Watersports extravaganza

 

For our last day on Bali I wanted to give Kris experience of parasailing. Since it came in a package, we also got more watersports. We had a confirmed our early pick up at 8 AM for today from a local firm to go to Nusa Dua for couple hours of fun in the water for an internet price of 650,000 rupees ($71) for two. This included one lap parasailing, a 15 minute ride on a banana boat and a 15 minute wakeboarding session.

Upon arriving at the base, they promptly attempted to rip us off by trying to charge us 650,000 per person. It took a bit of explaining that it was a total rate, then a quick suggestion that we’d get up and walk to the next base 10 meters down if they didn’t honor the price, for the guy to start saying “Solee boss, my mistake. I thought this per person rate. Solee, you get good deal”. Right… several minutes later I still had to remind him to give me back my change which he… forgot. You gotto keep your eyes on the money here at all times.

Parasailing was first. I’ve done it before, a decade ago in Hawaii, but it was a new experience for Kris. The ride was short. Too short honestly, lasting a mere few minutes. You get strapped to a parachute and then to a rope which the other end is tied to a boat. The boat starts running and so do you, and then oopsie and you’re up in the air about 30 or 40 meters. There isn’t much steering involved, only pulling on one side of the parachute strings when you’re landing. Fun, very fun, although if you have a fear of heights (or a fear of falling as Kris describes it) it could be a slightly jarring experience. Just keep in mind you’re completely safe and even if the rope got unclipped from the boat, you’d still have a parachute over your head and land safely on the ground.

  

  

Our parasailing adventure. Great if a bit short though.

Banana boat was next. It is basically an inflated raft, shaped like a banana which is pulled by a speedboat. You sit on it, hold on to a strap and try not to fall off. They actually asked us if we wanted to fall off or not. Kris wasn’t too much into it, so we decided on just one dunk. I mean, let’s at least try it. For all the screaming that you sometimes hear coming from these, the ride was very easy and comfortable. It’s pretty difficult to fall off, unless they’re taking turns and trying to throw you off on purpose. Although getting up on it in mid-water is a whole different ballgame. The raft is quite high, round and slippery and with no footing underneath, it’s a bit of a challenge.

For our wakeboarding session, we were joined by three Kiwis on a holiday. Hannah was celebrating her 19th birthday today and was also the only one with previous experience with wakeboarding which showed immediately as she stood up without a problem and did three perfectly clean and long runs. It was my turn next, and to make a long story short, my wakeboarding experience ended pretty much the same as my surfing experience. I’m still too heavy and together with my balance problems I was tipping the board forward making getting up nearly impossible. I did get up, only to fall down immediately. Although at least I wasn’t in pain as during the surfing lesson. Kris didn’t fare much better this time although for a slightly different reason. She just wasn’t strong enough to pull herself up. Still, for both of us it was an awesome experience and we enjoyed it immensely. Given the opportunity, we’ll definitely try again.

After being dropped off at Kuta Beach, we had our sights set on lunch, then a sunbathing session. Unfortunately there was a monkey wrench thrown in our gears that had the potential to destroy our day and moods. Fortunately it didn’t completely ruin it. We were approached on the street by a local guy handing out scratch cards to see if you win a prize. Of course they were free, of course everybody won something and there was a potential to win a thousand dollars or a week holiday in Bali. The catch was: you just had to listen to a short presentation about their resort and then you’d get free lunch, free taxi home, free t-shirts and your prize. Where have I heard this before? It sounded so much like time-share sales pitch. Free this, this, this and that if you only come in and listen to our bullshit pitch. Kris was suspicious too believing in “What sounds too good, must be too good” but I guess the draw of the potential money prize was too high. I also figured, oh what the hell. We’ll get the hell out of dodge if it is a time-share sales pitch. So we went with our happy hawker who immediately started to tell us what to say: both of us are living in the US now, Kris is actually 10 years older than she really is, we should not show our passports, etc. By now this really smelled like a time-share sales pitch, as they usually approach couples who are over thirty and look like they have money. We arrived at the location, which looked a little bit like a warehouse, and we welcomed by… a slick haired used car salesman lookalike Wayne from Vancouver, Canada. At this moment, this moment exactly I knew this was a waste of time, but since we came here already, we might as well stay here for the next few minutes to get our free ride home and lunch. And of course it began: vacation club, blah blah blah, great idea, blah blah blah, equity blah blah blah. It is pretty difficult to follow American salesmen with interest for me, because after twenty years of listening to their whiny, lying bullshit, my first reaction is to strangle them. But anyways, after doing some surveys about our travel habits and the sales pitch getting long, I basically cut him off saying “Sorry mate, not interested. You’re selling timeshares”. Mr. Interested In Everything We Had To Say disappeared that moment leading us out the door to the reception. Of course the prize turned out to be bullshit. Kris won a fabulous booklet of vouchers worth a whopping $500. Considering all these vouchers were 10-20 per cent discounts in local shops, it is completely worthless. I’m normally able to bet a better discount myself. Our t-shirts turned out to be ugly advertising t-shirts for the company, our free lunch simply a 100,000 rupees voucher to the most expensive restaurant in Kuta and our taxi ride voucher had to be forced out of them by a threat of physical harm from me. They finally acquiesced and unwillingly handed us a 70,000 rupees voucher for a taxi.

