Nepal Earthquake - 25 April, 2015

Most of you are probably aware of the catastrophic 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Nepal between Kathmandu and Pokhara on Saturday a little before noon. I flew out of the airport in Kathmandu, one of the areas most devastated by the earthquake, less than four hours before it happened. Normally, SuperTrippin' is meant to be entertaining and hopefully even informative on occasion. I'll probably still do a typical write-up of my trip to Nepal, eventually. Right now stories about where to find the best pizza and haggling over a buck on the price of a local handicraft don't seem to relative. Nepal is one of the poorest nations on Earth. It is also filled with some of the nicest people one could meet. They need as much help as they can get right now. So, please, if you can spare a few dollars, click one of the links below to read about how you can help with various organizations. If you don't like any of these and know of a different one, check out their website. Every little bit will help.

World Vision

UNICEF

International Medical Corps

Save The Children

CARE

Global Giving

Red Cross

That Time I Almost Died in Bali

I started this trip thinking back to my eight-year-old self and that Indonesian Rupiah that came from my cereal and ended it thinking about the time my eight-year-old self ripped my toenail off just before flying home from Grand Cayman (actually, it only came halfway off and it stayed like that until I flew home and got to a Dr. there). On my last day in Bali, I once again ventured down to the beach for one last bit of vacation before I left. Luckily I avoided injury this time around, but it was close. Thirty years later, the stakes were much higher, I was much older, but apparently no wiser.

I was just relaxing on the beach when I decided to snorkel around and see if I could find anything worth photographing. There wasn't much out there at first. A star fish, a bunch of gross looking fish under a rock, some sea grass.

I did eventually see something that caught my eye. At first I thought it was some trash. An old bicycle tire tube or something. Then I thought it was an eel. As I got close I could see scales and thought it was a dead snake that had washed out from the land. When I noticed the banded stripes, I realized it was a sea snake. I don't know a lot about sea snakes, but I do know that within their family, you will find the most venomous of all snakes on earth.

I watched it for a few minutes and it didn't move. It looked dead, all brown and dirty. I couldn't see its head. I wanted to see its head. I wanted to flip it over and inspect it. There were no sticks available. I used the longest piece of dead coral I could find. It was about four inches long. I may as well have just used my hand. I kind of lifted up the tail a little bit and the son-of-a-bitch sprang to life. I jumped back in rescue diver quick reverse style and watched the now awake, frightened and confused, definitely agitated, possibly revenge-seeking, deadly sea snake looking around for the source of its rude awakening. It surfaced to take a breath of air and I fired off a picture as I swam for my life. You can see the snake in the top right corner of the pic.

And that's why you don't poke at "dead" snakes.

Diving in Bali

The main thing I did in Bali was scuba dive. The diving was great and I was pleasantly surprised as I had been told it wasn't so great. Either I went to the right spots, I have low expectations, or my informants have too high of expectations. Whatever the case, I saw some cool stuff like an octopus being ripped apart by some triton trigger fish, and some other cool stuff diving in Candidasa. A couple of drift dives provided living octopus, cuttlefish, and lots of stuff I don't see back home in the Red Sea. And bare in mind all of these shots were taken while I was drifting past these things. So it's not like I could stop and set up the shot before I took it. I think they came out pretty good, considering. The coral coverage was impressive and in most places we went it seemed pretty healthy.We also did some cool stuff like a drift dive where we drifted out one way, came up about 20 feet and drifted back the other way right back to the boat. In addition to the drift dives, I did a manta dive,  and went to Tumbalen for a wall dive and a wreck dive. The wreck doesn't much resemble a ship anymore, but it was still a cool dive. I was hoping to find pygmy sea horses here, but had no luck. They're only about 1 cm long or so and look just like the coral to which they cling. So it is very difficult to spot them. Maybe I saw one and didn't even know it. Oh well. The search continues.

It was a very enjoyable three days of diving. Not just the diving itself, but the drives and boat rides to the sites, the great lunches, and great company. The drive to Tumbalen was particularly nice and is where I saw this.

After a long day of diving, we would typically have a beer at the bar at the dive shop and then I would head back toward my hotel and hit up the happy hour at a place next door. The happy deal was three beers for the price of two. The catch was you had to buy them all at once. Eventually I convinced the waitress that I needed a bucket of ice. Cold beer on a hot afternoon is always welcome. And the view was nice too.

The food sucked, though. But there was plenty of good food at other places nearby. I found some decent pizza, of course, and some sushi, and some ono local kine grindz.

