Back to the story...
The day was Friday, August 3 and Johanna had gotten the diarrohea the night before. Feeling quite poopy. Actually in the evening, when Nick and I got back to Tresna Yoga we found her sleeping on a towel on the floor. The bed sheets were not on the bed. Oh no. Sleepy accident. We debated on what to do. Nick went down the hill to get some fresh sheets from the employees. They only had a limited command of the English language, Nick probably only knew how to say 'Satu' and 'Dua' in Indonesian. One and Two. Apparently the talk went liket this.
Nick points to sheets.
"Need new sheet." - in pidgin English, less confusing to the casual speaker.
"Shit?" - says the man who can get us sheets
"Hmm... Sheet?"
"Yes. Shit."
"Exactly...
With a fresh sheet in hand and the soiled one hung over a rock by the stairs we had to deal with the wet mattress. I had brought a large black contractor size and weight plastic garbage bag that worked great to throw over the sheet. That, and a little bit of incense and the room was livable again in a short while.
Now we really get to Friday. In the morning we put the mattress out to dry and disinfect in the sun. Nick and I went snorkeling and then grabbed some lunch. Fish and Chips was a pretty nice safe dish to have. I discovered it there that day and definitely had it a few more times. After some time Johanna went snorkeling as well and when we got back the crew at Tresna Yoga had cleaned out Johanna and Nick's room and put the mattress back in the room. Ugh. They don't understand. It wasn't even totally dry. Out with the mattress again... well into the evening.
I battled the stupid computer virus again that afternoon to no avail. I'd have to go somewhere else to load pictures onto the iPod. (I eventually found that the iPod camera connector does move the DNG raw files and AVI movie files from the Ricoh GX100 so I intend on using the camera connector more. I moved 2.4 GB the other night and the battery didn't run out... it did take over 1.5 hours)
Mandi and Joachim took off to climb Gunung Agung from a different side that day. Mandi borrowed my headlamp and water bladders. Yay gear. They left at 8pm and were due back the next afternooon.
And, oh boy, Nick started getting belly problems on Friday night. One gets better, the next one goes down. It's a good thing it's vacation and we can just rest and rest some more when we get sick. Good thing it wasn't a travel day.
On to Saturday, August 4. Nick has got a certified Bali Belly occupying Johanna's spot in the sick bed. I can't make up my mind whether to write in past or present tense. I'm an amateur. Deal with it. Johanna went snorkeling in the morning and saw a sea turtle. The running joke is that they're attracted to post diarrohea-bout humans... though Nick never did attract one when he was through. I went out with JoJo later in the day and I spotted another one. Good turtle day.
I started exloring the deeps and the shallows that day. In the deeps I found turtles and big big fish. As long as me, but not with my girth. In the shallows there were rocks to turn over and crabs to scuttle away. There was one thing that looks a little like an '*' with wavy arms but I'm not sure what it's called. It was nice to recognize that there's so much life even off the reefs.
That afternoon it was getting to be critical time to buy flights to Jakarta to meet Ali. We only had a few days before we wanted to travel. The internet joint in Lipah was not up to the task of researching different airlines and putting in credit card information so I went for a walk up the street toward Amed. I found a place after maybe two miles that was a dive shop with a dial-up connection and two computers. So much faster. Not blazing, but usable. I was able to book a flight on Adam Air, a budget Indonesian carrier. 3 round trip tickets for 2.3 Million Rupiah. That's maybe $250. Not too shabby. I was expecting smelly prop planes and farmers for pilots. I also got photos loaded onto the iPod. (this was before I found that I didn't need a computer for that anymore. In fact, I now prefer to use the iPod because then I can quickly flip through the thumbnails in the iPod software)
To get back I took an Ojek. Riding on the back of someone's motorbike. I paid 10,000 Rupiah... about $1. He told his friend what I was paying and the friend grinned at me like I was a total sucker. I could have bargained. I was feeling good. No worries.
The evening was probably dinner and reading and sleep. Oh, also, me walking down the road being called Bob Marley or Rastaman, but that's sort of understood by now.
