Lazy Days in Ubud...

The week following my adventure to the Komodo Islands has been quite relaxing and uneventful, comparatively. Michelle and I made our way back to Ubud last Monday. I don’t really know what I’ve done with my time and a week has already past! It’s amazing how quickly time goes, even when you have nothing in particular to do! Gundula happened to also be back in Ubud, so it has been great to be with her again! The three of us have basically spent the week hanging out and eating our way through Ubud…the food here is amazing…so fresh and healthy!

In addition to eating, Gundula and I took a West Coast Swing class where I volunteered to dance the male role because there weren’t enough men in the class. While dancing, being the male is a lot more challenging than I expected because you actually have to pay attention to what you’re doing and stay on count. I realized that I prefer the female role much better…you can just enjoy the music and get pulled around by the guy!

We took a jewelry making class where I struggled for four hours to make a sterling silver ring. My ring was actually quite difficult to design, cut, hammer, file, weld and polish. After starting over for the third time (thank goodness that silver can be melted and reused!), my teacher paid a lot more attention to me and didn’t let me weld on my own. While using the electric polishing wheel, my ring shot out of my hands and hit the wall no less than 4 times…the teacher promptly took over for me. I’ve got another design that I want to try and make this week, so we’ll see if I show any improvement! Hopefully the teacher will actually let me sign up for the class!

On Saturday, Gundula and I went for a beautiful walk through the rice fields on our way to Suri Organik, a fabulous restaurant that sits above the rice terraces outside of Ubud. The grilled vegetable salad with fresh feta and rambutan (a local fruit) pie was incredible. We spent several hours relaxing on the cushions on the floor, met some nice guys and swatted butterflies, dragonflies and mosquitoes away until dark…it was such a relaxing way to spend an afternoon!

Speaking of mosquitoes, it seems that they have decided to eat no one else but me. Michelle and I shared a room until Friday when she left…each morning she would wake up with no bites and I would have at least 5 new bites. Luckily, my body overreacts to bites of any kind and so I am now covered in red welts. When I cover those welts with the equivalent of calamine lotion, it looks quite fashionable (read: sarcasm). I have been wearing bug spray constantly and it’s obviously attracting them instead of repelling them. I hope it's okay that I am not taking anti-malaria tablets…if I come down with a fever, I suppose I’m in trouble!

Aside from eating, dancing, making jewelry, getting bit by mosquitoes and laying around rice fields, I have done a little bit of sight seeing. I just missed seeing all of the lotus blossoms in bloom at Pura Taman Saraswati, a temple to the north of Ubud. I have taken walks on roads off the map to get a feel for the local’s daily life…the Balinese are such peaceful, happy people. Their smiles are contagious and it makes me happy to just walk around and say hello to them! We’ve listened to great live music every night: reggae, Latin, classic rock covers. I have decided to stay one more week here before I start traveling again. I’ll be volunteering from Thursday-Sunday at the Earth Day Festival they are hosting in Ubud. Ubud is a wonderful place to slow down, relax and enjoy life and I’m doing a really good job at it!

Komodo Dragons!

First, thanks to all of you for your emails and concern related to the recent earthquake. I was far away from Sumatra where the earthquake hit and since I was on a boat when it happened, I didn’t even know it had occurred until late last night when we got back to shore. Please keep the victims and those affected in your thoughts and prayers….

The beginning of the tour ‘Hunting Komodos by Camera’ that I joined Tuesday started off by driving across the island of Lombok. We boarded the boat after a few stops along the way at a pottery village and a ship building village. 17 people in total were on the tour, and I was the only one from the Americas! We all got along really well from the beginning. Our first stop was a very small island where we attempted to add to the coral regrowth program, snorkeled, played beach volleyball and had dinner by a bonfire on the beach. I got a bit torn up diving for the ball because there were bits of coral in the sand! In the past, the Indonesians used blasting as a means of fishing which destroyed and scattered a lot of coral all over the shore. They are making good strides towards redeveloping the reefs though, which is a great thing. Everyone was asked to sing a song by the bonfire, although only 3 of us actually did. I performed with I’m a Little Teapot for my new friends….not to sound too cocky, but I’m really good at that one. ;)

