Once more across the seas

And to once more confuse the chronology of this blog by posting way too much, way to rarely, I will now update you about what I did right BEFORE Christmas.

My third, and penultimate Visa period ended on December 15, so I had one last chance to hop around SE Asia right before the christmas rush pushed all prices through the roof.  And i definitely took advantage of this. First, I flew off to Kuala Lumpur again, since it is now one of my favorite cities ever. Seriously, between the food, and Shen's awesome family, and a functional subway, and the FOOD.... basically it is up there with Chicago on my list of cities to visit again and again... and maybe move to.  Love it.

After three too-quick days in KL, I hopped back to Java, and visited Jessica in her home town of Bandung. Its known as the "Paris of Java" and boy was it atmospheric  For one night, Jessica and Tanti and I hightailed it to Jakarta, and basically spent 24 hours in traffic, getting almost kinda sorta close to national monuments. Jakarta is overwhelming. And feels like a different world. It's nuts.   And then, after another three too-quick days in Java, I came back to lovely Bali, just in time for the holidays.

And here, are more details and some of the awesome things we saw!:

This section under construction, since the internet is slow and uploading photos is a pain. Come back soon!

Christmas in the Sand

Happy Holidays!

I spent my Christmas sunbathing on Seminyak beach.  It was lovely. A tad overcast, so i remained almost sunburn-free! I have never and to apply sunscreen on Christmas before. Awesome.  Christmas in the Sand is an adorable holiday song by Colbie Caillat, btw. Check it out.

And here is my lovely office on friday before Xmas, at a gift exchange! It was hilarious. And adorable.  These guys know how to have a good time.

Now all five of the other interns I've overlapped with are gone, and even Patricia is heading to the states for a bit. Many people are out of the office for the holidays. I find myself the last Intern standing. So I think it's high time for a change of scenery. I'm finishing the internship a little bit earlier than planned, and instead going to go explore Bali and Indonesia a bit more. And the best part is: Tito will be joining me!  He arrives this very saturday!  He will hang out and get over jetlag while I finish my last few days of work after new years eve, and then, we will be off.

What we will do and where we will go is still up in the air, but we will figure it out as we go, and have a blast in the process.  And the, after a whirlwind tour, we'll both be back in lovely Colorado on January 23. So Soon! So much to see! Yikes!

Critter Update

in case you thought that the bugs would calm down, now that the sky is pouring buckets every afternoon:

found in the gutter next to the warung i go to for lunch. Escargo anyone? 

GIANT Escargo?

!!!

Also, this guy decided to shed on my desk, overnight. 

And I first thought this guy was a bit of string blowing across the floor, but then I looked at it and realized it was a snake side-winding RIGHT FOR ME!  I definitely did not shriek like a little girl and jump up onto my chair. Do not believe such lies! And if I did, it would have been totally, justified  because it was moving really fast. So there.

It's maybe 2 feet long, and it only hung out under my desk for a few seconds, before winding off, so the pictures are a little fuzzy. Still, you can see the bulge of its lunch, right? Probably a toad....

Oh, bali. 

Seriously: THE Rain!

Looks like I wont be driving home just yet....

I mean, really.

Now I know why the Barn has a moat.

Update: Caught some video of the rain keeping me marooned at work tonight. Listen to this!

The Rain has begun!

Hello Everyone,

I'm writing this in the middle of a Rain storm. The sound of the torrential downpour on the metal roof of the studio is so loud that no one can talk, so I'm taking a time-out to write instead. This is awesome! The Rainy Season Has ARRIVED!

so, Last time I updated here I was not in a great situation. Since then, things are much improved.  Szuyin  is feeling much much better, and the dive company has begun to be less obnoxious.  Unfortunately, but entirely understandably, Szuyin decided to go home early, so she returned to Taiwan on Saturday, where she was immediately enveloped in loving family.  I'm hoping she comes back to full health soon, and finally finds a doctor that can adequately explain what the heck happened.

She also got out of here just in time to miss The Rain. I am from a desert, where we get about 40 cm of water per year,  and I think that half that has already fallen on us here, so from now on, I can only refer to it as The Rain.

Downside (kinda) of the rain: It is so loud we cannot speak to each other, even sitting right next to each other. I'm working in basically a huge, open-sided bamboo barn with a corrugated metal roof. It's like working in a really breezy drum. Awesome, ... but loud.

