Time to head home

Side note: I do have some blog posts I haven’t posted.. will post later and back date.
A little over a 14 months ago I decided to quit my job and go traveling. The plan back then was to do a cross country road trip from the east coast to the west, up to Alaska and back.. followed up by a full year of around the world travel. Like all plans.. the plan changed.. and changed.. and changed again. Life happened…again.. like it always does. I ended up spending 3 months doing the cross country thing and I had an amazing journey doing it. I saw some pretty amazing things, met lots of new people, experienced burningman, the thrill of catching a wild salmon in Alaska, sleeping in a tent in the desert, sleeping on a lawn chair on the deck of a ferry, and saw lots of old friends along the way. It was a wonderful journey.

Then after life happened… I found myself staying with my sister.. in middle georgia, a place I swore I would never go back to for any length of time.. i.e. a couple of days here and there.. just to visit and get the hell back out

BUT.. I ended up staying. To my surprise I actually enjoyed being there.. my parents drive me insane but it was nice to be able to have dinner with them on a fairly regular basis. Also I developed a bond with my nephew that I can’t really describe. I loved him before.. no doubt.. but in those 4 months that I spent there with him I grew to love him even more.. I didn’t know that was possible but I did. I even considered bringing him along on this trip with me but due to uncertainty on my part I decided it was best just to plan something with him over the summer. I want him to travel and experience the world. I want to give that to him but I also want to do that responsibly. He and I discussed it and we decided that rather than me traveling for a full year.. I would travel for 5 months.. return .. pick him up.. and go traveling again for another month with him.. over the summer. We decided we want to go to Italy.

So I booked my flights for my trip abroad.. Feb 8th to July 4th. 147 days or approximately 5 months. The plan had changed significantly. My idea that I could just find a place I liked and stay vanished. I HAVE to go back to the states.. that sounds like I am disappointed.. but I am not…it was my decision.. and every time I think about taking the little guy abroad.. I get a fuzzy, happy feeling in my stomach and a big smile on my face. I imagine us climbing to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.. or riding a Gondola in Venice.. or blindfolding him to take him to Trevi Fountain in Rome… all these wonderful experiences he and I are going to get to have together just makes my heart sing. And so.. I don’t mind that the plans have changed.. in fact I am quite happy that they have.

I have thought a lot about him while on this trip and what it means that I have grown so attached to him. I have decided I am a good mom.. just a mom who doesn’t have any children of her own. I can be a positive, loving figure not only to Dresden but to other children too, like Samon, the young man who captured my heart in Cambodia and who deserves all that I can possibly give.. albeit from a distance.. for now.. but who knows what the future will hold.

All of this is to say that my plans have changed again. I am now nearly 4 months into my trip and I have decided I should start heading home now. I have made a few travel decisions and a promise to take Dresden to Italy.. because of those decisions I have decided to cut Laos and Vietnam from my trip and head home.

I am not disappointed. I have traveled my own country fairly extensively, traveled through 5 different countries and seen some really amazing places in the last year and I still have more to go…

I have also discovered that I have a sweet spot for being away from home of around 3 to 4 months. I start to get home sick around the 4 month mark and want to see all my friends and family. Now I have to figure out how to incorporate that knowledge into my life.

I have some idea of what I will do when Dresden and I are done with our trip but not completely. What I know for sure is that I know a hell of a lot more about myself and what is important to me than I did a year ago. For this I am eternally grateful to myself and the universe for giving me this time.

So… that’s it. I will be heading to Australia for a little bit and then back home.. home around end of May.

Crafts/Temples/Dances, volcanos, poop coffee and crazy giggles

This was a super fun day probably one of the most fun days we had. When we got back to the villa from Kuta and all the craziness of that day we decided to call one of the tour companies and see if we could get a guide and driver for the day. 10 hours with both a driver and guide costs 45 dollars. It was a great deal. Anyway we got Adi and Mani (spelling maybe incorrect). They picked us up at about 8:45 after driving in circles in our neighborhood for about 15 minutes trying to find our villa. The sign for the villa name is too small I have to agree with them.

