Saturday June 11-travel home

Saturday June 11

The longest day ever! We left Hong Kong at 13:00 and landed in Los Angeles a little after 10:00! We were home in Pasco by 8:30. Neither of us slept on the long leg; but I kept occupied watching movies and TV shows. What a huge difference traveling in business class made. Sooooo much better! We had a tight connection in SLC and left LAX late, but we made it fine.

Hong Kong Final Impressions

What an amazing city! Jim especially enjoyed it more than he thought. Lots of green everywhere, and very hilly. Extremely well organized and easy to get from point A to point B. Two full days of exporing was about right. I'm glad we didn't spend any more; besides it was just too hot.

Favorite thing: Probably The Peak. The tram was fun and the views were just amazing. But just riding around on that open top bus gawking was a lot of fun too. Oh I wish I'd had the camera on the night tour!

Least favorite thing: The heat and humidity. I knew going in that summer wasn't the best time to visit Hong Kong, and we were really lucky not to have any rain until the day we left. But the heat and humidity were just crushing.

What an amazing trip. I can't believe how lucky we were in the weather, and in the fact that neither of us got sick along the way! I just loved Bali; what a beautiful island and I hope we'll make it to Ubud someday. Wakatobi was well worth traveling all that way; they have things organized so well there; we were really looked after. It is truly a very special place. And Hong Kong was the icing on the cake. We had a blast there.

It was an incredible experience for both of us and we are blessed to have memories that will last the rest of our lives.

Wednesday June 8 through Saturday June 11-Hong Kong

Wednesday June 8

We woke up early again, and Jim went for a run along the ocean path. We had breakfast at the Suites lounge and spent a couple of hours at the pool relaxing. Everyone here calls us by name; even people we've never met before. That's service! Before we knew it, it was time to go. We got checked out in our suite this time, and had the same driver as yesterday. Sad to be leaving :( We got checked in at the Bali airport without any problems (security was much more lax; I didn't even remove my laptop from my backpack).

We were able to wait in the airport lounge, which wasn't the nicest we've ever been in, but it did have very cold beer!! Then we were back on the upper deck of our 747 for the flight to Hong Kong. The flight crew were amazing on this leg. Very personal service. We both got called by name all flight. Immigration and customs at Hong Kong airport was a breeze. It's a beautiful, modern airport. We took a taxi to the Conrad Hong Kong. A spectacular drive; since it was about 9:30 PM by the time we left the airport, Hong Kong at night is something else!

Our fabulous luck with rooms continued as we were upgraded to the executive floor with an amazing harbor view. Huge windows with a full-on view of Kowloon. This is a very elegant, luxurious hotel.

Thursday June 9

Well, we took Hong Kong by storm today! We woke up early and had breakfast in the lounge (which has a spectacular view of Kowloon). Then we walked down to the Star Ferry pier and rode the ferry over to Kowloon. It is very hot and humid here right now. We got signed up to ride the Duk Ling junk later today and got our tickets for the Big Bus tour. So we rode the ferry back to Hong Kong Island and got on the open top bus to ride their tour down to Aberdeen and Stanley.

Once we got out of the “city” part of Hong Kong Island, it's actually very green and beautiful. Our first stop was aberdeen, where we had a ride on a sampan around the harbor there. That was pretty neat, and longer than I thought it would be. A lot of people live permanently in the harbor on their fishing boats, and there were a LOT of boats packed in there.

After the sampan ride, we wasted something like 1 ½ hours trying to figure out how to get to the Jumbo Kingdom floating restaurant ferry dock. We went by the restaurant on the sampan tour and saw the dock, but we couldn't get to it. Finally after asking someone who spoke marginal English, we figured it out.

It's definitely a tourist trap, but very colorful and memorable. The service was rather aloof though. We had no idea how to order, and they weren't very helpful. We finally ended up ordering several dim sum dishes plus two others, and then that ended up being too much. Oh well. I thought the food was pretty good, but I liked it better than Jim did.

We made it back to the bus stop in time to catch the bus which continued on to Repulse Bay and then to Stanley. This is a really beautiful part of Hong Kong. Several very nice beaches, with lovely views of the outlying islands. Stanley Market is one of the most famous markets in Hong Kong, but we didn't have time to explore it because we wasted so much time trying to get to Jumbo Kingdom. In retrospect, we should have had lunch here instead. There were a bunch of seafood restaurants here with gorgeous views. Lessons learned. . . . .

