Last Days in Lembah and Bali ending the 100 Dive Adventure
We had a wonderful time in Lembah, which was made even more special by seeing our friends from Koh Tao. It was even better as we pretty much had the resort to ourselves! Although it was a short visit it was nice to reconnect, especially since we were diving with our Open Water Instructor Jesper. He had a tear in his eye seeing how far we had come in our diving careers! 🙂 After a tearful goodbye we headed to… Manado for the night as our flight was early in the morning to Bali. We stayed in a fantastic hotel which happen to be really close to Popeye’s, which is always a favorite with Maryanne! Ended up doing a little shopping ie cheap movies, getting room service and watching a TV with cable!! I think the best part was taking a hot shower though. Most of this trip it has been nothing but cold showers, in Bunaken we didn’t even have a shower, just a huge clay pot with really cold water. Most of the time we ended up using the bum gun as the water was at least not freezing! The trip to Bali sucked as we had issues at the check in counter. So we get to the check in lane and wait for about 20 min, no big deal we still have an hour till we board the flight. Now we had booked these tickets 2 months in advance, so what are we told when we get to the counter “Oh you have to go to another counter in order to get paper tickets as we don’t have a system here to check your information” Grrr So off to another line to wait forever since these people move at a snails pace. Finally we get our tickets only to have to wait again to check in our luggage. We are freaking out a bit as it is now only 20 minutes till we have to board the plane. Finally we get all our bags checked, now the bright side to all of this is that this was the one place we didn’t get charged extra baggage and weight for all our sporting gear! The downside to all of this is that while Mark, Deb and Maryanne are sitting together, Jared the one who hates flying has to sit in the middle seat!!! Oh it gets better, I have to suffer through not one take off and landing but two!!!! Is there no God!!! Thankfully the Resort Manager in Lembah had given me some generic Valium! The damn things didn’t work, well only as far as making me extremely tired and did nothing for my fear! So while I am hyperventilating through out the flight Maryanne is sound asleep! B*!#h! I mean that in the nicest way of course! Finally we land in Bali and boy was I glad to see a Starbucks, unfortunately for me we can’t stop 🙁 Damn the man meeting us at the airport to take us to the resort. Well the trip to Tulumben was long, at least the country side is pretty. To give you an idea we fly in to the south part of Bali, Tulumben is all the way at the top North of the island! When we get there the resort is pleasant, then again it was only $20 a night and the diving was cheap! However there was really nothing up here to do but dive, the internet was slower than AOL back in 1997!!! The diving was okay but I think this trip has made us diving snobs or just the fact that we have seen so much in a short amount of time seeing how this is about 176 dives for me!! Cool huh! The USAT Liberty Wreck was quite cool though as there was plenty of places to penetrate the wreck. There were two other sites, coral garden (light on coral but heavy on the sand) and the Drop Off (more of a gradual slope)! We ended up not doing 10 dives here but only 5 mostly due to the fist size rocks we had to walk across to get to the site ie beach dives and also trying to get in and out of the damn water was a pain. The highlight was though that these old ladies would carry two sets of gear atop there head and walk it down the beach. Man were they amazing! So instead of diving Maryanne booked a tour around the Northeast of the island for my birthday! All in all pretty quiet as Mark and Deb left that morning! Man is it weird not travelling with them anymore! It was a wonderful experience to be sure, we are going to miss them!
So now we are in Kuta (southern Bali) enjoying modern life of internet, restuarants, tourist shops and the beach! I do have one complaint though for Asia in general, none of the Starbucks have White Chocolate Mochas!! What the F***! 🙁 Probably why there are not that many fat asians I guess! Well at least my love handles are about gone, so I have that going for me. Oh and my hair was really blonde until I got a haircut, it still is but not as bright!
Maryanne and I will post more over the coming days since we have nothing planned for 6 days but fun in the sun, hot showers, AC rooms and good food. Man life is rough. Now if only we had a plan for where we are going to next!! We think Singapore at the moment!
Tags: Indonesia
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That is so funny Jared, I am readying your blog from current date to the past, and you keep making me laugh, because I can see you do these things. I just never saw you on an airplne in person. Your fear of airplanes is quit comicle. Sounds like you guys are having a blst.