Into the Deep Blue Sea
Bali wasn’t on our original list of stops on the tour, this is one the travel agent talked us into. We did a little more research than usual and bought a Lonely Planet Encounter guide. We’d never seen these little guys and figured we give it a try to see if we liked the abbreviated version. From the book, we picked out the little island of Nusa Lembongan and the mountainous region next to the dormant volcano as our main destinations.
Nusa Lembongan is a short ferry ride away, but still surprisingly packed with people, and it’s low season! The good news for us, finding a place to stay and going diving was as simple as a walk down the beach. After one night at the fancy (expensive) place, we found Scooby Doo. Can’t get away from that cartoon. Anyway, we had air-con and a room without any shared walls for about 1/3 of the cost, all thanks to World Diving. Usually we don’t plug any certain place to stay, eat, or visit, but these people were SO nice. Maybe it’s because our dive instructor was originally from South Dakota, but these lovely English owners really were the best. We had done a few dives in Fiji towards the Advanced Open Water Course, but didn’t complete it. We arranged for the completion of the class all in one day and even got to take their fancy underwater camera with us. That explains the great pictures this time around! We didn’t see any large marine animals, but did see lots more lion fish, clown fish (Nemo), spongy starfish (now a Heather favorite) and schools of fish fitting the currents with pretty great visibility. With that course complete, it means we can legally go deeper, 100 feet as compared to 60 before we took the class. Other than our day of diving, we took it easy and one afternoon walked to the other side of the island and back.
Farming seaweed is a huge deal on Lembongan. We never knew that there are so many steps in harvesting this stuff. Once you land you’ll be dodging tarps full of the stuff all along the beach and any flat area that can be found. The seaweed is dried to change the color from green to pink to white. The white brings in the most money at good times it’s worth 8,000 Rupiahs (90 cents) per kilogram and can go as low as 2,000 Rp. Seaweed is apparently an industrial thickening agent used in a variety of things ranging from cosmetics to ice cream.
Unlike the rest of Indonesia, Bali is almost entirely Hindu. This means finding temples around every corner and stumbling over a multitude of offerings left numerous times throughout the day. The offerings are usually made from palm leaves and filled with flowers and/or rice and sometimes accompanied by an incense stick. We also learned that Galungan, kind of like a new year, starts on the day we leave. This is a Balinese holiday that occurs every 210 days and lasts for ten. On the first day, the gods and ancestors return to earth, they stay for ten days requiring constant entertainment and then leave earth on the tenth day, Kuningan. We did get to observe lots of interesting and elaborate weaving out of both bamboo and palm. Every home requires a penjor, a long bamboo pole at the entrance, which looks extremely time consuming. I’m sure we are missing some details, but we are sad to miss the pig roast.
Other than learning a little about Bali-Hinduism, we also enjoyed many local, tropical dishes. We had the infamous Bintang (beer) at least once everyday, Bali Arak (liquor made from coconut milk), freshly caught fish and lots more fruit juices. We still think Singapore did a better job with the juices. We were also introduced to jaffles. They were on the menu after breakfast dishes, but before snacks/appetizers. They also came with quite the range of fillings, from bananas and honey to egg and tomato. With our curiosity piqued, we order one sweet and one savory, we figured kinda like crepes. To our pleasant surprise we received pie iron sandwiches, like the ones you make in a campfire, complete with burnt edges. For those of you not familiar, think Hot Pockets/panini type thing. They were good, but not a complete breakfast.