I boarded the boat Taka on Friday, not really knowing much about the itinerary except we had 14 dives to do over the next 4 days and I would be eating well. I was informed of the latter by some of the guests who had just come off the boat. From the time we left the harbor until we moored at 8am the next day, we were heading north. Because we were sheltered by the Great Barrier Reef, henceforth abbreviated to GBR, most of us, including me, slept pretty well. We got 2 dives in, then we kept heading north more, and got 2 more dives in. And then we got the news that I would have known had I done some, or any, research on the trip. We would continue north, outside of the GBR on our way to Osprey Reef, which is in the open Pacific, and it would be a bumpy night without the shelter of the GBR. Time to take the dramamine!

Top End

From Australia

My journey from Gili Air, Indonesia to Darwin, Australia went like this:

• wake at dawn with the chickens and take horse cart from bungalow to harbor
• board public boat which is just a biggish canoe lest you get grand ideas by my words, to the island of Lombok by wading through the water and climbing in, stupidly wearing a skirt
• take another horse cart to a minibus "station," which is a guesthouse with a space for a minivan to park
• take minibus ride for 2 hours to a port in Lombok whose name I never caught.  The ride was beautiful, complete with monkeys hanging out on the shoulder of the road
• bake in the Indonesian sun for 40 minutes waiting for the slow boat to Bali
• spend 6 hours crossing the incredibly deep waters separating Bali and Lombok (the fast boat takes no more than an hour and a half but costs at least three times as much).  I paid a dollar extra to sit in air conditioning, but my comfort was compromised by the "professional karaoke" show going on in the same room.  One man playing the synthesizer and one young, heavily made-up woman singing all kinds of songs, many in Indonesian but she made time for Lionel Richie's "Hello" and Sinatra's "My Way".  No one seemed to enjoy any of it except for the performers and the crew, some of whom took the stage themselves.
• walk to another minibus and board it for a 90 minute ride to the airport
• take a 5 hour flight to Darwin that landed at 3am
• crawl into the top bunk of a 4 person hostel room at 5am

Good times, right? 

Change of Plans

The morning after making it to Ubud in Bali, I checked my email. My pal, Ieva, was in Ubud too, and we wanted to meet up. When neither of you has a phone and you're trying to meet up in a place that neither of you knows at all, this is a little more complicated than it would typically be. But Yande, the sweet guy who ran the homestay Ieva was staying in, had given us clearance to use him and his mobile phone as our go-between. I called him that evening, and he was at the airport - could I call after 6? Yes, I could. So I called later that night, and he and Ieva had come by my hotel earlier to pick me up while I was at dinner, but the hotel had no idea who I was.