When we got in they said okay ladies.. where do you want to go? We didn’t pick a packaged tour and had basically circled a few places on the map we wanted to go the night before. As we suspected we would not be able to do all of the things we wanted to do because well it was just too much. The island isn’t that big but it takes forever to get around it. Mostly because of traffic and bad roads and well not a lot of roads..

Anyway Adi suggested they take us to a few crafts places to see how things are made etc and for us to get a sarong at one of them so that when we got to the “Mother Temple” later in the day we would have something to wear. He also suggested we go watch a traditional dance performance. Then we could hit up some of the temples we wanted and see the volcano.. have dinner there and head home from there. It all sounded awesome to us and so we set out.

The first stop was the Sarong makers. Later I promise to put up some photos. The whole process is a pretty elaborate thing. They have some that are all done by hand and some that are done with presses etc. We purchased a few sarong’s for later and went on to the next stop.

The next stop was the traditional dance. Again I have photos and video and will post links to them later. The dance is the Barong Dance. I’ll post some pictures and videos later. There was a scene involving a monkey, his tail and some little people that was a little bizarre and uncomfortably funny.

After this we headed to our first temple. First question before we were able to walk in was whether or not either of us had “The problem of menstruation”. Once we had both confirmed we did not have “this problem” we were allowed to enter. Adi took a good deal of time to explain the temple to us. What each statue was for and why it was there. If you are interested you should read this article Hinduism in Indonesia. It is quite different than my experiences with India Hinduism. The temple we visited was called PURA Puseh & PURA Desa (I think) that is what the sign read anyway.

After the temple we started heading toward the Holy Spring Water temple or Pura Tirta Empulwhich was my favorite temple that we saw the whole time we were there. One reason it was my favorite is because we had to head up through this very beautiful green lush area full of rice terraces etc to get to it. We even had some incidents with coconuts.. Adi nearly got bonked on the head when trying to move some out of the street so we could pass. Another reason is that its just damn beautiful. It is so peaceful and magical and apparently not that many tourists make it up there and that made us very happy. Also the Indonesian go here to wash their clothes and bath to get rid of bad luck.. The day we visited there was only one person there washing his laundry.

After this we headed on up toward the volcano. Marlo had decided she wanted to hike to the top of this thing the next day and I was going to go along with her. We were suppose to get up at 1:30 like (just a few hours after we were heading up to the top in a vehicle with Adi).. to hike up for sunrise.. pickup was like 2:30 and it was a couple of hours hike. Anyway we headed up there with Adi and had dinner at a restaurant up at the top. It was an amazing view for the few minutes that we could see it before storm rolled in with high winds and clouds.

Our next stop was the Mother Temple of Besakih . Adi had already drawn us a map and given us specific instructions like 3 times before we got there. He wouldn’t be allowed to go in with us and had told us do not take a guide. Here is where you go here is what you do etc etc. He handed us our tickets and said.. DO NOT GIVE THIS TO ANYONE.. just show it if anyone asks. Anyway we thought we understood but once we were in the area we clearly had not. We walked this way and that way trying to figure out what he meant by his map. I tried to call him but didn’t go through.. anyway we finally figured out where we were to go and started heading that way. As we approached where we were suppose to go a man told us we could not go without a guide because there was a ceremony. Now Adi had told us to just say no thank you and keep walking so we tried that but the man insisted we would be in trouble.. I hesitated.. and we went back down.. at this point Marlo was pretty annoyed and I just didn’t want to deal with it.. we sat for a minute and we decided to try it again. This time we walked right past him and he fussed at us again.. insisting we were not allowed.. we continued up the steps but on the way up I saw a sign that indeed said that if you were not worshipping there you could not go which made me hesitate again. Again Marlo was pretty annoyed. We ended up not really seeing what we went there to see which was the view from the top out over the mountain. Really if the people had actually been nice I think all would have been fine but it felt weird there. I felt very very uncomfortable like there were predators all around me and I was pray… we didn’t stay long.. we just said f it and headed back to the truck telling Adi and Mani to just get us the hell out of there.