The first full day on the boat we did a hike to the top of a mountain overlooking a saltwater lake, formed by a tidal wave that filled a crater made by a volcano. It was a 30 minute hike, straight up. With sun screen and bug spray covering me from head to toe and the fact that I haven’t had a proper work out in over 2 ½ months, I swear I have never sweat so much in my life! Hence, I was very excited when I finally made it to the top! We stopped that evening at Kilo Beach, where the entire village came out to greet us. The kids were amazing and very eager to practice the little English that they knew. They absolutely loved having their picture taken. The next time I travel to a third world country, I will have a Polaroid camera with me so that I can give them a copy of the picture too! They had a volleyball net and the locals invited us to play against some local girls. I haven’t played a sport in front of that large of a crowd in over a decade…there were easily over 200 people surrounding the court. Everyone was laughing and clapping, regardless of how bad we played…it was quite embarrassing for 3 guys, 2 other girls and I to be beaten by villagers whose average age was 16. Oh well!

The next morning, I was giddy with excitement as we docked at Komodo Island. As we approached, I acknowledged that the dragons are quite smart to have chosen that island to live….Komodo actually looks like a place where dragons belonged…very barren savannah with few forests. In total, we saw 2 adult dragons and 1 baby dragon. I got yelled at no less than twice by our guide which you are required to have in the park for safety reasons. The first time I was yelled at was because I was swinging my water bottle as we were approaching the first dragon. I was excited! The guide immediately scolded me because movement like that indicates to the dragon that I might want to feed it. I did not want to feed it, so I stopped moving my bottle! The second time, I walked behind one, alone, and stopped to take a picture of the dragon from a different angle…I was promptly yelled at to keep moving.

From then on, the guide didn’t leave my side. I was happy for that when he spotted a king cobra AND a green mamba, both deadly poisonous snakes, in the same nearby tree and promptly warned me not to get any closer! The green mamba was just hanging out and the king cobra was slithering through the tree after two mice that we could see trying to hide in the leaves. We all gathered round to watch…I was closest to the green mamba because he didn’t seem interested in moving. Then, all of a sudden, the mamba dropped down to a lower branch just like that. I screamed and jumped back easily 6 feet knocking down a German guy and an English girl along my way. I didn’t know who I had knocked over on my flight backwards because I didn’t look and I didn’t apologize (until later!) because I was traumatized and wouldn’t take my eyes off the snake!! Needless to say, it took quite a while for my blood pressure to return to normal!

After Komodo Island, we cruised to Red Beach where we did some of the best snorkeling I’ve ever done. The reefs were amazing…tons of fish, a lot of which I had never seen before. We spotted a large sepia (in the octopus/squid family), about 2’ by 1’, making its way along the reef. I also stumbled upon a 1 ½’ crocodile fish chilling out near the rocks. It is apparently extremely rare to see that, so I was excited to have spotted something so unique.

The next day, we went to Rinca Island, the second largest of the four islands where you can find Komodos. You’ll be happy to know that I was very well-behaved perhaps due to the slight hangover I had from drinking arak the night before (arak is a local liquor made from palm trees…40-70% proof but it goes great with OJ and Sprite!). The place was crawling with dragons! We spotted 19 dragons in the first half hour…they like to hang around the rangers station cafeteria. They can smell blood up to 2 km away and so always linger where the humans prepare food.

On our 5 km hike through Rinca Island, we saw a water buffalo that had recently been bitten by a dragon. The dragon’s saliva contains at least one bacterium of 60 that is highly septic. For large animals like the buffalo, it can take up to 3 weeks for the animal to die. Then, the dragons devour its cadaver. This buffalo had already been bitten but still wasn’t dead, and a dragon was close by waiting for its final breath. It was a chilling scene to witness. In all, I saw 25 dragons, just slightly over 1% of the dragon population on Komodo (approx. 1,300 dragons) and Rinca (approx. 1,000 dragons). The largest was over 6’ and the smallest just under 3’. It was an awesome experience to see the largest living lizard and closest relative of the dinosaur alive!

As the sun was setting Friday night, we sailed with a massive school of dolphins, easily 30-40 of them… the most I have ever seen at one time. They were in the mood to perform and put on quite a show for us: they swan under and around the boat, jumped, twisted in the air and followed us for at least 5 solid minutes. With a perfect sunset and dolphins swimming all around, it was definitely one of those moments where you’re left feeling that all is right in the world and you can’t stop smiling.

