My Weblog

Falling in Love With People Who Are Already Leaving

Dear Indonesia,

As I sit on a plane taking me away from you, I can’t help but feel heartbroken about our parting. We had some great times together, you and I.

You taught me how to be creative again. Thanks for that, I had almost forgotten that I once called myself a writer.

You taught me that there are people out there who are doing good things for other people with hearts that are true, and you made me feel less cynical about the world.

You taught me that people are basically good. You taught me to smile a little bit quicker, and to be a more hospitable and generous person.

You taught me that plastic bags will never die.

And that right now, America isn’t a very popular place abroad. You challenged me to think about why this is so, and what I can do as an American to change that.

You taught me that a wave can come and destroy but there are some things that prevail: hope, family, friends and love.

You taught me to always ask questions and never scuba dive without brushing up on my skills.

You taught me that a lot can be learned from a person through three basic questions: Where are you from? Have you been here before? Where are you going?

You taught me that it’s okay to not have plans: the art of conversation is not dead, and not having plans can be the best plan of all. You also taught me that sometimes silence says everything.

You taught me that no matter where you go, everybody knows the song, “Hotel California.”

And that when I’m put in a place with a religion, society and culture that is completely foreign, I can adapt and learn.

You taught me that there is, quite possibly, heaven on earth. It is called Bali.

You taught me that to many Indonesians, I look like a man. And that a family of six can travel on one motorbike. And that fish eyeballs are edible. And that I can listen to the song, “I’ve Got a Crush on Obama” seventeen times in a row, and then watch Kate lip synch it on the eighteenth time, and never get sick of it. That sometimes b.o. is inevitable, no matter how many showers or how much deodorant you cover your body with. And that it is possible to live without People magazine and Perez Hilton.

You lavished me with sun on my face, beautiful mountain views, underwater delights and pink-tinted skies at dusk. For all of these reasons, and many more, I will remember our passsionate affair.

xoxoxoxo

Love,

Alexis

P.S. Please don't tell New York!

A special thanks to Martin, Friska, Kate, Ivana, Shirley, Glenn, Marcel, Lisa, Nina, Ibu Sam, “Relax, Take It Easy” Made, Wawa Wewe Made, Made, Made, Putu Micah, Putu, Badung, Ami, Susan, Azizah, Lars, Opo, John, Martino and Yanti for being great friends and helping me along.

And a very special thanks to the Gugus.

One Fish, Two Fish

So my time here in Bunaken is now over and I’m heading over to Bali. I’ve definitely had my best dives ever here and I’m sad to be going.

Today, I did two final dives in the morning. They were definitely the highlights of the trip. On the first dive, we saw a huge school of giant striped barracuda. They were so big; I almost thought that they were sharks. As I was staring at them in wonder, two actual black-tipped reef sharks swam by below them. Every time I see a shark, I get a little chill up my spine. Black-tipped reef sharks, as I have mentioned before, are completely harmless and the ones I saw were only about 4 feet long each.

We continued the dive, and Maruf, my dive guide, and I were looking at some coral when – about 5 feet away from me – another black-tipped reef shark swam up next to us through the coral. This is the closest I have ever been to a shark and it was extremely exciting. Everything within me, evolution-wise, was telling me to freak out but I remained calm.

We got back on the boat after the dive is over and took a break before the next dive. You need to wait at least one hour before dives, to give the nitrogen in your blood a chance to dissipate. When it is time for the second dive, I’m excited but slightly nostalgic. This is my last dive on Bunaken.

We go under, and about 5 minutes into the dive – there is another black-tipped reef shark. Today is my lucky day! Throughout the dive, we see about six more of them. I’m not sure if I was seeing the same one over and over again, or six different ones. It begins to get a little bit unnerving! Once we see one swimming by, I follow it with my gaze until it is out of sight. Then, I will wait a few moments to see if it is turning around (to come and eat me…I know, I know overactive imagination) and then I wait a few moments more just to make sure that it is gone. But then, I swim on to catch up with Marfu (who has been diving for years and has most likely seen it all) only to see another shark swimming by. I couldn’t believe it.

