Putu took us to Air Panas. We ran the gauntlet of stalls and looked in disappointment at the pools. Hell the filters must have been playing up, going by the colour and consistency of the water, they cant have been working for a while either. Spotted a coupla the guys (that were at the beach interested in Robbie and my sleeping arrangements) in the water so kept a bit of an eye on Seany. After a round of bombs and belly flops, which really entertained the other swimmers. (Most got out of the pool to give us more room, and there are sceptics out there who say tourists are rude)! We left Air Panas and rumbled into Kalibukbuk to find digs for the night.
We pulled into the Angsoka and had a look at the pool and rooms. All okay, so we sent Putu on his merry way and booked in. Emms got in the pool and Sean (under a threat of death not to kick her leg), joined her. I wandered up to a pool guy and asked how much were the Bintangs. I must have died and gone to heaven, as he told me they were 10,000rp no tax. Ordering 50 binnies (you can never have too many), I sat on a 'chair' and watched the squirrels tight rope walking the various cables that hung around the place.
All very pleasant, except for one little episode, when after 20 of the binnies, (hell I was drinking them fast to save money) I suggested I needed to 'wade' for a while in the kids end of the pool. Emms sent me packing back to the room to use the WC. Women! Coming back from the room, we were joined by Robbie and Sue who had been down scoping out the beach. Sue had been hit on by one of Susies sisters, who told Sue (confused yet?) that her husband had died and she needed to sell all of her sarongs to Sue. She was that persistant that Sue had to leave the beach to get away from her.
That evening, tripping over the heap of empty binnie bottles some inconsiderate bugga had left by a 'chair' at the pool, we went down the lane to the beach and strolled into the first restaurant on the right. Robbie kept telling Sue the sarong lady had arrived, and Sue enjoyed the sunset, bintangs and meal from the comfort of hiding under the table. She did get some funny looks, same as after I wake up from under a bar table, I appreciate just how she felt.
All pleasant stuff, and as I fell asleep that night to the sound of rattling binnie bottles and cusses from other hotel guests tripping over them, I thought to myself, self, does it get any better than this?
Oh yes it does. That morning when we had pulled into the reception area we were pounced on by several locals(obviously recognising a fellow fisherman) insisting that we go dolphin hunting with them the next day. I asked what happened if we didn't get any, and he said half price. Ya can't get any fairer than that, so we said okay. So 6am there is a curse followed by a thud, and there's our captain lying in the centre of a pile of bottles by the pool.
Sounded pretty flash this trip, our own boat, breaky provided, so off we went to the beach (me nursing a headache from something I ate the night before).
Bugga me, a dug out log, strapped to 2 bamboo poles.
Word must of got out that we were going, as several thousand other floating logs joined us and with motors screaming joined in the fray. I looked around and couldn't see any harpoons, let alone lines or lures on the boat! I asked Ahab, how were we gonna get these little buggas without any gear, but with the sound of 2000 screaming Yamahas he didn't hear me. 2 hours later we were all floating around resembling a logging truck accident, eating boiled banana and drinking sweet luke warm tea out of cracked cups when all of a sudden one of the logs roared off and Ahab started our motor and accelerated forward. Spilling our tea over ourselves and choking on the nanas we were off.
False alarm, motors turned off and monotonous slapping of water against the hulls. Just when I thought we were at the urine drinking stage, another burst of motors and 2000 logs rushed toward 2 small dolphins swimming frantically out to sea. The things you see when you don't have a weapon folks. I was gutted, but Ahab was a happy chappy, and I was left pondering, now that we had seen them I had to pay full price. Hell it was like a Japanese koan, if I won I lost, and if I lost I won. All too complicated for a little boy from NZ. So with those thoughts, coupled with the little men with hammers rattling around in my head we turned for shore.
As we had spilled our breaky down ourselves on the boat, we headed to the restaurant at the Angsoka for our 'breakfast included' meal. I ordered boiled egg and toast. Yep that's what I got, a cold boiled egg and a piece of toast. All right if I had an egg cup to go with it I guess. Never mind 3 more hours before Putu is due, and there's always the binnies at 10,000rp each. It was gonna be a nice day after all.
Regards Ianz