Before heading to the beach we checked out the restaurant which was of course ridiculously priced (4* hotel restaurant on the beach: what did we expect). Fortunately there was a slight fortunate catch: the vouchers were also redeemable in the local minimart. Despite being very pricey, the voucher did produce two large beers and ice cream for us plus a couple pot pies which we pitched in for by ourselves. Kuta beach was heaven, strong sun, strong surf, soft wind, tanned bodies all around. We looked a bit out of place being well… maybe not pasty white, since we’ve been getting browner and browner for the past 4 weeks, but let’s say we were among the whitest there. Few hours later it was time to head home. Kris was wiped, so before catching our taxi to Sanur, we stopped for a treat in Starbucks. A double shot caramel frappuccino is as good in Kuta Beach as it is in Warsaw or Seattle.

Leaving tomorrow morning, we still had a few rupees left to spend, so another dinner at our favorite place and picking up some spices to take home from a local mini-mart occupied our evening hours. Happy with Bali, unhappy we were leaving tomorrow morning.

Let there be mantas

 

This day we were heading to Padang Bai for another day of diving with Waterworx Dive Center. This meant an extra early wake up and breakfast at 6:30 AM. I should’ve expected a bit of morning crankiness from Kris and I wasn’t disappointed. Our driver showed up at seven sharp and the short way to Padang Bai (no traffic on Sunday so it took less than an hour) was spent merrily snoozing in the car.

Our first dive of the day took us around the island of Nusa Penida. Manta Point is a small closed bay enclosed by rocky cliffs. The visibility is low due to waves and surf bringing up sediment from the bottom. Depth here is about 10 meters and there is not much interesting local sea life to see. So what exactly is the attraction of expensive diving in such a place? A cleaning station for manta rays. Sort of an underwater carwash, or rather a fishwash, where big fish come up to be cleaned by little fish. And this place is so predictable, that mantas are present on ninety per cent of the dives. When we descended below surface we just basically hung out at about 10 meters hovering over the surface or in mid water waiting for the big fish. And they didn’t disappoint! It only took about a minute before we spotted our first manta ray of the day. Not a huge one, perhaps only 2 meters across, majestically gliding over the coral, hovering while the little fish did their jobs, then swimming away into the big blue. And another, and another. During the dive we changed our position a couple of times, but stayed within the same area, perhaps the size of a big garden or so. Oh the pity we did not take our underwater camera with us, but here is a link to our dive buddies, Stefan and Nina’s, blog from last year, which contains a lot of manta ray photos from exactly this dive site.