On to Sunday, August 5. Johanna, Mandi, and I did a snorkel tour from Good Karma Resort a few bays down. We had stayed there ten years ago and wanted to check it out again so we packed up our snorkel gear and pounded the pavement for 20 minutes. When we got to the place it was not as green as we had remembered it. In talking to a lady there we found out that their well had become salty and they could not water the plant anymore. The water situation is currenly precarious so they're landscaping more with rock and dirt. That seems more ecologically sound anyway. The amount of water that was used on lawns in Lipah was frightening. The trees growing up and casting more shade also didn't alow the smaller plants to flourish anymore. That place wasn't bad. Just different. The vibe was good.
We left our bag with shoes and things on the beach. A local guy at Good Karma assured us that noone would mess with it... and if they did he'd track them guy down and tell him what's what. Ok. We leave stuff. The guy also told us a story of how his grandfather, a fisherman, had his boat fall apart at sea during a storm. These fishermen don't know how to swim. Traditionally Balinese don't go in the water. Grandpa was holding onto one of the outliers of the boat thinking he would drown when a set of dolphins came along and pulled him back to sea as well as protecting him from sharks. Amazing stuff. There are countless stories of that sort of thing happening. Grandpa ended his fishing carreer and took an administrative roll in the town.
As soon as we got out into the water a ways there was quite a current drawing us South down the coast and away from Lipah. We surrendered to the current and happily snorkeled down to the next nice bay where we could land. We played in the rock rocks for a while as we warmed up. There were these cool fish that lived in the waves. They would hop onto rocks that has just been splashed by waves and start moving along, presumably sucking scum and nutrients off the wet rock face. You couldn't get too close. They were pretty skittish.
After a while we wandered up to a Bungalow complex on the hill and had some food. Johanna's Green Papaya Soup was the winner. We've been ordering those ever since when we've seen it on a menu. We had some beers, relaxed, and eventually headed back.
The pavement was hot. We couldn't walk back to Good Karma where our shoes were. The side of the road was no good because of prickly plants. Someone could have taken an Ojek and brought things back but instead we decided to brave the current. It was hard going. A real workout. Paddle at a normal speed and only stay in place. You had to really kick it into sustained overdrive in order to get anywhere. In what seemed like an eternity we finally got back to good Karma, recovered our untampered bag, and hoofed it back to Lipah.
I think a beer was in order that night. The owner where we ate lunch was talking about a hike up the next valley where you can go for hours. If I ever come back I, like, totally wanna try that out. Who's up for it?
Monday, August 6 rolls along. Tuesday we leave for Jakarta. We tried to get some quality snorkeling time in to no avail. Nick braved the waters one again but no turtles were attracted to him. Well, there goes that theory. Maybe we need more data points. I spent noontime working on my finishing touches to the photo album that she had made for our dad. It looked awesome, though I didn't quite have enough photos to fill the whole thing. We were thinking maybe we'd send him Bali photos that he can paste in himself. We presented him with the album at dinner. He intently looked through it, and was sure to scrutinize every detail in the next few days while we were in Java. He's got an amazing ability to retain tiny minutae (sp?) and recall them years later.
Before dinner we had some massages and then played some Volleyball with the locals. Nick and I were on a team with a German guy. Johanna was with two local boys. They started out strong, spiking every ball. The net wasn't quite as high as the regulation nets so Nick and I towered over the nets. The spikes quickly turned into an incessant series of blocks. Eventually they changed their strategy and fared a lot better. A soft little bump when two giants go up for the block is lethal to the giants. It would have been fun to get the frisbees but we lived so far away and it was dinner time real soon.
Massage oil and sand all over your body don't go together very well. You really have to work on scrubbing all that sand off. Yech. Next time I won't take off my shirt.
After dinner I ran back our snorkeling things and warm clothes to Mandi and Hilde. There was no need for us to bring that stuff to Java and they'd have a cushy private transport where an extra backpack won't hurt to have along. Walking down the street I was almost jumped by people offering me a place to stay? Did I get kicked out of Tresna Yoga. Is everything OK? You can stay for free if you want. I couldn't explain to everyone. Smile and Nod. Keep Walking. Jalan-Jalan.
(whew... catching up... maybe I'll get some more writing after dinner tonight... gotta get ready for that. It's a Nick, Johanna, Mandi shared birthday dinner,... more on that later)
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