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Published: August 27th 2009
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Sunset
Man working in his seaweed field at sunset Sam's turn to write:
Sometimes conversation with people here can be downright silly. We don't speak Indonesian (much) and they generally don't speak English (much). We met an Indonesian fellow on a bus in Jogja who insisted his name was "Adam". Here's an excerpt:
Adam: (pointing to a large grocery store) "Dis es place foh shopping. You like shopping?"
Me: "Well...yeah. I kind of do like to go grocery shopping."
Adam: (long pause. Blank stare. He didn't understand)
Adam: "You like shopping?"
Me: "...Yes..."
Adam: (looking very pleased now) "Why do you like shopping?"
Me: "....well...I guess I like to buy food and spices to cook with"
Adam: (smiles and nods. I'm pretty sure he didn't understand)
(a horse drawn carriage rolls by)
Adam: (pointing to the horse) "You like horse?"
Me: "...uh..." (sure, why not, I can like horses), "...yeah. I like horses."
Adam: "Why you like horses?"
Me: "..." (before I could come up with some simple explanation for my stated affection for horses...)
Adam: "I like horses"
Adam was a genuinely nice fellow, but this kind of conversation went on for over an hour.
We're out of Jogja now. We've moved on to Bali,
Nusa Lembongan more specifically. It's a tiny island just off the east coast of Bali. Before getting here we've had the pleasure of meeting up with Sam Fuchs, which now gives us to opportunity to introduce ourselves as "Sam Sam, but different." For those who don't know, "same same, but different" is a favorite expression of locals in Southeast Asia. Our version never fails to entertain.
Getting to Bali was a silly experience. I don't really know if I can describe our flight (from Jogja to Bali) in a way that will do it justice, but I'll try. We were flying Lion Air, the budget option in Indonesia. When we boarded we realized we had the worst seats on the whole plane. It was the row right after the exit row which had less leg room and the seats were much more upright. It was laughable how uncomfortable these seats were. In an effort to get more comfortable i pushed a little on the seat in front of me. It moved forward to about a 70 degree angle, but I could get it to move back. Then a relatively large man gets to the seat, sits down and tries
to move the seat back with no success. He tries a number of times, gets up and examines it, tries some more, and nothing. He then calls the stewardess over to help him out, but she looks at him like he's trying to poison her. She looks at the seat and hurries away. She just refused to deal with him. The poor guy has to spend the entire flight leaning all the way forward to the point that his head is touching the head of the guy in front of him. I was losing it I was laughing so hard. I just couldn't stop. It was so ridiculous. I felt bad, but the guy seemed to laugh it off and refused offers to switch seats.
Our taxi from the airport wasn't much better. Our guy got us to the town of Sanur no problem, but the second we got to the right street he would squawk at us obnoxiously loud, "DIS IT?", as we stopped at each and every lit up building. He didn't seem to understand that we'd never been there and didn't know anything about the area. We expected that we would give the cabbie the address
and he would take us there, which was apparently unreasonable of us. We went up and down the street several times. He even stopped at a freaking dentist!!! "DIS IT?!?" NO THIS ISN'T FUCKING IT! THIS IS A DENTIST!
Here on Lembongan we've been cruising around on scooters stopping at little beaches and having drinks while watching the sun set over Bali. Our rented home comes with a little monkey baby that enjoys grooming us. Her name is Bella. Kong, the grown up monkey, is a little more intimidating but while the others think she is a bad monkey, it's my belief that she is inherently good. Time will tell...
We've finished half our scuba certification and finish the second half today. So far it's been a resounding success. Instead of taking us to just off the beach to the calm sandy waters for our first dive like we had planned on, we were taken out to Manta point, an hour boat ride away. As the name suggests, this is where you go to catch a glimpse of giant mantas, and it didn't disappoint. We something like 10 of these enormous creatures happily gliding by us. It was
a hell of a first dive.
-Sam
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Corinna
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Awesome!
Sounds so fun! Any shark sightings?