Nina and Stefan's blog - Mantas

After forty minutes or so it was time to get back on board and change our location to Crystal Bay located between Nusa Penida and Nusa Lembongan. On arrival there we were served lunch, still slightly warm, consisting of a variety of delicious stuff: rice, shredded spicy chicken, fried tofu, samosas, fried fish, roasted coconut and two different salads. A type of Indonesian bento box. An hour surface interval and it was back into water for Kris’s most challenging dive to date. Because Crystal Bay is located between two islands and there is nothing further down until Australia, it has very strong sea currents and rather chilly water. Well… when they told us 20-22 Celsius I figured cold, but in fact my dive computer registered a temperature of 25 degrees. So not so cold after all. This is a place to go spotting for Mola Mola. Gigantic fish that look like head with fins. Unfortunately luck wasn’t with us this time, molas not being in season, and we did not see one. But the dive site is still great with lots of interesting small and medium stuff to be seen. And lucky for us, Kris got to see her first shark: a woebegone shark. Funny stuff is, she did not realize this was a shark, until I told her on the boat after the dive, and then got quite excited about checking off a sighting of another underwater species. Woebegone looks a bit like a big catfish and is very docile, so no surprising the missus didn’t think it was a shark.

We popped back on the boat and headed back to Panag Bai for our transfer. Some final formalities: logbooks, paying and we were on our merry but tired way back to Sanur. Diving here was quite expensive for me, though a fellow diver from Australia was going on how cheap it was. A package of 4 dives for two people with equipment rental and transfers cost us $440, which comes out to $55 per dive. From my experience diving $20-$35 was rather standard in a package, but apparently this is by no means the most expensive place to dive on Earth.

We were back in Sanur before 4 PM so with still some time left headed to our local beach and souvenir market. Didn’t get much sun as the shadows were already getting pretty long, only about an hour’s worth. We did do our souvenir shopping, though mostly at a store, not at the shops at the beach. There was only one tired looking guy selling jewelry who seemed to just be happy to sell anything, so we were able to bargain a good price on some trinkets. Others, perhaps due to prime location at the beach, stuck to their inflated prices and didn’t seem interested in haggling. Ten to twenty per cent was all you could haggle down with lame excuses like telling us that the price they bought the product was only 50 cents lower than the final price they were offering. Right… and the same product at the store we finally bought it had a lower opening price. Moral of the story: NEVER buy into the stories of sellers. They will try to woo you and swoon you with their said stories, at the same time trying to rip you off. From my time in Egypt I learned that you should bargain any price down at least fifty per cent (except in more regular stores). If you’re good, more. On one occasion , I bargained a lapis lazuli cat (semi precious stone) down from $100 to $7. But that’s rare.

Kite flying is a popular sport in Sanur

On the way back from the beach we stopped once again at The Cameng for some food. This place has turned out to be our regular eating spot. We didn’t even want to try anything else. Food is so nicely presented and so yummy: why would you?

Underwater history and a land of smiles

 

Our rest days are coming to an end with earlier and earlier wake ups. Yesterday I was able to convince Wolfgang of Waterworx Diving to give us an extra 15 minutes to have our breakfast before we were picked up to go diving at 7:15 in the morning. Why so early you might ask? USS Liberty is located off Tulamben which is some good 3 hours from Sanur. The road was partly spent snoozing in the car, at least until we got to Padang Bai where the dive center is located. We picked up our equipment there and there headed off further north to Tulamben. Waterworx Diving was recommended to us by Stefan and Nina, our German dive buddies from Sabang Beach. In fact all of diving here in Bali is bloody expensive, partially due to the distances (3 hours by car to Tulamben, 1 hour by car plus 1 hour by boat to Nusa Pendida). Probably due to other “Indonesian-specific” factors too. Everything seems to be quite expensive here, save the food.

We arrived in Tulamben at around 10 and prepared for our first dive immediately. We got 5mm wetsuits from Waterworx. This was the first time in life, despite hundreds and hundreds of dives behind my belt, that I got to dive in such a thick, brand new suit. And it was the first time in my life that I needed to tack on 10kg worth of weights to comfortably go down. The buoyancy of this thing is incredible (well… so is the buoyancy of my belly fat). Getting into water was fun to begin with. It was Krysia’s first challenging shore entry. Big pebbled beach, strong surf, big waves. Hard not to trip and break your legs. Our first dive took us around the wreck, exploring 50 years of coral and sponge growth on it. Our divemaster, Komang, spotted one potato grouper, but this dive was about the wreck itself and seeing nature at work, rather than any big stuff. Liberty is huge, 120 meters long, broken up into pieces, first by Japanese torpedoes in 1945, then by a volcanic eruption that pushed it off to sea in 1963. Getting out of the water was much easier.