On top of all this, my dive guide was excellent. His name was Gusde and he has a pretty impressive back story. Four years ago he didn't speak English and didn't know how to swim. He started working at the dive center hotel and picked up English. He saw people using the pool for scuba training and got curious. The dive shop put him to work cleaning gear and whatnot and two years ago he started diving. In those two years he went from not knowing how to swim to having done almost 900 dives and become an instructor. I was impressed and glad to have had him as my dive guide. Ask for Gusde at Bali Crystal Divers. Tell them I sent you. Maybe they'll hook me up next time I'm in town.

Bali. I Highly Recommend It.

When I was a little kid, I once got a prize in my cereal box that was some money from Indonesia. So naturally I had to go there to spend it. Unfortunately I have no idea where that money is, but as the exchange rate is 13,000 Indonesian Rupiah to 1 US dollar, it wouldn't have made much difference. Anyway, my first vacation away from Saudi Arabia was to Bali. And it was well worth the price of admission.

I had no plans except to drink some beers, do some diving, and lie around on the beach, and forget about Saudi Arabia, not quite in that order. I only had six full days there, so I had to make them all count.

My first stop after leaving the Kingdom was Jakarta. I had a three hour layover there before continuing on to Denpasar.

Boom! Not even part of the six days and I made it count. 3 beers, an hour and forty-five minute flight, and a 45 minute taxi ride later I was at my hotel, La Taverna. That means "The Taverna" in English. It was a pretty nice room and way bigger than I needed, though I was sharing it with the cockroaches. Not ideal roommates, but better than cobras, which apparently are found on this island.

I stayed in Sanur, which is a nice quiet beach town where almost all of the restaurants close by 10 pm. This does not work for me when I am trying to run an all you can eat spring roll marathon because I'm starving after a long day of travelling. I did manage to wander around a bit and find an open place with some spring rolls that just so happened to also be giving out free shots of arak. Arak is a local alcoholic drink that apparently has been killing people because it is sometimes made with methanol in less than reputable establishments. I had a feeling the good folks at Randy's Cafe wouldn't let me down. And I'm still here to write about it, so I guess that kerosene taste was all in my head. Eager to start my first day early, I wandered back to my hotel, watched some Archer and caught some z's.

Day 1 was spent just walking around town and setting up the rest of my week. I found a dive shop that gave me 25% off for being a PADI instructor and signed up for a couple of days of diving. I also hired a guy to drive me up the volcano and back, stopping at various tourist traps along the way. 

This happened on Day 2 and included a Barong and Kris native dance / play thing as shown HERE. We also stopped at an artist studio where I'm sure I overpayed for a painting, but don't mind because I like it and it was only 50 bucks after I talked the lady down from $300, so who cares. Then I was taken to a restaurant with a view of the volcano that was the worst food and most expensive ($10) I had had at this point. I did mind this. I found this completely unacceptable and told the driver not to fuck with me any more when it came to food. He seemed remorseful, but only slightly so. Too short of a trip to get upset about things, but I wanted him to know I wasn't buying his ridiculous line about this restaurant being more hygienic that the one I had pointed out down the street. Few things in this world, gastro-related, conjure up the thought of hygiene less than an open air buffet in Indo.

So on we went, enjoying the ride and stopping for occasional pics and purchases of wooden Buddha statues. Not one of the good ones made of fine quality heavy wood, but a lightweight, mass-produced Buddha that was probably made by a machine and not the son of the guy who sold it to me. Though I didn't care to argue with him on that point. He seemed nice and he took this picture of me. So why should I be upset that he's trying to make a buck by selling me crap with a 1000% mark-up.

 From here it was off to the Monkey Forest. I had been told is was touristy and sucked by multiple sources that had never been there, but who in their right mind passes up an opportunity to go to a sacred monkey forest for less than two dollars? The monkeys have free run of the Sacred Monkey Forest and are not to be messed with. They take what they want and there is little you can do about it. I caught one trying to dig into my pocket when my head was turned and another tried a couple of times to take my water bottle. Most were content with petty theft and eating fruit and doing cute monkey things as pictured HERE. 

We've all seen monkeys pick bugs off each other and eat them and it's kind of cute, kind of gross, whatever. No big deal. But some were, how should I say...a little different. No, that's not how to say it. I'll be blunt. I saw a monkey with its face in another monkey's ass going to town like there was no tomorrow. And I only paid $2 for this.

This was right in the middle of the park with families and children around. This monkeys had no shame. Nobody seemed to notice these two except for myself and a few guys that worked there. I said, "Get a room, monkeys!" and the one with the facefull looked at me like, "this is my room. Get the hell out of my house!" Then he / she went right back to town on what was apparently some delicious monkey butt. It is with this wonderful scene that I shall end this story. I hope you're not too offended to read the next episode of "Animals in Bali". It's all about sea creatures and comes with lots of cool pictures. Some of which I was assured were going to, in the words of the Australian marine biologist / dive instructor, "give a roomful of biologists back home multiple orgasms".