The End-of-Year Journey to West Bali

Dec. 30, 2009 – Jan. 2, 2010. My new year’s eve’s journey. The journey to close the year 2009. I’ve been talking about it, tweeting about it, yet I haven’t written it here. The photos have been selected and edited, and even posted onto picasaweb. But not here. This space, this blog, is too personal. Because writing it and posting it here would force me to admit the intense blackness of a cursed year, to expose my bleeding heart, and to own up to the decay of faith and hopes and dreams. So I’ve been procrastinating, postponing a story that should’ve been written and posted since the end of last year. The end-of-year journey to West Bali.

So here it is. By the end of last year, my arms reached out frantically in despair, seeking for strength or something substantial to enwrap me in compassion. By the end of 2009, I wasn’t looking for heavy-duty partying scene as I used to. I was looking for silence and solitude, or maybe familiar sounds to comfort and console. The familiar sounds of silence of the underwater world.

Therefore, I skipped the trendy “golden triangle” Kuta-Legian-Seminyak. I ignored the cool and breezy air of Ubud-Kintamani-Bedugul. I even paid no attention to the underwater kingdoms of East Bali, Amed-Tulamben, because they would certainly be packed with touristy divers at that time of the year. Instead, I headed west, to the sleepy town of Pemuteran and the tiny Menjangan Island. Silence and solitude.

Arriving in Pemuteran early in the morning of Dec. 31, the last day of 2009, Neptune the Sea God seemed to be welcoming me with stunning deep-blue skies and incredible windless sea. And as I rode my boat on the short 20-minute journey to Menjangan, for just that moment, my soul stopped drifting aimlessly in hopelessness. For just that moment, my soul came back. For just that moment, it stopped searching for meaning and truth, accepting the fact that it would find no direction. Only Mother Nature could do this, giving me warmth in times of want. Only Mother Nature could envelop me in sincere affection, as if apologizing for failing to grant my desires. I smiled, and prepared for the first dive.

The Coral Wall

Three other divers – Charlie, Carrie, and Shiho – were going to join me on the first dive of the final day of the year. We reached the jetty of Menjangan at 9.30AM. Flocks of local people arrived almost at the same time as we did. They were going to perform some kind of Hindu ceremony in the temple on the otherwise- uninhabited island. As it turned out, that day was also the day of a full moon. The ritual was the full-moon ritual.

Deep inside, this coincidence pinched me a bit. It was like a huge sign over my head. The message from the universe could be unbearably cruel sometimes. But fortunately, I had no time to pout. The dive master from Yos Dive led us to the sea. We were going to start the dive from the beach, walking slowly from the shore, then snorkeling in shallow water, gradually heading towards the deep sea, where we would eventually plunge into a steep vertical drop off. This was the renowned multi-layered coral wall of Menjangan.

The underwater scenery was simply fantastic. I knew the area was famous for its giant gorgonians, yet nothing could’ve prepared me for this extraordinary vista. The abundance of colorful gorgonians, the staggering variety of fish and corals in crystal clear water, flawlessly intermixed with dazzling rays of the sun that came out to maximize the brilliance of the colors. For that moment, just for that moment, I was healed. It was too rude not to be happy.

Pos II

The second dive started with a back-roll from the boat. The site was Pos II, where we dropped over a vast underwater garden, dominated by vibrant soft corals. If there was such a thing as “The Garden of Tao”, this would’ve been it. Here, amongst sunburst anthias (Serranocirrhitus latus) and lyretail anthias (Pseudanthias squamipinnis), amid enigmatic butterflyfish (Johnrandallia nigrirostris), and an assortment of many other species of fish, I pacified my emotions. The sound of my heartbeat in serene quietness of the sea was the only witness to my existence. My exposed heart trembled. And my soul, in its most primitive form of self, revealed a beauty nurtured within.

Funny. Sensing a touch of animation, I felt like starring in the film “Finding Nemo”. Surrounded by Nemo (clownfish), Dory (blue regal tang), Gill (Moorish idol), Peach (starfish), Bubbles (yellow tang), Bloat (pufferfish), Crush (sea turtle) and many other sea friends, I was spirited. The best feeling I had all year.

By the end of the dive, the coral reefs had succeeded to bury my pity within the fertile soil of Menjangan. The euphoric effects wouldn’t last. I knew that. But at least for that moment, just for that moment at the end of 2009, they restored my broken heart, shielded my fragile soul, and wilted upon my scars, allowing my own garden of hopes to grow again. As a skeleton, in slumber, I awaited the cycle of rebirth, the moment in space and time where winter was unwelcome and decay was impossible. For that moment, just for that moment at the end of the year, I breathed the harmonies of nature. And my spirit, lulled of the year-long tortures, was truly free.

