Eat, Pray, Blog

Oh my gosh!  Was that Julia Roberts?  Ubud is soooooo cool!  All the stars are here.  Or at least a bunch of women carrying around their copy of Eat, Pray, Love following the movie tour around town.  Okay, just kidding, but we did make it back to Bali after some fun and somewhat trying travels to the east.  In roads that are not as well trodden.

So these are some phrases and quick memories from the last week or so:

"Fly is Cheap"  A registered trademark slogan of a real airline that we really flew on.  Oddly enough, it is named Wings Air, for anyone that remembers the sitcom from the early 90's.

"Hello! Taxi?! Transport?!"  I just heard that same quote a few seconds ago.  Taxi drivers are everywhere looking to give people a ride. We hear this about 100 times a day.

"I'll have the Spanish Omelot, please."  Famous last words.  After waiting 2 hours to get everyone (but me) served with a party of 10, I found out that they had forgotten to make my omelot.

"Oh, you on yo honeymoon... Honeymoon price, you bring me good luck..."  Being told that you will bring someone good luck by buying a shirt or a dress is supposed to make you want to buy it more.

Seeing a woman with a goiter that made her look like a singing bullfrog.  Very sad, but fortunately the Indonesian people  seem to have good health overall.  And beautiful teeth that you see in their frequent smiles.


Flushing toilet paper down an airplane toilet!  Yay!  That was a special treat that we no longer take for granted.

Watching our ferry leave port at 5 am from the town of Sape after being stuck there for three days.


Nice segue, eh?  For those following along, we last left you stuck in Sape, the ramshackle backwater town that watched trash blow like tumbleweed, but had townsfolk with hearts of gold.  Anyhow, our ferry finally left with a lot of relieved foot passengers and truckers.  We ended up making it to the town of Labuanbajo on the island of Flores where we joined a posse of international, like-minded travelers.  Our common bond was Sape and, well... Sape.  That was enough to bring anyone closer together.  So we ended up hanging out with a couple from Argentina and Italy and their friend from Spain.  And then we met an Irishman and a German guy and a couple from England.  Then most of posse #1 left, leaving the English couple. We met some other folks to fill the absent posse places.  Posse number two consisted of a couple from The Netherlands and Australia.  Then another guy from Holland (doppleganger to Mike DeWindt - for those that know Mike - or maybe Mike is reading along) and an Englishman, a Swede that spoke Australian/British English.  Somewhere in there we had a couple guys from Britain that were actually from France and Poland, respectively.  Real mushpot!

So we had a lot of fun with posse #1.  We got out of Sape for starters.  Have we mentioned Sape?  We got to the island of Flores and got to see the famous Komodo dragon.  We did some bartering with a boat captain and took the three hour boat trip to the nearby island of Rinca which is part of the Komodo National Park.  I say close by and write three hours, which may sound strange, but is actually true.  When your boat goes about 3 knots, a place that takes three hours to get to can actually be close by.  Anyhow, we saw the dragons, which was pretty cool, but it was somewhat akin to what I imagine people experiencing after a trip to Yosemite in the 1950's or 60's.  Instead of bears being fed from the garbage dump, we saw dragons being fed by the ranger kitchen.  Still it was pretty sweet to see these amazing lizards that are 6 feet long.  It would have been even cooler if we didn't find out that everyone else that we talked to got to see the dragons feeding from a dead water buffalo carcass in a river bed while out on the "nature hike" that the rangers lead.  Apparently our ranger didn't think we would find 13 komodo dragons feeding on their kill in the wild very interesting.  Manneshevitz!
Anyhow, the next day we headed out with our posse and after some more dockside bartering got a nicer and faster boat to two cool snorkel spots not far from Flores.  We saw some nice coral and fish and got to try out our new waterproof camera.  It actually takes some pretty decent pictures.
Oh, then we got to dive!  This is when we transitioned into posse #2.  Our dive trip consisted of 2 dives, to two very different spots.  The first one was on the backside of a very small rock island that went straight down into the ocean.  It was a convergence spot of some different currents, which meant that it was an awesome place to see every imaginable type of coral and fish.  This "meeting spot" could also sweep you away out to sea or down to unchartered depths.  Good thing we hung with our expert guides and divemasters, who made the trip very safe (that's right moms and dads, very, very safe...).  Upon entry we saw what they call around here, "color full of fish".  Then we saw some 5 foot white tipped reef sharks, then we saw a huge green turtle hanging onto the rock wall munching some coral.  It was amazing (Kira's favorite dive spot ever!)!  Of course this was all inbetween all the novices kicking eachother as we tried to get our buoyancy figured out.  Dive two, however was just about the best ever.  We went to Manta Point and guess what?  We saw Manta Rays!  Two of them.  This has been a dream of Kira's since she was a little girl, and it is finally realized.  They were a good 3 plus meters across.  And now we are getting kicked out of this internet cafe so this installment comes to an abrupt end.  We love you all and send our best.