We rode the bus straight back to Central and got off at a stop near the Conrad. We had some time to relax a little, shower and cool off. We were both drenched by the time we got back. We had to go back down to the ferry piers to catch the Duk Ling junk for a 5PM sail. This time we took the MTR (subway), thinking that would be more direct. It was easy to get to the correct station and find the right exit out of the MTR, but Hong Kong has huge numbers of elevated walkways to keep people off street level and we got on the wrong one and headed the wrong direction. We were able to figure it out though and made it in plenty of time.

The Duk Ling is a restored Chinese junk that does harbor sails twice a week. You have to be a tourist in order to ride on it (we had to show our passports when we signed up in Kowloon this morning). It's a lovely boat though. And the weather was beautiful. Sunny, and a little less humid on the water. The bad thing was that the camera battery died half way through the sail! I was not happy. The sail lasted an hour and let us off in Kowloon at 1800. We walked down the Avenue of Stars and saw the statue of Bruce Lee, then had cool drinks at Starbucks, before we cought the night tour. Wow, this was fantastic. Kowloon at night is something else. I was just crushed that I couldn't take pictures. Being on the open top of the bus made it even better, because you had such an unobstructed view. It got over at 8PM in time to watch the Symphony of Lights, which is a light and laser show choreographed to music. The lights and lasers on the buildings of both Hong Kong Island and Kowloon flash and change. It's pretty unique.

We then walked back up to the Star Ferry pier and had dinner at Peking Garden at Star House. This was a fun place. Very busy and very loud. Seemed a good mix of locals and tourists there. Service was similar to lunch, kind of cool and professional. We're wondering if it's a cultural thing. We ordered the beggar's chicken, which is a stuffed chicken wrapped in lotus leaves that is then encased inside clay and slow cooked over many hours. It was very good and extremely tender. We ordered a vegetable dish to go along with it, but they didn't bring it out until we were done with the chicken. Kind of weird.

Then we took the ferry back to Hong Kong Island and walked back to the Conrad. It's kind of a maze to walk anywhere here, because the walkways are elevated and you have to go through buildings and shopping malls to get anywhere. It's definitely an adventure! But we made it back just fine and fell into an exhausted sleep!

Friday June 10

Woke up this morning feeling tired and sluggish. Yesterday was pretty active :)

We walked over to The Peak Tram, a ticket was included in our bus tour package. We got there about 9AM, but the guy in the booth told us we had to get an actual Peak ticket from the Big Bus tour guide who wouldn't be there until 10. So we killed some time walking through the aviary at Hong Kong Park. Unfortunately, the guy from Big Bus didn't show up until almost 10:20 and I was pretty hot, tired, sweaty, and cranky by then. But we got our tickets, and the view from the top of The Peak was worth it.

The tram is a funincular railway that goes up on a VERY steep angle in places. When you actually get to the top of The Peak, you still have to go up about 10 escalators to get to the actual viewing platform (which costs extra). Our fabulous luck with the weather is still holding; today was very nice with amazing views. Hong Kong looks pretty great from up here. We got a picture of the two of us that looks like it came out pretty well.

We were both starving by 11AM (I wasn't very hungry at breakfast), so we had lunch at the Peak at Bubba Gumps. It really hit the spot. Then we rode the tram back down, and got on the bus to continue the Hong Kong Island tour. We never got off the bus again though, we just rode on the upper deck enjoying it. I think we were both pretty pooped by this time.

We got back to the Conrad mid-afternoon and had time for a little nap, before getting dressed up for dinner. We went up to the lounge for some wine at 5PM and to enjoy the views. Hong Kong at night is stunning from up there!

I had made reservations at Hutong for our final dinner. This is a Chinese restaurant in Kowloon with great harbor views. We took a taxi there, which was pretty funny. At first, the driver just talked on his cell phone for the first ¾ of the ride. Then he put the Beatles on his radio, and proceeded to sing along in broken English at the tops of his lungs. Good times. Hutong did not live up to my expectations though. Unfortunately, I think this was the most disappointing dinner we had the whole trip. The views were amazing, and we had a good time, but the food wasn't that great. We ordered their signature dish, crispy deboned lamb ribs, which was really greasy and tough to chew. I found it disgusting. The other dishes we ordered were better, but not nearly as good as I was expecting. We took the MTR back, which was VERY quick and easy. It figures, we get it all figured out right as we're leaving.

