Day 11: Diving and Motorbikes in Bali

Day 11
Our dive package included an additional two shore dives on the last day. Our trusty dive master Putu helped us get set up and we went back to dive the huge wreck a second time. We had the dive camera in hand this time and caught a shot of the ladies carrying our tanks and bcs on their heads.

The dive was more crowded because we had a lazier start to our day. We saw an array of angelfish, butterfly fish, boxfish, damselfish and pufferfish. We also saw another turtle and a few cute little crabs in the anemones. We also saw what looked like a patch of sparse seaweed waving in the current.... but was actually two dozen thin black eels trying to catch fish. I don't think I've ever seen as many eels on another dive trip as we did in Bali.

For our second dive we went with Putu off the front of the hotel where we'd dove the night before. The hotel so was so close to the ocean that at high tide the waves splashed up the steps of the dive shop. Right as we got in the water we saw a huge school of jackfish, maybe 100 fish or more. Putu got a video of Amelia and I swimming in the middle of them. We hadn't seen the night before, but there was an underwater statue garden made by the hotel. There was an eerie magic to it, because Putu had left this part of the explanation of the dive plan a surprise (or an ESL gap in understanding). The garden had typical Balinese Hindu figures and temple designs. They were all partially covered in coral and anemones. A huge anemone was even sitting in the lap of a seated figure like a lotus flower. There were also fake "cages" that some fish were chilling in. We saw the biggest eel we had seen and two sea horses! Amelia had to pantomime sea horses to me with some creative charades but eventually I understood.

The day before Putu had suggested we check out another town in Bali, Amed. We had gone to the front desk and asked how we could get there and she said it cost money so we said we'd think about it. We went back the day to ask how much it would cost and she said more than 40 American dollars. We said we would think about it again. After talking with Putu and him telling us to be ready to go at 4pm, the next thing the girl at the front desk saw was Amelia and I leaving on the backs of motorbikes driven by Putu and his friend, Sablang.

It was my first time on a motorbike and I had a good idea of the dangers and what rules to follow to avoid them. Having eschewed the ultimate rule, always wear a helmet, and been a little lax with the penultimate rule, don't ride with strangers I was sure to at least follow the third most important rule- don't touch the exhaust pipe. Unlike Rachel, my mom and my cousin Lily, Amelia and I at the very least ended the night with no burns. We also sent an email to Amelia's friends Carmel and Rachel with the info of where we were going and who we were going with. 

Although we were nervous and saw this as a bit of an adventure, we knew we were safe with Putu. After all, if you can trust a guy to take you down 90ft in the ocean, can't trust him to take you a few or 15 miles down the road? Putu's friend Sablang was a 30 something  year old tattoo artist who had done Putu's tattoos and was dressed like he thought this was a date in a white button down and fedora. Putu motioned for me to hop on the back of his bike and for Amelia to ride with Sablang. Then we sped off back through the hilly road with jungle on either side that we had taken from the airport before turning off on a smaller road.

After about 20 or 30 minutes, we arrived at our first stop- a scenic overlook of Amed to watch the sunset. The view was gorgeous, clearly a popular spot for both tourists and locals. Some of Putu and Sablang's friends also showed up later: Kommang, a hippie with long curly orange and black hair, another dive master named Bene who spoke the best English with an Australian accent, and Ali who liked to joke around and throw out cheesy but tasteful pick up lines. We took some pictures and hung out while the Balinese guys chained smoked more cigarettes than the cast of Mad Men. We learned that Balinese and Indonesian are different languages. On listening closer I could hear that they spoke Balinese with most people who came to the hill and Indonesian with only a few others.

After the sunset we went to dinner at an authentic "warung", the Balinese word for a small restaurant. I had cap cuy, a vegetable soup, and Amelia had "nasi capur" which was something with chicken, tofu and eggs. Props to Amelia again for not freaking out about the half centimeter dead beetle in her food. (Although if karma is real why was there a 2 inch cockroach in her bed later?) I know the restaurant was authentic because they only had a squat toilet (tmi?).

Putu and Sablang told us about life in the villages. Most people live with their families and are Hindu although there are also Buddhists, Muslims and some Christians on the island. The black and white plaid we had seen on statues represents the criss crossing of good (white) and bad (black) karma. According to Putu, the crime rate is very low on the island because regardless of what religion, most people believe strongly in karma. He also told us about life as a dive master: the diving gets boring after a while (aww) and he's met many different types of divers like the Malaysians who always insist on starting ever day at 5am, the Japanese who look professional with their huge cameras but consistently have horrible buoyancy control and the divers who want to cut their surface intervals short which is safe for a casual diver but dangerous for someone who dives everyday like Putu.

After dinner we went to go hear live music at a bar further south. We stopped along the way for Sablang to get petrol which is sold in recycled glass liquor bottles from booths on the side of the road (we saw this in Cambodia too but I had no idea what it was). We arrived at the bar to catch the end of a Balinese reggae rendition of Adele's Someone like You, ... "Sometime it last in love, sometime it gone instead". We drank a couple of beers and watched the band. Most songs were reggae versions of American pop songs and a few popular Indonesian and Balinese songs which had good rhythm and were fun to dance to. Ali, the jokester from before, was on the djimbe. Amelia and I both took turns dancing with Sablang in an overly explicitly platonic way. Bene from before also showed up and we met some more of their friends, including some (cute) guys who worked at Sablang's tattoo shop. Most people in the bar were Balinese but there were also some white people, maybe people who had gotten caught up in the natural beauty and friendliness of Bali and never left (apparently, it happens enough) or just tourists like us. Sablang made us oragami from the napkins- both orgami and yoga have been practiced on Bali for a time.

Also we learned Putu is in a metal band which for some reason is kind of adorable, probably because he weighs as much as a golden retriever and is about as fierce.

At 11 we hopped back on the motorbikes to go back to the hotel. In the absence of too much light pollution, the stars looked beautiful. We passed the hill where we had watched the sunset, the mountains contrasted against the starry sky and the hotels spotted sparsely along the hillside with yellow lights. It would have been nice to stop and look out at the view, but we didn't want to give the wrong impression to Sablang who seemed a little over eager. Riding the motorbikes was more exciting (ok and terrifying) at night because we went much faster without traffic and it was dark. Amelia and Sablang were singing songs and Putu and I remained quiet, with me holding on tightly and watching the scenery with Putu every so often asking the occasional dive master's calm "You're ok? Ok." Overall it was an adventure and fun experience. Today we're arriving in Thailand and I will get to have my first taste of real Thai food.

Today (Day 12) has been a travel day so not much to report except Amelia's farts have been particularly rank and these planes are small... Someone turned around in front of us after the last one.

- Ilana with help from Amelia

Addendum: the bar was called Wawa Wewei which is like "blah blah blah" in....probably Balinese but maybe Indonesian.