Arriving in Thailand and Phuket (April 25-26th)

My expectations were high as I flew into Thailand, over islands ringed with light blue.


Phuket did not meet those expectations. Apparently, I'd chosen to start my Siam time in a tourist zone where seedy-looking hotels, restaurants and clubs stood on nearly every corner, traffic glutted every street, and the cleanliness of the sea water looked questionable at best.

Fortunately, I had at least booked in to the lovely Bodega, which had the best dorm bathroom I had ever seen. That's a true, brand-new TUB in the corner, and a granite countertop beneath the actual, full-fledged, clear mirror on the wall!


I decided that if I had to stay there for that first night, I might as well make use of the tourist-friendly facilities and do some much-needed shopping. I restocked most of my toiletries, bought a pair of shorts that barely fit as an inspiration for losing the weight I'd packed on during the trip (perhaps the girliest thing I've ever done), and spent a good two hours milling about the absolutely massive grocery/all-purpose store, the Big C. In the latter, crate after crate brimmed over with every tropical fruit imaginable, from durian...


... to dragon fruit.


When I returned to the hostel, I booked a boat tour of the nearby Karst islands for the following day, a diving trip in the Andaman Sea for two days hence, and the transportation to get me to the latter.

In the morning, I met Simon and Phil, two other solo travelers staying at my hostel and taking the same tour. A minivan picked us up, and we spent an hour driving across the island to the dock.

The large, ugly boat didn't exactly bowl us over, but the three of us entertained each other with travel stories and insights. Phil, in particular, had tips I'd certainly never heard before. For example, "If you stand around naked outside, people think you got robbed and they'll give you cigarettes out of pity." I thought myself unlikely to employ this bit of advice, but I enjoyed getting it, nonetheless. And as soon as we reached the open water, the scenery made the appearance of our craft a moot point.


As we pulled up to one monolith, the crew unloaded kayaks into the water, and we climbed on, two guests and one crew-member/gondolier to a canoe. They rowed us into a cave beneath the mountain.


At certain points, I could have brushed my hand along the cave ceiling. it hung so low.


In the higher sections, dozens of bats hung inverted from the stalagtites.
We soon returned to the main boat, where the crew stackled the kayaks back up in the hull.


But soon we'd arrived at a cluster of islands with a secluded bay at the center, and the kayaks came back out.


Since I had gone with a stranger. on the first occasion, Phil went on his own for the second, and I went with Simon.


This time, the crew members stayed behind, and we rowed ourselves. I craved a bit of exercise, and Simon didn't care one way or the other, so I took the oar. The seascape was truly lovely...


... with lots of little inlets and caves to explore. We went in a few and then looped out around the back of one of the mountains creating the watery enclosure, There we found a large number of small fishing boats some distance away from their larger vessels.


You would have thought the local fisherman had never seen anything so funny as the a white woman chauffeuring a young Asian-New Zealander around in a kayak, the way they would laugh when we passed. "Strong girl!", they shouted. "Expert!"

When everyone had climbed back on board, the galley crew served up a large delicious lunch buffet. As has been my custom while traveling, I tried a bit of everything.


As we ate, the boat sailed along to the day's main event: James Bond Island, so called because of its use in the movie, "Goldfinger."


The setting was postcard-beautiful, but I'd rarely visited such a tourist trap. Stall upon stall of souvenirs lined the tiny beach of the main island, and each of us literally had to wait our turn to get our picture taken in front of the most famous view of the single, improbably shaped limestone hulk just off the main island.





The three of us figured that we'd come all this way, so we might as well get the classic/cliched shots...


... including jumps, of course.


After walking around a bit amd crawling through the only accessible cave, we returned to the boat, where Phil donned the lovely Sunday bonnet of one of our fellow tourists.


One more stop remained. The kayaks came back out, and this time, Simon paired up with someone else, and I relaxed while Phil powered ours to shore.


The small strip of sand at which we'd stopped for the purpose of swimming looked fine from the boat, but upon closer inspection, turned out dingy and litter-strewn, as a result of being one of the only beaches in the bay.


We stayed for only 20 minutes before the crew directed us back and the boat turned back around toward Phuket.