The cool thing, and the frustrating thing, about diving is that you just never know what you are going to see. I remember paying extra in Koh Phi Phi, off the coast of Thailand, to see huge manta rays. We drove out to the middle of nowhere and jumped out at a coral point. We dove for an hour, and not one manta materialized. The dive guide told us that just the day before there had been hundreds.

So it was cool to see sharks, and so many of them. John, who has been here for about a month doing three dives a day, hasn’t seen even one. That’s just the way it goes. On a six a.m. dive the other morning, Teresa (this German girl who just arrived) was diving and suddenly her group was surrounded by hundreds of dolphins!

This brings up a funny thing about the sport of diving – the stories that are told and the bragging that goes on. Today, on the boat between dives, it was hilarious. There is a guy here who is an underwater documentarian and he is making a video for Two Fish. Then, there is this other British guy here with his wife who was trying to “one-up” the underwater filmmaker with each story he told. It’s all done in fun and I guess that there is competition in any sport. The thing is, with diving, no matter how “good” of a diver you are, much of it has to do with luck. Today, with the sharks, I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Many of the people on the same dive as me didn’t even see one.

Between shark sightings, there were huge schools of these tiny, fluorescent purple fish. At one point, I was right in the middle of a huge school and I had to take a moment and just feel the joy that was emanating from me to the fish and back again (as cheesy as that sounds. I don’t care!). I swam on, and ran into a group of about eight tiny octopuses. It was great because I had seen octopus before, but they had always been hiding under a rock or some coral. This time, they were out in the open. When I tried to swim up close to them, they swam away hurriedly.

The coolest thing about diving in Bunaken is the sheer number of fish to see. Giant schools of fish are everywhere. It’s especially awesome to see them all swimming in unison together. Even with just tiny, silver no-name fish once they band together it is a glorious sight to see.

I finished up that dive on a slightly sad note because it was my last here. We headed back for lunch and I took a short nap afterwards. For some reason, even though I’m just swimming around weightlessly, it’s still exhausting.

Since I can’t dive anymore (they say that you should leave a 24-hour window between your last dive and the time that you fly – again, nitrogen reasons I think), after my nap I walked into the town of Bunaken. I had been there already at night last week for the birthday party. I wanted to see it during the day.

Walking along the road, the word “enchanted” came to me. This whole place – above and below water – is very special. Houses sit close to the road and I could peer into people’s front yards, and lives. It was about a twenty minute walk there and it felt good to be walking around without having to worry about getting hit by a car – no cars on this island.

When I reached the town, I was basically besieged every five steps. The people here are incredibly friendly. Countless children ran up to me and screamed, “portrait!” Apparently, some English-speaker had taught them the word or maybe they heard it on television. Nevertheless, I doubt that there is one child in that village that I didn’t take a snap of. And it’s a pretty large village.

The church is huge and I had seen it many times from the boat. Just down the “road” from the church is the mosque. On one side of the town live the Christians and on the other, the Muslims. It is all very civilized. I walked between the two sections and didn’t see any big differences. I saw a few women on the Muslim side veiled, but not a lot. On the Christian side, many people had pigs in cages in their front yards. On the Muslim side, it was more about chickens and goats. Everyone seemed to be smiling, and wanted to converse with me. I answered “What is your name? Where do you come from?” countless times. I learned lots of new names as well: Jessica, Angel, and Celine (like Celine Dion! the little girl’s dad exclaimed. It’s funny to see which Western, pop-culture things transcend countries).

It was interesting, and encouraging, seeing how the two religions could live peacefully together. A steeple on one side, a minaret on the other. No big deal.

I walked back to Two Fish just in time for my last meal. Now….time for the Gugus!

Nightswimming

Fins? Check.

Weights? Check.

Air? Check.

Flashlight? Check.

We backflip off the boat just as the sun is beginning to set. Once I’m in the water, I can see the fishing boats beginning to line up on the horizon and turn on their night lights.

My dive guide, Opo, signals that it is time to begin our descent. I slowly let the air out of my BCD (buoyancy control device) and enter another world.

