Lost in Bali

We did it!

If you would hire a driver to take you from Rome to Munich and he would start asking “How many kilometers is there to Munich? We just passed Amsterdam ...” - hilarious joke would be shared as a wildfire.
If something like this happens in Bali, it's just another day behind the wheel for a driver.
How to organize such an adventure?

a) find the cheapest driver available
b) ask him if he knows Bali
c) ask him if he knows your destination
d) ask him if he can cover the road distance of 135 km in 4 hours

As the traditional Balinese culture requires answering yes / no questions with a polite yes, you are immediately assured all will go well.
During your exploration of the Bali frontiers (which was not in your original itinerary), you will learn another thing about Balinese. They are shy. Shy to admit they have no clue what they are doing and asking somebody for assistance or correcting the mistake.

Case study:
You depart place A (a known tourist resort in Bali) at 2 p.m. On Thursday. You are looking forward to a pleasant afternoon ride among rice fields, up the mountains, down to the coast and reaching your booked destination, place B (another known tourist resort in Bali) still at daytime. Four hours for 135 kilometers, OK, slow, but what the heck, a lot of sightseeing on the way.

Just before planned arrival to place B, your driver announces, arrival will be delayed for 90 minutes. Roads are slow in Bali. Slow traffic in Bali is definitely a genuine surprise for anybody, especially a professional driver.
You think, OK, if we arrive seven thirty there is still time for a dinner and a chat, no problem.
At around eight thirty your driver just blissfully passes through the location B and as his job description is driving, not stopping, he just continues driving. At nine thirty your driver places a May Day call to place B. “We see the ferries going from Bali to Java. How far is it to your place?” When you explain “If you turn around one hour, however, if you continue ...”.

Answer from the driver: “Sorry, can not turn around, guests would notice I was wrong ...”

It's Friday, daytime, 19 hours since 135 km odyssey started. No hint where the driver is. No hint where his passengers are. They all dropped from all radar screens. Approaching Bermuda triangle?

Or a more prosaic answer is in place. The driver has been just playing a common Balinese trick, pretending to be a poor, dumb, lost soul – while frantically texting for offers from his business contacts and deciding where and for how much to sell his exhausted, properly tenderized and desperate clients?

It Hurts Badly

Don't hurt me.

We are all equipped with many gifts - gifts provided to us by Gods, genetic heritage, blue smelling higher energy. Or whatever. Most of them are beautiful – ability to see, smell, touch, taste, love, laugh, talk, walk – however, the gift of stupidity – why this one?

a) to save us from going crazy
b) to truly appreciate rare sane moments
c) to accept this thing called life more easily
d) just weird sense of humor of Gods ...


The other day I tried to do some arithmetic. If I would get for every brilliantly stupid decision I did in my life a modest sum of cash, let's say 100 EUR – well, I think by now I could buy a medium size country or even afford myself a pizza every day.
Then I started to ask myself why I am sometimes (no, not always, usually just in the early afternoons) so stupid. Has it something to do with the shape of my nose, color of my motorbike, color of my skin, my bank account, the way I can wiggle my toes, my position in the company …?
No, not really. More with the performance of the gray matter between my ears.

Amazing phenomena is also distribution of stupidity. There is plenty, plenty, plenty of stupidity around me. Really amazing is, I got the smallest portion of it. Most of the people surrounding me got much bigger portion of this gift.
If I extrapolate this observation, this fact is probably true also in your case … Did you notice that many people you are interacting with are much more stupid than you?
Hmm … something in this equation doesn't compute ...

And here comes the horrible news for all the various kinds of racists.
This gray substance is exactly the same all over the world.
If you can not swallow this fact, ask your favorite lobotomy specialist if he happened to find anything different in your skull.

Breathe out. Breathe in. Relax. You are brilliant. I am brilliant. We are all the children of the Wisdom incarnated.

Wreck Diving Specialty Course

There's no wreck as a wrecked diving certificates seller

As demand for user friendly “Wreck Diving Course” is increasing, we devised a six clicks, one credit card online course for you. For all of you who would like to wreak utter havoc amidst lesser divers.
Requirements to get certified are:

a) your valid credit card
b) correct PIN code
c) internet access
d) click on Yes, I listened to “Smoke on the Water, Fire in the Sky” by Deep Purple

We are fully aware that some less reputable diving agencies offer faster ways to achieve this outstanding recognition in diving community.
However, as we always put your safety on the top, our educational and quality control departments insisted on including also requirement d.
As bean counters department members started to foam, we decided that your certification card will be processed also in case if you do not meet standard described in step d. In this case your c-card will differ from fully trained Wreck Diver. Specialty name will be printed in 0.01 millimeter smaller font size.

