Loving Life in Lovina
Travel Location: Bali,Indonesia
We woke up this morning still reeling from the previous evening’s news (and the wine…). We were pretty disturbed to watch the BBC during breakfast. We learned that the tsunami death toll was already over 200 — very upsetting. We were also pretty alarmed to see the news about Israel and Lebanon… what is this world coming to, we wondered?
While very upsetting, we moved on with the day, namely a snorkelling adventure to “Deer Island”, about 1 hour’s drive from Lovina. We boarded mini-buses early to get a good start on the day and we arrived at the snorkelling site by 10:30am. On the drive, we had quite an involved debate about drinking and driving among young people. It’s incredible the talks we can get into, considering our varied perspectives. I have proclaimed us to be a walking United Nations Convention and it is sort of true… we can assess huge-scale problems (like teenage deliquency) from worldwide perspectives. We came up with quite a few resolutions that are bound to solve the teenage fatality rate in Southern California… in a utopia that is.
Anyway, we finally arrived at the site and we boarded a little longboat that drove us the short distance across the ocean to Deer Island. Deer Island is appropriately named because when the tide is low, deer cross over from the Bali mainland to this little island, for pretty unknown reasons actually. The problem is that they can’t get back. The dumb deer seem to stay on the island, despite the absence of freshwater. So they all end up dying — not very smart indeed!
Besides the deer, Deer Island is famous for its gorgeous reefs, which are found in the clearest water I have ever seen. The snorkelling was truly amazing. BEST snorkelling ever, to be exact. The major highlight of the adventure was finding blue starfish — fabulous! We were out for over an hour, but soon got pretty cold despite the tropical waters, so we headed back to the island for lunch. Lunch was bad — oh well — so we cut it pretty short. Most people went back into the water, but my toe was driving me crazy in the flippers, so I opted to tan on the beach with Sara and a few others. We also took a walk around the island a bit and saw water worms and other strange creatures. But no deer… sadly.
After snorkelling, we took the minibus to a scene of natural hot springs — exciting! I had never been to a hot spring before, so I was pretty excited. When we first arrived, the entrance to the hot springs was completely covered with vendor stalls and my oh my they were aggressive! We told them all “Later, later!” and hurried past as quick as we could.
The springs themselves were a bit of a disappointment. Basically, it was three baths filled with green, murky water. There were quite a large number of people in the springs and even weirder were the Indonesian men just gawking at the women in the pools. Rachel and I — the two infirmed ones — quickly opted to guard everyone’s things at the elevated restaurant bar, instead of swimming in the germ sesspools… I mean, natural springs. We were quickly joined by Rosie and Jeff… in fact, most of us didn’t go in at all! But it was interesting to see.
It was a long day of fun, but the night promised to be even better! Yude had arranged for a local woman to cook us a feast of a buffet at her home. This was truly very special and we were all excited to see a traditional Balinese house. We walked the short ten minutes through the town to the beach, where the woman’s house was located. When we arrived, we learned about the Hindu statues that guard all Balinese homes. We saw how Balinese life is focused outside of the home, with the prominent terrace, for most of the family’s activities. This woman’s deck was located right in the sand of the beach and although we couldn’t see it, we could hear the waves of the ocean.
Dinner was fantastic. According to Yude, the woman had been cooking since 1PM that afternoon. We had 15 dishes to try, all traditional Indonesian and Balinese cuisine. It was so delicious and we were all stuffed to the brim. Patting our bellies, we waved good-bye and walked back to our section of town. Accompanying us on our walk were the town dogs, which barked menancingly at us. Yude explained that on Bali, dogs are kept as guards of the family and home, not as pets. They are not coddled or babbied as pet dogs would be (like Maple!), but are treated as workers. This explained the ferocity with which the dogs were yelling at us — they were doing their jobs in alerting their owners that we were walking around. Despite this knowledge, many people were QUITE afraid, especially Tanya and Pauline. I didn’t blame them… the dogs were VERY insistent and got quite close. All in all, it was a great night, despite the chorus of loud dogs.