Its really unfortunate that a place called the Mother Temple was one of the places I felt most uncomfortable in because the people were just not good.. Anyway I think Adi and Mani wanted to cheer us up so Adi asked if we drank coffee or tea and if we’d like to stop at a place. We said sure and headed to this little cafe (i think) in the forest that had animals all around etc. This stop is the one where I did something way out of what most people believe to be my character. We arrived and the gentleman there took us over to where the beans are cleaned, roasted and then ground into powder.. they were picking up beans and smelling them so I went to do the same at which point Adi grabbed my hand and said.. NO.. those poop beans… I looked at him like he was crazy and figured he was pulling me leg.. then he asks if I have heard of it to which I respond no.. so he takes me over to a cage where this cute little animal is and says he poops the beans.. and then I remembered! AH YES I have heard of this.. I saw part of a documentary or something on this. Its suppose to be the world’s most expensive coffee. He tells me its Kopi Luwak and Marlo confirms.. Just then the host brings over 6 small cups of various drinks for Marlo and I to try free of charge. One is lemon tea, lemongrass tea, ginger tea, coco, balinese coffee and some other coffee.. none of these were the Kopi Luwak.. but the guy tells me for just 50,000 rupiah (about 5 to 6 US Dollars) I could have my very own cup of the most expensive coffee in the world produced right here by the animals I see…Ummm after a little discussion with Marlo we decide yes we want to do it. I mean.. its a once in a lifetime experience right.. so yeah we went for it. I drank about half the cup before deciding it was a bad idea considering we were getting up in a few hours to go hike a volcano.. so I offered the rest to Adi. He pushed not to take it but eventually he caved and did. After he added lots and lots of sugar he was good.

Here is the photo Marlo did for me.

Anyway it was great. Once we got back into the car I think the coffee must have gone to all of our heads because we just got silly. All of us.. everything became funny and we taught Adi all sorts of stuff. There were a few really funny miscommunications. Once we got home (ride took forever due to traffic), I realized I was so exhausted and climbing a mountain in a few hours didn’t sound appealing to me. Marlo finally pried it out of me that I wasn’t really digging going although I was going to go anyway so that Marlo could go. She thought about it and decided she would go the next day and that maybe we would go to Tanah Lot the next day before she went hiking.

So I didn’t climb that volcano.. which I am totally fine with.

Crazy Kuta, funerals, and lost flip flops

Marlo and I decided to go check out Kuta on this day. So we headed out.. got a taxi and were on our way. We didn’t really know where we wanted to go in Kuta.. just knew we wanted to check out Kuta.. so our driver actually dropped us at a mail that was in front of the beach. We were pretty hungry by the time we got to the area (kuta is always a traffic jam) so we ate at Kafe Batan Waru.

While we were having lunch a funeral procession passed by. Everyone was dressed in white and sarong’s and they were carrying this big beautiful temple like thing.. not sure what they call it but basically it had the body in it. The head of the village was riding along with it and they were singing etc.

After lunch Marlo and I walked through the mail and then out to the beach. Once we got outside we realized this was not the beach we were looking for. So we walked back through the mall, out to the street and turned left in hopes of finding a nice beach to hang at. We did find a beach and we took a left… we walked a little ways before realizing we were walking right through the funeral. There was someone on a loud speaker that was transmitting from a van.. there were 3 of these temple like things on the beach and one had already been burned and it appeared they were about to burn another. We didn’t want to be disrespectful so instead of turning and going back the way we came we just kept walking in order to try to get OUT of the middle of their funeral. :/ As we walked I started to notice that we were actually walking through the cemetery. Ohhh .. that makes sense. It all seemed more like a celebration than a funeral though. I think I like their way of doing it much better than the grief stricken downer of funerals we have. I really do want mine to be a celebration.. I want to be paraded down the street in a beautifully elaborate box, have people sing and dance, and then put me on a floating bamboo raft, light me on fire, and push me out to sea.

I don’t think this is even legal in the states but I think that is a much better exit for my body than being put in the ground and even though I have already specified I want to be cremated.. its so unceremonious in the states.

Anyway after that we kept walking and finally found what we think was the beach we were looking for but it too was a dirty beach and the crowds were a bit too much for me so Marlo was kind and went along with my desire to leave. On the way over our driver had told us about Dream Land beach.. which was suppose to be magnificent so we were off in search of a taxi.

