second time around

After Poe went home I drove over to the eastern coast of the North Island and spent a couple of days. Then another long travel day. I checked out of the hotel at noon and drove back across the island to Auckland where I got to wait at the airport for my 1:10 in the morning flight to Singapore. Then clear customs and get to my flight from Singapore to Jakarta, Indonesia. Then clear customs again, after getting the visa on arrival. Then on through security to get my domestic flight to Bali. It always gives me such a reassuring sense of safety when the metal detector doesn’t ring with the couple pounds of metal in my hip. Nor did they care about the liter of Jim Beam (could have been gasoline) in my carryon bag. But the plane was too full to be able to reach anything even if I wanted to. My ride picked me up at the airport and took me to the hotel. School had just let out and the motorbikes on the road looked like a swarm of locust. At least 4 rows of bikes, two of cars/trucks and all in 12 feet of asphalt. I was impressed that nobody died they all just sort of do this incredible dance of death weaving in and out at will. The island is pretty dirty, lots of litter and stuff floating in the canals. I stayed a couple of days in Sanur, the tourist area for “older” tourists and families, not Kuta where the young, hip partiers go. As my driver told me, “drugs and crime.” My very nice hotel/resort is full of Aussies and Europeans, mostly old and seriously obese. If I put on 20 kilograms and wore a speedo I would fit right in. They did check under the car with a mirror when we passed the security gate to the resort.

Friday morning, after a couple of days there I got my two and a half hour ride up to Tulamben on the north shore of Bali to go diving on the Liberty Wreck. Two lanes with motorcycles and cars and trucks in a sort of free for all. I was only scared once, when the gasoline tanker passed the pickup full of propane tanks around the blind corner uphill right in front of us.

The USAT Liberty was a WWII transport ship that was torpedoed and grounded on the beach until 1963 when the eruption of Mt. Agung caused an earthquake that rolled it over onto its side into 90 feet deep water. Now it is a premier dive site. My dive guide Ngoman walked me to the beach where we gear up and walk into the water. A 30 meter swim puts me 5 meters deep at the stern of the 123 meter long wreck covered with corals and a crazy amount of fish and other marine life. We make our way along the seaward side (the deck of the ship) to the bow in about 30 meters of water and back through the wreck itself. Pretty amazing for my first wreck dive! It is impressive how much the sea has claimed the framework of the ship to grow life. Not only are there lots of corals and bunches of fish, but the place teems with Nudibranchs (look it up), sea horses, starfish and fish from the tiny frog fish (1 cm.) to potato cod (50 kg.).

The past few days have been little down, those times when I wonder what the hell I am doing half way round the world eating my dinners alone. Sometimes I would like to just click my heels together three times and be home. But as I told the kids growing up, “this too will pass”.

And now it is two days later and it has passed, life is good again. Looking this over I see that I put, “walked to the beach and walked into the water.” while true, that does not exactly do the experience justice. First we check the tank/BCD so a porter can take them to the beach for us two at a time (often a woman). Then we put on our wetsuits, booties, weight belt and carry our fins and mask. Walk out of the back of the shop and cross the road (definitely look both ways, this is the only road). Then about 100 meters through the field, the cement tiny soccer pitch with the teens playing and past the parking lot for busses and the “convenience store” shack/table. A few stairs and the dirt path through the field with two cows. It is too brown and short to support them, but they try for the bits of green here and there. Once at the beach we put on the BCD and walk into the water. I say it easy enough, but it is not. The top of the slope is shifting tiny rock that your feet sink through on the slope. Then comes the larger, round “river rock” about tennis ball to grapefruit size on top of the tiny gravel that has been washed down, so these larger rocks besides hurting the soles of the feet will shift and sink randomly. Once into the water the rocks are a mix of the mid size and larger, basketball size covered in slick algae. Staggering and stumbling I make it out twenty feet or so to almost waist deep and fall into the water, float with the BCD and put on my fins. Then roll over, dump air and swim down and out to the wreck, maybe 30 meters across the silt and rock. The going out is easier than the return. Coming back I am tired and once I get the fins off, have to clamber back uphill over the slick rocks with my feet occasionally sinking and slipping. My feet ache from heel to toe, and I have lost skin on the tops of my toes from the booties/fins. I like boat diving!

Six dives in Tulamben and now I am back at the south of the Island getting ready to fly on to Singapore and then Thailand. I have been trying to make the arrangements for some side trips and a live aboard in Thailand but am unable to get it done. Something about trying to book a trip from Thailand to Cambodia on an American credit card online from Indonesia just screams “FRAUD, FRAUD.” I will hopefully get it all done once there, or not and do something else.

Final thoughts on Bali: Shrines and decorating them is a big thing on a personal family level. The “offerings” in tiny baskets made of leaves on the sidewalk. The traffic is quite a ballet. Everything on the ubiquitous motorbike, from family of three with the toddler hanging on, to sidesaddle mothers to major loads beside-behind-above the driver. The Balinese headgear and “Sarong” (which is not the technically correct term) are very common. It is a poor country and needs employment, I don’t feel laziness here, only lack of opportunity. The ones lucky enough to have jobs work hard. They sift and load the road gravel and asphalt by shovel, hours at a time. Lots of smiling. I am a little weirded at being the rich white guy, but I guess better they get my money than somewhere else. Women walking with large loads balanced on their heads using one hand to balance or smaller loads with no hands, just strolling along chatting. 


Tags: Travel

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