An hour surface interval resulted in a mediocre lunch during which I once again netted a soup. I’m getting a bit tired of this game. I order rice, nasi, and I get rice flooded with salty water. Come on people! At least I was able to find a store with some rice chips and chocolates for the ride back. After lunch it was back in the water for the second dive when we got to explore the inside of the wreck. Well… inside is saying a bit much. As I wrote, the wreck is completely broken up, so there are no enclosed spaces besides the engine room, which we didn’t explore due to Krysia’s inexperience. Giant clams, nudibranches and bunch of other small stuff that can excite the beginner diver. I was just enjoying the view of the wreck. Sadly I can’t post any underwater photos due to lack of underwater camera this time, but check out Tulamben dive site on google to get the idea what you can see there.

We headed back the same winding road that we came and got to be stuck in traffic because of preparations for Indonesian independence day. And once again the smiling faces were everywhere. You stick your head outside of the car window and you hear a chorus of hellos and Good Day. Balinese can be truly wonderful people if they are not trying to hussle you into buying their trinkets. Truly a wonderful journey. We got back after 7 PM.

Happy smiles on a scooter

While chewing your own fingers

Check out the girls in the upper left corner modeling for the white boy

And the boys doing “I love Heavy Metal” instead of “Hang Ten”

Smile for the camera cutie

Back in Sanur, we checked out the restaurant next door for the nicest presentation meal in Bali yet. True, it was mie goreng and nasi goreng again, but both the flavors and presentation were worth every penny. Okay, it’s not the most exciting of all meals, but what the hell: WE LOVE FRIED NOODLES AND RICE!

    

Mie goreng                                           Nasi goreng

Catching waves

 

One relaxing day has a tendency to lead into another. After our lovely American breakfast (it’s not that often you get pork here, so gotto have me some bacon) and morning routine, I went around looking for transport to Kuta beach. 11:45 was still ways away so with full agreement from the missus, we decided to take advantage of the sun and the hotel pool to get in some sun time as well as some water time. I am a quick burner but slow tanner, and since our sun opportunities are quickly ending on this honeymoon it was high time to get brown for our post-honeymoon wedding photo shoot. Couple hours in the sun was just what the doctor ordered. In the meantime I got an answer from Odysseys Surfing School in Kuta and they would pick us up for our lesson at 2PM today. Fantastic. No need to rush, no need worry.

Becoming masters of the waves sounded like such a good idea before the honeymoon. The pictures of Big Kahuna coming to mind, surfing films like Point Break bringing images to my mind of my hair flapping in the wind as I’m carving the top of the wave, going through a crashing tunnel, doing twist and turns. But first we were deposited at the school and with more than an hour before the lesson, we went to the beach. Kuta beach is wonderfully large with beautiful sand and crashing waves. Toned beach bodies abound, including the types that shouldn’t really be there. Krysia wasn’t too happy to be in a close proximity of a lobster colored gigolo in his 50s, in lovely skin tight orange speedos trying to expose his family jewels to all the passing girls. It’s all part of the fun girl. Sitting on the beach I was surprised how different it was from being advertised. Perhaps it’s the lack of tourists due to European crisis and Ramadan, but the beach is much nicer, cleaner and less crowded than we thought. Not that I’ve regrets about booking our oasis of tranquility in Sanur: our hotel is absolutely phenomenal, but I think given time, we’ll try to make it out here for one more day. Kuta beach reminds me very much of Waikiki beach in Hawaii, perhaps due to the presence of surfers, or maybe it’s the sand or the crashing waves. To sum up: it’s nice. Come and visit.

