Photo Link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/dT3To71d7DfRzbkUA
Typing this from the Hong Kong airport, where I am 3 hours into a 21 hour layover on my flight back home to JFK. Unfortunately had to cut the first year of my retirement tour short due to international borders closing left and right with pretty much no notice. Basically, the ~$900 I had earmarked for a week of diving in Malaysian Borneo instead went towards my flight back home :(. More than even being annoyed, I think I’m just really disappointed by all this, though on the bright side my timeline of finishing by summer 2023 should give me enough time even after waiting out this Corona stuff back home. Some combo of Trump’s UBI and my 2019 tax refund should hopefully cover my exorbitant health insurance costs back in the US (it’s literally more expensive for me to sit at home doing nothing and pay for insurance than it is for me to travel while being covered under my travel health insurance. God Bless the US of A).
I was honestly surprised by how much I enjoyed Bali. Unlike other tourist hotspots that rely a ton on tourism (Cairo and Bangkok come to mind right away), I found the locals to be some of the nicest people that I have ever interacted with out of any place I have ever visited. My college friend Nick (who was my Burning Man tent-mate) flew over from Chicago, and we met with another college friend, Arjun, who was getting his divemaster certification here. The three of us first went to Ubud for 3 days. We rented this awesome villa with a private pool, and it was just $30/night per person, which is a splurge by my travelling standards. I honestly think I would have hated Bali if it was peak crowded, but it being a combo of off season + corona meant that there were enough tourists there but not too much to ruin the experience. Weirdly enough, the highlight of Ubud for me was this super swanky swimming pool bar called Folk that we went to two nights in a row. It was a ~$5 entrance fee and then ~$3 for a beer and ~$6 for cocktails, but it was incredibly fun to just waste away the evening there after sightseeing all day during the day.
While Indonesia is predominantly Muslim, the island of Bali is majority Hindu by a healthy margin. However, I was shocked to find that the temples and architecture of Bali more strongly resembled the SE Asian Buddhist style more than any sort of Hindu style I have seen in India. This was actually a *minor* disappointment since I looooved the temples of India. And Bali (with the Ubud area in particular) was infested with these Instagram-swings that you could sit and pose on with nice backdrops. Speaking of these backdrops – even the famous rice terraces felt a bit “fake”, almost like a Disney’d sort of setting more than an actual terrace farm like you’d see in India, Sri Lanka or Vietnam. Downtown Ubud actually reminded me a ton of other big tourist Asian cities, like the backpacker districts of Siem Reap or Kathmandu. That said, there is something comforting about that uniformity, and Ubud in general was just a really fun place to hang out.
After Ubud, we went to the island of Nusa Penida for a week. Nick unfortunately could not scuba dive for medical reasons, but I was going to get my Advanced certificate (which basically ups my diving limit from 18 meters to 30 meters). Nick actually got into a scooter accident on my first day of diving, which led him to adjust his flights to leave a few days early. This was actually a blessing in disguise since he was able to beat the rush of everyone else on Bali booking exit flights after the island and Indonesia began to shut down due to Corona, and he wound up only flying out a day earlier than I did.
Diving was incredible. The coolest thing by far that I saw was my dive at Manta Point, which is a hotspot for Manta Rays. These things are like 20+ feet wide, and I saw at least 15-20 of them in my one dive in that area. They can get pretty damn close to you (within a few feet), and it’s honestly pretty surreal to just float still and have them fly right by you. Other highlights from diving include seeing multiple Octopii (including one instance of Octopus sex), a decent amount of giant sea turtles just swimming around doing their thing, a bunch of Great Barracuda, a ton of Nemo fish in their little swaying coral homes, a few Peacock Mantis Shrimp, a handful of Moray Eels, and getting attacked by Triggerfish. I could honestly list highlights endlessly – we would literally see 10k+ (and this is probably an understatement) fish on any given dive, with a crazy range of colors and size, and of course the gorgeous coral reefs. On my final dive, I saw like 7 or so dolphins from the dive boat after my dive. Since I’m still a beginner I can only last like ~45 minutes top underwater. But Arjun and his dive shop friends came up like 30+ minutes after I did and they saw this group, which was actually 20+ including babies, swimming underwater for a few minutes. That would have been absolutely amazing to see underwater, but it was still definitely cool to see from up top. Would highly highly recommend diving to anyone who is able to do so.
I also spent a day sightseeing on Nusa Penida itself. The island itself is really pretty, but I do think this is a case of the pictures looking better/more impressive than real life. Overall, in terms of islands, I think I could safely recommend Bali (including Penida) over Sri Lanka. Food on Bali was also very good. Not quite up to par as with the highlights of Asia, but still very good.
One thing that certainly made this trip unique was the fast-moving changes regarding Corona. Bali and Indonesia effectively announced upcoming shutdowns while we were there, and this experience definitely added to the bonding between all of us who were diving at the Nomads shop (they are incredible! Definitely go there once they open back up after this Corona hoopla dies down).
Another thing that I definitely need to mention here. After diving, the absolute highlight of Bali was when we went to what I think was my first ever infinity pool on my last night at Nusa Penida. The pool itself was nice but whatever. But the group of dive shop people and myself got into a 2 hour conversation about the bum gun (infinitely better than toilet paper, that’s an non starter) and the different ass-wiping techniques that are used based off different shits, and things of that nature. I haven’t laughed as hard as I did during this conversation in a looooong time, and spent almost that entire two hours crying and struggling to breath. It was like 12 of us and we were definitely loud enough where all the nearby customers overheard the entire conversation.
Plan for now is just to bum at home for a few months until international borders open up again, before bouncing out again. If domestic travel opens up before international, the two things that I really want to do are a road trip from San Diego to SF (or vice versa), and an AZ/Nevada/Utah trip to the national parks, the native american cave dwellings in AZ, and hopefully a pitstop in Winslow, Arizona. Regardless, I already can’t wait to leave home, and I’m not even there yet. The past 7-8 months has genuinely been the best time of my life, from Burning Man through Bali. Cautiously optimistic that corona doesn’t derail me for more than just a few months.