Tuesday June 7 through Wednesday June 8-Bali

Tuesday June 7

Bittersweet morning. We checked out pretty uneventfully and had to be out of our bungalow by 9AM. We took some final resort shots and then hung out in the longhouse until it was time to leave at 10AM. We took a dive boat back to Tomia Island, but this time the tide was too low to take the big boat all the way in, so we had to take taxi boats the last little bit.

There was a horde of children to greet us at the pier. They were very exited; greeting the guests must be the highlight of their week. Wakatobi built a nice building to wait for the plane to arrive. They had a cooler with soft drinks and water in an air-conditioned room. Then it was another stunning flight back to Bali. This time we got to see a volcano on Lombok that had a lake in its crater. Just gorgeous. Our baggage arrived and the same Wakatobi rep who was at the Bali airport the first day greeted us again and made sure the driver from the Conrad was there.

This time we were taken directly to the Conrad Suites entrance and checked into our suite. We had dinner at the restaurant right on the beach and both ordered steaks, which were very, very good.

Tuesday May 31 through Tuesday June 7-Wakatobi

Tuesday May 31

We arranged with the Conrad for a car to the airport. It was definitely better quality than the Mimpi cars :) Everything worked like clockwork. There was a lady from Wakatobi waiting outside the terminal with a porter. He took our bags on a cart and we followed him inside where there was another Wakatobi man who gave us boarding passes and Wakatobi luggage tags. Then another man escorted us through security to wait in the lounge. Not the best airport lounge we'd ever been in, but definitely beat the main terminal! We waited there about an hour and then boarded the plane. This was a good sized turbo prop. The flight lasted 2 and ½ hours and the last 45 mins or so was over really spectacular scenery—atolls and georgeous turquoise water.

Then we touched down on the Wakatobi landing strip (hard and fast I might add). Wakatobi staff were waiting for us so we all piled into a series of vans and drove through a village. One of the main dive boats was tied up at the dock, and we had to descend down a long, steep stairway (we felt really sorry for the poor guys who had to bring all our dive gear bags!

Then it was about 10 minutes on the boat to Wakatobi which is on another island from the airstrip. They served us a nice cold drink en route. It just so happened that the dive staff member, Ana, that was in our minivan was also the one who showed us our bungalow.

It's really beautiful. It was just recently remodeled from a standard beach bungalow to the select bungalow, so it looks brand new! It's got a huge covered front porch, and a fabulous enclosed outdoor shower that is huge.

Then we went for lunch which was really, really good. It is served buffet style but it's gourmet food. Very good. After we checked into the dive shop and got the orientation, we had the chance to do a check out dive. Ana explained that the purpose of this dive is to give people who haven't dove in a while a chance to check out their gear, and get comfortable with skills. She said we didn't have to do it since we've been diving for a week already. So we decided to skip it, and settle into our bungalow instead.

Dinner was great too, I feel a trend coming on here! :) We are both very excited to dive tomorrow. Should be great!

Wednesday June 1

Three fantastic dives today. Most dives here are wall dives. We saw a crocodile fish on two of the three dives. What a weird looking critter.

Thursday June 2

Three more great dives. The third dive had the most amazing schooling fish display I've ever seen. They were everywhere; so many different kinds of fish! The biggest schools were red tooth triggerfish, pyramid butterflyfish, and yellow damselfish, also bluestreak fusiliers.

Friday June 3

Today was the “signature” Wakatobi day. The first two AM dives were two of their best spots. The Zoo: which doesn't have the incredible corals they have elsewhere, but does have tons of fish.

The second dive was Roma, which stands as the best reef dive I've ever done. Wall, flat reef, and TONS of fish. Was just gorgeous. There was a pretty incredible growth of cabbage coral at about 65 feet, that looked like roses.

We didn't do an afternoon dive because this was our night dive night. We went to the same place as the third dive on June 2. We saw two scorpionfish and one crocodile fish. Also the lionfish came out to hunt which was pretty neat to see. A big black one was obviously using our lights to hunt. He followed us around for the last half of the dive and did eventually catch a fish. It was a little unnerving having something follow you out in the dark that was poisonous. We kept a pretty close eye on him. All together a great night dive.