Okay so I had read that we should only take the Blue Bird Taxi’s and so we were trying to find Blue Bird taxi’s and we saw a few blue taxis but I couldn’t tell if they were the right blue taxis. I didn’t want to deal with the haggling if it wasn’t and so we went to try to find other taxis.. this lead us down a very long long path that seemed never ending.. like we were stuck. Also we walked all through the shopping district I guess. The short of it is we walked a long way to find a taxi and later I found out that all the blue ones are part of the Blue Bird Group and would have been fine to take.

The Gist of it all.. I didn’t really care for Kuta very much at all.

The taxi driver we had was very nice and he took us to Dream Land beach.. it was a very loooonnng drive. We had no idea it was so freaking far. When we got there we realized that there was no way we were going to hail a cab back out of there so we started trying to find out from the driver just how we were going to get back out.. after a few minutes of confused discussion it was decided that he would wait for us while we went to explore. Great! Our cab so far was only at like 10 dollars on the meter even though we had been in the cab for an hour or more…

We head down the stairs and out along the side of this building and it was indeed a very pretty LITTLE piece of beach… (if you don’t look at all the trash that has washing into the inlet that is). I think we didn’t see all of it.. but the little piece we saw.. the waves were gigantic and there was no swimming allowed. Lots of tour buses showed up .. everyone piles out.. people snap lots of pictures and then they load back up and go… Except sometimes.. sometimes there is a bit of entertainment at the expense of the poor unsuspecting tourists.

Marlo and I crossed over a small water way and headed up to the top of a hill to just look down on everything. I lost a flip flop as the water rushed back out but by some miracle managed to get it back.

On two different occasions a tour bus full of people would off load down on to the beach area and start taking pictures and then a huge wave would come and knock everyone down, stealing many many pairs of shoes, ruining many camera’s, and scaring the crap out of small children (and parents) who wash into the inlet with the wave.

Now before you give me shit about not warning people.. this wasn’t something that we expected either.. most of the time things were calm and you would kind of forget there was this raging ocean who could throw a 6 foot wave toward the beach at any moment.

I actually started to get nervous that if the tide was coming in .. which it appeared to be .. we would be stuck.. on this hill.. not able to get back across. I was nervous going down the hill because I had a beach bag loaded with stuff, wet flip flops, and it was pretty much straight down jagged rocks. A very nice Indonesian man helped me down. Then when we got to the beach the inlet that we had crossed earlier had grown to about 6 ft wide and about 2 to 2.5 ft deep. I pulled my dress up over my waist kick the bag up to my shoulder grabbed my flip flops in my hands and ran across hoping the water didn’t suck me out into the ocean. I made it across just fine. Marlo along with everyone else who has not apparently had the same realization as we did are on the other side trying to figure out what to do… They all went further up and crossed at a different point which wasn’t as deep but to me seemed to be flowing stronger… Doesn’t really matter.. Marlo and I got back across without losing anything and without getting any of our camera’s, iPhones etc. messed up.. That is more than I can say for many folks there that day.

Our driver was cool.. he was always keeping up with where we were and waiting nearby in case we were ready so he was right there when it was time to go.

Back to Sanur, dinner, rest of the night was pretty uneventful

Overpriced dress, clean clothes, and rain

Alright so finally I am blogging at night about the same day that I am writing about… Today… Today we woke up and started hitting the inter webs.. free wifi in our beautiful oasis in Bali..We headed out for breakfast.. had some.. pick up some provisions.. water etc. and then we went back to our villa and used the internet. I contacted Obie back home, let him know I am doing fine, told him all about my last few days and then got caught up on the happenings there.. we ended with discussion of work I could do.

Then Marlo and I went to explore. We found the beach access… go figure .. it was right there.. we had walked by it several times and only now just seen it. Beach yoga place.. stands selling everything.. food.. drinks.. its all here .. all right along the beach.. along with lots of trash. It bugs me so bad that there are these wonderful, beautiful places in the world and as you walk along .. trash.. whatever.. I can look past it to see the beauty and so I did.