As the last lovely vistas of the karats silhouetted against the clouds passed behind us, the crew put on what I am sad to admit was one of the worst performances I have ever seen. They'd promised one of Thailand's famous Lady-Boy shows; what we got was an embarrassing hodge-podge of lackluster emceeing, some uncomfortable lip-syncing by a normally dressed guy, a brief appearance by a clown-wigged boy approximating a true lady-boy and some half-assed break-dancing. "This is just awkward," I whispered to the boys, as the crowd applauded weakly.

By the time we'd left the boat, driven back across the island, and been dropped off at our hostel, we all felt thoroughly exhausted. The day had been scorchingly hot, and for once, I appreciated the air-conditioning in my dorm. I exchanged info with the boys, packed up my things for the next day, and went to bed good and early.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Phuket, Thailand

One Last Time in Padang Bai (April 22nd-24th)

When our fast boat from Gili Trawangan finally pulled into Padang Bai nearly a full three hours behind schedule, I bid Andy farewell, collected my things, and walked barefoot back to my beloved Lemon House.




I had decided to treat myself to a night or two in the big room with the gorgeous view of the bay, and I had no regrets upon checking in.




After catching up with LH owners Ben and Clare, I spent the rest of my daylight hours trying in vain to convince any of the PB dive shops to let me do a night dive in the Blue Lagoon without also paying to do a day dive. When that failed, I buried my sorrows in a heaping plate of gado gado at Grand Cafe. As I ate, the sky suddenly turned from blue to gray and with no further warning, a gale blew through and the sky broke open. Within minutes, the streets flooded. So heavy was the downpour that I didn't even attempt to return to the Lemon House for nearly two hours. When I finally did, I had to wade through water up above my ankles and past a few intrepid souls making their way through on their motorbikes, holding umbrellas over their heads as they drove.




By the time I got back to the Lemon, I didn't feel like leaving again, so I spent the night in.
For my last day of my third and final stop in Padang Bai, I decided that, since I couldn't dive the Blue Lagoon, I would snorkel there instead. I rented a mask and snorkel and joined half a dozen other fish-gazers at the mouth of the inlet.




I couldn't believe the number of fish so close to the surface. I had swum in these waters earlier in the month when I'd been unable to submerge my head because of an ear infection, and I'd had no inkling of the bustling life below. Trumpet fish, emperor fish, crazy-long needle fish, and many, like some beautiful yellow, gray, blue-edged fish, that I couldn't identify swam all around me. To get closer, I free-dived as best I could and soon began to regret passing up the day dive. Ah, well. Yet another reason to return to Bali.
As I cut back across town, I noticed a crowd gathering outside of the main temple.




Bedecked in traditional finery, mothers carried offering-laden baskets on their heads and pulled their children along by the hand, while young men zoomed up on their motos, their sweethearts sitting side-saddle behind them. I decided to return later to find out the cause of the hubbub.
I'd heard great things about the sunset view over Black Sand Beach, so as the hour approached, I made my way in that direction. I ended up getting lost and finding an ideal lookout point atop an abandoned construction site.




Then I surfed down the gravelly hillside and walked along the charcoal-colored shore before cutting back through the jungle, more ruggedly beautiful than ever against the orange-colored sky.




I walked back to town, still unsure of my way but glad of what light remained.




When finally I reached the Lemon House, I found that nearly everyone had gone to the ceremony to which I had seen so many locals processing earlier that evening. I grabbed my sarong and made to join them. Sadly, I arrived too late to enter the temple and so stood at the entrance, watching and listening to the chanting of the crowd.




Some of the townspeople still milled about outside, so I had plenty to see there.




One little boy-- all of 3 or 4 years-old-- flirted shamelessly with every Western girl he saw, batting his long black eyelashes, peeking out from behind his mother's skirts, and periodically running up to touch one of us, laugh, and run away.
As the ceremony came to a close, I returned to the guesthouse to write for a while on the balcony, from where I watched the streets below fill with the smoke churned out several times a week to kill the mosquitos.




In the morning, I attempted to visit what I thought was a nearby palace with another hostel guest named Paul. We had met the previous day and had one of those conversations, involving extremely personal details, that you only have with other travelers who you know you won't see again. This happens often, believe me. Sadly, just before we set off, several locals told us that we had grossly underestimated the time it would take to visit the sight and that I would never make my bus, so I abandoned the plan, sent Paul off on his own, and returned to the Lemon.
As I walked about the guesthouse gathering my things, I couldn't believe that a month had passed since I had spent my first night in Asia there. I thought of how, on my first visit, I'd struggled to remember to remove my shoes when entering most buildings, when it now seemed like second nature. I'd long since grown accustomed to sharing my personal space with geckos-- like the ones that dominated the walls of the Lemon-- and falling asleep to their bizarre mating calls. I'd come to appreciate the simplicity of the bathrooms and the practicality of the all-tile floors. So many little things.