Why do I like to dive? For as long as I remember, I have loved the water. Growing up, we had a pool in the backyard and hundreds, probably thousands, of hours were spent hanging out around that pool. Thinking back, many of those pool-side memories are also about everyone heading back to our house after a baseball game in the summer and jumping in the pool when it was dark. Usually, after about an hour, my Mom would come and kick us all out and that would be our cue to get ready to "cruise the strip" in York. I'm sure we drove the neighbors crazy. Another great memory is Neene's graduation, when my Dad, Wally, Christopher and Jeremy were found in the dark, in the hot tub, with life jackets on...waiting for "Hurricane Cheryl" to hit. Memories!

Why do I like to dive at night? Different fish come out at night and lots of the fish that can be seen during the day go away at night. In Lembeh, where I spent a few days diving last week, during the day I saw some completely crazy things that I had never seen before. At night, it became even crazier.

Diving at night is, to me, more calming than during the day. You have your flashlight, and really you can only see exactly where the flashlight is shining. During the day – especially here – it’s as if you are in a huge fishbowl and there is so much to see that you almost don’t know where to look next. With night swimming, you really can only pay attention to the places that your flashlight is directly illuminating.

An added thrill of diving at night is not knowing exactly what is coming up next, or what could be swimming behind you. I always try to keep my diving guide, as well as my dive buddy, well within eyesight. There are certain hand signals that you do to communicate to your diving partners during the day, and at night you use your flashlight to do them. If you are in distress, you move your flashlight back and forth horizontally. If everything is okay, you move your flashlight in a circle.

In Lembeh, we saw huge snake eels burrowing in the sand with only their big heads sticking out. They are tucked away for the night. Decorator crabs – big crabs, with their homes on their backs – scuttle across the black sandy bottom.

Nemo fish (clown fish) always swim close to their homes, the anemone plants. The nemo fish have a special coating on their skin that makes them able to live in the otherwise poisonous environment of the anemone. During the day, I absolutely love them because they show so much personality. If you get on their “turf” they will chase after you. This Swiss guy here was even bitten by one on his lip! At night, they are a little bit more chill. Opo shined his flashlight on the anemone and showed me a tiny, miniscule baby nemo swimming in the light of the flashlight.

The hardest thing about this dive was keeping Lars and Opo within my sights and controlling my buoyancy. I really didn’t want to get left behind underwater, in the dark. That fear was really just in my head, though, because both of them are really experienced divers and would never dream of doing that to me. Still, the fear is there and I try to stick by their sides. The only hard part about night diving, though, is that you don’t want to get too close because it is harder to guage distances underwater and easy to slam up against someone else, or on the bottom where you can create all of the muck and sand to rise up and ruin visibility.

As I swim around, I notice the phosphorescence floating behind as Lars kicks ahead of me. It’s an amazing sight – tiny, neon bubbles rising to the surface. I look up and I can see the stars shining down on us through the water.

Swimming at night, you feel a little bit more free and somehow more connected with nature. It’s almost as if you are doing something forbidden and it’s a secret just between you and the moon. Although when diving you are more than fully clothed (a wetsuit is always recommended at night because it is easier to get a chill) it still feels slightly risky and dangerous. I love it.

Before I know it, Opo is signaling that it is time to go up. With night dives, the limit is usually 60 minutes whereas during the day, you can dive until you hit 40 bar on your tank. We slowly kick up to the surface – no safety stop is needed because we had already gradually been diving shallower and shallower throughout the dive.

The boat comes to pick us up. I always want to be the first one in the boat – especially at night. In my imagination, there are always sharks circling the boat waiting to eat someone and I want to make sure it’s not me. It’s the same reason that I never want to be the first diver in the water at the beginning of the dive. It’s a completely ludicrous fear, I know, because once I go underwater I see that there aren’t any sharks – at least not any sharks who are looking at me as their dinner. Still, as the boat approaches I make sure to get in first.

“Good dive?” the boat driver asks. The moon is reflecting off of the water and now the boats in the harbor are shining their lanterns, creating little dots of light illuminating the sea.

“Great dive,” I say, as I grab a towel and we head back for dinner.

