The Closure (Safari Part Five)

We left Absolute Padang Bai on afternoon.
From the beginning there were two cars following us.
One car consists of tanks and instructor’s gears. Our van consists of Pras, our gears and us. The van was spacious and had wide leg room, and we could lower the back of the seats so it was comfortable to sleep, since safari in Bali involved a lot of traveling, dry or wet, hot or cold.
We entered Sanur area in less than an hour, we did last hour shopping, bought tidbits and drinks. In Sanur, we went to ADA Center and did the payment.

My thick travel pouch consists of rupiah became thin in few minutes. From feeling rich we suddenly worried about whether we had enough money for the last two days. We had quite a long chat with Butet, Pras, Christian who was there, Martha, Aris the driver and one person I couldn’t remember his name…
After the entire logbook chopping ‘Yay’ Aris drove us to Oasis Kuta Hotel, we had two hours to freshen up before dinner.

The Oasis was Leo’s choice, it’s located near Kuta beach, and surprisingly only few building away from Kuta Beach Club, the hotel me and Hubby stayed on our previous trip. So, we were busy washing gears, and found strategic place to dry them. The hotel main finish was made of stone. It was nicely arranged and spacious, we entered the room from small corridor, but we could slide the back door all the way and face the 50m swimming pool. We had two outdoor bale-bale to lie on but we used it to dry the wetsuit. We used the back door (which looked more like front) all the time. There was also a day bed and big empty area beside the cabinet for us to put our Bcd etc to dry up. It was a nice and beautiful hotel.

After washing gears and taking shower, at 7.30 pm, Aris came and we hit the road. We had this complimentary farewell dinner in Jimbaran. After one of the bombs in October hit this area, me and Hubby asked friends whether they were still keen to have dinner there, they didn’t mind at all.

We reached Jimbaran before Prass and Butet. It was a really nice place. The dining area was set out on the seashore, with open sky and sound of the ocean. I sat facing the sea, on my left all the way that I could see there were similar concept of restaurant, on my right was the same thing ended with Kuta airport, so once in a while we could see planes landed.

I was thinking about some people walked in heartlessly and blew up the happiness around, ******.

There were groups of singer; they went from table to table. Just like last time when I visited Yogyakarta, they had complete band with drum, bass, even saxophone, they sang good music and helped create the nice ambience. Soon the uneasiness I felt was lifted up.
Our food came first, just before Prass and Butet walked in. After their food was ready, we started to dig in. Our turn with the band, we requested for our soundtrack song.

Huaaaaaaa…

We chatted, laughed and laughed like crazy about our one-week diving experience. There were many many funny and embarrassing personal moments and experience which is not relevant to be told here.

Looked around and I saw happy and tan, dark brown faces including mine and how comfortable it was to sit between friends who went thick and thin together. This was the same group who shared the same fear and worries when we were stuck in the middle of nowhere on midnight with broken down car on our previous trip, who slept in the same bunk and cramp together on weekend trips or spent hours chatting until midnight in town, our house or their house. We got it all. Happy faces, golden tan and priceless pictures. Hmmmmmmmmmmm…. :)

As usual, we spent every minute until the restaurant was almost closed. We said goodbye to Pras and Butet, went back to hotel and passed out.



19th November, Saturday, The Ninth day
Kuta Bali


The habit of waking up early still intact, we gathered for breakfast at hotel lobby on eight. We started to feel Bali’s hot weather. After breakfast, we opened our room for gathering while waiting for Leo for business.

Then we went out around Kuta, we saw shops, malls, whoaaaa, civilization..! The weather was so hot that we bought ‘sate’ fan while Leo brought the nice classic purple flowery one, he ignored all the picking and laugh from us. We went in shop to shop for air con, stopped for Hagen Daaz, and ended up in McDonald. McDonald has rice and soup! We passed by the other bombing site and chatted with the Balinese there about that crazy day. Raja restaurant looked sad and abandoned, but the environments around were still happening.
Hopefully they will fully recover soon.

We needed to get ready because Aris would pick us up at one for shopping.
With Aris, we went to Sukawati, the traditional market, for clothing and souvenirs. We suggested the place when they said they wanted to shop, we took almost one hour ride. Me and Hubby rented a car three years back and we didn’t realize it took that long to go there.

It was thirty-seven Celsius degree!

We thought we would never survive the weather. It was either too hot or too cold in Bali for this trip. We bought steamed peanut, Hubby, Cynthia and Froggie loved it too. We spent some time shopping, the guys brought pants and shirt, while Cynthia and me brought nothing, we were too busy fanning.
We made a few stop to a few shopping centers along the way. Although mostly Balinese are Hindus, the Christmas ambient was everywhere to be felt, heard and seen. Niceeeeee…

Around five, Aris dropped us at the hotel. We went to restaurant next to it; we refreshed ourselves with drinks and cold towels, and for Leo, pineapple boat of course.
After that, we went for a shopping around again, bought drinks and snack for party tonight and few DVDs…, mhehhe..

When we reached hotel, left everything in the room and ran to the swimming pool. It was soooo nice to be in the pool after that hot crazy day. Leo went for massage while four of us were playing in the pool. I realized that I couldn’t even swim properly and couldn’t even finish one lap! I really need to learn..
We played water gun with hands, laughed like crazy. We were more childish than a bunch of children and a bunch of teenagers who were in the pool also. We chased, ran, sprayed, had water war and we were so noisy. Lucky nobody complained, maybe they would complain to ADA…kekekke…not our problem. Because we never brought goggles, we used mask by folding the nose part.
Leo came back and joined us; he didn’t swim, but chatted with us. When he came, our voice and jokes were getting louder and louder and became not suitable for children.
We went out for dinner in the same restaurant, it was visibly quieter in Kuta compared to our last visit.
After dinner, we then gathered at Cynthia’s room for party.

Last nighhhtttt…

Leo brought liquor from airport and did some mix as the bartender. We watched DVD from Cynthia’s laptop and enjoyed the snack.
Around midnight, all of us were so sleepy and went back to room.


20th November, Sunday, Last Day
Closure


We had looooooong breakfast, continued with packing. We gathered at Leo-Frog’s room and waited for Aris to come and send us to airport. Frog counted down ‘We have three hours left in Bali’ 'We have one our forty minutes left..’ etc etc.., then sang or laughed like Scooby-Doo.

I thought this trip was going to be quieter with only five of us, but I was completely wrong. Frog and Leo are two jokers and five of us make it even worse.
On midday, Aris and Pras sent us to airport. We had a long goodbye conversation until the porters disappeared with the bags. So we said the real goodbye in a rush while running after the porters. Had lunch and went for duty-free shopping, we were the last to enter the plane. It was raining hard, lucky we didn’t experience any rain at all except the last day dive and it was a mild one.
Now, because of heavy rain, we experienced a lot of turbulences in the air.
When we flew Sgp-Bali, the passengers were never sleep, including us. They were playing, chatting, laughing. The plane back consisted of people went back to work, so everyone was sleeping and very quiet.

So, it was over for now…. :)

I feel relieved that finally I finish writing this journey.., these two days I reserved myself to finish before I’m getting lazier.

Although there are many things I forget to write in, more or less, this is the story..