The beauty of being ignorant and then learning makes what you learned seem that much more amazing.  We started our travels almost a year ago in the Bahamas and learned that the Bahamas has 170 islands and we thought that was amazing.  Then we pull into Halong Bay in Vietnam and learned there are 1,800 islands and thought how incredible that was.  Now we land in Bali and realize Indonesia has 18,000 islands.  Really mind blowing, I thought we were going to this small tropical oasis from the guidebook reviews. To some degree it is, however as part of Indonesia, Bali is part of a country with 230M people, 4th largest country, and the largest Muslim population in the world.  Ok, enough 7th grade geography.

Twelve hours from Vietnam and we finally feel the kindness and gentleness of the local people.  It has a real island feel, although a big island with good infrastructure.  There is water to be seen everywhere since all the towns are on the coast.   A 6:30am wake up call and we are off to school, yep going to sit in a classroom all day to start off our scuba dive certification class.   Some pool training, four monitored dives in open water and we are on our way to certification.

safety first

Our last dive was on a USS Liberty ship torpedoed in WWII, beached in order to salvage the cargo onboard, and then in 1963 the tremors associated with the eruption of Mount Agung caused the ship to slip off the beach on to a sand slope in 30 to 100 feet of water.  Crazy.  We saw colors we didn’t know existed, a huge eel, a 6ft barracuda and a few black fin sharks.

Yep thats an EEL!

A great experience but diving probably won’t become a big hobby, if I end up buying some equipment it will probably end up on the shelf next to the race bicycle, snowboard, horseback riding gear and golf clubs.  If we end up at a great dive spot on our travels we would probably spend a day underwater but nothing more.

After a few days in Bali our big highlight was a burger, since we are very focused on languages and realize that most words have a story behind them.  It makes more sense to call it a burger, not a hamburger.  Why name it ham when it is usually beef?  We call a turkey burger just that…turkey!  Anyway it was excellent and then an Italian meal the next night was just as good.  Yep we are craving food we are used to or maybe just had enough noodle soup and stir-fry.  But then again we all always want what we can’t have.  As we learned at our meditation retreat, one should only want you ‘have’ then you won’t always want more.  Or another way I have read the saying is “want what you have, don’t need what you want”.

We walked the main town of Kuta, a beachy feel with a few roads packed with surf shops, hippie clothes, coffee houses and knock off tee shirts.  Lots of younger travelers on the streets while the Australians fill the bars.  It reminds me of playa del Carmen in Mexico, a great place to spend a week or two but nothing that special to warrant a 20 hour trip if coming from the US of A. This is the main party place for those down under, most people say go to Kuta to party then leave and enjoy the beaches somewhere else on the island.  So that’s what we did, we headed just north to a sleepy town called Seminyak, chill with a capital C is what we did.  After a few days I started sounding like Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, everything was ‘dude’ and ‘alright’ with all the locals.

Coming into Bali we heard mixed commentary from several travelers we met, and now I understand why.  Part off the reasoning is that expectations are way too high, the place has exploded so it’s no longer the quaint romantic island you read about.  Secondly, it is very diverse, south side is quiet with great beaches, west side is hectic with black sand and a dirty ocean but great for surfing and so on.  It is hard to find everything one expects in a SE Asian island in one place.  Not to mention the security issues, after terrorist bombings by a violent Islamist group in 2002 and another in 2005, everyone and every vehicle is searched at a gate leading into every hotel. The full treatment, pop the trunk, look into purses and bags and run a mirror under the car.  All in all, Bali does have a little something for everyone within a short drive…parties, shopping, scuba diving, beautiful beaches, inexpensive resorts, etc.  It is also amazing how much they have endured and have all still come out smiling!  Now, we are off to the Gili Islands which are a group of three small islands about a two hour boat ride from Bali.

PHOTOS- Indonesia – Bali (Nusa Dua and Seminyak)