Editor's Note: The underwater pictures are courtesy of Teresa, who is getting her divemaster's on Bunaken. They are actually from one of the night dives I did there, the Mandarin dive. We saw some great stuff -- I especially love the green plant -- it was really illuminated at night, even without the flashlight on it. The dive starts just as it is beginning to get dark and the Mandarin fish come out to mate. They are these awesome, flamboyant turquoisy fish but very shy so you have to patiently hang out around the coral until they come out. I have uploaded a picture of them as well, the last one above. You kind of have to squint to see it, or you can click on the picture to make it bigger for a better view of the sassy little fish.

Coconuts & Critters

For the past two days, I have been diving in an area on the other side of Monado called Lembeh Straights. It is supposedly the "Critter Capital of the World" and it deserves this title! Whereas Bunaken is amazing with the coral wall drop-offs and big things like rays and sharks and the like, Lembeh Straights is basically what they call "muck diving." Not great visibility, but in the black sand and the muck the most amazing little critters can be found.

On my first dive yesterday, I seriously felt like I was on another planet. I saw things that I didn't even know existed. Fire urchins  were my favorite -- they look like lit-up disco balls with big, black needles coming out of their flourescent puple middles. Amazing! Tiny sea horses, and "hairy frogfish" -- fish which look like frogs, with hair growing on them. Lots of eels, and these fish which look like normal fish from far away, and once you get up close they fan their wings out and they look like butterflies! Flourescent shrimp that do a little dance when they see you....seriously, I'm not making any of this up. It blew my mind!

I went over to Lembeh Straights with these two guys that I met at the Two Fish on Bunaken. Two Fish has two locations -- one on Bunaken and one on Lembeh. Lars, whom I have already mentioned, and this other guy named John who is from California. They are both getting their divemaster certificates at Bunaken and have been here for a few weeks. They're both really cool and have been nice traveling companions. Lars just left to go and meet up with his girlfriend in Bali and now John and I are heading back to Bunaken. I have two more days here and then I'm off to Bali myself.

Last night was probably the most fun I've had in a while. John went on a night dive, but Lars and I were too cold and tired so we just went on the boat. Our dive guide the whole time in Lembeh has been this character named Opo. Words just can't describe what a nut he is. He went with us to the shore on the other side of the island while John did his night dive. I did a night dive the night before -- which was awesome -- so I didn't feel like I needed to do another one. Lars has a really good camera and he wanted to take some pictures of the boats at night, all lit up with lanterns. An amazing sight and I wish that I had a better camera and had paid more attention during the photojournalism section of journalism school. Oh, well.

So Lars, Opo and I went to the shore. In this particular area, there is a spring at the top of the mountain and a bunch of pipes which carry the water down to the shore. Apparently it was made during World War II to provide water to passing boats. Lars stayed to take pictures, and Opo asked me if I wanted to climb the 400 stairs to the top to see where the water came from. Why not?

So we climbed up and it wasn't such a bad climb. But as we were nearing the top, it started to get dark. Opo was showing me around the top, and suddenly he said, "We go down now." He motioned for me to follow him down, and so we quickly descended. As it was dark, I was a little bit worried about losing my footing on the stairs but Opo shined the flashlight in bad areas.

"What did you see?" I asked him, because he seemed pretty scared and he was almost running down the (slippery) concrete stairs.

"I will tell you when we get to the bottom!" he said hurriedly.

He grabbed a big stick, and started making a loud screaming noise with each step. I know that this is one way of scaring off wild animals, so with each scream I started getting more scared!

When we finally got to the bottom, I asked Opo again to tell me what he saw.

"I saw a big ghost! It was taller than you, and had a human face. But it had hair like a monkey!" He said.

I think that I have talked before about how Indonesians believe in ghosts. Opo was freaked out, and sweating, and scared.

"Why didn't you show me? I want to see the ghost, too!" I said.

"It was standing right in front of you! You can't see, because your eyes are not clear. I see."

So I guess you can only see the "ghosts" if you believe in the ghosts. Anyway, I had a good laugh because the whole time we were running down the mountain I thought I was being pursued by a wild boar or maybe a bear (even though I don't think that they even have bears in Indonesia! At least not this part).

