Living the Dream

What was supposed to be a 25 minute drive turned into nearly an hour, and when I looked at my GPS, I was nowhere close to where I wanted to be.  I asked someone riding by on a scooter and they told me to keep going the same direction. Luckily I filled up the petrol before this venture because it took almost a full tank of gas by the time the adventure was over.  I wish I had a go pro on my head, because the road I was on, was more like a dirt bike trail, I can’t believe the scooter didn’t rattle itself apart.  I kept going, trusting what I had been told, and not my GPS, and lo and behold, I eventually saw a sign for Lempuyang!  I took the road and I was waived down to park. The guy told me I should park there because once things got going today, I would not be able to move my bike out if I parked further up.  He went over the temple guidelines with me and then we had some small talk about his English skills and my travels for a few minutes. When I told him I had to be back in Amed for SCUBA lessons, he told me to take my bike further up, because I would be gone before the crowd showed up.  I parked at the first of 7 temples in the complex, walked around and took some pictures, then headed to the second and last parking area.  The rest of the temples had to be visited on foot, and to see them all would be about a 4 hour hike, I’m glad the guy I met told me that because I would have tried to walk up and ended up missing my class.  It is called The Temple of Thousand Steps, but it has more than that, the final temple is at the top of a 1700 step stairway.  I made it to the 3rd temple before I was out of breath and out of time, and headed back down.  The walk up was fairly taxing, and on the way down I passed women carrying large baskets of offerings on their heads, not sweating at all, and making me feel very out of shape haha.  Once I got to my scooter I decided to not wear my helmet on the way home and enjoy the freedom of riding with the wind in my hair.  In Bali, it is illegal to ride a motorbike without a helmet, unless you are wearing an udeng, which exempts you from that law.  I passed 3 police officers on my way down the mountain and none of them said anything more than hello, with big smiles on their faces.  Got back to the hotel with just enough time to eat breakfast and head to the dive shop.  I told them about my morning at the dive shop and they got a good laugh at the route I decided to take to the temple. I was able to take the highway back, so the return trip actually was 25 minutes, as expected. In class we went over my study questions, and I did pretty good, then it was out to the ocean for some skills review and diving.  I completed 2 dives today, and passed the first written examination, I’m on my way to being certified!  Headed back to the hotel, washed off all the salt from my body, and now I’m sitting here listening to the rain pour down.  I was going to go back to the temple for the celebrations this evening but I am pretty wore out from waking up early and all the swimming. Not to mention it’s a probably not the safest ride in this weather. Gonna throw my poncho on here in a bit, see where the live music is in town tonight, and grab dinner. I stopped at a reggae bar last night where they were doing a lot of reggae covers to American tunes, and had yet another cheap, delicious, and low priced meal. Had lassi to drink for the first time and it was really good. I mainly wanted it for the probiotics, to keep my gut healthy.  I’ve really lucked out not getting sick on this whole trip and I’d like to keep it that way. It was another wonderful day in Bali.  Tomorrow, I have more dive training to do, and I may schedule a fast boat to the Gili Islands for later in the week.  I want to climb Mt Agung for the sunrise but I will have to push that back until 24 hours after my last dive, to be safe and not get decompression sickness.