Saturday June 4

Slept great last night! In fact I've slept well every night here. All this diving makes you TIRED. Our first two dives today were wall dives. Incredibly gorgeous and lush walls. The first dive had no current so it was very relaxing. The second site had a pretty strong current to start, but it lessened as the wall went on. The second site was “fisher”. Lots of fish around all the time.

Sunday June 5 through Monday June 6

I'm combining entries because there is a repetitive element here. We get up at about 6AM, have coffee on our front porch, go eat breakfast at 6:45 be on the dive boat by 7:15 or so, dive two terrific and amazing dives, clean up a little to eat lunch at 12:30, then go out on the boat for another amazing dive at 2:30. Then we shower, and hit the jetty bar for some Bintangs or something more exotic (we also tried a Jetty 2005 their special drink which was very nice). We watch the sunset, then go back and change to eat dinner at 7PM. Then we're usually totally exhausted, crash, and sleep to do it all again the next day!

One evening we spent at the jetty bar with Ana, our divemaster. That was fun getting to know her better. Her husband Miguel is the dive center manager here. She spent a lot of years in Playa del Carmen and Cozumel, so we spent a lot of time discussing cenotes.

One evening after dinner, Ana brought us a specially designed cake to celebrate my 150^th dive (which happened in Bali), and Jim's birthday (which also happened in Bali). I wish I could have taken a picture of it. It was almost too pretty to eat (note I said almost!) One of the waiters told us their pastry chef was specially trained in Japan. It was an awesome cake, decorated to look like a reefscape with two fish leaping. A very special touch.

We had a nice conversation with one of the divers here by himself last night at the jetty bar. He is very well travelled, and was telling us about various places we were interested in, such as Fiji.

We were starting to pack this afternoon, and discovered our safe had accidentally locked (we never set the combo). It took about 4 different guys to get the right key to open it. But we got everything out, so that's good.

Our two final dives today were very good also. The first was a steep wall, the current wasn't too bad. We saw an octopus, and two pygmy seahorses, that were big enough that with the magnifying glass, you could actually tell that they were seahorses! We also finally saw a ghost pipefish!!!

The second dive we saw a spotted eagle ray and two turtles, but I'm very glad this was my final dive at Wakatobi and not my first. Very weird currents on this dive. We started out with the current, then got blown up the wall, calm, blown down the wall, then went into the current more and more. So we finally turned around, and by that time the current had completely reversed, and we just rode it back to the boat. The area near the boat was calm so we spent a lot of time looking around there. Saw a huge lionfish there.

In the late afternoon we toured the Pelagian, Wakatobi's liveaboard. We took one of the dive boats over to where it is moored, near the island with the airstrip. Very nice boat. 35 meters long, with two zodiac tenders that actually take the divers to the sites. We saw the master cabin, the best room in the place. It was very nice! The bathroom was pretty unbelievable for a liveaboard. It was interesting to actually see a liveaboard in person (especially a luxury level one), but we both would still rather be land-based. More options of things to do.

Wakatobi Final Impressions

Best Dive:  Tough one, but Roma.  The dives all had a "sameness" to them, but Roma had it all: great wall, great coral, and tons and tons of fish!  The rose of lettuce coral was pretty spectacular.

Best topside attraction:  Probably the food.  Amazing what they have created here.  We took a resort tour one evening that showed the "back end" of the resort, where they create the water, the electricity, and the compressors for the tanks.

Worst thing:  Not a thing!  Just the most amazing place we've ever been.  First class all the way.  

We're already planning our return trip; Ana suggests October as the best month.  We've already got next year planned out, so we're looking at Oct 2013.  Hopefully, we can get someone else to come with us and make it a mini-group trip.

Wakatobi was so amazingly well organized.  They took care of you from the minute you got off the plane in Bali, to getting in your taxi back in Bali after the trip.  Just an amazing place.  Expensive; but worth every penny.

Friday May 27 through Tuesday May 31-Bali

Friday May 27

Today was the transfer day to Mimpi Menjangan. We set up the transfer for after breakfast at 9AM, and he was ready and waiting. Check out went fine. We went around the northern side of Bali. This area was much more populated with more traffic than we were expecting. It was pretty slow going for the first ¾ of the trip. Our driver was very good about stopping to the side of the road so I could get photos of the incredible scenery. This island is just stunning.