The Lemon House had made for a perfect starting point in Asia, as well as a home base between my other travels around Bali. I couldn't imagine better hosts than Ben, Claire, and Ketut, and as I gave my leave, I promised to return one day.




By midday, I'd hopped a bus to Sanur, Feast ice cream bar in hand, and by 3pm, Helmi-- my lovely Indonesian friend, whom I'd met in Ubud-- had picked me up, dropped my bags at her workplace, and left me to do some shopping while she finished her duties for the day. I found a pair of $1.50 flip-flops to replace the ones that been stolen from me, but little else fit me as I discovered that a US small is an Indonesian large. Until you reach the middle-aged fashion section, then that changes markedly.
I'd told Helmi we could fetch my things after she'd picked me up again, since I thought my 15 kilo bag far too heavy for her petite, 4-foot-11, probably 98-pound frame, but as she drove up, there it sat behind her, dwarfing her and making her look like a tiny turtle with a massive shell.



She took me to see the view of the local beach, and then we went to her apartment to get dressed for the dinner she'd organized at a Jimbaran Beach restaurant for the birthday of our French friend William. I rode on the back of her bike for the 45-minute drive, during which we drove alongside Eka and their new Dutch friend Arno. The girls drove with skill and speed and almost too much casualness for my comfort, unused to it as I was. As we weaved in and out of traffic, the girls darting in front of one another and shouting conversation in between, I squeezed Helmi's waist and prayed for the safety of the sumptuous-looking, specially-ordered chocolate mousse cake balanced on my lap.I needn't have worried, of course, and we arrived without a scratch.
The old Ubud gang was back together again, and I soon realized that WIlliam and Sylvain had had no idea that I would be there, as Helmi had decided to make it a surprise. She'd plotted out an amazing beachside dinner of fresh fish, veggies, and all manner of Balinese side dishes.



We ate right on the beach with the sand beneath our feet, and even the bad karaoke and inexplicable looping of "Cotton-Eyed Joe" on the sound system at the neighboring restaurant couldn't take away from the ambiance.




Afterward, our caravan moved on to the Green Box in Kuta.




We toasted to Will and to the happy reunion of our hybrid traveler/local crew.




After a few rounds, Helmi brought out the cake and the flowers she'd bought for the birthday boy.




Soon, the flowers had been divided up and every guy in the bar had one behind his ear.




The cake tasted every bit as good as it looked, and we shared it with the bar staff and other patrons as well, leaving nothing but a few crumbs on the plate.




Sylvain was the lone hold-out, refusing cake in favor of staying fit. Hypocrite that I am, I reacted to this by force-feeding him half of my piece, which we then nonsensically decided to burn off by comparing gymnastic and yoga moves in the street in front of the bar, much to the amusement of the smokers stationed there.




Eventually, we left the Green Box, but by then, the group had begun to splinter.




Dilla and Erika had each left for home, Sylvain had gone to meet a friend, and the rest of us made for one of the thumping night clubs nearby. Helmi and I weren't really feeling the Kuta club scene that night, so around 3am, we headed out. A heavy rain erupted just as we prepared to leave, so getting back to her apartment on her moto was quite the adventure for me, no matter how accustomed she was to riding in a downpour.
Once back at her place, Helmi and I talked almost until the sun came up before we fell asleep. In the morning, she left for work, but not before we'd said a long hug-filled goodbye, with promises of reuniting somewhere down the road.
She'd sweetly arranged for a friend of hers to take me to the airport, so I left barely an hour later. Soon I found myself looking out of the plane window marveling at how tiny Bali looks from above and yet how very much I had done and still wished to do there.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Jalan Pelabuhan Padang Bai,Manggis,Indonesia

Gili Trawangan (April 17-21st)

By some miracle, I had managed to find a couch-surfing host in the Gilis, so it was to his workplace that I proceeded after climbing off the fast boat into the turquoise waters and white sands of Gili Trawangan.