On the way back I really needed to buy a dress of some sort.. I was dying in the clothes I had on.. way to heavy, thick for this weather so I stopped to buy a dress.. I finally found one I like and the girl say 250000.. WHAT.. no.. how about 75000 .. her 200000 me 100000.. her 190000 me.. nope 100000 or nothing .. I am leaving.. her.. okay.. fine.. I bought a dress. for you folks back home 100000 Indonesian Rupeah is about 11 bucks. It was still about 6 bucks more than I should have paid but whatever .. I was dying.

Then off to lunch. We had a great Indonesian meal.. I had Kare Ayum and really enjoyed it.. I then had Balinese Coffee.. which was like pumping coke straight into my veins.. so I only drank about half before realizing it was already taking its toll and stopped.

After that we headed back to the villa where I spent the afternoon doing just a bit of work followed by 2 weeks worth of blogging. Yeah so a large majority of everything written about in the last two weeks was aaaallll written today. I took a dip in the pool at some point and the afternoon was taken by rain for much of the rest of the day.. blogging and rain.

This morning before we headed out.. we gave almost ALL our clothes to Komang to laundry and when we didn’t see them or get them by the afternoon .. it kicked in that we were not going to get our clothes back till tomorrow… .. ummm that sucks.. mostly for Marlo.. I am good other than needing something to sleep in.. but Marlo.. well.. just about everything she had is off at the laundry which means we couldn’t schedule any day tours or anything like that for tomorrow.. cause well she has no clothes.. so what we decided over dinner was that we would just go to Kuta tomorrow.

I have had a few drinks at this point hence all the dot dot’s etc. We went out .. in the rain.. and found a place on the beach for dinner, it was shit dinner and not really worth mentioning.. but after we went to a swing bar which was cool and then wandering through a hotel out to the main road cause I felt more safe doing that than walking down the dark walkway along the beach back to our place.. when we came out of the hotel we found ourselves in front of a place we had talked about visiting earlier in the day.. another drink and the both of us decided we had enough.. neither of us want to be too tipsy walking back to our place down the dark alley’s…

I got soaked but I am totally happy about it. If I thought Marlo might not think I was completely insane.. I’d go play in the rain right now.. which sounds so freaking inviting. Also there is the whole bit about not having the clothes to really do that.. don’t want to go all naked just yet.. Marlo and I don’t know each other that well.. nor does our host Colin.. there is such a beauty in playing in the rain tho.. something very freeing about it… even just walking in it on the way home I felt it.. I didn’t care that I was soaked from the waist down (I had on my nifty water/rain coat).. I was happy to have wet legs and feet. I even wanted to go barefoot and would have if it wasn’t for fear of cutting my foot on some unseen glass or something. I am happy everyone.. very very happy.

It is pouring outside now.. I so wish you all could see and hear this rain..

TIL: about Musicovery and drinkify from Marlo.. both great music sites.

Annnnddd all caught up.. now to sleep to the sound of the rain.

Goodbye Australia… airports.. Heellloooo Bali

We said our goodbyes to our great hosts in Cairns and headed to the airport.. actually Zelda ended up giving us a ride there.. she is great.. did I mention that? Yeah so we go through get all goodbye stamped by the Cairns Immigration office and make our way to Darwin. When we get to Darwin.. they file us into this small area .. we already got stamped so we don’t get to go out to where all the good stuff is.. AND we start our 5 hours layover.. in this little area. The best thing though.. they had FREE WIFI.. okay so we were able to entertain ourselves.. I should have done all this blog catching up then but I just couldn’t.. I mostly walked around and chatted on the phone with Mike.. and bemoaned being in this little space for so long… finally we boarded and got our flight to Bali…

HOLY CRAP Bali! I blogged a bit on the plane and did a sudoku and read a magazine.. was very ready to get here. Getting through visa’s, immigration, baggage etc was all pretty easy actually… OH yeah I forgot to mention that when we checked into our flight in Cairns they made me book a flight out of Indonesia.. I hadn’t really decided when I was leaving Indonesia until that moment.. and I only decided then because I had to.. I was forced to .. so as of right now.. I am flying out of Jakarta on March 27th.. heading to Bangkok. Yeah .. so visa’s not too bad.. 25 dollars (USD), immigration not a problem, customs not a problem and we had a guy there waiting for us.