So there was a house on the hill near us, and Opo told me that we would go there to say hi to his friends. It was right near the water where Lars was still taking pictures.

We went up to the house, and the poeple living there were really sweet and nice. The thing I really like about Indonesia is that you can just stop by...basically anywhere....and people accommodate you and are so welcoming. So Opo told them about the ghost up on the hill, and the guy living there said, "Yeah, I saw you going up there and I tried to yell at you to warn you about the ghost, but you couldn't hear me yelling." Apparently, he and his family have seen the ghost many times before! Funny.

We sat for a while and talked (well, I listened) and the woman offered me a nice, big glass of spring water. "Do you want a coconut?" Opo asked me. I thought maybe there was one handy in the kitchen, so I said yes.

Opo gets up, and starts climbing this huge coconut tree to the top. It was about 40 feet up and he didn't use any ropes, or ladders. He just climbed the trunk, chopped down a bunch of coconuts, and came down. He opened them with the same huge machete and Lars and I drank the coconut juice and ate the coconut meat.

Delicious!

By this point, John was done with his dive so the boat came back to pick us up. We arrived back at Two Fish to have dinner, and Opo came and told us stories afterwards as the guys drank beer and I drank some wine which I had brought over.

Opo was absolutely hilarious. He as two wives -- one which he caught cheating on him, so she sent her "home" (to another village) and hasn't seen in about 15 years. With her, he has one daughter named Daphni, and a son named David. Then, he got married again and had another daughter named Daphni, and a daughter named Susan. Then, he has a girlfriend in Japan, who has a 4-year old daughter named.....Daphni! We laughed so hard as he told us his stories. He has been a dive instructor for over 20 years, and his first dive teacher was named Daphni, hence the name. He was really cool, and a great dive guide.

Back to Bunaken!

Editor's Note: Pictures are top: the infamous Opo. Bottom: Lex with diving partners Lars and John, and the infamous Opo once again.

“It’s ‘WOW’ Down There!”

That’s what Linda yelled out to me yesterday when she jumped off the boat and into the water before I did yesterday for my first dive.

I think that I’ve found heaven. The words “idyllic” and “paradise” just don’t even seem to do this place justice!

If you’re going to spend a week diving, this is definitely the way to do it. The place I’m staying – Two Fish Divers – is kind of a little kingdom in and of itself. The people who own it are really sweet, they have an adorable 5-month old daughter named Rebecca, and the staff here are great and laid back. Everything is at a pretty high standard which is nice…..clean, hot water, great food, excellent vibe.

And I haven’t even started talking about the diving yet! I knew from the moment I arrived that I was in good hands. Lucy, the dive instructor here, sat both Linda (another woman who arrived the same day I did) and I down and gave us the lay of the land. Right away I felt like I was being taken care of and that’s a great way to kick things off. They really pay everyone special, personalized attention and the place has a familial feel. Nothing is rushed and that’s nice, too.

I realize now the danger I put myself in by not brushing up on my diving skills before I did my first dive in Sabang. Lesson learned: if you don’t know what you’re doing, ask questions rather than stay quiet and risk looking stupid. It’s always better to look stupid.

I told Lucy and John, who is studying to become a divemaster, the experience that I had in Sabang and they were sympathetic and understanding. Linda hadn’t ever dived before, so the first night she watched a video as the beginning of her training. It really covered the basics. I watched the video (very cheesy: Divers Are Underachievers!) with her and everything came back, and I felt mentally prepared to go. Before I went to bed that night I read up with a diving book they had lying around here and by the time I went to bed I felt ready for the next day.

On my first dive, it was just me and my dive guide, Chris. We took it slow and it was a fabulous dive. The cool thing about the ocean here is that a reef surrounds the entire island, about 200 yards out in some places. It appears to be more of a big lake than an ocean, which is great. The waves are small, the same that you would find on a lake. When you look down, the water is clear and the visibility goes on and on. Once the reef stops, there are deep walls of coral that form the drop-offs into the rest of the ocean. It’s really cool to dive right along these walls because you have the wall to one side of you, and the ocean to another.

