My trip to Indonesia ended with a very short time in Bali. I finished work at the school on Friday morning and caught a 3pm flight to Denpsasar. Unfortunately, it didn’t leave till 5pm, which meant that by the time I got my luggage it was almost dark. By good luck, I was able to connect with Rangga, whose sister works at High/Scope and let me know that he was trying to make it as a tour guide on Bali. He met me at the airport, loaded my heavy suitcase into the back of his minivan, and introduced me to Adi, his brother-in-law, who was coming along to help drive and otherwise be useful.
Rangga took me to a restaurant on the beach nearby. There were several touristy places nearby, with oldies bands and wandering singers, but this place was quiet. The deal was, you decide more or less what you want, and then go up to the front where they have the fresh catch sitting in ice—you point to what you want, they weigh it and throw it on the grill. After dinner, we set off for Amed, which it turns out is almost as far away from Denpasar as you can get. Rangga had never been there. I had been pretty stubborn about picking the place because I wanted to go somewhere with live coral reef for snorkeling. Much of the reef in the areas near the more traveled parts of Bali in the south has been killed off, although there is no a movement to preserve the living reef and promote ecotourism. So because of my stubbornness, we had a 2-hour drive in the dark to the eastern side of the island. Thank goodness for cell phones—Rangga had to stop at critical intersections and call to make sure he took the right turn. The last part of the road is basically switchbacks up and down the mountainside, so it was probably just as well that it was dark. We finally got to the Dancing Dragon Cottages at around 11:30.
Rangga hadn’t realized that he was basically going to be stuck there, it was *way* too far for him to drive home. So he made whatever arrangements for himself and Adi, and came knocking on the door to cottage #3 at 8:30 the next morning, clean clothes magically produced. We went to the restaurant for a quick breakfast before the great snorkel adventure:
Here is Rangga with his morning coffee
I looked across the pool area to see one of the staff sweeping off the front porch of my cottage.
The pool looked very nice, and if I had spent any time at Dancing Dragons I would have tried it out.
From the restaurant patio you could watch the local fishing boats drive by
OK, enough lolling around—on to the underwater experience! The hotel recommended a company called EcoDive, which is evidently owned by some Europeans but staffed with local divers. It didn’t take them very long to convince that for only $10 more than a snorkel trip, they would fit me out with scuba gear and a personal divemaster. So here is what happened:
Check out the gear:
Cram the body into a wetsuit and stagger down to the beach
Have my very personable divemaster orient me in the water:
He says it’s OK:
Off we went!
And this is what it looks like under the water (no, I didn’t take the picture, it was enough to actually breathe under water)