Upside: It's kinda-sorta-a-little-bit-wintery-ish! In the "there are clouds and I want a mug of hot tea" kind of way. Still nothing like proper snow, but I'll take it.   And so will Sophia and Pat, so we have decided to bring the Holiday Spirit to out "office" in the form of christmas songs, and even a tiny christmas tree! Thanks Pat!

And as such, we need a Christmas chard to go with it! So in honor of the holidays and of Szuyin, I present: the PT Bamboo Christmas Card picture!

HI!

Yep! Sooo wintery, right?

Anyways, in other news:

I did get a chance to finish out my diving certification, so now I am a certified diver, and will be able to tag along with Tito in January, hopefully. 

Oh, right: Tito is coming to visit in January!  Thank you Middlebury J-term!

The surfer lodge that we designed might actually get built! Yessss. 

Oh and, since, the topic of rain is still appropriate:

Last weekend, on Saturday night, the sky opened up while I was giving Divya (Another intern! So many interns!)  a ride home, and so I got to spend the night in a Green Village Villa!  We had to basically bike up hill through a stream (which used to be a road)  to get to the village, and the running boards of my bike were actually under water. Staying in the Villa during The Rain at night is like being on a ship. Re rushed in and had to lower the bamboo rain-curtains, and tie them off. And even then, in the living room it still felt entirely exposed. Gusts of wind still carried spray into the room. the Curtains billowed and heaved in the wind like sails.  And as we huddled there, soaked, and cradling a steaming mug of tea,  I felt like I had been transported in the movie The Swiss Family Robinson. It was awesome (in the actual, original sense of the word). 

Once the storm had died down, and we headed for bed, I got to curl up in the guest room, nested under wonderfully fluffy blankets. Even though the room only has walls on two sides, and is entirely exposed to the river valley, it was surprisingly cozy.  I fell asleep looking out over the river, through the thick trees to where the silhouette of the new Springland Villa emerges from the treetops like another Jungle Pirate Ship. 

Whatever it's faults, Green Village really is breathtakingly beautiful, and incredibly relaxing. 

UPDATE: Pictures! The morning after getting marooned on Villa Island:

Adventures in Bali Hospitals

aka, The Weekend From Hell.

Disclaimer: I am perfectly and completely fine. Szuyin was very very sick, but is now recovered and doing fine. Thank heavens. I just want to update people on why I havent been answering emails for 5 days, and my life is a bit crazy, but you will quickly understand why my priorities were different this weekend.  (On the other hand, the time off has given me a chance to update this blog at last. Silver lining! ish.)

So, this last weekend, I had another adventure, but this one was of the definitely-not-at-all-fun kind. Thursday was a national Holiday, since the New Moon marked the Islamic New Year, 1434. Happy New Year!

Szuyin and I took advantage of this by signing up for scuba diving lessons. Bali, and indonesia in general has an incredibly rich underwater ecosystem, with tons of coral, and unbelievable marine biodiversity. But we wanted to know what we're doing before going diving, so we decided to take a course. 'Cause, ya know, thats way safer, right?

We found a very professional dive center, signed up, and early Thursday morning got a ride to Sanur to learn how to breath under water. The first day of classes was a lot of fun. My teachers were lovely. The PADI educational videos were campy but informative. And diving is a lot of fun. On friday we finished up our last few in-pool dives, and headed out to the beach to get our first taste of open water diving. This, too, was awesome. In Sanur bay there is a lovely coral wall, not too deep, with a sandy bottom and tons of fish.

We only made two short dives, and only went maybe 6 meters deep, but still, somehow, afterwards Szuyin was feeling very very sick. At first we thought it was just seasickness form being on the boat, but soon after returning to the dive center, she collapsed. She was in pain, and having difficulty breathing. Luckily we were surrounded by trained divers, and had lots of strong bodies to help lift her into a van and get to a hospital.

And that is when the insanity started. i dont think i should go into too much medical detail here, but suffice to say, no one had any freaking clue what to do. This is a weird case, no one seems to be abel to give us a satisfactory answer as to why she would be affected after such short dives in such shallow water, but sometimes low-probability things just happen.