Happy (belated) new year 2010! No, I'm not okay. But I'm still here. It would take a whole lot more to get rid of me.

Family Trip

All of my crazy workload since last month is over. Being a writer is hard sometimes, especially when you have nothing to write about other than heartaches and prayers to get over the heartaches and curses when the pain remains. But after forcing myself to press on, I’ve finally managed to complete everything. I’m now just waiting for revision requests, which usually aren’t as bad as having to write something new from scratch.

So… it’s time to blog again.

I’ve wanted to tell you all about my trip to Bali for Idul Fitri holiday last September. But this is the hard part. It was a family trip. And family trips, for me, are rarely enjoyable. No, I didn’t mean trips with my two daughters. I can handle them just fine. I meant trips with my entire big family. Now, that’s a headache.

There are many reasons why I don’t really enjoy family trips, but these are the two major ones:

1. I don’t share their “definition” of fun.

They like popular touristy places, shopping and eating in fancy restaurants. While for me, I’d rather stay away from popular places. A quiet and empty isolated beach is a thousand times better than these places. And of course, I’d rather do outdoorsy or adventurous stuff instead of shopping. For food, I’d prefer cheap but authentic dishes that allow me to mingle with local people and make me feel a part of everyday lives in that location.

2. I have to become a kid again.

Don’t get me wrong. I love an opportunity to become an irresponsible kid again, once in a while. But certainly not for the whole week! Going with my parents (or any older relative for that matter) means they get to boss me around and tell me what to do. The nicest thing about this is that they also pay for everything of course. But… after the first couple of days of having my room door banged at 7AM, being told to hurry and have breakfast, getting ushered here and there, being told where to go or what to do, having to tag along and simply agreeing with their “holiday master plan”, I got sick of it. I’m 40 for Heaven’s sake. I’d have breakfast when I feel like it, alright?! And I’d go wherever I want, whenever I want, with whom ever I want. Don’t wait up, coz I might decide to shack up with a guy I just met and not come home at all. However, this isn’t possible whenever I go on one of these family trips. They make rules. I follow.

So I improvise to make things a little bit “bearable”.

BB and Amusing Ads

First and foremost, I’d like to thank BlackBerry. It was so easy to pretend that I was busy on some business matters by seriously staring and typing into my BB. While in fact, I was busy Facebook-ing and Tweeting and chatting with friends on BB Messenger. I also had Yahoo Messenger installed, so I could also chat with friends who don’t own a BB. Wonderful BB. I don’t know what I’d do without it. BlackBerry, you saved my life!

Then I would find funny things to simply gossip and laugh about. A bit cruel, I know, but hey… it helped. So, excuse me for being mean, I was also miserable, okay?! People with weird sense of fashion or bizarre hair-dos were easy targets.

Sometimes I’d also find ads on store windows or stickers on public transportations or posters on the walls that amused or entertained me. I found this ad for Fortune Magazine on a bookstore window at Jakarta International Airport while we were waiting to board our plane to Bali. The headline was so catchy, “Is Pot Already Legal?” Wow! Is it? Then a brief explanation was offered underneath the headline. “Medical marijuana is doing more than changing the way the drug is perceived. It’s giving activists a chance to show how a legitimized pot business could work.”

Obviously, it’s a foreign magazine. At this point, I wouldn’t even dream of having marijuana legalized in Indonesia. It was hard enough to explain to people that porn is merely a choice. Sane and educated people would not abuse such choice. Therefore, a solution to porn would be to educate our people so they can make sane and well-informed choices. So legalizing weed is still a long way to go in this country, if ever. Anyway, I didn’t buy the magazine, but it was surely amusing enough to find this ad. It made my day. I wasn’t so grumpy anymore when I boarded the plane that flew us to Bali.

Morning Ritual

Then, almost every morning, I would get up very early, before anyone had a chance to bang on my door or annoyingly ring me to give me wake-up calls. I went to the beach, which was always almost empty at those hours, except for a handful of busy fishermen at work. It was lovely. Just sitting there quietly, waiting for sunrise, and enjoying a cool morning breeze. When I got tired sitting around, I would walk slowly along the beach, taking pleasure in the soft wet sand and engrossing myself with interesting patterns on the sands. A holiday should be just like this. Serene and wonderful.