Why we highly recommend you do the full program?
Steps a, b and c are declared and approved as “Absolute minimum anti-decompression sickness risk training program” and are at the same time extremely beneficial for our fat accounts.
Our Department for “Elimination of Dive Related Injuries During Training” invented a fail-safe procedure for Wreck Diving Training. While conducting practical part of the course – following the opening riffs of “Smoke on the water, fire in the sky” Deep Purple will safely take you through all the needed steps.
Warning!
If you are tempted (maybe due to too high decibel level of the presentation) to use sea to sea missiles to wreak havoc and create some wrecks on your own, without a mandatory buddy – you need a Tec Wreck Diving License. This one requires black credit card.

If you liked this, you will be probably interested also in our online Shower Diver Specialty, Dry Diver Specialty and Extreme Hydrophobic Diver Specialty courses.
As long as your bank doesn't block your credit card you are warmly welcome!

Safe clicking and clear wi-fi signal!

Complaining Nation

Balinese philosopher and meditation guru

discovers arak bottle is empty

Have you ever heard anybody complaining about anything?

a) too often
b) on every corner
c) even at work
d) shut up and listen to my complaints first!

Complaining is the one activity without a trace of discrimination. Regardless of nationality, religion, color of underwear, political beliefs, sexual preferences, literacy, IQ, number of pancakes you can eat – complaining seems to be the number one hobby for humans.
For a while I thought complaining about something means we want it to be different, so we could enjoy our life. I think I couldn't be more wrong.
We enjoy in complaining itself, and not in changing anything.
Complaining for complaining sake.
You think I should change the substances I'm on? It's just good Bali coffee …

Correct me if I'm wrong:

Bloody rain, it will never stop!
You get clear sky, hot sun.
It's unbearably hot, I can not afford air conditioning, when this will end?!

I feel miserable, I desperately need a lover!
Here is a loving partner for you.
Yeah, great! Getting really boring, I miss my old friends ...

Everybody can go for holidays except me, I'll die here!
You are in Bali.
I'm so far from my home! Take me home!

If I don't get a different job I'll go crazy with my coworkers!
A new job.
Where did they find all this weird people to be in our office?!

I want to see some snow! Will it ever start snowing?!
White fairy tale is here.
Am I a slave? Shoveling the snow is for convicted war criminals!

I have to stop writing, I'll step out and complain a little …

Safety Stop Recommended

Not for me, I'm a free diving mermaid :)

Especially when pushing the envelope, when diving on Thursday or when you have no other important obligations, major fun providing associations recommend a safety stop at five meters of depth for a few minutes. What is this ubiquitous safety stop anyhow?

a) time you allow yourself to slowly out-gas some nitrogen before returning to the surface
b) a good tool to slow down your ascent rate at least for the last part of your dive
c) a good tool to test your buoyancy skills and improve them
d) time to choose the best opening line for a snorkeling mermaid

This question and provided answers are just a generator of a smile for divers. All this is lectured, explained and done so many times by any scuba instructor teaching basic scuba courses, that it's as clear as a Swarowski crystal to any diver.
Yeah, I wish.

As I am not exactly the most trusting soul on this planet, I always direct conversations with our divers towards diving related subjects. To get better idea what they know, how they understand basic principles of scuba diving, do they need some remedy of their knowledge …
 
Could be scuba diving theory is evolving too fast for me (and I missed the newest break-through in this field), or (God forbid!) naive owners of scuba diving plastic certificates were not appointed as divers during their Open Water Scuba Courses but rather as a bonus during their Gypsy fortune teller session - for a modest surcharge.

Some of the answers provided by holders of scuba diving certificates nicely illustrate the state scuba diving education achieved.
Safety stop will prevent water entering my mouth.
Safety stop we should do before every dive.
If you do not do safety stop, you can hit into a diver in front of you.
If you run out of air, safety stop will save you.
We have to do safety stop any time we lose our weight belts.
Never do a stop! The most important rule in scuba diving is never, ever stop diving.
And so on …

Authors of the answers:
Fluent in English, recently (not more than six months ago) scuba certified, bright, adult (over 18 years of age), well educated.