However, that does not excuse the ridiculously ineffectual care she received. We got sent to one of the fancy tourist hospitals, and they were crap. Seriously. Two different doctors basically did nothing at all to help her. They were not reassuring or convincing at all. They certainly did not take her to a decompression chamber. They didn't even give her pain medication. So she had to go through over 6 painful hours of decompression sickness as nitrogen bubbled out of her blood and her whole body went though muscle spasms, with nothing but her friends massaging her limbs. ay roe questions were asked about when we could get her insurance to provide guarantee of payment than about when her symptoms or medical history.

This is not how a friday night should be spent. Ever.

Luckily, Szuyin is a ridiculously strong human being, with spectacular self control and presence of mind and was able to make it through. Also, luckily, she has a group of friends from work who were willing to drop everything at a moments notice and come rushing down to the ER to battle on her behalf. Half a dozen of our coworkers were there within an hour to translate, call for specialists, deal with paperwork, bring food and water and insist on better treatment. I have absolutely no idea what I could possibly have done if Patricia and Yustiana (in particular) had not come to our aid.

that said, they were up against insane odds. Every paper to sign every cost, every document had to be tripple checked. We were getting billed for things that hadn't happened. It took an age to get documentation, and then it was misspelled. They spelled Szuyin's name wrong, got her birthday wrong. Multiple times, the doctors seemed to diagnose one thing, but treat for the opposite. Pat and Yust were amazing. They literally were checking the doctor's report's spelling at one point. Im mean really. What the hell is that?  We were all glued to our blackberry's getting treatment advice from friends and family that knew about diving, because we trusted them so much more than our doctors.

Finally, we switched over to Sanglah, which has a dive accident specialist, a decompression chamber ( which, at this point we were too late to use)  and fast, reliable, reasonable doctors that gave us much more convincing treatment at a quarter of the price.

I spent Monday with Szuyin at Pat's house, resting, watching bad movies, and eating. And now, finally, it seems like she is going to be fine. She's physically exhausted, of course, but hopefully all the medical crises are past.

 Lessons learned:
1. If you suffer a dive accident in Bali, go straight to Sanglah Central Hospital. Do not go to one of the ritzy tourist hospitals. Go to Sanglah. They know what they are doing, dont give you bullshit, and dont make up random costs. And in general, if ever you think you might have decompression illness,  get to a decompression chamber. Dont let your doctor try to drag his feet. Go. Doctors are not omniscient.

2. Never sign any medical waivers, or anything for a dive center without really understanding what kind of insurance they have. "Yes, we have insurance" is not enough. You want personal, all-eventuality-covering real insurance. I have been complacent like this too often. I am stopping now.

3. Dont think "oh, but this is a class, what could go wrong?" Even if everyone is being safe and thoughtful and methodical, diving is a risky risky thing.  And low probability events can still happen out of the blue.

4. Friends are amazing. And the kind of friends I have at PTBP are literally life-saving.

5. Decompression Illness is scary as hell.

6. Just, in general, never have a medical crisis in Bali, please. Thanks

OK, that is that for the not-so-fun side of dealign with Bali. Thankfully we had a positive outcome, but still.... waaay too close for comfort. Eeek.  I did get a couple of fun underwater pictures from the dive pool, but i'll post those later, once I'm not so angry at doctors everywhere. I hope this doesn't scare anyone away from diving, but I know I will definitely be more cautious in the future. 

Malang and East Java, or "Ada Bule Terbang!"

After returning from our Bromo moonscape, and washing off all the dust (so much dust!) We then drove down to Malang to hang out with Patricia. Her family lives in Malang, and were wonderful enough to host us all in her amazing house for the next few nights.  We took advantage of this for sure, and used it as an excellent base for many adventures.  We went to a bunch of places that are fairly well known for domestic tourists, but far off the western tourist path.  It was a blast. 

First stop: The BEACH!

we drove for a while to a secret cove, and then piled into a brightly painted boat. 

we set out to cross the little bay, passing brightly colored fishing rigs the whole way. 

we had to wade the last few meters in, and landed on  a secret little spit of sand. 

Then we hiked through the jungle for about an hour, following little clumps of shredded paper as markers, like Hansel and Gretel.

Eventually we emerged to see this amazing salt-water cove. The water crashes in, from time to time through the natural arch in the wall. Outside the waves are pounding away, but inside, it's totally protected and actually quite warm.

It was kind of perfect. 

Before I came to Bali, i got a nifty little point and shoot that is WATERPROOF. So I left right in with it tied around my wrist!

