in the lap of luxury

lombok, the island situated to the east of bali, was an incredible experience. i hate to drone on, but it too had lots of deep green foliage and big blue, clear skies. like singapore, it was very hot and very humid - in fact, both dave and i burned (to a crisp) our first day out - knew better - just too lazy to move. speaking of moving ... we stayed at the oberoi and let me tell you, they did not let us move a finger! yet they were not in any way intrusive. was such a wonderful treat, we felt extremely pampered and certainly very privileged to be able to enjoy such a trip. seriously! if you sat down at supper they would already be there to unfold your napkin and place it on your lap; if you went to the seaside they were already there to lay out your towel and provide your basket of necessities - water, sunscreen, iced towelettes to "dampen your brow" - they just had it all! the atmosphere was very condusive to rest and relaxation and we did plenty of that!

we did two dives on the wednesday and they were both great. the current in the first dive was very strong and it did not enable us to stop and really study all that you can, it kept us going down the line (it was a drift dive) which i found to be rather frustrating. our second dive was a wall dive and since the current had died right down, we were able to take our time and really LOOK at everything - and what a wonder was to beheld! lots of different fish types from what we have ever seen in the caribbean, the largest puffer i have ever seen, a "ginormous" turtle, and this coral that actually looked like turkey plummage. most interesting! in the afternoon we were pampered by a 2.5 hour couples spa treatment - started out with a 30 minute body cleansing, then a 90 minute massage, followed by a 30 minute floral bath (that was so incredible - this jacuzzi tub FULL of hundreds of gorgeous flowers). my upper back/neck had so many knots that the poor girl worked double time to try and get them all out (which she was unable to do - but it was still a wonderful massage).

on thursday we took a little pony and cart into town (1/2 hour ride) and checked out the local market - now either it was not a good day to be buying, or, well i just don't know what! it was quite, ... uh ... "smelly", quite dirty (it had poured the night before) and needless to say, we went home empty handed. that evening we had prebooked our dinner to include an array of indonesian specialties and they set it all up in a private gazebo that overlooked the pools and seaside. breath-taking! that evening it absolutely poured and we spent quite a bit of time trying to catch a good shot of all the lightening that rocketed across the sky - that is SO much harder to do than you would think!

friday we did a hike to the sendang gile waterfalls - it was only a 15 minute trip down to the first set (over very uneven and slippery stairs though - this proved to take the most time) and they were absolutely beautiful! the second set of falls took another 30 minutes or so to get to, and it was a very interesting hike. at one point we headed deeper into the jungle and as the path was narrowing to about 6" in width our (local) guide goes "now make sure you do not touch any of the green plants with your skin, you will be very itchy if you do"!! hmmnn! try and figure out how to accomplish that one! we inched our way through that section then had to ford the river (VERY strong current) back and forth a few times, scramble up through more VERY slippery rocks - and voila! - we arrived. if you have a moment, check out the pictures that dave posted, it truly was incredible. we tried to swim in the pool right under the falls, but the spray was so powerful you could hardly keep your eyes open. now if you are still with me and haven't resigned to that "ya-da-ya-da" response, this gets more interesting!

on the return route our guide thought it would be cool to not walk up ALL the stairs and instead take the tunnel back ( i thought it would be good training for GWM, my male counterparts sadly did not agree). now you have to have some background on this "tunnel" ... rushing water (very strong currents in places), narrow, dark (pitch black in 3/4 of it) ... but at least when it was dark you weren't able to see the bats flying overhead ... and oh yes, it came complete with hundreds ... okay not hundreds but maybe 50 ... spiders that were on the wall ledges (which each time we came to a little "window" opening, you could see.) yes indeedy-do, it was a pleasant experience all the way around - not sure if HAD I KNOWN i would choose to venture that return route!!! yup, indiana jones, that's me! (by the way, it was only about 10 minutes walking through the tunnel and the guide did have a cell phone to use for a light source! What more could you ask for? ... dave so eloquently adds)