We stopped off to tour a Balinese temple: Pura Ponjokbatu. We were the only visitors there, and it was a lovely temple built in 3 sections, with each section being built higher, with acess via a pretty steep staircase. We both had to wear sarongs with a sash tied around our waists and Jim had to wear a little hat. Our guide (monk? Brother?) wore all traditional garb, plus Quicksilver thongs. I thought that was funny. It was well worth touring, especially since it wasn't overrun with tourists like the temples in south Bali.

The last quarter of the drive, the traffic finally thinned out and our driver (different one than last time), went into crazy driver mode. They have a system for roads in Bali, and it obviously works as long as everyone knows the rules. I think a tourist who was driving would get killed in about 10 minutes and take a bunch of other people with him. Basically, the mopeds and motorcycles drive near the shoulders of the lanes, and the cars straddle the center lines. Then when there is oncoming traffic, everyone moves over to the correct side (mind you, all of this at about 60 MPH!) But we made it to Mimpi Menjangan alive.

This resort is just gorgeous: peaceful, quiet, and just beautiful. The resort is built on grounds that house a natural hot spring. Our cottage is by far the best “room” we have ever had anywhere. We have a very large couryard that has a natural hot spring tub (all the cottages have this), plus ours also has a very good sized plunge pool, plus a gazebo and a table with chairs. The inside is lovely too, with a king bed and a fully outside bathroom, like at Tulamben. It is an incredibly romantic cottage!

This resort is much bigger than Tulamben. It doesn't seem very busy right now. There are two pools, and we had the one right by our room all to ourselves. The restaurant is built over the mangrove lagoon, with some outdoor tables.

With dinner we ordered the house red wine, which was the same brand as the horrible rose we had at Tulamben (that should have been a clue, right?) It was awful: NO MORE HOUSE WINES HERE!! Dinner is a set menu of 2 different choices. Jim and I both had the meats in white mushroom sauce. It was decent, not specacular.

We are both really tired after the travel day, so it's straight to bed and looking forward to diving Menjangan Island tomorrow!

Saturday May 28

This resort uses a set menu for the included meals, plus we get our choices of a lot of different lunches while out at Menjangan. For breakfast the choices were a very extensive American breakfast, continental, and Indonesian. We both had the American breakfast. We noticed several volcanoes that were not visible yesterday when we had lunch. They are on Java, which is very close to Bali. Have to remember to bring the camera tomorrow!

This resort set up a collaborative agreement with the local fishermen when they built the resort years ago. In return for the locals agreeing not to fish around Menjangan Island, the resort guarantees them a monthly payment, plus hires them as boat captains (all they staff here is local as well). So our boat is a true Balinese fishing boat. It's pretty good sized (around 25 feet long), painted blue and white. They don't have very powerful engines, so they can't go real fast.

It took about 30 minutes to get to the island and the sea is protected here and very calm. Yay!!!! No signs of seasickness. All the dives here are wall dives. Our first one was POS II. There was a strong current here, and I had to turn around and face into the current. It was frustrating, because I feel like I don't have any control when I dive in current. There was also other dive groups around, and I got hit in the head several times. The wall was gorgeous, but it was kind of a frustrating dive, due to the crowds and the strong current. Plus I had a splitting headache by the end of it due to my mask being too tight.

For our surface interval, a bunch of the boats tie up together, at one of the piers on the Island. Jim got a club sandwich and I had an Indonesian chicken noodle dish that was fabulous. Loved it. The second dive was MUCH better. Little to no current, gorgeous reef, and a large cave to go into that had sunlight streaming in from the top. Our guide Putu, is VERY good at finding tiny little creatures. He showed us tiny shrimp, crabs, and 2 pygmy seahorses. We got back to the resort at about 2PM. Relaxed for a little while by the main pool, then enjoyed our courtyard pools.

At 4PM, we went for our couples Balinese massage. The resort just opened a new spa last month. It's very nice and the massages were great. Both people were doing the same movements on each of us in tandem. It was very relaxing.