Gili Islands

The ferry ride from Bali to the Gili Islands was beautiful. Along the way, I saw my first blow hole in a rock which was, surprisingly, very cool! I also saw a dolphin fully breach the water. Lastly, I saw a small shark jump about 4 feet out of the water chasing a fish who had also jumped all the way out of the water! Lots of activity here in the Indian Ocean!

The Gili Islands consist of three small islands: Gili Trawangan, Gili Meno and Gili Air. On all three, there are no cars or motorbikes, only bicycles and horse drawn carriages. Interestingly, there are no dogs on any of the islands…only cats with stubs for tails. Most of the activity occurs on Trawangan, the largest of the three islands. Meno and Air are more for honeymooners and couples, so I stayed as far away as possible from those two for obvious reasons. It takes only about 3 hours to walk around the whole island. The water here has certainly been photographed for every island article every printed because it is a perfect turquoise blue. Visibility is amazing…up to 30’ crystal clear in a lot of places. Basically, I’ve never been anywhere more calming or more beautiful. The biggest decisions I have to make each day are what sort of fresh juice to order and which beachfront restaurant to order it from! It’s really tough!

On my first day on Gili Trawangan, I rented a bicycle and cycled around the island once and then half way around again. I stopped along the way for a swim, nap, etc. I ate lunch in a bamboo hut that sits over the water with breathtaking views of Bali and Lombok islands. A funny thing happened, I was napping on the beach and an Indonesian guy, about 23, walked up and sat down right next to me. He asked me where I was from, my age, if I was single, etc. Then he told me he liked my body. I can now check “be approached by a male gigolo” off of my to-do list. I haven’t mentioned yet that he wasn’t wearing ANYTHING but a small t-shirt. Very interesting marketing strategy I must admit! I was prepared for it though…I had been forewarned that the men on the Gili’s try to make extra money by hooking up with the foreign girls.

On Saturday, I biked again around the island but this time rented snorkel gear. It was by far the most awesome snorkeling experience I’ve ever had! I followed two turtles for over 30 minutes each. I watched them move coral to find what they wanted to eat, scratch their stomachs and backs on coral, come up to the surface for air and just swim around in the water. They are such peaceful creatures! Floating in the water, watching the turtles and listening to the midday Muslim call to prayer from the island was one of those moments in life where you think that it just couldn’t possibly get any better. It did a few minutes later when one of the turtles came close enough to me that I could rub the algae off of its back! Amazing!

Sunday I did absolutely nothing. I got to the beach by 11 and read, slept and swam until the sun went down. I love days at the beach like that! They have an outdoor theatre on the island, where everyone lays on mats. I watched It’s Complicated and Dr. Parnassus last night…coolest movie theatre I’ve ever been to because I got to lay on the ground outside and because they served Nutella milkshakes…why haven’t I ever thought of making one of those at home?!

Today I took a glass bottom boat snorkeling around the other two islands. We saw five more turtles today, although the currents were too strong to stay and watch them for any length of time. There were a ton of beautiful parrot and angel fish. The coral isn’t nearly as impressive as the Great Barrier Reef, but the visibility was way better.

I leave paradise early tomorrow morning to start a 6 day cruise to the Komodo Islands. I am so excited to see a Komodo dragon! I will be even more excited if I see it kill something, preferably not me or another human. Along the way, we’ll be stopping at some pretty remote dive/snorkel spots, so I hope to see a lot more turtles and hopefully some reef sharks too! I’ll be sleeping on the deck each night…it was $100 cheaper and I figured it would be way cooler to do some star gazing as I’m falling asleep. If you don’t hear from me in about 7-8 days, you should assume that I got eaten by a dragon.

Hygiene Update: there is no fresh water on the Gili’s unless you pay for a really expensive room. Therefore, I have, since Thursday, been covered in a thin layer of salt. Add sunscreen and bug spray on top of that and you have an idea of how badly I want, and just might need, a real shower. But, as I’ll be boarding a ship for the next 6 days, I’ll definitely not be clean for a total of 11 days. You know you are in paradise when you completely give up on being clean….right?!? On a positive note, I don’t think I’ve ever had a better tan!

Bali - The Beginning

I just finished uploading a lot of pictures from my first 3 weeks in Bali. You'll see a lot of sunset pictures that just don't do the real thing justice! Click on the link below to view them and enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/jamie1209/BaliTheBeginning#