Bali tours above and below sea level

We left Ubud for Lovina, a beach town on the north coast of Bali. We hired a driver to take us to a few awesome temples, waterfalls, rice paddys, botanic gardens and more along the way. Gorgeous! It was only $10 more than the shuttle bus, and we saw things we never could have seen without him. SO MUCH FUN!



Upon arrival in Lovina, we signed up for 2 days of diving. The following morning we were picked up and driven 2 hours west to hop on a boat to Menjagan Island- world class reef walls and incredibly abundant sea life made for 2 awesome dives. Unfortunately, our personal guide did not really care about kicking/breaking coral,and poking sleeping fish with his long metal stick. Not cool. Thank goodness my mouth was occupied with my regulator or I would have had some words. We spent the evening with a few drinks and some delicious dinner before heading off to bed.



The next day, we dove the most famous dive in Bali- the U.S.S. Liberty wreck off the coast of Tulamben- two hours west this time. We arrived into a very chaotic situation- I have never seen so many freaking divers in one place. The lot was filled with dive vans, and the beach was swarming with wetsuit clad Westerners. We were not pleased, but suited up anyway and happily trotted into the water. The dive was great- the ship is nice and long (120 meters) and provided many penetration points, which was a first for us!! There is something nerve wracking about entering a broken down ship's cargo hold and corridors whilst being surrounded by all the bits and pieces that have collapsed and broken off during the years. We made it through without any problems,and it was phenomenal. The crowds made no real difference underwater, and when we did see others, they usually passed quickly in a cloud of bubbles.

After the wreck, we drove back to Lovina, napping the whole way. We wandered around a bit, then decided on having some beers at the local bar, Zurich. Cheapest beers in town! Still not so cheap, Bali is surprisingly tough on the budget. I digress... we settled in with a few large chilled BinTang and were joined shortly thereafter by a local guy, Agus. with whom we struck up a great conversation. We ended up spending the whole evening with him, telling him about the life we left behind, and he told us all about being a Balinese twenty-something working in a dive shop. It's amazing how differently we have lived our lives, but in the end its all circumstantial, and we want the same things and have the same dreams. It was so much fun talking to him, and I particularly enjoyed watching him kick Oli's butt in pool! For better or for worse, probably for worse, we also were the cause of his first encounter with pizza, and he seemed to enjoy it. We ducked out around 10 to get some sleep, as we had a shuttle bus the next morning to return to Ubud.

Agus brought us some gorgeous mangoes and papayas from his backyard- so so delicious, and how sweet of him!! The shuttle bus arrived early, and as it turned out we were the only two people so we were transported by SUV. We made it to Ubud in record time (barely over 2 hours!!) and found a cheap-as-chips guesthouse that looks like a royal palace. Sweet! We headed into town and had a much overdue sushi lunch, did a bit of wandering, and somehow found ourselves undressed and splayed out on two tables, receiving the most luxurious massages one can buy for 90min/$7. Life in Bali is tough, I tell you. We had dinner at a local health food/SoCal eatery. Delish but so not what you want to eat in Bali.

Yesterday we did a bit of the same thing. Woke up early... lounged... read a book... Lunch in the pouring rain, and somehow splayed out again on those two tables- cheap massages are addictive. Mellow afternoon, beers beside a lush green rice paddy while having an impromptu SNWMF meeting (we are super excited to come back and work for a few weeks! seriously!) and then some awesome dinner. We were hanging out on the veranda of our palace when a guy came by asking for a lighter- we ended up speaking to him for a few hours about Chile (where he is from), India (where he is headed), and lots more in-between. One popular topic is CouchSurfing- something we planned on doing for ages but have been too chicken to go through with. Its a huge network of travelers who offer up their couches free-of-charge to people who are coming to their towns or cities. We have heard nothing but fabulous things from other travelers about this new age way of traveling, and are determined to do it soon!

Today we took a temple tour, checking out the Elephant caves and the Stone temple (whilst wearing local garb supplied by our driver - a requirement to enter!) an amazing coffee and spice plantation where I found my new love, Ginsing Coffee, tried something that I swore I would never try (animal poo coffee) and we bought 5 grams of saffron for less than $10. The animal poo coffee was actually not bad - basically, this weird fox/rat/varmint type animal eats the beans out of the coffee tree, and during the digestive process ferments the beans, poops them out, then the poo is collected, rinsed, roasted, ground, and put into your cup for $3 a serving! It's a steal, actually, considering how freaking expensive it is elsewhere, and is thought to be the most delicious coffee in the world. We tried it, it was nice, but the whole idea kinda turned my stomach!