Our choices for dinner tonight were a chicken parmigian, and the same menu as last night except for seafood instead of the meats. I had the chicken pasta and thought it was very good. Jim got the seafood and wasn't happy at all with it. Win some you lose some. :)

Sunday May 29

I've woken up at 3:30 or so just about every night we've been here. The good news is that I've been able to fall back asleep until 6-6:30. We definitely feel over the jet lag. I wasn't overly hungry today so I had the continental breakfast and that was just right.

We had the same divemaster as yesterday, Putu. We are getting so spoiled on this trip! Most of the dives have been just us plus the divemaster (including Tulamben). Yesterday we had a snorkeler on board, but she kept to herself (Russian, I don't think she spoke much English). So it was just the 3 of us on the dive.

Well, today we had the whole boat to ourselves! We went to the western side of Menjangan, and it was much less popular. We didn't see anyone else all day.

The first dive was Garden Eels, which had some moderate current. I felt like I did a better job today of dealing with the current and not getting knocked around. Amazing amount of fish at the end of the dive. Gorgeous. The walls here are just beautiful; the best I've ever seen.

We did the group tie up for the surface interval. This time I had a club sandwich, because I couldn't remember the name of what I had yesterday :(. The second dive was the Ankor Wreck. We didn't go down to the actual wreck itself, because it is a deep dive at 150 feet. He did show us the remains of the ship though, and that let me know how fantastic the visibility was, because it was very easy to see when we were at 70 feet or so. Saw a large turtle, but he didn't want anything to do with us and swam away. Saw a ton of pyramid butterfly fish. Very pretty. Just a great day diving. Nice flat water, and NO SEASICKNESS!!!!

I should mention the weather in Bali; in a word: perfect. It's been sunny and gorgeous every day. Here where we are now we are near some mountains, so we can get some cloud buildup in the afternoons, but every dive has had stunning sunlight lighting up the reef.

We spent the afternoon enjoying our courtyard pools, and started packing to transfer to the Conrad Bali tomorrow.

We had our choice of three menus for our final dinner. Jim had a pork dish and I had a Balinese fish entree. They were both very good. We ordered a bottle of Australian chardonnay and it was quite good, and it didn't knock us flat either!

Monday May 30

Final call for banana pancakes! I'm kind of sad to be leaving. This was such a nice, peaceful resort. All the staff were very friendly, and always greeted us. I was able to get to the gift shop right when they opened and bought a couple of t shirts.

Our driver today was Yuda; we really liked him. It was a long trip down to Nusa Dua, five hours total. It was a stunning drive though. We went over the central mountain range, with views of steep valleys covered with rice terraces. There were also two very scenic high mountain lakes.

We stopped at an organic plantation once we got down from the mountains. They make Luwak coffee here. This is the most expensive coffee in the world, and made well known by the movie The Bucket List. The raw beans are fed to a mongoose-like creature called a Luwak. They then pass through the animal's digestive system, where they are collected and then roasted like regular coffee. It has a very distinct and earthy flavor (as you would guess! :)) We bought some ginger coffee and some lemongrass tea. They were both delicious.

The traffic from Denpasar down to Nusa Dua was just horrendous. I've been to some places with crazy traffic before, Mexico City, Paris, and Rome all come to mind. Nowhere is even close to as crazy as Bali! I can't even imagine driving here myself. It's really insane.

We got to the Conrad Bali, where I used Hilton points to get our room. When we checked in, they told us they had upgraded us to a Conrad Suite! It is huge and just gorgous. We have really hit the jackpot with rooms on this trip. I had mentioned when I made the reward reservation months ago, that we were celebrating Jim's birthday, so they sent up a birthday cake, which was a very special touch.

There is a lounge here just for the Suites guests, we were able to go there for afternoon tea, where we had smoothies and hors d'eurves. Very nice since we didn't stop for lunch and were hungry. We were also able to have some pre-dinner cocktails here also. All this on a free room!!

For dinner we ate at Suku at the Conrad. Just a stunning setting in front of the main pool with koi ponds all around and lit up at night. We ordered a Balinese tasting menu that had 5 different Indonesian dishes. It was really good.

This resort is really gorgeous. Lots of water features, ponds, and fountains. The main resort (we're in a separate section with our own pool) has an enormous lagoon pool. I wish we could stay longer, it's just lovely.

But we have to get up at 5AM tomorrow to go to Wakatobi!!! When we mention we are going there it seems to get a big reaction here in Bali. Yuda has family that works at the resort and wants us to say hello from him. They are supposed to send us up a box breakfast tomorrow morning to eat before we leave and we have a car to the airport arranged for 6:15. Check-in for the charter flight is by 7AM.