The airport reminded me of Bangalore but not quite as chaotic as Bangalore. Our driver zoomed us out of there and off to our villa. I hadn’t gotten any money from the airport and had only AUD for the driver.. I thought I could pay with that.. it was a misunderstanding on our part so Colin our host had to pay the driver for us. :/ I have the money to pay him back now…

Our villa.. OMG our Villa is so nice.. its set like in this little residential place.. We are in an airbnb not a hotel or anything like that so it’s basically the spare room of this guy Colin’s home. There is a pool and a very sweet doggie named Mrs. Jones. We have an “outdoor” shower.. its really not that outdoor its just without a roof really and I really like it.

We headed out to dinner and in search of an ATM when we got here. It was late.. like 10:30 and we were worried that things would be closed cause well that had been our experience in a lot of the sleepy towns we had been in in Australia but to our surprise there were lots of places open. We found an ATM with ease.. food with ease etc. Once we sat down and ordered drinks and food… my eyes teared up and I got this huge smile on my face because I realized.. I am here.. this this is the start of that journey.. I mean its been starting and starting .. with the cross country and australia etc.. but this.. THIS is one of the places I have dreamed of all my life.. even when I didn’t know the name of the place i was dreaming of.. places so far and distant and different from my small world back home in the states.. this.. Bali.. is that. I am here with a travel companion.. but this is my trip in my world and i got myself here.. I got myself here.. with the help of the universe of course.. but its mine.. I can hold it close to my heart in a way I can’t really describe and it means something to me that I can’t put to words..

I am a very lucky woman.

Postcards, boardwalks, 11m Crocs, Kiwi’s and Ozzies

So sunday was a bit of a low key day for most of the day.. Kevin our host’s man gave us a ride into town and we sat at a coffee shop while I filled out what seemed to be thousands of postcards.. and Marlo edited photos on her phone. After I finished filling out and addressing the 35 or so cards we headed out for a walk around the board walk.

After that we went in search of a little black book for Marlo but we had no luck.. we did however find the Grand Hotel with it’s 11m long carved Crocodile bar. We pulled up a couple of seats and started making friends. This was the bar we had been missing. The one where people ask your name.. who you are.. where your from and generally want to have a chat. We met Dan and Mike there. Several drinks into the afternoon/evening.. we headed out with the fellas for some dinner. Dan wanted us to go to the Pub bar.. I was a little leery when we arrived cause it felt much more like a club and a place to sit down and eat.. we did indeed eat but at that point I think the drinks had gone to everyone’s head. We stayed for about 2 hours total and then drama ensued.. I won’t go into those details cause well.. at this point they are unimportant. Marlo and I headed home and spent the rest of the night in our room at our host house..

Great Barrier Reef

Saturday was amazing.. diving the reef was amazing.. snorkeling the reef was amazing.. now let me see if I can at least try to do it justice with some descriptive words.

Alright so a little back story is in order here.. Back when I working at MediaOcean.. Ross our wonderful leader took about 40 of us to Jamaica as a reward for working our tails off for a very long time. In addition, he paid for us to get dive certified.. we did all the school work portion and the pool portions in atlanta at the facility but we were doing our open water dives while we were down in Jamaica. I completed all the atlanta stuff and then did 3 of the 4 open water dives… The reason I didn’t complete the 4th dive was because the 3rd dive was hell.

The 3rd Dive.. put in scary music here…
I was the last off the boat.. there was a hurricane out at sea so the water was very choppy up top.. I didn’t have enough weights on.. or something because I wasn’t going down.. instructor had to grab me to start descending me.. I couldn’t get my ears to equalize and probably didn’t communicate that well enough because the instructor took me down.. I was nervous about everyone being on the bottom waiting.. stupid me.. never ever do this people.. if you can’t equalize go back up… by the time I got to the bottom I was in excruciating pain. My ears felt like they were going to explode.. Then my mask kept filling up with salt water because I had put sunblock on my face and the mask wasn’t sealing.. so I had sun block salt water in my eyes for most of the dive even though I was cleaning often.. THEN there were these little fish that supposedly don’t bite.. but the little fuckers bit me.. and then I got stung by a jelly fish all along my stomach and legs.. needless to say .. I was quite happy when Obie started to get low on air and we all needed to start making our way back up top. Now the thing I am proud of out of all of this.. is that I never panicked .. however my dumb young ass totally should have asked to be taken back up pretty much immediately after the dive started…

Once I got back on the boat.. I buried my face into Obie’s chest and cried. My eyes were swollen nearly closed, I had welts on my stomach and legs from the jelly fish, little bite marks from the fish on my legs, and bleeding ears. Sooo when it came time to go on the 4th dive.. I stayed on the beach .. sipping drinks and waved goodbye as the others went out.