We just returned from the tour, and plan on a lazy evening before our crazy travels ahead. Tomorrow we fly Denpasar(Bali) to Jakarta to Singapore. We sleep in the airport overnight, then fly Singapore to Kota Kinbalu (Borneo) to travel to the east coast and start our jungle tour a few days later. Many amazing pictures to be had there, I'm sure!

Love to all, we will keep you posted!

PS- gonna make it to LA after all! One night, one night only- June 12, save the date.

And it's about time too....

We sadly left the Gili's this morning and arrived on Bali, welcomed with torrential rain, just a few hours later.

We are in Ubud now, passing the time in the 1st remotely functional internet cafe that we have found in a while! So we thought we'd finally get some pictures up!

Therefore, we present, the very late, but much awaited, photos from our last week in India on the Andaman Is.



Also, we have our Indonesian photos up to today. Starting at The Hyatt and progressing to Gili Trawagan and then to Gili Meno. Prepare for lots of sunset shots....



We leave Ubud tomorrow for Lovina for some more diving and general hanging out. We now have our flight booked to connect us to Jakarta before Singapore and then Borneo - exciting times ahead.

More to come later.

Under da sea..

We have been enjoying Gili Meno wholeheartedly.. it's like having our own private beach! We are staying in great little beachside cabanas at Amber House, enjoying local food and gorgeous sunsets at night, and diving with the wonderful crew at Blue Marlin daily. Sharks, baby sharks, eels, reys, puffer fish, sea lion face fish, pygmy sea horses, turtles, and many many more awesome sea dwellers are now our close personal friends. I can't help but hum little mermaid tunes as we float amongst the magical coral. The full moon was unreal here, lighting up the crystal clear ocean, making it possible for an unforgettable midnight swim. This is just amazing!

Last night we sat at a little cafe on the beach, enjoying a sudden dounpour and huge flashes of lightening as Oli dug into (and consequently choked on) a huge ass barricuda and I enjoyed some tasty chicken satay. This is the life. Thank goodness we have flights booked outta Indonesia or we might stay here for life and become professional divers/beach bums.

Alas, we must leave tomorrow, as we have 1 week to get our lazy butts to Jakarta to fly to Malaysia, and Jakarta is not close by any means! We have a few more dives to do off the coast of Bali along the way from a little town of Lovina, and we are gonna see some terraced rice paddies in Ubud. We opted for the pricier fast boat to get outta here, as no one would ever repeat the hellish public transportation journey that it took to get here.

What the heck am I doing on the net? I've got more fish to see!

26k in 24h. Sweet meat.

The Bali Hyatt was more luxury than we could handle, so we decided to check out after 72 hours of pure bliss (topped off by a massage at the spa, happy Christmas me!!! thanks oli.)and headed down the road for more budget accommodating accommodations. We booked a bus to the ferry terminal for the following day, hoping to arrive in the Gillis by evening. Well, that didn't exactly work out, and we booked passage through a shady ass company that promised the journey would take 5 hours total. The first ferry took that long, and we found ourselves with 3 other travelers on a broken down bus. It took 2 hours to hop along the road until they dropped us off in Sengigi for the night. Awesome. They wouldn't even drop us at our hotel! We went out to eat with Brooke, Jeff and Joao at a local place and passed the evening relaxing on our unexpected stopover. We were picked up a bit late, grabbed 3 more tourists along the way, and barely made the 10(actually 11) ferry. They refused to send us to Gilli Meno, where we wanted to stay, and ended up on the party island, Gilli Trawagan. We still have had a blast here, staying and diving with Blue Marlin, eating fantastic food, enjoying the sun. So nice! Evening beers at one of the many many bars, dodging local workers in the bar who want to sell us copious amounts of Magic Mushrooms, which they promise will send us to either the moon or heaven. Still, we passed. The diving has been great, at shark point we saw lots of sharks, turtles, eels, and on other dives have seen great rays and some huge fish. The current is a bit heavy at times, but its still amazing. Today we are off to Gilli Meno on the island hopper. We promise to update a bit more often in future, but the net here (not to mention the keyboards!) leave a bit to be desired. Pix to follow once we reach the shore. Love and kisses.