Bicycles and horse-drawn carts and carriages passed by me as I walked down the dirt-covered, automotive-free streets of the island.




Fifteen minutes after I arrived at the shop, Nick, my host, returned from his morning dive trip and fifteen minutes after that, I felt like I'd known his open snarky self for years. He and his best friend Tayler and some of their dive buddies took me and his other couchsurfer, Brenna out for lunch at one of their favorite local spots, where wisecracks, puns, and ketchup packets alike were thrown across the table with abandon.
Afterward, Brenna walked me back to Nick's place, a cute, cottage with only a bedroom, bathroom, and hammock-strung porch, attached to an identical one rented by Tayler, the pair comprising Pondok Linda. It seemed I couldn't get away from eponymous dwellings on the islands off Bali.




When Nick finished work, he met us at his place and entertained me with stories of his convoluted travel and romantic histories. In exchange, I let him go through the photos of my trip which he critiqued and commented on comically and mercilessly, much as he did with me personally. Key example: "I like you. You smell like you're in your thirties." (For context, Nick and I are the same age.)
That night, the dive shop hosted a barbecue to which the boys invited B__ and me, as well as Lauren, my friend from Bali who had come to the Gilis knowing I was there as well and who had managed to find me within 10 minutes of my arrival. At the barbecue, we met Selena, a friend of the boys who also worked as a dive instructor, but at another shop down the road. For the first hour of the party, we four girls sat on top of the ice chest drinking beer, chatting as girls do, and watching the mind-boggling spectacle that is Nick and Tayler's interaction.
Now, I have a lot of close male friends. I would even go so far as to say I have more guy friends than girl friends, so I've observed a lot of friendships between guys at quite a close distance. But never in my life have I seen anything to rival the bromance of Nick and Tayler. A complex system of intuitive hand signals and a near-telepathic awareness of one another's thoughts made verbal communication between them all but unnecessary. Unmuddied by the mundane informational exchanges essential to the rest of us mere mortals, their conversation consisted almost entirely of banter, in-jokes and antics which veered toward the edge of lunacy when viewed from the outside, but which I'm sure made perfect sense to them. At one point they broke into a choreographed handshake dance unintentionally but hysterically similar to the "Dance of Joy" so often performed by Larry and Balki on "Perfect Strangers."




As Nick put it, they "brolong" together. The boys had been traveling as a pair for the greater part of four years, had first bonded over a mutual love of pajama pants, and had recently made a pissing contest out of their follicular growth. First one to cave and cut his hair owes the other fifty bucks. (At the time of publication, they're both still looking like Hanson brothers.)




After a great first night, which ended with Nick and I trying and failing to sneak into one of the isle's hotel pools, the next day I met Lauren and her buddy Dom for some snorkeling. We hardly had to swim at all, as the current ran quickly enough to move us down the coast as we observed the diverse marine life below. Later, Lauren and I met up with Selena for some sunbathing on the beach, where Lauren worked it old-school movie star style.




We ate dinner with the boys at the night market at the stall of the inimitable, pint-sized Anna, a local vendor who traded flirtatious barbs with Tayler, her favorite customer. Selena and I split a whole fish, barbecued to perfection, which we washed down with bizarrely delicious avocado and chocolate shakes. We chased those with a pitcher of gin and tonics at Rudy's Bar. Then the night got interesting.




Every Wednesday night on Gili T, half of the island congregates at the bar known simply as "Irish" and gets a lil' rowdy, and this was no exception. We drank and danced, and I bought Nick and Tayler two rounds of drinks to thank them for their hospitality, for which Nick in turn thanked me with a big ol' bear hug...




... and a Vodka Joss. Joss is basically... powdered Red Bull on steroids. Perfectly legal, but powerful. Five minutes after drinking it, my energy had doubled, and I wanted everyone to share in my exuberance. I convinced Lauren and Dom to stay out, despite early departures the next morning, by carrying Dom around for a while. I have no idea why this worked, but it did.




I'm not going to get into all of the night's debauchery on here, but let that serve as an innocent example of the fact that a good time was had by all.
I spent Thursday sleeping in, then lazing about the beach once again. I got lunch with Nick-- who I'd begun calling Snicholas for reasons I can't remember-- at the same spot as the first day, and I had an absolutely delicious tuna steak sandwich, for which I would return the following two days as well. That evening, he, Selena, Tayler and I went down to Sunset Bar to check out the titular event.