We are so exited!!

BALI FINAL IMPRESSIONS

Best dive: Tough one but I would have to say Liberty Wreck. Just so many fish and so different from anything we've done before. Walking along the narrow seawall to get there, while the women carried our fully loaded kits on their heads!

Best thing topside: The stunning scenery and the Mimpi resorts. I just loved both those places, but especially Mimpi Menjangan. I LOVED our room! And eating breakfast on the deck of the floating restaurant looking at the volcanoes on Java. Such a beautiful, serene, peaceful place.

Worst thing topside: I hate to say it, but Bali desperately needs some sort of municipal garbage pickup service. There was a lot of trash around. In some spots it was terrible. One place we spent our surface interval on Menjangan Island just looked awful. I guess every garden of eden has to have its serpent :)

I loved Bali. Too bad we weren't able to get to Ubud. If we come back to stay at Wakatobi again, we might not spend any extra time on Bali, simply because it takes so long to get anywhere. But we thoroughly enjoyed our time there. What a beautiful place.

Thursday May 26 and Friday May 27-Bali

Wednesday May 25

Today was our first day of diving. The first dive was on the Liberty wreck, which is the most famous dive in Bali. This was a supply ship that was torpedoed and sunk by the Japanese during World War 2. It is over 140 feet long, and very broken up and easily penetrable. It is also virtually COVERED with corals and sea life. We had to walk on top of sea walls along the shore for 10 mins or so to get to the site. We just carried our masks, fins, and weights, and our scuba kits were carried by porters: usually older women who carried 2 tanks ON THEIR HEADS. They often walked the same narrow, bumpy path we did. Just amazing. The Liberty wreck is famous for its fish life, and it really lived up to its reputation. The first thing you see is a large school of silver fish that seem to inhabit the area permanently. Everywhere you look there are fish, too many varieties to count.

We walked back, then after an hour or so surface interval, we dove the Tulamben Drop Off, which is a wall dive. It goes around a prominatory, with several changes in current. We saw a large white tip reef shark. Also lots of fish and life. I saw my clown triggerfish! Awesome looking.

All these are shore dives, with moderately difficult entries. The beach is black sand that quickly gives way to rocks and then large rocks, with surf around 1-2 feet high. It's tricky but I didn't have any problems today; our divemaster Ketuk was really good with helping me.

A very good first day diving! We are eating all meals here at the resort. Breakfast and dinner are included. For breakfast this morning we both had banana pancakes. They were amazing: their bananas are definitely local and very ripe. I'm going to try pineapple pancakes tomorrow. We had club sandwiches for lunch (I only had a half so I would be good and hungry for dinner).

For dinner, we both decided to try some of the house indonesian specialties. We both had the soup, Jim had what I did last night, which was very good. I had a hot and spicy soup, which was pretty ridiculously hot. I felt like I burned my throat! For our entrees Jim got an Indonesian-style chicken, and I got satay meats. These were both excellent. Dessert was banana fritters; again with the incredible local bananas. Oh, we also ordered an absolutely dreadful rose wine. They only had 2 bottles on the menu, and this was the cheap one. Now we know why!

Thursday May 26

Happy Birthday Jim!! And we both got a really good night's sleep! We both took an Ambien last night, and got a solid good night's sleep. It really feels great. This morning at breakfast, I tried the pineapple pancakes. Not nearly as good as banana. I'm going back to banana tomorrow.

Our first dive today was at the Liberty again. This time it was even better. I think mostly because we were both feeling better and comfortable in the water again. We stayed down well over an hour. Just an amazing amount of fish on this wreck. We had fun going into and through the wreck too. I LOVE this dive.

The second dive was right in front of Mimpi (their house reef). There was a lot of current and we had to start out with it and swim back against it, but other than that it was a terrific dive. I really wanted to see a blue ribbon eel and we saw two and a lot of other eels too (including a really pretty black one). We came across one section that had four different anenomes next to each other and each one had it's own family of anenome fish living in it: 3 false clown fish and 1 pink anenome fish. It's really fun to watch them, they are always moving, and very protective of their territory and family. We also saw a leaf scorpionfish, (Jim saw two more later when I was too far away to come back against the current).