Sucks cause I was so close to having my certification but it just wasn’t meant to be.. So now with the back story.. you might understand my little bit of apprehension of diving the reef.. thing is.. its a once in a life time opportunity and I just can’t pass up such opportunities.. so I sucked it up and said.. yep .. lets do it.

The night before I googled all about equalizing and then once I was on the boat I asked a thousand questions about it.. and then I talked to the instructor who was going down with us and told him I had had problems before and he said he would look out for me. Marlo was a champ.. she has never dove before .. ever.. and she went her first time in the ocean after only having watched a video. :0 Crazy.. anyway we geared up and headed down. The instructor was awesome.. he took us down very very slowly after we did a few of the skills tests.. i.e. clear mask, drop regulator and regain, etc… I was having trouble at first so he helped me get my ears to equalize.

I can’t say enough good things about this company we went out with. The instructors was awesome, patient, and kind.. all the crew was helpful and knowledgable. Anyway.. once we were down there and my ears had equalized and I wasn’t in pain.. and I had a wet suit on.. etc.. I just sort of started to lose myself in the underwater world. There were fish of all colors, golds, blacks, yellows, blues, all sorts of patterns.. some small some big.. and some so big I wanted to go the other way… The photographer brought a sea turtle over to us and let us get a really up close look. He brought him over with dead coral with is apparently like a narcotic for these guys… Crush the turtle from Finding Nemo now makes so much more sense.. they are basically stoned all the time.

I saw a clam bigger than me and coral that looked like a rock/plant but when we got close it pulled its tentacles back into its body.. Things look very different in the water than the pictures.. it was an overcast day which was a blessing for me because I didn’t die from a sunburn or heat but it also meant some of the colors you see in postcards and such … we didn’t see. Don’t get me wrong it was colorful just not the same look as pictures from where a flash was used.. depending on the light the coral changes color..

Anyway it was a truly amazing day and I am so very very happy I went. I totally want to get certified now and Marlo and I are looking into doing it either in Bali or Thailand.. not sure which yet but I really want to do it because now that I am over that one bad one.. I want to do it again.

I had one slight oh shit moment under water on the second dive.. I got some salt water up my nose.. i.e I inhaled salt water and coughed/choked a bit.. made me a bit nervous cause well you know.. my only air source is from a regulator attached to a tank on my back.. and I can’t cough/take deep breathes.. etc.. I just calmed myself and took deep breathes and managed to control the reflex to cough.. but still.. I sooo want to get certified so that I can dive anywhere .. at any time now…

Probably one of the best days of my trip so far.. just so freaking different and miraculous ..

We went out that night but we didn’t find much to do other than have a few drinks and people watch. We didn’t know the right places to go I don’t think. I was tired too.. it was a bit of a long day and we had done exercise pretty much the entire day…

Said goodbye to our little awesome ride, brisbane airport to Cairns..

We were sad to say goodbye to our little car… she had taken us 1,625 miles across 3 states of Australia.. she was dirty but other than that.. she was just awesome.. Was like saying goodbye to a friend really.

Airports.. you know.. as they go.. Brisbane was fine.. and off to Cairns. We arrived a bit early than I had thought we would.. I don’t know why but time and timezones and days and such seem to be giving me a bit of a hard time now days… I called our airbnb host to let her know we had arrived.. This was our place and I would recommend staying here if you have a car. We got lucky cause we caught a few rides into town but otherwise its bus or cab. Her name is Zelda and she is great. She let us change our booking and then when we found out we weren’t driving and needed the place on the 9th after all.. and she had already given up the place to another couple.. she still found room to host us.. and didn’t charge us.. how awesome is that.. Yeah so we got there earlier than expected, she was out and told us to make ourselves at home.. take a dip in the pool etc.