Divealicious.

As we left off.....

We hopped our flight to The Andamans and arrived in Port Blair to the island life..... we had to walk across the runway to the arrivals terminal! After which we got on the ferry to take us to Havelock. We arrived on Havelock and at Island Vinnie's to our little hut and Dive India. We arranged to start our Advanced Diving course the following day.

We were up far too early but excited and ready to dive again after not doing so for the last 5 months since Honduras. The network of islands that is the Andamans is extensive, with the best dive sites scattered between them. This meant that we had a looooooooong boat ride. We spent the 1hr45m getting to know our fellow divers, and fortunately, this time, we were blessed with some good ones! Kate and Alec, a married young couple from NYC are traveling for 4mths, specifically for diving, and both had a decent number of dives (in fact Alec has been doing it for 20+ years with +500 dives!). We got along straight away. Also, Rahul, an Indian who is doing his doctorate in Marine Biology and lived in New Zealand, was our other underwater companion. We were glad with our group and still very excited to dive.

We spent the 1st 2 days getting our certification, including a wreck dive, fish ID, deep dive, underwater navigation and a night dive. These were extremely fun and were made all the better by the world class surroundings that we had. The diving was amazing! Our last 2 days were fun dives, 2 a day. The 1st day was sketchy, with very strong currents, but the 2nd, and last, day was amazing. We left on an amazing note! (note from jen- the night dive was a bit scary, as i somehow ate part of my regulator and had to use my alternate. the wreck dive was cool, but we didnt get to penetrate. overall, we swam with 4 octopi, a grey reef tip shark, some crocodile fish, and tons more amazing fish. so much fun).

We had a great time there, both diving and hanging out with Alec and Kate, we were definitely sad to leave, but knew that we would be back and that we were off to SE Asia for even more amazing diving. We left saddened but ready for the next leg!

After having to waste 36 hot, sweaty and dirty hours in Chennai, we boarded our flight to Singapore. We arrived there for the 1st of many stop overs, extremely weary and not that excited about 10 hour is the "Budget Terminal"! However, it turned out to be OK and we made it to Jakarta safely, if in need for a shower! When we arrived we were determined to make it straight to Bali, with 45 mins till the flight departed, we left the terminal we arrived in and made it to the desk just in with just 10 mins to spare!

On arrival in Bali we headed for our hotel and then out to eat, it was late though and our choice limited. We stopped in for a beer and western food at a guide book recommendation. It was here, observing the crowds and wandering tourists, that we realised we were not in our element. It was perfect for young travelers, spring breakers and general partiers (Frat boy central!). Which is fine by us, but we were not in the position to meet anyone and ready to simply relax.

The following morning we went to the internet cafe and cashed in some travel miles.... 2 nights at The Bali Hyatt! Unbelievable! Luxury that we desperately need and are appreciating on another level after India! This is or 2nd and supposed to be our last night but we are going to use the remaining miles to stay another as it is just so good!

With that note, a clean body and mind, I sign off with the anticipation of more luxury and even some diving tomorrow!

Love to all!!

p.s. We also received some bad news today, the US government has requested our presence for an interview on the 13th of May to finalise green card proceedings. We are hoping to get the date changed as 2 $1200 flights would not do our budget any good. Please keep your fingers crossed for us as we need all the help we can get!! Have we not proved ourselves a legitimate couple yet? Conquering India together should be proof enough of our stability. Anyone want to send the USCIS a link to the blog!?

Happy and sweat-free.

We are alive and well! After a week of glorious diving and relaxation on the Andaman Islands, (more on that later), we were in Chennai for 36 hours of hellish dust and chaos before departing last night to Singapore, where we have been in glorious air conditioning in an awesome airport for the past 12 hours. We have gotten much of the filth off of us, eaten too much western fast food (BEEF?!!?) and napped on abnormally uncomfortable lobby chairs. We are about to depart for Jakarta, where we hope to then book an immediate flight to Denpasar, on the island of Bali. We are excited for the change of pace, and the new horizons of food that await us! We will give a much more thorough account of our times above and below the Andaman sea shortly (well, that depends on Oli's promptness of blogging) but for now we are off to our flight! Love to all.

Ps- where are the comments people? We left the internets for a little more than a week and it seems that you have all disappeared. Have we been forgotten?! Say hello please.