Keep in Touch: We Loved Bali

After leaving Ubud we traveled to Tulamben, on the northern coast of Bali. There is a WWII ship that sunk just off the beach. According to the guidebook you can see it while snorkeling. The waves were really rough, so we didn't get to enjoy any snorkeling.

From Tulamben we traveled to Lovina Beach. We checked into the Lovina Beach Hotel on 29 December. The hotel was about $7.50 per night, and that included breakfast. The hotel was right on the beach and had a beautiful pool...

During our stay in Lovina we befriended a family from the Netherlands. Every day we'd end up swimming at around the same time as there children, aged probably 4 and 7 years. If Megan and I were swimming together or just talking the children would start to chant "Yule sin ver leafet". Which we found out translates to "You're in Love".

While in Lovina we visited a hotel that had their own pet dolphins and advertised "Swim with our dolphins". Megan and I thought this would be really neat to see and maybe do. When we got there we saw a short dolphin show, it was terrible. The dolphins didn't do anything the trainer wanted and the trainer was visibly upset the whole time. At one point he left the pool for 5 mins while some music blared in the background. After the show we walked to the dolphin pool and saw that a tour group was getting ready to swim with the dolphins. They each got some short instructions and were given a lifevest. They weren't actually allowed to swim with the dolphins rather they layed on their backs and were pulled around the pool by a 'trainer' with fins on. When the first group of three people started the dolphins really weren't interested in swimming near them. After a few minutes the dolphins started to take interest, they started calmly swimming with them and around them. After a few more minutes the dolphins started to get more aggressive and were swimming over the legs of the visitors. Now we know why they had to wear life vests. About a month ago I posted about crazy dogs if you thought that story was too graphic you might want to skip the rest of this paragraph and just look at the pretty pictures below. When the dolphins started to get more aggressive the tourists let out a little scream followed by a laugh. The trainer would then scold the tourist, telling them to be quiet. By the time they had made a circle in the pool and it was the next groups turn. This time when the tourists got in the pool the dolphins were not calm. They were really aggressive with the swimmers, swimming over their legs and thrashing a little bit. One kid let out a scream and the 'trainer' shook the kid and said "BE QUIET". All the while there is this therapeutic sounding music playing in the background. This went on for quite a while, maybe 10 minutes, when Megan and I noticed that the dolphins had erections. That's right. The dolphins were humping the tourists. The tourists paid twenty bucks to get humped by dolphins. We decided we would not be swimming with the dolphins. We were thinking that the kids were probably enjoying this, oblivious to the reasons for the thrashing but what about the adults? Especially if you weren't the one to go first. There were a few tourists that went several times. I'm sorry, I might be culturally closed minded but it's weird for someone to knowingly get in a pool with a horny dolphin. Then another though hit us, what if you were a parent and your kid was in the pool with one of the "excited" dolphins?

Besides the crazy dolphin hotel Lovina was extremely pleasant. The prices were a little cheaper and the beach not crowded at all. One day we rented motor scooters and drove all around...

We found some waterfalls. This one is called Sing Sing...

This one is called Gitgit...

Here is a pic of me...

After Lovina we headed back to Kuta for out last few days in Bali. We checked in on the 3rd of January and our plane departed on the 7th. In Kuta we did American type things, we went to see movies, went to the mall, ate at Pizza Hut and so on. And we finally got to see a Kuta sunset...