The boys assured me that every sunset on Gili T pretty much surpassed the last, but I had never seen one, so the sight of Bali's Mounts Agung and Batur-- which I had hiked only a week previous-- silhouetted against an indigo and burnt orange sky impressed me plenty.




I spent the rest of the night hanging with Tayler, watching movies, playing with his computer and guitar, and looking through photos of his extensive travels. In the morning, he took me out to Shark Point to get my Adventure Deep dive certification, which would both count toward my eventual Advanced Open Water Diver certification and train me to dive to depths of up to 30 meters.
Tayler made for an excellent instructor. The goofy guy I'd hung out with the past few days disappeared and a consummate professional took his place as he clarified a number of points on which I was confused and guided me through the new material with a steady hand. We had limited visibility on the dive, so I didn't see any sharks, but a powerful surge kept things interesting, tossing us back and forth across distances exceeding ten meters. Once we'd surfaced, Tayler kept apologizing for the conditions, but I'd had a great time rolling back and forth, literally going with the flow. Besides, I'd seen my first sea turtle, so I would have been happy regardless.
We spent the trip back to the beach laying out on the roof of the boat, and the goofy guy returned as he told me about comic attempts at something called a "suspended prison guard." (It's dirty, so if you really want to know, go look it up.)
After Tayler signed off on my certification, I took a yoga class at a picturesque outdoor studio nearby. The very pregnant teacher nevertheless put us through a rigorous practice, most of which she impressively did along with us. Even when the power went out just after sunset, as it had in the Gilis every night I'd been there, and we were plunged into darkness, she soldiered on and we followed suit.




That night we returned to Anna's night market stall, where I tried a magenta-hued banana and dragon fruit shake paired with a scrumptious chocolate-filled pancake, and then to Rudy's for more gin and tonics. I spent most of the evening talking to N and T's buddy Andy and a lovely solo traveler named Emma, and dancing with Selena and another Aquaddiction dive instructor named Vinnie, but Tayler and Nick's moves most surprised me. For surfer-looking white boys, they know how to twirl a girl around a dance floor rather adroitly.
I decided to spend my final day on Gili T cycling around the island, which I managed with some difficulty. For most of my time there, I'd gotten everywhere either by walking or by riding on the pegs of Tayler's bike. The previous night I'd even tried sitting side-saddle on the back of Selena's bike to hysterically disastrous effect and ended up just renting a bike instead.
My rental looked like nearly every other bike in Asia: simple, straight-forward and street-ready, but it didn't exactly handle like a dream when the roads devolved into sandy paths for about a third of my journey. At least ten times, I ended up having to dismount and walk the bike for long stretches. The payoff justified the effort.




The far side of the island proved just as idyllic as the more populated half but felt wilder and more rugged.




After two hours of circumnavigation, I returned to town and ventured out onto the lone pier to appreciate the shoreline from a different angle...




... and to watch the locals bringing in their boats.




I met up with Tayler for lunch, and he helped me buy my fast boat ticket back to Bali for Sunday. I also tried to take another yoga class to unwind after my ride, but it had been cancelled because, as the note said, the teacher was "pregnant and tired." Instead, I stretched out in Tayler's room, assuring him that I wouldn't get the room "all sweaty and smelly" as he worried I would. Fortunately, the water didn't go out as it had the previous night, and I was able to shower off afterward and keep my word.
That night, the expats of the area held a farewell dinner at the night market for their Brazilian comrade Diego. I hung out for a bit, both there and afterward at the reggae bar, but the night ended fairly early and, tired as I was, I didn't mind.
The next morning, I said goodbye and thanks to Nick before he left on a dive trip, and then Selena and Tayler walked me to the departure point. They both left before I realized that my boat was running late, but fortunately Andy ended up being on the same boat, and he entertained me with excellent dive and DJ-ing stories, both as we waited and once onboard. He also consoled (and teased) me when I discovered that someone had stolen my beloved Old Navy flip-flops while we sat barefoot in a seaside hut, waiting for the boat. I'd bought them for $5 three years before, and they'd made it through 7 countries without wearing out. I had intended to hang them on a wall as a souvenir at the end of my trip. Of all the things I'd lost, those most saddened me.
Still, the blight of the flip-flop loss aside, I left Gili T having had one hell of a good time.
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Location:Gili Trawangan, Lombok, Indonesia