March 30th
Dave picks up up from the airport with a sign to welcome us:
We were immediately accosted by people trying to extort money from us by helping us with our bags. We headed to the hotel, which was a series of small villas around a central garden. There we met Feri, Ryan, and Shinya. They were talking about scuba diving the next day and somehow we ended up joining their plans. We had an early night.
March 31st
Derry rented a motorbike and together with Dave and the new guys we biked to Nusa Dua (see map). There, the guys (two of which are Indonesian) told they shop instructors to cut us a deal since we were with them. In Bali, it's all about connections and bartering. First, we learned to scuba dive. For a girl like me who can't swim, I was obsessed with learning everything:
Can you see my pained expression? Try learning to scuba in broken English. It's like how I'm learning to swim in Japanese. a-w-k-w-a-r-d.There were hand signals to use under water for communication purposes. Since I have sensitive ears, the pressure that builds up from going underwater was intense and I had problems equalizing the water pressure with my ears. The instructor ignored me and kept dragging me down deeper so I burst into tears of frustration. After 10 mins, my ears popped and I was happy.
above: which one is me? The two people who couldn't swim!
However, I soon decided that I would run out of oxygen and panicked by taking bigger breaths of oxygen from my tank. Uh huh.
Next on the agenda for me was parasailing, another first:
Man, aren't you jealous of my professional manner?
April 1st - April 7th
So... the next week was spent relaxing. We went to the world famous beaches (a scene from Dreamland Beach at Uluwatu below) where Derry and Dave surfed (such manly men), and I worked on my tan and got a henna tattoo.
Getting around Bali is mad. There is no regard to traffic or laws of any kind. Here is a small tidbit: We met up in the evening with Ciaran and Eric again, along with their friend Shawn also from Shikoku. Balinese food is delicious!
To add a bit of culture, I told Derry and Dave that we had to dress up one night, but twith the humid weather, only I ended up being comfortable enough to look good in public. The boy look more like my bodyguards. We ate at Pizza Hut, which >SURPRISE<>
I also convinced the guys how much fun visiting one of the major pilgrimage sites on Bali island, specifically Tanah Lot. Over 90% of Balinese people practice Hinduism, so I really wanted to see the famous temple that is floating in the sea.
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