18th - 21st December 2011
We met some of the people from the live-aboard, the two French couples who had actively avoided most interactions were now happy to talk (weird), John, a young guy from the UK who we met up with later, Ivan our instructor/guide and some other diving people who sat at the other end of the table. Djalma and I indulged in some burgers and a cider (cider in Thailand?! Mental!). Feeling a bit dizzy and land-sick we went back to bed to lie down on a good mattress that didn't move and watched the Grinch. I was so tired that I didn't manage more than half an hour before I fell asleep.
The next day we decided not to do a workout in the morning, feeling rather dizzy and odd still we had a breakfast from 7-Eleven – ham and cheese toasties and a cold, strong, sweet coffee and then tried to focus our drifting brains into some Indonesia planning (Katie we really tried!) we managed to put down a small list of what we'd like to see in Bali. And Bali only, Indonesia is enormous and varied and our brains were impossible to organise, it made planning impossible. I managed to pull some energy together and decided to workout, Djalma wimped out. We met John, who was on the live-aboard, and had dinner in a cheap place and made plans to hire out some scooter the following days and visit the National Park two hours away.
We were up nice and early in the morning, another 7-Eleven breakfast to keep us going until lunch and we left the seaside town behind to follow the road North to the park. The road there was beautiful and worth the effort in itself, the roads were good, the sun was out and everything was green and beautiful. About an hour in John got a nail stuck in his tire, as fortune would have it, we noticed right outside a mechanics shop, perfect, within quarter on an hour we were back on the road.
Another hour later and we turned down the road leading to the park. We got our tickets from the little office and set off with a small map listing the various waterfalls and pools to see. We had about three hours to have a look round and we made the most of it. We followed the wide dirt path through swathes of bamboo, backlit and glowing neon green. There were some flowers but it was mainly green stuff and bamboo.
We stopped at several pools and “waterfalls” which were really small staggered rapids. The first one Djalma and John stripped off and swam while I sweated my orange butt off waiting in the shade. We kept on the path and in another half hour down a much smaller overgrown path we arrived at a shallow stretch of river.
It was beautiful, I took my shoes and socks off, hitching my enormous trousers up and tucking them in my waistband, and got to enjoy deliciously cool feet and ankles for a few minutes. Time was ticking on, and after a few photos we picked up our things and left for the hour walk back to our bikes.
Feeling rather hungry we made it in record time and sped back to the nearest 7-Eleven. I had a hot-dog while the guys tucked into half a chicken each and several bags of sticky rice. We made it back in good time. We swapped pictures from our memory sticks, I worked out while Djalma went to get his first real Thai massage (one day before leaving), we packed, had a little dinner and then sat and waited for a bus to take us back towards Phuket.
We were lucky and in a short time we both had seats for the hour and a half ride back to the drop off point for the airport road, we hitched a lift the remaining 5km to the airport with a friendly Thai lady who was a tour guide. In the airport I took off my trainers and discovered a blister the size of my pinky toe on my pinky toe, it made walking less graceful than usual. We sat down and then our tummies started rumbling and we decided to get some expensive airport food, we were lucky and just in time to catch Burger King, we were the last people and they were very kind to feed us, the food was piping hot and the chips were fresh, it was delicious. We went back downstairs and found some chairs to sleep on. Djalma caught some z's but my new book – a Russian love story set in the second world war was too gripping to put down so I read until 5am when we got up to go through security and get to our gate. After some pizza for breakfast we got on the plane and there I managed to get a little shut eye, but it was too uncomfortable for real sleep. I was one grumpy lady for the rest of the day.
At the airport we were met by Carlão who walked us back to the hotel where he, Lara (his wife), Luna (baby daughter) and four other Brazilian friends/family were staying. I was tired, overwhelmed, hot and sticky and couldn't handle all the people. We got a minibus to Balian Beach three hours up the West coast from Denpasar (the capital of Bali and home to the airport) where we searched for suitable hotels and got settled in. The tiny bits we saw of Bali, we stunningly beautiful and incredibly green.
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