Their teachers:
Possibly a selection of the finest scuba educators.
Yes, possible, but not very likely.

Global vs. Native English

You mean, I should eat the regulator?
Diving seems really demanding...

As at most tourist destinations, also in Bali, with some English you can get what you are looking for. Question is, why native English speakers have so many communication problems?

a) they speak funny
b) they listen funny
c) they don't speak real English
d) a fact, that besides their home village dialect even some other dialects exist out there, never crossed their mind

What is proper spoken English is anyhow a mystery. Is it really essential to hold a live fish (or two) in your mouth when speaking? You really need surgery on your adenoids before saying a word in proper English? Do you have to master drunken miner dance before basic phonetic lessons?

When traveling abroad global English is definitely an advantage.
And English native speakers are many times at serious disadvantage.

Imagine two guests ordering a breakfast in Bali.
A German guy: “Please, coffee with sugar and milk. Orange juice. Toast and butter and jam. Fried eggs. Thank you!”

And his friend a native English speaking lady: “I'm not overly demanding at all, but please do try to understand! Yesterday you brought me for my breakfast very spicy fried rice! You should know, I don't take chili at any time, and you put really a lot of chili in my fried rice for breakfast! Please do not repeat the mistake and get me a normal breakfast today! Something like what my companion ordered would be absolutely OK. Thank you so much!”
Balinese waiter is patiently listening to both, nodding, smiling, taking notes.
German guy gets his coffee, toast ... everything what he ordered.
A few minutes later his lady companion gets her fried rice with extra dose of chili.

German guest properly assessed local waiter's English abilities and listed his order like a search query for Google. And top result was what he wanted.
His companion's order caused waiter's processor to overheat and after filtering out the keywords, well, it was still not really bad.
Imagine she would be ranting that she's not a cannibal and she doesn't eat fried babies for breakfast ...

It's really refreshing to listen to comments of my guys on spoken English abilities of our guests. Highest marks for good English are regularly awarded to continental Europeans.
For some Australian and British accents my guys asked, how come these guests can not speak some English?

Thanks be to Gods, educational system in Bali enables most people to speak three languages (passably). And is not copying the system of some third world countries, where well educated adults can speak only the language their mother taught them.

Stylish Scuba Diving

A diver is a diver.

Internationally recognized scuba behavioral researcher Liam O'Bubble published his theory why male divers tend to look like hell and female divers usually look like princesses going for a dive. Obviously the function of different looks has rather deep roots.

a) unkempt, wild look of a male will keep away sable-tooth tiger - and mandarin fish as well
b) fragile, beautifully dressed female look will save her from any work (in the prehistoric cave or when scuba diving)
c) savage male diver look is a living proof of safety for his buddies
d) female extremely good looks will calm the raging ocean

With a few simple strokes author managed to draw a perfect picture of an answer to the question older than our civilization.
How come, one part of our specie tends to draw a short straw (again and again), and the other part a long one (again and again)?
Brilliant minds were searching for the answer in philosophy, sociology, religion, supermarkets, old dusted manuscripts, mysterious texts on cereal boxes, on google …
And the result of all the burned midnight oil: nothing.
And yet, the answer is more than obvious even to a naked eye. Just take a look.

Imagine you come to visit your friend. You come in your old jeans, old sweat shirt and you are anticipating a pleasant chat, sipping a cold beer …
She's dressed to kill and you charmingly blurt out: “Wow, you look ...”
And she innocently changes the subject and mentions her kitchen sink is blocked.
Even if you are just a young candidate for a rocket scientist, you'll figure out in one tenth of a second who will spend afternoon under the disassembled kitchen sink, fighting with grime, hair, old food remains …

And in scuba diving it's no different.

Magic these sweet looking devils (oops, divers) use to work on you, is fantastic. You start to believe your one and the only goal in life is to make their scuba diving easier than a stroll in a park.

And all just because of looks.
A gentle, fragile baby – of course she needs help to tighten her fins, to close the buckles on her gear, to get her in the water …

 

Girls - diving, snorkeling, dry – I love you all even more when little flames are bursting from your nostrils ...