Our surfing lesson began innocently and fun enough. On dry land, learning how to lie on the board, how to paddle and finally: how to stand up. Piece of cake, right? It is while the board is firmly pressed into soft sand. “Are you regular of goofy?” was the question referring to our surfing stance. How the hell should I know? I chose regular, which perhaps was my first mistake. The next two and a half hours were a harrowing exercise in pain, drinking gallons of salt water and frustration. For me that is, because Kris with her much better sense of balance, managed to get up and STAY UP quite a few times, including one full run to the shore. I didn’t manage a single clean run or in fact even staying up for more than a second. True, I almost got up a few times, only to fall overboard almost immediately. My legendary problems with balance were visible even when lying on the board. If I’m wobbly with my belly on the board, what can I expect with my feet down. One thing I learned very well though: always hang on to your board and have it to your side. One moment of frustration when I just threw the board in front of me, the sea gods took their revenge by sending a wave that immediately smacked the board right in my face and threw me in what the surfers call a “washer”, spinning around underwater.

With all of the above said, it was worth trying and still some fun. And it was nice to see wifey doing so well. I don’t know if I’ll try it again, not until I get much smaller. After the lesson I was so sore I could barely move my shoulders. One thing: I didn’t give up and took more tries than anyone on the beach. That was probably the source of my pain too, with my shoulders completely giving out on the last few runs. We headed back to Sanur for some much deserved dinner and beers. Couple days ago Jaga recommended Balinese fried duck to us, so dedek was on the plate. Not bad, although Bazyliszek in Warsaw does a much better one. But for all you duck lovers, give it a try.

Blissfully Bali blissful bliss

 

Nothing like a goodnight sleep in a football sized bed to make the missus happy. Though even for her the bed was just… too big. I thought I’d never hear these words in my life, but apparently there is a bed size limit for my wife. Bali king (roughly 2.5 meters across) is big enough to stretch Jesus-crucifixion style, or perhaps do the running man, and the other person still can lie blissfully unaware of the other person. An early morning swim for me in the lovely pool worked up quite an appetite and it was off to breakfast. Finally some real choice, good continental buffet, American or Indonesian breakfast. For perfection they should thrown in Irish with freshly baked scones and black and white pudding.

My early exploration yesterday paid off and we headed to a nice and cleaner part of the Sanur beach. The sand here is wonderful, it’s something between this fine white sand of the Caribbean and the gravel beaches of Mediterranean. Crashing out on a beach for a few hours trying not to get too baked was just what the doctor ordered. Although the sun’s directly overhead, the sea breeze is significant making for a perfect beach weather. Absolutely perfect for just lying there while sipping cold Bali Cider. Water’s the temperature of lukewarm soup, although I was told I shouldn’t expect that when diving. Apparently the sea currents bring in a lot of cold water and Tulamben dives can be around 20 Celsius. Brr… I guess it will be a long wetsuit for me.

We stayed on the beach until about 3pm, figured no use in getting well done on the first day here. Getting haggled on the beach wasn’t too bad here. Locals of course want your business, but it’s a bit more laid back. One guy, Komang, just sat with us on the beach, showed us his folder, where he could take us by car and what to show us and tried to wait us out until we made a decision. But we hung on tough. It’s the same in the stores: everyone wants you to look at their trinkets, but in the end, it isn’t so in your face like we got in the Philippines. A bit of “I give you nice price, low season yeah?” and then “Ok, you come back later then”.

Hotel welcomed us with a freshly made up room, mineral water and a nice, long, hot shower. No more problems with water pressure we had in the Phillies or the cold water showers in Malaysia. Water is boiling hot and comes at a pressure high enough to bore through an elephant’s ass. Of course being in such a nice hotel makes you a bit lazy, so we decided to dine in the hotel restaurant. I can’t say enough about Asian food. I’ve known and loved it for more than 20 years now, but being here again brings it a new dimension. Nasi goreng is lovely Malaysian style (with pungent seafood sauce and little dried mackerels) and Indonesian style with meat on top on a much milder sauce stirred in the fried rice. Even Kris is slowly starting to get used to fishy flavors. She’s scarfing the prawn crackers like there’s no tomorrow, and they’re more seafoody than the original sea cockroaches. Beer happy hour: three large beers for the price of two and a half proved a winner with us. Unfortunately alcohol is quite expensive here as in Malaysia (darn Muslim countries…) so any happy deal makes us happy alcoholics.

Crashing early seemed the right thing to do so after dinner and watching some Olympics (Go USA! Go Poland!) we drifted off into the dreamland.