Back to Denpasar, Bali (Mar. 18-20, 2015)

Mar. 18, 2015

Today I got up in good time, packed my bag, and met Sara to catch our flight back to Denpasar, Bali. It was sad to say goodbye to Labuan Bajo, but taking lovely memories with us, to ponder, at our next destinations. Sara will stay in Bali for two days, then take a flight to India to meet up with friends for a couple of weeks. She will then return home and is happy to be seeing her family, but not that excited to see her travel time come to an end. 

I leave Bajo with a happy feeling from my diving, and think that I will try to continue it before leaving SE Asia for Canada. I am happy to be going back to Denpasar and to be meeting up with Yulia and Reza, who seem excited and happy to be meeting up again. It’s a weird group of friends, but we have really bonded and enjoy one another’s company.

My flight landed without any issue, at the airport, and I found my motorbike, still intact, in the parking lot. Well, it was missing one mirror, but other than that, no major issues. It even started and ran like a charm, which was great. No flat tires, or damaged body, other than the missing mirror. Reza said that this is very cheap to fix and that he had never had this happen before when he left the bike there. Oh well, I suppose it wasn’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. Apparently, it is only $5 to buy a new mirror, so that’s not bad. I found my way back to Reza’s place, where I was met by an excited Reza and Yulia.

They had gone shopping and Reza was making us lunch. He had saved some Iranian food that his last guests had brought to him, for me to try. It was delicious and consisted of a crispy saffron rice, salad, a bitter bean mixture and tuna from Iran. It was so sweet of them to wait for me to try it, and the three of us hung out for the rest of the day, going to the mall to play some games in the Game Zone, and watching movies in the evening, at Reza’s place. 

Welcome back lunch

Close up of lunch

Three friends playing Uno

Yulia brought her stuff and stayed overnight. We played Uno during the evening, after getting back from the mall, which was so much fun. Yulia has a rule that the loser of each round, gets a stripe of eyeshadow, somewhere on their face, at the discretion of the other players. Yulia and Reza got stripes, and luckily, I won a lot, and was makeup free. It was a lot of fun.

Mar. 19, 2015

We all got up together in the morning and ate together, before Reza had to go to work. He had saved this can of traditional Iranian food that people there eat for breakfast. He saved it for the whole time I was gone, which was so sweet. It was sheep parts. Brain, face, eyes, meat and feet. It was delicious and the broth that it was in was rich and delicious. He gave us Iranian flat bread that kind of resembled a flat pita. There was also Iranian cheese, very much like salty Feta, and fresh walnuts that you put with the cheese and lime, on the bread. The whole thing was fantastic, but super rich and filling. 

Reza left for work soon after we ate, and Yulia and I set off on the motorbike to do some errands. Most of them were for me, but she was happy to hang out and buzz around on the bike doing stuff. I had lost my prescription sunglasses, in Labuan Bajo, just before leaving………yes, the Senior moments have set in. I have now lost two pairs of prescription glasses since coming to Indonesia. Anyway, one of the errands was to get me another pair of sunglasses. We did indeed do that, and found a pair, that ended up costing me $45 total, and were made within the same day. In addition, we went to the Telkomsel place to find out about why the credit wasn’t showing on my phone, and to Air Asia to trade in my ticket to Bangkok. They had sent me an email saying that the flight I had booked to Bangkok for Mar. 26th, was cancelled and now was scheduled for Mar. 27th. This wasn’t a big deal, but I didn’t want to go to Bangkok that early, any longer, and had decided that going to Malaysia, an island in the east, was more appealing, to do some more World Class diving. One of the options was to get a credit for the flight and rebook, so that’s what I did. I will go to the east of Sabah, Malaysia, for a couple of weeks, go diving in Sipadan, Mabul, and surrounding area, then fly to Bangkok closer to my Canada departure time. That way I can experience one more of the top dive places in the world, before going back.

We went shopping for some items to have for the Silent Day, which is March 21st. Everything is closed on that day, and you can’t go out of the house. You’re not even supposed to use electricity and are to meditate, fast, and pray on this day. If you go out and are caught, you can be put in jail for the day, then fined a lot of money. It is a Hindu Day of Observation called Nyepi. It is very interesting, but all the shops are packed the few days before, with everyone stocking up for this day when all the shops are closed.

We tried to find a salon to colour my hair, but none of them seemed to have the colours I needed. No one here likes to colour their hair any shades of lighter brown, or red. All the options are very dark, either black or dark brown. So, I bought a L’Oreal hair colour in the supermarket to put on my hair during the Silent Day, when I can’t go anywhere. I hope it will be ok, as I am not very skilled at doing my own colour. Julia, I hope you can fix it if it is horrible…….lol. Anyway, I will give it a try and see what happens.

After that, I drove Yulia home, which is fairly far away. We stopped at McDonald’s for an ice cream, played Uno for a while, then I returned to Reza’s place and went to bed. He was still out, collecting guests that had arrived to Bali, from the airport.

Mar. 20, 2015

Today I spent the day, in a kind of lazy, way. Well, I researched where I want to go diving, and booked my ticket online. That was great because Air Asia’s website is often very sketchy and doesn’t work well. So, that is done, I have my ticket booked to Kuala Lumpur, for Mar. 26th in the evening. Then I will probably stay in the airport, and take another flight to Tawau, which is the closest place that you can fly to, close to Sempora. I contacted Scuba Junkie to get some prices for dive packages, and am just waiting for them to reply with what is available. I am really happy to be going to one more spectacular dive spot before leaving. I couldn’t really think of what I would do in Bangkok again, or more than two weeks. 

Other than that, I did yoga, caught up with loading the many photos that I couldn’t load onto the blog before, bought a few more things before Nyepi, and basically just chilled. Reza was working for most of the day, so I had the place to myself, Face Timed with family, tried a couple of friends and missed them, and did some laundry. 

Oh, before I came in for the evening, I rode around on the motorbike and took photos of the giant sculptures that people made for Nyepi. They must work on these all year. They are huge and very detailed. They are devils that they burn on the eve of Nyepi to start a clean year, without all the old demons. They are quite explicit and many seem to have boobs and other genitalia. I took many photos, and then was able to see this whole mob of people in white, walking down the main street, on their way to temple to burn the demons. No traffic could pass, and the cars had to stop and wait until they were past. It was really cool.

Reza came home just before sundown and we chatted, had a cold drink and will just hang out, watching movies, and eating for the rest of the night. Tomorrow we can’t go out, and will block the windows so the very observant neighbours don’t see any light, and will cook, and play cards. I will try to do my hair colour tomorrow as well. That should be interesting.

More later.