The best moment of my dive yesterday was as Chris and I were coming around one of the corners of the reef wall and sitting there in the wall, just minding his own business, was a HUGE sea turtle. I’ve seen sea turtles before but this guy puts them all to shame. He was gargantuan. He checked us out for a while, we checked him out, and then he slowly swam up to the surface.

I did two dives yesterday and both were different and great. Then I came back, had some lunch and a quick nap (surprisingly didn’t sleep the night before, maybe a little bit of anxiety) and then it was Gugus time. I am finishing up the epic report on the Gugus and am hoping to have it in to Martin this week. Rather than rush and hand it in, Martin and I both agreed that it was best that I keep working on it – better to make it great than done.

Diving here has been such a great transition. It’s nice to be someplace with some structure and other people around, a comfortable step down from working at the IRC in Banda and being surrounded by people to traveling on your own, which is completely different. In a way I enjoy traveling on my own, but sometimes you just wish that someone (i.e. Rusel!) were there to watch your bags while you go to the bathroom! Among other things J

Last night at dinner, a bunch of the other divers were talking about going into town to one of the dive guide’s birthday parties. I was tired, but decided to go just to check it out. I had seen the village from the boat and in the center was a huge, gothic church. It looked interesting.

We walked into the town, which took about 20 minutes. It was really dark outside and the stars above were gorgeous. The road was more of a pedestrian footpath, as there aren’t any cars on the island.

I got the feeling of being on Fire Island, which also doesn’t allow cars in some places. The houses were close to the road and everything was quaint. We stopped off at a little shop on the side of the road and bought some “palm wine” for Sam, the birthday guy. Apparently “palm wine” is a local specialty but I never did find out exactly what is in it.

We went over to Sam’s house and the party was already hopping. Sam took all of our bottles of “palm wine” and put it into one big pitcher. He then took one glass and went from person to person filling up the glass and telling people to drink it. I tried it, and it was pretty gross. It’s some sort of “wine” mixed with coca cola. I didn’t drink much at all.

The party was funny. On the walls, there was a Jesus clock (a picture of Jesus with sheep on a clock) and two posters of Jesus. I guess that they’re also serious about their religion here – I’m sensing a trend here in Indonesia. A lot of the Indonesian guys tried to start up conversations with me, and I could tell I was something of a curiosity. It was weird to be hit on, which was exactly what was happening. One thing that I had kind of grown used to after two months of Banda Aceh was everyone being very reserved. Kind, but distant. Any gestures of “flirting” were extremes --someone reaching out to me to grab me when I was on my bike….or Indonesian men completely ignoring me because I was a “blang” -- and that was about it. Here, the men were clearly trying to hit on me and it made me uncomfortable.  As much as I don’t understand the religion of Islam and the culture in Aceh, there are some things that I did get used to in a way and now I’m just kind of re-acclimating. 

Anyway, I kept telling them about my wonderful husband back in New York and I just kept saying it! “My husband is very nice!” “My husband is a great man!” “My husband should be calling me any moment!” The crazy thing is, Rusel was supposed to call me so I kept watching the phone, but we got our times confused and he didn’t call until after I got home. It would’ve been nice if the phone would’ve rang during these conversations, “Oh, that’s him calling me now!” but my “husband” talk seemed to be doing the job just fine.

Anyway, harmless and funny in the end. It felt weird to be at a party, in public, and wearing a regular t-shirt and shorts where everyone was openly drinking. Everyone was getting really drunk and again, that was weird too for me. It was also a little bit different for me, mentally, to be around people who were someplace just to have a good time and that was it. After being in Banda Aceh and only being with people who work at NGO’s and are pretty committed and serious about what they are doing, it is strange to be around people with no set plan…just traveling around….having a good time. At the moment, it just feels a bit odd!

