Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Crystal had forgotten to turn off the alarm, so it went off at 6am, but fortunately she had already been asleep almost 10 hours. Justin didn't hear the alarm, and slept until 7:15, which was eleven and a half hours sleep. We had breakfast, then set off towards Bidadari Beach (Bidadari meaning "angel" in the local language). The boat ride was basically the reverse of the day before, so we saw all the same stuff, just with different shadows. Crystal continued reading her book while Justin copied over photos and videos and updated the travel log.

At around 9 we noticed a nice little beach area, only to realize that this was where we were anchoring to do the morning snorkeling. While we were anchoring, we looked over at one of the other boats in the area, and realized it was the Italian gentlemen from the day before, who already had a boat full of clients - good for him. The initial direction we headed out was calm on top, but had a pretty good current, so when we had a chance we swam up to the beach and walked to the other end. The water on the far end had almost no current, and much of the water was less than six feet in depth. It was nice to know that if we needed to get water out of our masks, all we had to do was find a spot with sand (and no coral) to put our feet down for a minute.

There were a number of clams of blues and purple colors, all kinds of parrotfish, some small sharks, and some needle fish, among others. Justin actually got bitten by a small fish (thankfully it didn't break the skin), but now he can say he was bitten at Komodo. Most of the fish swam away if we got too close, but one small red fish kept taking aggressive actions - probably defending his coral or something like that. We were in the water around an hour, and it was an added bonus (along with the flying foxes) for the Komodo area.

From there, it was an easy ride back to Labuan Bajo. We checked out the view from the high point above the harbor. At the airport, we checked in super early. Since it was such a tiny airport, there was nowhere to hang out, so we killed time at the bar/restaurant across the street. Back at the airport, and then on the airplane, there was a group of crazy Spaniards who 1) had ADD, 2) were on some sort of drugs, or 3) both of the above. They could not stop talking, they kept getting up and sitting down on the plane, they kept checking their bags every 5 minutes - it was incredible. When we landed in Denpasar, they were on the phone constantly talking about who knows what at super-high volume. In Labuan Bajo they made us check one of our carry-ons (it was a small plane), so unfortunately we had to wait at the luggage carousel. It was a relief when our bags arrived, so we could finally get away from them.

We returned to the Laguna Nusa Dua, and it was almost exact repeat of the other night - apparently there was no way for them to expedite things, even when they knew we were just here (they commented on it). We didn't get a suite again, but we did get one of the "over-water" rooms, which had a small patio with a ladder down into the swimming pool. We would have thought about using it but we were leaving early the next morning and our swimsuits wouldn't have dried in time. We started walking towards a restaurant Crystal had found a couple days earlier, but it was much farther than it seemed, so we turned around. We walked down to the main shopping center in Nusa Dua (also like what's in Wailea and Kaanapali, by the way), called Bali Collection. Unfortunately, we couldn't check out the restaurants - or anything for that matter - in peace. We were hassled constantly, with music blaring everywhere. One notable exception was a rendition of "Sweet Caroline" by a local band.

Eventually we left Bali Connection and just went back to the hotel and got ice cream (and Crystal got a sandwich). We got "late happy hour" drinks at the bar, and our waitress Yuli - our waitress at the bar all three nights at the Laguna - was just starting to like us. Justin totally missed it, but Crystal heard that Yuli said that she'd hopefully be spending her birthday "with someone like you [indicating Justin]." Crystal was about to tell her off, but then decided against it. Justin was none the wiser about the whole deal. Besides chatting with Yuli, we talked to the bartender, who was a big NBA fan. He had a lifetime dream of watching an NBA game in person, and Justin was telling him about the pros and cons (and costs). Indonesia had treated us very well, and we were sorry to be leaving, but were looking forward to Borneo.