always at least 5 feet away from the coral.
We also got to see a big sea turtle at this depth, pretty amazing, and run into Keenan and her guide following along. Keenan told me she knew that it was me coming through the water because of my flailing and this little bit of white hair surrounding this bright shiny head. BRAT!
I was not totally in my comfort zone so I was not as relaxed as I needed to be, but acceptable. The instructor gave me a recommendation to allow me to complete certification, but advised I would need a doctors exam to make sure my lungs are okay. Will see when we get to the land of Oz.
Loreen did go snorkeling twice on the edge of the coral wall and reports that she saw some awesome fish. We have snorkeled in a lot of countries and I think Loreen was totally impressed by the clarity of the water, the number of species and the overall color and diversity here.
We were up at 5:30AM this morning to go out to see the dolphins. We went out in a "spider boat" named because they look like a spider on the water. Now these are quite a little boat, 20 feet long, 24 inches wide and about 30 inches deep. A pretty tippy little devil, so to stabilize they put these 12 feet long cross arms at the bow and stern, and then have these curved drop arms down to wooden pole stabilizers on each side. They make the boats amazingly stable, even though Loreen ensured we all had life jackets this morning, mine was a ladies small, so we just tied a couple of cords around it.
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Spider Boat |
Although the tour books, like Lonely Planet and Frommers, say that the dolphins can be seen by the hundreds, we hit a day when they did not show up. We saw a few, two and three at a time, and thirty spider boats would descend on the spot, the dolphins of course disappeared. Then a couple would surface in the distance and away we would go again, to the same results. I told Keenan it was probably two or three divers with dolphins suits jumping around to keep us tourists excited and maybe come back for tomorrow.
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Keenan was so enthused she fell asleep |
Three more days in Bali and then Keenan leaves for Java and Loreen and I for Australia. That will be a bit of a sad day splitting up. Will not likely blog again from Bali.