I got up for two dives this morning. After being alone with the dive guide for both of my dives yesterday, this German guy Lars was my diving partner today. When Kate, Ivana and Shirley and I went to lake Takengon over the long weekend this German guy there (who brought the beer and wine which was not shared!) said to us, “I like to do sport in the morning so I can drink beer in the afternoon.” It became our guarantee for a giggle on that trip and we said it over and over again in an Arnold Schwarzenegger voice. Now, every time I look at Lars I think of that saying. Another quote from that trip was, “One man’s German is another man’s Austrian” which doesn’t make sense at all but when said in a German accent also reduces me to non-stop laughs.

Anyway, “I like to do sport in the morning so I can drink beer in the afternoon” and I went on our first dive and it was probably one of my best dives ever. First off, we saw two black-tipped reef sharks. They were everything you want in a shark: not too big, non-people-eating, curious but not overly curious, and cool. They hung out for a bit in the distance below us and it was one of those great moments in time when everything else seems to stop.

On that same dive we saw a turtle as well and a host of other things. Close to the end of the dive, the dive guide pointed up and I looked and we could see a sea snake swimming on the surface. I got kind of freaked out. It was funny because just last week I was talking to Kate about which I would rather cross paths with: a shark or a snake. I said that while both scare me, I would rather see a snake because at least you can run away. So here I was, underneath the water with both sharks AND snakes and I realized that I was wrong – I would rather run into a shark. I almost peed in my wet suit as the snake that we were watching on the surface started to swim down towards us and right in front of Lars! Then he went on his merry way to the coral.

I’m not a religious person, but being under water for me is kind of like a quiet meditation where it’s just me, nature and the unmistakeable hand of something bigger at work. Nobody to talk to but myself and absolutely nothing to do but look around in wonder as I float weighlessly.  Each dive, I have at least one moment where I am just taken aback by the beauty of the sea and my tiny place in it. Zen.

Anyway, all is well and now I’m back in my room for a quick nap, and then..... back to the Gugus.

Toto...

We're not in Kansas anymore!

So I am at the Mega Mall -- yes, that's right, an honest to goodness mall -- right here in Manado, complete with Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Converse store. The diving people are picking me up at my hotel soon so I will have to keep this short. I just wanted to let everyone know that I am safe and sound.

The flights yesterday were annoying. I left at 9:30 a.m. and arrived here at 11 p.m. It was good to be so tired, though, because usually I can't sleep on planes. In this case it wasn't negotiable and I was able to pass out for long periods of time.

When I arrived in Manado, someone from the dive shop was here to pick me up and take me to my hotel. Psychologically, it is such a nice feeling to have someone at the airport waiting for you. I picked up a stray girl whom I met on the plane -- a sweet German traveling alone -- and she got in with us and we took her to another hotel.

As we were driving down the road from the airport to the hotel, I saw a big neon sign in front of a church stating, "WE LOVE JESUS." It was such a shock to see, after two months of being in Banda Aceh. The neon sign was funny though -- a little bit of Vegas here in Monado.

So that is very different. The people here are very sweet and seem very open and I had a great conversation with the woman who served me my breakfast this morning. She was really laid back and friendly. This place has a nice vibe so far. Unlike Banda Aceh, which reveals itself slowly and over time, Manado seems to be a little bit more in-your-face.

Next up was a hunt for the internet, and the Lonely Planet said to go to the Mega Mall. I was able to walk here and along the way, I got several "HELLO, MISTER!" shouts so unfortunately that seems to be universal in Indonesia. I don't understand it.....maybe kids learn that in school? Maybe I will include it in the Gugus Revitalization wrap-up report.

I noticed women walking down the street without jilbabs, and even some women in mini-skirts! I felt like such a grandma by my reaction (and Grandma, I know that you read this, so no disrespect!). It as just so weird to see women showing so much skin. Even though it is extremely hot here as well, I was still wearing my long-sleeved shirt out of habit. Apparently Manado is 60% Christian and 40% Muslim,   

Walking down an alley, I was accosted by a small gang of children . One girl was on cute, pink rollerskates. They really wanted to practice their English and they relished the opportunity. I told them my name, where I was from, etc. They impressed me by telling me their names and we actually had a brief conversation in English. I was surprised by their more Western-sounding names: Jessica, Josh, and Michael.

I'm heading back to the hotel now to be picked up so this is short -- but sweet. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up that I am fine, and Manado is great!