Today was a travel day.
No diving. L
Even though I paid for the trip beforehand, there are always
some incidentals on the boat. My diet
cokes, Nitrox, tip for the crew. They
didn’t accept American Express as payment which I guess is to be expected… so I
gave them the only other credit card I had, my Chase Visa. And then that one wouldn’t go through. What!?!??!?
OK, well, it is also an ATM card so the crew ran me in to the closest
ATM in Labuan Bajo. But it wouldn’t
dispense any money either (even if it would, it didn’t allow anyone to take out
more than 1.5 M rupia at a time and I needed much more than that). Martha K helped me out and paid for me on her
credit card. What a lifesaver! She said that someone did that for her once
in the past, so she’s happy to “pay it forward”. Sending her a check is the very first thing
I’ll be doing when I get home.
Note to self: travel
with cash (or traveler’s checks) next time.
Before we all got off the boat, we made sure to have a picture
taken of all of us. My camera was last
and I made everyone “put on their rhinophores” for one last shot.
We had a short flight back to Bali and I swear, I just can’t
keep it all together! On the shuttle
from the plane to the Bali Airport I realized I left my iPad on the plane. Grrrrr.
Nobody at the airport knew what the heck I was talking about, so I had
to go Graham. Yet again. I got it back. Whew, I was worried about not having anything
to read for the rest of the trip.
I feel like I can’t hold on to anything lately! I’m a comedy of errors, I swear.
We had a 2.5 hour ride (I slept through most of it) up to
Tulamben where I was just floored by the accommodations at Villa Markisa. The buildings here are beautiful. Every detail is perfect. No dirt or cobwebs in the corners, no worn
out towels.
The beds are draped with mosquito netting which I loooooooooooooooove. There were fresh flowers on the bed and fresh fruit in a basket nearby.
Oh, and the bathroom – it’s OUTSIDE. Gorgeous huge shower and yes, you do you business in a super nice toilet outside (it’s under an overhang in case it’s raining), but whoa.
Martha, Anthony, Martha and I are here at Villa Markisa but
there are other guests here as well.
They only have 8 bungalows but they are so amazing. I envision renting out an entire place like
this for a milestone birthday and inviting all my family and friends. Wouldn’t that be just about the coolest thing
ever? I would just need to wait until my
youngest niece Molly could have her SCUBA Certification by then! Although I get the feeling that the vibe of
this place is not really all that kid friendly.
We had a nice dinner and turned in. I have only two days of diving here – I’d
better make them count!
And the diving here is all about the nudis. I can’t wait.
I’ve been next door at SCUBA Seraya two other times but each of those
times it was only for a couple of days as well.
At some point, I do need to make this a destination for my vacation and
stay for at least a week.
