We have been gone for over a full month. Almost a week in Berlin, almost a week trying to get to Bali, and 3 weeks on the island. I know I can't begin to complain about this trip and be taken seriously, but it has taken some time to adjust. It does look like the Instagram photos... most of them. Did you know that the most famous ones that are reposted and used for every dreamscape of "paradise" are tricks? There is no water at most of the temple sites that you've seen perfectly reflecting themselves in glassy lakes, they use mirrors. The most sought after views have lines for selfies and no one is actually there to SEE the place. We are the very first tourists from outside of Indonesia, but there are some Indonesian tourists visiting Bali, thus the lines. There are mounds of garbage everywhere. It is ungodly hot and humid so 85 degrees feels like 102, and most of the time it is in the 90s so you can imagine what that feels like. Humidity is through the roof making the combination insane. All of that isn't in itself terrible, but there is a lack of authenticity from what I had expected to feel. You know what I mean? It's like someone took all the beautiful photos and projected them onto the walls of a room, and there you are, in a room looking at beauty, but feeling nothing.
There are a lot of white people that live in Bali, expats love it here! The life is easy, chill, and the people of Bali are perhaps the most beautiful thing about Bali. Time to time you find yourself in the midst of a local ceremony, so colorful and expressive, its almost like striking a match in the pitch black of night in comparison to the whitewashed Bali of foreigners influence. Those moments are wonderful. Time to time you find yourself welcomed to sit with a local and taught how to order the stunningly delicious dishes that have left us wide eyed and drooling. And time to time you are in the presence of someone that exhibits such peace and patients, you are simply in awe.
My daughter hates the over use of the word "awe" especially in its commonplace "awesome" use so I use it seldom and deliberately. I have met someone that I am in awe of. That person is my daughter's dive instructor.
Bali Scuba is a dive center in Sanur Beach. It has a nice web-site and from my research seemed professional and worthy of me entrusting my daughter's care to. It was easy to communicate with them from the USA and they offered the book work online. We arrived and found a clean, professional store/ office and the staff all dressed in uniforms. This is not the norm in dive shops. Some of my favorite dives have been out of offices that looked like dirty closets and made you wonder if they'd remembered to put air in the tanks. This dive shop had their own dive pool visible from the office and friendly faces that made you immediately feel at ease. My husband, Jesse, and I hadn't been diving in 10 years so we took a refresher (you have to if you go that long in order to be allowed to dive again) with a delightful instructor named Yannick. He was so sweet and clearly very knowledgeable. He was also our guide on our dives which was great because he knew us well by then, this makes quirky things like the fact that I am oddly buoyant already addressed and the dive is far more successful right off the bat. But what was REALLY impressive was the instructor my daughter was paired up with, Sila.
Sila is a petite person, compact and visibly strong, but lean and at least a head shorter than my 15 year old daughter. Everyone at the dive shop was well manicured with neat short hair and clean shaven. This is also very unusual in the dive world. Guides are usually long haired, a little grungy and wearing the tatters of a dive shirt from millennia ago. Sila had bright white teeth and sparkling eyes. He was genuine, personable and compassionate; a perfect choice for our daughter. As it turns out, we had no idea just how lucky we were to have him teaching her! Things were challenging and when things got bad, he kept his cool and helped us keep ours.
Diving is great, if everything goes well. Divers talk about how amazing it is, but it's usually those of us that have been doing it for years and experienced a bunch of different types of dives all around the world. Watching my daughter go through the training reminded me of just how hard it is to get certified. Not hard per say, but challenging. My daughter has SPD (sensory processing disorder) which makes her highly sensitive to noise (i.e. crowds) or clothing (you think it is soft, she thinks it feels like sandpaper on her skin), and the fun one in this context is the feeling of drowning if you have water on your face. You may be asking yourself what the hell we were thinking having a kid with SPD get dive certified, but that requires a quick story...
About 8 years ago, we took a trip to Belize. At that point our daughter wouldn't put her face in the water. We had only recently graduated from a dry washcloth over her face so I could wash her hair, to allowing some spray to gently sprinkle her bare face. I'm telling you, this has been a process! Anyway, the water in Belize was such a phenomenal clear aqua blue, she could see the fish from the surface and within days had full snorkel gear on and in the water, face down for hours at a time. That turned into a 3 dive snorkel trip out on a boat. Dive 1 she panicked and got back in the boat. Dive 2 they chummed the water (not cool, I know) and had the boat surrounded with huge nurse sharks and sting rays. That dive she wasn't going to miss and leapt in almost before my husband and I could get our flippers on! My point being, when this girl puts her mind to something, she does it. Jesse and I had no doubt that if she wanted to get scuba certified, she'd make it happen. That was before we remembered that a key exercise is to fully remove your mask while under water, then return it and clear the mask... all while breathing continuously through the regulator. It is probably everyone's least favorite part of the training, but this triggered the panic that she was for sure drowning.