That means, we could take the underwater equivalent of jumping photos!  Yes!

Yep, underwater photos are just soooo attractive, no? We look gooooood. 

Meanwhile, on the shore, this happened, and I MISSED IT! darn. :(

Eventually we had to get dressed and hike back over the hill and through the woods. As we were waiting for the boat to come bac to pick us up, I got this photo: Perfect sunset, perfect light, smiling, happy dewey faces. This is proof of a very good day. 

The sun set as we headed back by boat:

Fun story about the day at the beach: No foreigners come here. And, being a muslim country and all, very few Indonesians wear bikinis. there are also no changing facilities, and not even enough flat ground in the forest to be able to go hide behind a tree. This meant that, when the group of five of us girls tried to change into out swim suits, we had to do a weird little ritual where we created a mini changing room/tent out of sarongs and hope the wind didn't blow too hard. But, despite this attempt at modesty, I still caused a stir. When it came time for me to climb into our mini tent, and an errant gust of wind threatened to expose my bare ass to the whole beach, some well-meaning stranger sent up the warning by shouting, loud and clear across the whole beach to dozens of people  "DONT LOOK AT THE BULE!!" 

I basically died from laughter. I just stood there, clutching a sarong around me, nearly collapsing from giggles. It was in Indonesian, of course, but I'm so used to everyone remarking on my presence that I knew it was for me. And this is just such a typical "bule gila" moment. gotta love it. 

"Bule" means foreigner. In Bali, people are used to foreigners, so we're nit very exciting. The battle is for local price, vs, Bule price. But in this corner of Malang I am a very rare sight. And there is just no way I am ever going to blend in. Not a snowballs chance in hell. Wherever I went o this trip I was followed by the sounds off little children tugging at their mothers sleeves and giggling out "Lihat, ada Bule!" ("Look, there's a Foreigner!") everyone practices their "Good afternoon"  on me, chats about me as they walk away. Remarks on my clothes or what im eating or just my general existence  I am a freaking celebrity! It is beyond bizar, but if taken with the right humor can be incredibly amusing. 

Keep this in mind. there are more "Bule Gila" moments to follow  (Gila means crazy, so Bule Gila = Crazy Foreigner) 

***

So, the next day in Malang we went to the ZOO!  But it's not like a zoo in the US. It's like an animal-based theme park. It was very very weird. 

Fun things: I got to feed a bat! This guy literally licked banana off my finger:

Then we stood on some lions:

And in the museum next door discovered bugs that I am glad I did not meet in KL. 

And, since North America is so far away and exotic, the museum included a "Typical North American nature scape"complete with barn owl and raccoons in the trash. 

Less fun things: the museum has a very different idea of what qualifies as educational material. I mean... what is this? A lama on a scooter? What IS this? Why does it exist? In a museum?!

Also, the fact that the Zoo was about human amusement rather than animal conservation or study really really freaked me out. The cages were tiny, the animals were super stressed out, the people were loud and close, and you could only move one way, along one path, kind of like an IKEA store of animals, but way more uncomfortable. Szuyin and decided very early on to split off and hurry our way to the end, rather than slowly meander past all the unhappy looking animals, pinned in by the loud clouds under the hot sun. It was really kind of disturbing. Out most overused comment of the day "I miss the X museum" or "I miss the Y zoo" . . . basically any zoo in the US is kinder.

***

Anyways. After a long afternoon of jogging past hundreds of freaked-out looking animals, and then getting lunch in a rotating, jungle-themed restaurant.  We decided to go for something completely different. Dany and Eka found out about someplace nearby where you can go Paragliding near the very large and picturesque mountain in the city.  So, it was off to the hills. And it just looked like so much fun.....

So I went paragliding! Sorry mom. I promise I was very safe about it!  
In paragliding, you spread the parachute out on the ground, fully open, and then wait for a nice gust of wind to pick you up and let you float gently towards the valley bellow.  

Of course, there is that little moment where you have to run off the side of the hill...

This was actually really really fun. It's exhilarating and peaceful at the same time. It's beautiful, and you feel weightless. We got to do figure eights past the launch point a few times, and I got to wave at the rest fo our crew on the ground.

After a little deliberation, Pak Putra and his wife Sri decided to join us, too.  This is the moment before lift off, as the 'chute takes off, and Putra contemplates his decision to strap himself to a stranger and run off a cliff. 