I had more trouble getting out on this dive. I had both Jim on one side of me and Nyoman on the other, helping me. The waves were pretty high and it was very rocky. I was very grateful for their help.

So that finishes the diving at Mimpi Tulamben. Very worth coming here. I wasn't sure how good the Liberty was going to be; given all the hype about it. It greatly exceeded my expectations. In fact, everything about this place has. It's been VERY nice. And Menganjan is supposed to be even better! Tomorrow we go there.

For our last dinner here and to celebrate Jim's birthday, we ordered an expensive bottle of Australian chardonnay. I don't know if Australian wine has a higher alcohol content, or if we were just especially tired, but we were only able to drink half the bottle for fear of getting smashed!

Sunday May 22, 2011 through Tuesday May 24-Travel to Bali

Our flight path to Bali was this: Pasco-Seattle-Los Angeles-Hong Kong-Bali. We left at 3PM on Sunday, and arrived in Bali at 3PM on Tuesday. Of course that also includes a 15 hour time change and moving ahead one day, so it's not as bad as it sounds!

We used frequent flier miles to fly business class on Cathay Pacific for the international legs. This made such a huge difference that I can't even adequately express it. International business class is WONDERFUL. We each had our own private seat with high walls, with a seat that had built in massage and adjustable lumbar support. Best of all, it reclined into a completely flat bed. We each had our own 15 inch TV monitor with audio visual on demand. It had hundreds of movies, tv shows, music, and games to choose from. The main flight from LAX-HKG was 14 hours long, but neither of us really noticed the length. Personally, I've had 5 hour flights that seemed longer. We each got several hours of sleep, and watched two movies, and that really made the time go by.

When we got to Hong Kong, we went to the business class lounge, where we were able to take a shower. Amazing shower cubicles! They had just been remodeled and had huge rain showerheads that came straight down from the ceiling. We had a 3 hour layover, then it was time to board our flight to Bali. We had the same type of seat as we had previously, because our plane was a 747, even though it is a less than 5 hour flight! Best of all, we were able to sit on the upper deck, which was only about half full. We had 3 crew members taking care of us, and the service was fabulous. What a way to travel!!

When we walked off the plane in Bali, the Wakatobi rep was waiting for us just as promised. She had our visas on arrival already taken care of so we just had to wait in the immigration line, which wasn't very long. While we were doing that, she went to collect our checked luggage (which was there, yay!) Then she contacted the Wakatobi Bali office to let them know we made it. They still hadn't been notified of the time of the charter flight for May 30, but they will send an email with the info in the next few days when they receive it.

The driver to Mimpi was waiting outside the airport for us, so we were quickly and easily on our way. Everything as promised! The drive to Mimpi Tulamben was about 2.5 hours. Driving in Bali is CRAZY. I would NEVER rent a car here. Basically, there are no traffic rules. There are mopeds and motorcycles everywhere, that zip all over the place, plus people walking and driving carts, etc. Here is just a quick smattering of things we saw:

A guy walking down the side of the road with his huge, gigantic pig

A kid riding down the side of the road on his bike that had no front wheel.

Bali has a reputation for being very, very scenic and beautiful, and it is extremely well deserved. The scenery along the drive was simply stunning. There is a central mountain range with 10,000 foot Mt Badung behind it. Green rice fields everywhere. In certain areas, they build them up the sides of hills for rice terraces. I got a few pictures, but when we got to the really beautiful terraces near the resort area, it was too dark to take pictures.

We got to Mimpi Tulamben about 6PM. We were welcomed with a cool fruit drink, and shown our room, which is an ocean front cottage. It's really lovely. You enter through a small courtyard garden, that has a gazebo with a lounging bed in one corner that overlooks the ocean. The main cottage has a large king bed, desk, and a loft area with another small bed. The entire bathroom is outside, but covered. It is very nice and very unique. The resort seems very quiet, which is nice.

We at dinner at the restaurant here, but after all the travel and the long car ride, I wasn't very hungry, so I just had soup. Jim had fish and liked it.

Then we went back to the room and fell in to bed exhausted, and looking forward to a good night's sleep. Remember the 15 hour time change I mentioned earlier??? Yeah, fun stuff. I was wide awake at 1AM and couldn't get back to sleep. Jim was able to get more rest. Jet lag is such great stuff. . .