Before I joined my daughters and the rest of the family members for breakfast, I stopped to watch the cute little squirrels on the trees. Most hotels in Nusa Dua host them and even generously provide food for them. As a conservationist, I’m really not sure whether this is good or not. But for the purpose of making MY holiday more tolerable, I was sure glad that they were there. They ran around in the hotel’s yard, freely taking nuts from small plastic bowls that the hotel staff had nailed to some of the trees. They were so adorable!

Mola-Mola Encounter

Other than my “morning ritual” on the beach, I finally managed to have one day, JUST ONE DAY, to escape the family and go DIVING! I signed up with BIDP, a dive operator in Sanur, to join a one-day dive trip in Nusa Penida. The dive sites were Manta Point and Crystal Bay. The goal was to find the ancient oceanic sunfish, the mola-mola. It was the perfect time to find them as they rarely ever came up to shallow waters, except in August and September, when sweeping currents from the Antarctic made the normally warm tropical waters of Bali freezing cold. The day I went diving, water temperature was 23º Celsius on the surface and dropped to around 17º Celsius underwater. No, it wasn’t cold. It was BALTIC! I had three layers of wetsuits – a 1 mm skin suit and 3 mm wetsuit that I owned, PLUS another 3 mm wetsuit that I rented from the operator – and I was STILL bitterly cold!

But it was worth it. On the second dive in Crystal Bay, I finally saw a mola-mola! Oh my God, it was awesome! I was only around 12 meter deep (thank God, coz as it got deeper, it would also get colder). The prehistoric fish was very large, and had an almost circular, flattened body. It looked like a giant satellite dish with fins. This unusual fish swam by flapping its long pectoral and dorsal fins. It used its caudal fin as a rudder (for steering). The gills were covered by a flap called an operculum. The head was almost a third of the total body length. And its tiny mouth had large fused teeth in the front. Yes, the sunfish are carnivores or meat-eaters. They eat jellyfish, comb-jellies, and some crustaceans.

The sunfish could grow to be about three meter long, but some could also reach up to 4 meter. And it could weigh up to 2 tons. The divemaster said that some sunfish had even been seen floating on their sides on the surface of the sea, letting the sun heat themselves up. That’s why they are called the “sunfish”. Interesting, huh? Well, for me, whatever they’re called, a brief encounter with the sunfish, coupled with a rare “escape” from my family, was the perfect thrill of a lifetime!

But… errr… to dive in that water temperature again? No, I don’t think so. Never again will I dive when the water is less than 26º Celsius. And I promise this in the name of the Father, and the Son, and Bob Marley. Amen. (What? Bob Marley IS my holly ghost, alright?! No spirit is holier than him! Deal with it!)

Oh, by the way, for those of you who are interested to go diving with BIDP, you can contact them at the following phone numbers: (+62 361) 285065 or (+62 361) 270759.

Bali Safari & Marine Park

There was only one more highlight of the holiday. It was a trip to Bali Safari & Marine Park. Alright, I’m not THAT crazy about seeing animals in captivity. For me, the best animal encounters would have to be in the wild, in their natural habitat, just like my encounter with the mola-mola. BUT… just this one time, I must admit that Bali Safari & Marine Park is actually pretty good. It has been set up in such a way that most animals are not in cages, but they can run free in the environment that sort of imitates their real habitats. Additionally, the park also runs various conservation awareness programs in a very innovative, creative and entertaining way. It is a great place for little kids to get the “first taste” of nature and learn about it in a safe and controlled environment, before one day (hopefully) are inspired to go on their own adventures in the wild.

Anyway, the animals in Bali Safari & Marine Park looked well taken care of. There was plenty of love and the enthusiasm of the staff was obvious. It was a good feeling. The only criticism from me would be the staff’s ability to speak English properly. That was the only thing that needed improvement. The rest were just brilliant!

That day, we had a lot of fun observing the delightful elephants, the sweet orangutans, the endearing tigers, the quick cheetahs, the pretty birds, the cunning reptiles, everything! Oh, and they even had komodo dragons in there! That was quite a treat for me and both of my daughters. We miss Komodo National Park. Seeing the dragons was kind of therapeutic in a weird way.

So the holiday wasn’t all bad. Mostly bad, but wasn’t all bad. I did find a lot of things to make this particular family trip acceptable enough. Not that I want to go on another one any time soon. But the last trip was pretty much okay.

One last note before I go to sleep, I came across a huge sign on a tourist bus while we had lunch in Bedugul. When I saw it, I simply cracked up laughing, because to me, the sign was saying that for Rp60,000 you’d get free meal and drink, a free child (less than 80 cm tall), and a free elderly person (older than 60 years old). HAHAHAHAHA! Read the sign and tell me what you think!