Dear Becky,

I wish I could see your face.

I wish I could see your face as I tell you about a new friend of mine I have made in the last couple of weeks.  His name is: White-tip Reef Shark.  Yes, I have entered the world of insane people who actually choose to swim with sharks.  But I can't help it, Indonesia does that to you.  Let me explain:

We left Bali behind two weeks ago and decided to head East into the Nusa Tengarra (which is a fancy way of saying east of Bali).  From the moment we set foot on the ferry bound for Gili Trawangan (the first of eight islands I would hit in the last two weeks) I knew I was in for something special.  And the reason I knew this was because a pod of about 50 dolphins came back-flipping and barrel-rolling out of the ocean to tell me.
 

Dazed by the dolphin olympics, I stepped onto Gili Trawangan ready to explore the rest of the aquamarine playground surrounding the three Gili islands famous for their excellent diving, warm water and remote beaches.  It didn't take much to convince me that enrolling in the Advanced Open Water Diver Course was the way to go...and next thing you know, I'm swimming with sharks.

And while I am absolutely certain that you are horrified right now, just wait...because I haven't even told you about the night diving yet!  Seriously though, the diving in the Gilis was amazing and all in all, I saw octopi, giant morays, turtles, stingrays, scorpion and anglerfish, cuttlefish, squids, and of course a couple sharks.  And that doesn't even hit the hundreds of species of tropical fish, nudibranchs, and on and on.  Basically what I am getting at Beck, is that you better start putting away time for some dive vacations...because I won't take no for an answer...

The Gilis are the type of place where you can sit in a thatched roof bungalow on a white sand beach and drink fresh squeezed fruit juice while you waste the day away patting yourself on the back for all the hard work you did that day walking down to the waters edge once or twice.  It looks a little something like this:

And when you have had it up to here with all of this pain and suffering, don't worry, you can just hop a longtail boat from one Gili to the next...as I did when after 4 days on Gili T, I decided it was time to make the big 20 minute move to Gili Air (Air, by the way, means water in Indonesian...try to explain that one to the captain planet team).

Since there are no motorized vehicles on the islands, you have two options for getting around.

1) Circumnavigate by foot (this took me one hour on Gili Air) 

2) Hop a ride on a wagon that is pulled by Sparkles the Christmas Pony.

But of course, every dream must come to an end, and while I hate to not give sparkles his fair share of the transportation discussion in this blog, I must switch tracks to tell you about the next leg of our journey across Lombok and Sumbawa.  

Where to begin? Okay, imagine you are in a bus, and you are in the back row.  Next to the toilet.  And the seats don't recline.  But, hey, everything is okay because you have got loads of legroom.  I mean, really it was very thoughtful of this bus designer to consider that those of us that won't be able to recline for the next 28 hours may require a bit extra legroom.  So the bus leaves, and you are a little bummed about the 20-30 ants that are crawling around near the toilet, but when all is accounted for it could be worse.  really.  

20 minutes roll by and the bus stops, the back door swings open and a giant white sack filled with fresh fruit flies into the bus at your feet.  hmmmmm....you think, that's different, okay, no big deal.  And here is another.  Two Bags! wow! crazy.  But it doesn't stop.  A giant sack of carrots, maybe 10 giant boxes and a man.  A small man who crawls up behind your seat and crunches in above your head.  

And then come the ants.  An endless eruption of tiny black ants that crawl out of the various sacks and boxes and creep up your legs and down your back and you are stuck.  28 hours.  Twenty-eight hours.

But the good news is (and there is good news...I promise): at least they know where the best apples come from.

Love you miss you happy birthday.