The Bahaza word for "It's all good, don't worry about it" is "Sing Kan Kan". In direct balance to the prior day, the day after the mope's turned out to be one of the best days I've had in Indonesia, and definitely in the top days possible in life.
Aaron and I rented a motorscooter from one of the ladies at Secret Garden/Big Fish Dive Shop for the day. It was a 100cc affair whose speed would be best measured in centimeters per hour, especially on hills or speed bumps. We headed to breakfast first, the restaurant against the ocean, a short wall and drop away. It was a full moon with the tide coming in and the ocean beat against that wall, sending sprays over our heads and once all of the way up to wet our shoes, a good 5 meters away from the barrier.
From there, we wove through the small, single road that rings Lombogen island and found ourselves on a steep incline, the top yielding a birds-eye view of not only the sleepy island, but Argung mountain with it's swaths of clouds, Java far off in the distance. We stopped, appropriately impressed, and headed further around the island, coming into the town of Lombogen.
Each home there has a temple. And there are no shortage of temples either. This led to dense, narrow streets lined by temple-structures with chickens, dogs, and children occasionally escaping from within. In Indonesia, the driving age is when you can drive the motorbike - you're this big, kiddo? Well, you can ride the ride. Aaron and I stopped to watch an impromptu Gamalan practice session of a group of 10-15 year olds, banging away with remarkable skill and then mounting their motorbikes and zipping into the temple/town complex.
Pura Doorway
View from the Pura
Gamalan-Playin' Motorcyclists
Pura detail
Beside their practice area, a communal meeting building with a badmitton net and all the gamalan instruments needed, was a set of stairs leading up to the most important Pura on the island. How do I know this? Because it's on the highest point of the island. I had to get a closer look. We hiked up and up and up to the temple and were rewarded with a sweeping view of the ocean and town, a closer look at the local cacti that grew beside the stairs (Bahaza Tequila anyone?), and a peek inside of the temple to see it's interior structures. Later, Aaron asked a local what was in the little doors at the end of all of those temple structures. "Nothing" came the reply. My inner Indiana Jones begs to differ.
We kept cruising, down to a lovely beach area, back into town, around the other side of the island, and finally stopped for cold drinks (sweet tea and a tamarind soda I turned my nose up at). We spotted the rainbow sandals we'd seen all of the locals wearing and each scored a pair. Finding the bridge to Ceniggan, we stopped, parked, and walked over. Locals poling their seaweed gathering boats waved to us on the bridge and the wind almost blew me off of the narrow board strapped to the largely gaping bamboo cross slats.
Wiring job and rainbow flip-flops
Between the islands - seaweed farming and fisherman
The view
Cool bike
Bridge of DOOM! Okay, bridge to the other island
After a short walk through Ceniggan with another cold drink stop, we went in search of Dream Beach. When we got to the beach, Aaron spotted some motorbike trails off to the right of us and so we took them. We ended up at Devil's Tear, a series of limestone cliffs jutting out into the ocean, carved out below, and razor sharp on top. We found our spot and parked close to where a monitor lizard spooked by our arrival had lumbered off into the spiky plants with remarkable speed for his 1.5 meter length. This particular point had an infinity pool made by nature, and just beyond that, a large rock with a top terraced like so many rice fields in the hills of Bali. The huge ocean swell sucked the water down by 10 meters in a matter of seconds, only to send a wave of equal height slamming into the limestone and shooting up huge sprays. The sound of it was magnificant. It was molecule-deep that pound of water and rock.
The Great Suck
Splash
It's close...
boom!
We lingered for hours, taking picures, clamouring carefully around, making loose naturalist observations about what we were witnessing, and grinning like idiots with the sheer beauty and power of the place. An urge for dinner and beer sent us back out onto the road and we ended up at the end of a long beach, eating a thick curry over nasi, drinking cold Bintang, and watching the sun set. Again Bali was before us and the mountain was the centerpoint of the light and clouds as the sky turned magenta and dark blue. The reefs right in front of us were navigated by barefoot locals (an amazing feat of feet, considering how easily one is cut by the reef), fishing boats searched for channels, and a small group of locals played in their favorite sunset swim spot.
The sunset
After a stop off at the room for more rupiah, Aaron and Tim (the owner of Big Fish) dove into a geeked out discussion of some pretty awesome underwater photography gear. When they wrapped that up, Aaron and I got back on our micro-bike and went the furthest we could go in the opposite direction of our mornings' adventure. We ended up at a point in the mangroves, at Made's Warang. We drank beer, ate nasi goreng, and had to pause our evening for Aaron to field a phone call from Made's jealous Aussie boyfriend, suspecting Aaron was Made's newest boyfriend.
We did two more dives before we left with a nice current that wiped us out after.
Spotted - sea snake
Photo by Aaron
sweet nudi
Photo by Aaron
Another sweet nudi
photo by aaron
fish
underwater mohawk
The next morning was our last in Lombogen, punctuated by the roughest boat ride of my life in that huge swell. I could swear the boat would drop a good 5 feet at a time, coming off of the top of a wave. The waves were coming at all directions too and our captain had a speed boat which requires, well, speed if you're an Indo Captain.
Getting back to Sanur, we ate the best satay of my life, delivered to our table with a holder for the coals and a generous bowl of awesome sauce (peanuts!) to dip the bits in. Then Aaron took us to a massage place and we got full massages followed by salt scrubs, a bathtub so full of flower petals I had to rescue a caterpillar before sinking into the water. It was soothing, romantic, and left my skin baby soft.
Unfortunately that experience was followed by a strenuous drive back to Kuta for some discount clothes shopping and then a drive north to Seminyak where we landed at Candice's house for the evening, exhausted and ready to get out of that area of Bali once and for all.