Excellent decisions.  Also, remember the "Ada Bule!" talk from before?  As I came in to land, all of a sudden the people on the ground at the landing sight, including all the little boys who help gather up the parachutes at the end, suddenly perked up and started passing the info around:

"Ada Bule! Ada Bule! Ada Bule terbang!"
"That's a foreigner! That's a foreigner! That's a flying foreigner!"

priceless.

***

After flying around, we descended again in to the city, to visit the Lampion Garden. The area is known for these light sculptures, made form wire frames and colorful cloth. Many a photo opp was taken.

the lampion garden was situated within a larger theme park/ fair ground. They had rides and games, and off in a back corner I saw... could it be? Ice Skating!  Wooooo!

But when I got through the crowds to the ice skating rink I was very surprised to see.... it was not ice at all. It was a rink covered in several inches of wax! Wax skating!

Gotta admit, I was kinda bummed. Wax skating? What? Who? Why? What?! I had a brief moment of missing the seasonal sink downtown in Boulder, and Occom pond in Hanover, and I think Professor Collier with his zamboni would be shocked. But thankfully such homesickness was brief, since there were Lampions to be seen! And photos to be opped!  Still, winter seems so very very far away.

And so ended our last night in Malang. We headed home and got some yummy food, and hung out in Pat's antique-filled house and i crashed to leep ridiculously early. And then we headed back to Bali. 

***

Indonesia is really big, and I could be here for years and see only a fraction of it. If you ever come to Bali, or are making someday-plans in the back of your mind, know that, though Bali is really wonderful, hopping off the tiny Island of the Gods and seeing a little more of the Indonesian archipelago, even if it's just a corner of Java, woud be a very very good idea. 

Trip to Bromo

So the trip to Jogja was at the end of September. Then the Trip to KL was around October 15. And then, in the most airplane-heavy month ever, I went back to Java again on October 24.  We flew into Surabaya and on the first night  of the trip east Java, we got drove through the night from the airport, and then piled into jeeps ridiculously early to drive up the into the mountains in the dark and watch the sunrise over Bromo volcano. It was cold and spectacular. Then we descended into the baren desert-covered volcanic valley, and climbed some stairs to the volcano's rim. All this within 12 hours of getting off the plane. During this first day the group of 11 of us took just over 2000 photos. here are a few highlights. The next couple of days hanging out in Malang get their very own post. Java is pretty much awesome. 

OK, here we go: Bromo volcano at Sunrise. 

At about 5:00 am, the pitch black began to turn into this:

which turned into this:

...and then this!:

Many photos were taken during this event!

Cold photos:

Experimental lighting photos: 

Sleepy portrait photos:

Group hugging photos!

More really cold photos:

Cute buddy photos, despite the cold:

Group photos that are so perfectly lit they look like we are posing in a studio infront of a poster. 

I swear that's not a paining. really. 

And as the number pf photos wore on and we ran out of picture ideas silly things happened, like...

 Titanic Reenactment pictures:

And Jumping Pictures:

And more jumping pictures:

Including Ninja jumping pictures:

And group Jumping pictures:

But despite all the jumping, it was still really cold:

Once the sun had rissen, and all the jumping photos were taken, we headed back along the ridge:

Where we saw two local women who really know how to enjoy an early morning:

Then we went to breakfast, and made silly faces at a fish-eye lens while our steaming hot chocolate arrived: 

After a good hot meal, went to the moon: (pretty much) 

Where we took a million more photos. Of moon cartwheels:

And sand dune climbing:



Yeah, I hang out with the Power Puff Girls on the moon all the time:



More jumping photos happened: (Of course)


And then, just about 500 meters south, we were back in Colorado: 

I enjoyed being back in my prairie habitat: 

For some reason, posing on cars happened: 

And then riding tiny horses happened! :

tiny horse, big attitude: 

When the horses could go no further, we had to climb some very sandy stairs:

At the top we could balance on the very edge of the Caldera:

It was so sandy and windy we could barely see:

But even blind, there are still photo ops with the Volcano: 

No volcano jumping photos, though, so that's a good thing.

Bromo Volcano, the most extreme temperature change you can find in 12 hours anywhere in Indonesia. Guaranteed. And really, spectacularly otherworldly.

I dig it.