We showered up and headed out.. it was Friday night and our last weekend in Australia so we were looking for something to do.. if I remember correctly we didn’t really run across much.. we ended up eating and heading back because we had the dive early in the morning.

I didn’t sleep for shit that night.. I was so excited and honestly a little nervous about diving the Great Barrier Reef that I just couldn’t sleep.. also there were lots of animal sounds I wasn’t use to..

Steve Irwin Way, Glass House Mountains, My first Taoist temple, and Noosa

We were only a few hours from Noosa something like 2.5 I think.. we headed out about 9:30 and since we couldn’t check in until 2:00 we kind of took our time getting there.. That is how I saw my first Taoist Temple… we were driving a long.. I think just north of Brisbane and all of a sudden Marlo blurts out Taoist Temple this exit.. want to stop? So I hit the exit.. very interesting place.. peaceful.. but seemed to have been there quite some time and it seemed odd to me that it was right next to the interstate.. it was beautiful .. Marlo got pictures.. like I said.. once she gets done editing .. I’ll post them. I got a few but mine just don’t do it justice.

After we got back on the road and had been going for a few we noticed a sign that said Scenic Tour and mentioned some mountains and crocodiles I believe.. We took it.. as we were coming in we saw that the entrance said “Steve Irwin Way” so of course I had to stop and get a picture.. my dad would be mad at me if I hadn’t gotten a picture of that for him.

We also saw signs for the zoo, glass house mountains and some other stuff. The mountains were pretty cool and we messed around the area for a few hours. The pictures will really show you what we saw.. some things you just can’t really describe.. in fact I am kind of sick of using words like awesome and cool and interesting and .. geez.. you’d think I could be a little more creative now wouldn’t you.. Its just hard to be able to capture everything and with enough detail to really tell the story.. Wondering how long I can keep this up and just how long people will continue to read and care because its just me rambling on and on about what I did and saw without any real hookers you know.. I don’t have the right words for grabbing your attention and keeping it..

Sidetrack done.. Noosa was a very neat area, clean and just well.. manicured. We went for a hike along this coastal trail and saw dolphins.. Oh yeah.. I forgot to mention the game we thought up on the way to Surfer’s Paradise… its called Roolaby.. basically count the number of Kangaroos, Wallaby’s and Koalas we see.. we started it very late in the road trip so Marlo won.. with a Roolaby count of 1. .. So yeah Dolphins! and birds and surfers.. lots and lots of surfers.. also it was very nice to get a little exercise… OH And BUSH Turkey’s were walking around everywhere.. yep .. they are turkey’s.. walking around the town just where ever…

Other than that.. the town goes to sleep pretty early.. we had dinner and an early night.

Oh yeah but while we were there enjoying our FREE WIFI.. yes FREE and I put that on the review I left that it was awesome that we had descent/free wifi.. we flipped on the TV to find that Sydney CBD was pretty much flooded… we had left that area just in time and yeah glad we were flying the rest of the way.

Oh also we booked a dive/snorkel trip for the Great Barrier Reef on Saturday.. we were freaking excited…

Work day

We had wifi.. not free wifi.. in fact very expensive wifi.. and shitty wifi but we had a great pad over looking the beach and I thought it would be a good day to just get some more work done. I had some things I wanted to finish up from where I was working on Monday and didn’t really want to have to do any work once I got up to Cairns (pronounced CANS).. so I worked. Marlo was going to meet up with some friends she went to school with in the Philippines 20 years ago and I didn’t want to intrude on that.. seemed like something that she shouldn’t have a tag along for so.. I hung out and worked .. the whole day..

She went to dinner and her friends told her that we really shouldn’t drive to Cairns.. there were road closings and such from flooding and that it isn’t a very good drive even when its not all flooded. So her and I decided to just drop the car off in Brisbane and catch a flight up to Cairns instead of doing the 23 hour drive.

We still had a bit further to go up to Brisbane and this guy Marlo met in Adelaide had insisted we should check out a place called Noosa with that in mind we booked flights to Cairns and decided to go speed a night up in Noosa.