Today we head back to Bali, by Fast Boat, and then back to Jakarta for an overnight and then home!

We started the day with a ‘little’ headache from all the wine we had last night, some in our hacienda . . .

 

In packing up our stuff we found this contraption in a basket in the bathroom. Evidently a mosquito killer. You plug it in, put one of the little HIT tabs in the device and I guess it kills them dead. Not sure what it might do to human’s breathing whatever vaporizes!

 

The AC on the island was not as effective as in our Ubud villa. Although the temp was set at 16C, during the heat of the day it never got the temp much below 80F.Luckily we were not in the room much during the day. After sunset, the room cooled down and we needed a blanket every night. Nice sleeping!

 

One last breakfast the the beach front restaurant . . . they put the X-mas tree up since yesterday!

 

Great morning view from our table . . .

 

If you look close, across to Bali, you can see a very controversial high rise hotel.

 

Soon it was time to check out and we did have some help. It’s going to be hard going back to the reality of hauling everything yourself and driving oneself around . . .

 

As we traveled to Mushroom Bay, via our outdoor taxi, we passed a school that was just getting out. School kids everywhere . . .

 

And everyone had a scooter. Lots of drag races away from school.

 

As we approached the Bali coast, on our 25 minute Fast Boat ride,  we cruised by the hotel that some corporation sold the Bali government on permitting during the 60’s. There was so much local opposition to it after it was constructed, a referendum was passed that no future building project in Bali could be taller than a coconut tree!!!!

 

We tied up with the TNC staff in Bali  and went for a nice lunch at a dockside restaurant in Benoa Bay, not to far from the TNC office.

 

Here are several of the ships owned by the Indonesian Coast Guard that are operational . . .

 

. . . and here are a few patrol boats that are no longer operational. The government evidently doesn’t have a good system of disposing of old out of date items so they just park them and let them rust away!!!

 

Here are two of the program managers from the local TNC Bali field station, Haleem and Peter, who deal with the marine and fisheries programs.

 

emJay and Haleem discuss his past visit to Wisconsin.

 

Peter explains the protected areas TNC is working to develop in eastern Indonesia.

 

Their reference library of species . . .

 

. . . is a freezer full of frozen genetically identified fish!!!

 

emJay and Mizra discuss the marine program administered out of the Bali station . . .

 

Hallem joined the lively discussion.

 

After our experience at the Bandung traffic and airport we wanted to get to the Bali airport with time to spare . . . what a difference a local tourist trade can make.  The airport was large, spacious could handle plenty of air traffic and passenger shopping. The route to the concourses passes through MANY shopping areas where the goal is to separate the tourist from their last rupiahs.

 

Oh boy . . . won’t this be treat.

 

In order to accommodate large jet traffic the Bali airport had to be constructed on fill dumped out into the ocean.

 

The runways run within feet of the high tide line!!!

 

Our plane leaving Bali was an hour late. By the time we landed, cleared the Jakarta airport and were in our overnight hotel it was 9:30pm. We needed to leave our hotel at 4:00am to get through the check in process in time for our flight to Japan. It was going to be a short night!!!!