this is what Bali used to be....

We took a speedboat out to Lembongan Island. Apparently this is what Bali used to look like. We were only planning on staying 2 nights and then going to another part of Bali to meet up with friends. But how cany ou leave a place like this? We stayed in these huts. Well, they say call them huts. They seem much nicer than what I would call a hut. There were only 5 huts at our place so we pretty much had the place to ourselves. We rented a motor bike and cruised around the island until we got a flat tire on Day #4. This was quite a story unto it's self. Let's just say that I'm glad we had my blackberry and it can work anywhere in the world. I'll have to tell that story on another post b/c my pics from that day are on my other camera. I was also convinced to scuba dive which I've never really wanted to do. I mean, it's one of those things that looks really amazing, but when choice #1 is go get all this gear and get on a boat and maybe see some fish and choice #2 is stay on the beach reading my book. Well, it's easy to say no. To be certified you have to take a 4 day course. You are in a classroom for 2 days before you get in the water. Instead I took a 10 minute crash course from Wayan who was pretty difficult to understand. He basically told me he would never let me go and take care of stuff for me. Sweet. Surprisingly to everyone, I actually really enjoyed it and was "a natural" in the water. Wayan let go of me and we stayed down about an hour. It's such a surreal experience. We were about 10 meters down so when you look up the boats and people swimming seem pretty close. We saw some really beautiful fish and of course, Wayan found Nemo for me. I wish I knew what kind of stuff I was looking at. Maybe next time. Yes, there will be a next time. I plan on going through the certification in Thailand in January. En shallah. Anyways, I would really recommend scuba diving.

In front of the hut, there is this jug for washing your feet before you enter.

Lounge chairs out front.

Mushroom Beach. (our beach)

View from the porch. Yes, that's the ocean.

This was our hut. The top part is the room, downstairs is this lounging area for like yoga or something. It lets the air move under the hut to help cool the hut. The AC also worked very nicely in cooling the hut too.

YUM!!

Sunset Beach

Stopped for petrol where a lady poured some petrol from an old vegetable oil container into the motor bike.

View from the lounge chair. Boats come in every day from Bali with tons of tourist but then leave by 4pm.

Dream Beach. There was some property for sale on this cliff. Very tempting....

The statues around the temples are so creepy.

Outside a temple on the motorbike.

Really pretty flowers everywhere.

We came across a graveyard and each of the graves has a little shrine on top with the umbrellas that are everywhere. It rains a lot so maybe they need umbrellas too?

These are the offerings that they put out every morning. They are literally everywhere. Mostly in doorways and footpaths. They are made with a banana leaf and have flowers, rice, and incense burning in them. It really creates a nice atmosphere with incense burning everywhere. I'm now convinced that incense should only be used outdoors.