The wedding was in the north of Bali in Tulamben which is a pretty little village in the northeast of Bali, about two and a bit hour’s drive in a rickety little minibus. Previously I’ve been a bit hard on Bali but that’s more to do with the south as the north and anywhere other than Kuta is actually quite pretty. I can’t quite put my finger on exactly why I like Indonesia so much but it’s a place I find myself enjoying whenever I end up there. I’m certainly not enjoying the annoying $25US visa that you need to buy every time you decide to enter and then the $10US tax you have to pay to leave so it’s time to investigate getting a longer term visa. That and another passport as I’m down to the last few pages and it’s starting to get funny looks from the immigration folks as I pass over my 10 year old battered and frayed paperwork over the counter.
I was in Bali for a few days and being a bit of a diving connection to the group, it was customary to get a couple of dives in whilst there. Tulamben has three or so shore based dives which are actually really nice. The water was a tepid 30 degrees and with pretty good visibility and no current at all. I even managed to see a few new things that I’ve never seen before which was cool (Ribbon Eel for one and a Leaf fish!).
The main highlight for the diving is the Liberty wreck. This is a huge WWII ship which was torpedoed by the Japanese, although apparently it was only sunk off Bali by an erupting volcano in 1963. Diving it is pretty easy for all levels and I was lucky enough to dive it pretty much alone one morning when I got up before the others and had it to myself.
It’s about 120mtrs in length and has some good swim throughs and for a shore based wreck the flora and fauna is very impressive. A dream to teach on I’m sure.
After a day’s diving and a fun evening of drinking far too much of the local firewater (Arak – a fermented coconut number) with some Instructor mates, it was time for the wedding the next day. Luckily, the weather held out after the torrential downpours which we had the day before and a lovely ceremony was had. It was a simple enough ceremony with about 40 guests right on the beachfront.
Being a bunch of divers, we had changed the “Arch of Sabres” to an “Arch of Fins” as the happy couple passed through a plethora of brightly coloured raised ScubaPro and Mares fins.
It was quite funny to watch and will probably the only time I ever see that again. The ceremony was on a little bit of beach next to the dive school and had been decked out in pretty ribbons, balloons and traditional Indonesian ceremonial bits and bobs (not a very technical description I know)
After the ceremony the drink flowed and everyone ended up getting thrown into the pool, which was quite refreshing as it was getting pretty sticky in the afternoon.
The traditional tossing of the bouquet was performed but with a slight twist in throwing it to a bunch of burly 6ft blokes splashing around in the pool who were still wearing the somewhat de rigueur wedding uniform of khaki beach shorts and white linen shirts.
Annoyingly, I was out jumped by a rather large ex second row rugby player who caught the bouquet, much to the delight of his hysterically giggling Malay girlfriend. It was quite funny to watch (the catch not the Malay girlfriend) and once the frothing waters had subsided the victoriously caught bunch of slightly soggy and battered flowers were held aloft for all to applaud. Well done Neil!
In the evening we were treated to some traditional Indonesian dancing which was really fun to watch. Not being the most appreciative of the communicative medium of dance I could not really understand the full sequence of what was being conveyed, but it was very interesting nonetheless.
I do now understand where the robot dance gets its origins from though.
What was great over the few days that I was there was that I met a load more great people especially a few more instructors which was fun in so much as to swap travel stories and tales with. All in all, a very relaxing and fun weekend. I forgot how much fun weddings can be, which is handy as I’ve two coming up back in England next year.
Which reminds me – time to start writing the Best Man speeches.
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