Back to the pool portion of the training at Bali Scuba and we have our daughter losing the ability to make this work while the ever calm and patient Sila gently moved her through the steps. He let her take breaks and assured her that she was doing well and it was all OK. The quick 1 day pool session turned into 2 extremely long days and a very unenthusiastic teenager. We returned to the dive shop expecting an eager to dive face and found a miserable pout instead. It seemed doomed. But Sila to the rescue, offered what is called a discovery dive which allows someone to try a shallow dive with an instructor in order to be inspired to WANT to dive. It was brilliant and worked like a charm. So back to the pool our daughter went for that long second day in the pool. By the end, I couldn't imagine how exhausted Sila must have been. I know my own limits for patience would have been long passed it, but he serenely sat, laughing and kindly supporting our depressed daughter. She wasn't hiding it, she hated diving. Shit.
Full steam ahead, we planned the open water dives. Screw you daughter, we don't care what you like or don't like! LOL! Just kidding, she recognized she was now done with the shitty pool part and could now dive... and repeat those exercises in the ocean, yay so fun! She completed the 1st 2 dives well and was officially scuba certified, now 2 more and she'd have her open water. It was within grasp and even Sila had a bigger than usual smile! We celebrated and planned our family dive. Then, that night, out of nowhere, our daughter's ear started to hurt. It went from bad to worse and we had to call off the dive, contact our doctor and find prescription drops. We just couldn't catch a break.
We hit pause on my daughter's scuba experience while her ear healed and headed to Nusa Penida, an Island just off the mainland of Bali. There the spectacular cliffs and tight jungle gave us a peak at that "Bali feeling" we'd been looking for. We picked a place that offered us a room nestled in the tree tops and a pool with a sunset view that would have Instagram Influencers swooning. The food was amazing and the owners were wonderfully welcoming. But, there was still something amiss.
Jesse and I did dive on Nusa Penida, 2 days worth. The dive sights are for advanced divers and offer the chance to see enormous manta rays, sharks and octopus. We saw none of those the first 2 dives. I had a BCD (the flotation vest) with a leak and ran out of air canceling half the dive for me. That was OK though because I also had an incredibly stupid weight belt issue that caused me to be on my back like a turtle on its shell. I'd been seeing the entire dive upside down. I started to really empathize with my daughter. We hired Sila's brother Gede to drive us around to the top sights on the Island and visited Amed Sunset for drinks, you know, all the stuff you are supposed to do. I think I have never sweat so much in my life as that day touring. The paths are rugged and my knees, having been hit the hardest with my RA, screamed at me. The drinks at Amed were insane and our "nest" seating was adorable. We drank wine at the pool as the sun dipped and the sky turned hot pink and orange. But there was STILL something missing.
5 days later we returned to Sanur Beach in order to finish our daughter's Open Water dives. Returning to an area is always enjoyable. Our favorite spots were excited to see us again, we knew how to get around and where to stay. Artotel by the way gets my full endorsement! It is art and a hotel, interesting architecture, stunning rooms, fabulous breakfast and excellent service. But we found that we didn't want to hang out on the beach, never did, and it seemed no one really did. It took us forever to figure this out and started to think we simply weren't beach people... even though there are many beaches in the world we absolutely love. Objectively speaking, it is cute beachness... but it also isn't. It was creating a slow burn of worry, did we not like Bali?!?
Needless to say, we wanted to get our daughter certified and move on to a new spot. I volunteered to go with her for encouragement on her dives and simply sit in the boat. The cost of the dive and the lack of excitement of these dives didn't make sense for me to actually join in. Saint Sila did everything he could to help our daughter through the first dive, but her ear wouldn't cooperate and pushing it could cause long term damage. It was a serious blow to a girl that has overcome so much to get this far and not be able to complete the journey. Being Scuba Certified, without the Open Water, simply means she can't do super deep dives. She can also attempt this increased certification down the road, but for now, we were done. It was a brutal moment as we tried to cheer my daughter up. With sadness clinging to the boat, Sila offered to snorkel with her so she could enjoy the plentiful fish and end on a high note. I could not have been happier than when I saw the giant smile on my daughter's face as she returned to the boat. It wasn't what we thought would happen that day, but it was definitely a success. And, best of all, we could officially close the book on Scuba Certifications and get the hell out of this area.
Since we were struggling to get into the rhythm of Bali, we had trepidation around our next stop. What if we weren't going to enjoy the world's most perfect vacation? The taxi ride was tense with the unsaid stress we all felt. But then, as we twisted into the streets of Ubud, its charming shops and cafes tucked into the juggle screamed "ADORABLE!!!" and within seconds we saw monkeys crossing streets, climbing poles and swinging from power lines, this magical little place was definitely a vast improvement. Ooohs and ahhhs echoed through the car, it was obvious our luck was about to change.
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