The first two days of diving were great.  On the first day we did two dives and then went to Rincon, a nearby island to see the Komodo Dragons.  The dragons were just lounging around under the park ranger’s buildings.  They don’t move much in the heat of the day.  That was nice from a safety point of view, but not as quite as nice from the cool viewing or photo point of view. We also saw a nest.  They bury their eggs under the ground.  The females are quite a bit smaller.  We only saw one female sitting next to her nest.  I learned quite a bit about dragons, but only three facts stuck with me – 1. If one bites you, you will die within 3 days to 3 weeks if you don’t get medical help;  2.  They often eat their babies after they hatch; and 3. The males have two penises. The National Park also has deer, monkeys and buffalo.  The dragon trek/tour was not quite what I expected, but it was still neat to see them.  As we sat waiting for the boat to come back to pick us up, another small boat got stuck in the mangroves as it was trying to back up.  All the park rangers and dive guides got up from where we were sitting to watch the boat struggle.  They laughed and heckled the boat driver.  It was fun to watch them interact.  It was almost as interesting as the dragons themselves.  People here are so much less uptight than in Thailand, more relaxed and down to earth.

The staff at the dive shop was great.  The coral health and the amount of fish life was nice to see, especially after diving in Thailand.  I saw all kinds of wonderful things including a lot of manta rays.  This area of islands has a lot of currents.  They are constantly moving and changing.  In the morning they are moving one direction and in the afternoon they go the other way.  They create other currents around the islands including swirly currents. The boat captains have to be pretty good at spotting them and driving through them.  Ironically, most of our dives had very little current.  I took Scott’s ashes on one of the dives and let him go swim with a very large puffer fish.  I was going to take him to be with the Komodo Dragons, but tossing him out under ranger housing seemed unglorified.  The other divers on the boat for the first two days were fun to hang out with.  I met two guys that were travelling around the world for 6 months – their companies just gave them the time off.  Sure beat’s America’s 2 weeks off, but then how does anything get done with 6 months off?  There were a lot of Dutch people, two newlyweds from America, and some Canadians.  I mostly hung out with Johan and Alex, the other two people travelling alone.  I met Johan at dinner at my hotel.  He said hi, but didn’t speak after that.  The whole first day on the boat he barely spoke.  Then the next day he started talking.  Turns out he was sick before and was just trying to make it through the day.  Alex became my dinner buddy and we tried most of the restraunts in this little town.  I use the word “town” lightly.  I keep secretly (somewhat secretly) hoping I will meet my next boyfriend while traveling.  Oh well, not yet.  It was nice to have a couple of other people to pal around with though.  Saturday night we went to the local bar.  It was packed with locals, backpackers and divers.  The big pressing question of the day: is every island town in the world full of nothing but man buns and dreadlocks? Is it the island life or the backpacker life or both that makes men not want to cut their hair?

I took two days off from diving to plan my trip to Australia.  One day I did little planning and mostly wandered around trying to find reliable wifi.  One place, I could connect, but nothing happened.  Another I couldn’t even connect.  Another was fine until the electricity went out.  It kind of went on like that for most of the day.  I spent a lot of time researching tours in Tasmania only to discover that none of the ones I liked left on dates I could go.  Finally, after hours of research I decided that trying to go to three places in Australia in 2 weeks was too much.  I still can’t do everything even though I keep trying.  So now I’m going to Sydney and Cairns.  I was able to book all my hotels and flights, but am now brain fried and will have to decided what to do and see in Sydney and Cairns at the last minute.

My third day of diving was nice and relaxing, but of course, the people chemistry on the boat was vastly different.  There weren’t as many people.  Two older men who didn’t want to talk to anyone and two younger men who were a little friendlier.  I still had Alex to talk to and the dive guides I had been diving with before.  It was a long day due to boat engine problems.  But it was better than sitting in a coffee shop wondering if the wifi would go out.  The dives were beautiful.  The local bar was not packed on week nights.  It has a lovely overlook out to the boats in the bay.  There was live music a couple nights and I remember getting this feeling of “home” more than “vacation”.  I think the live music and looking over the water reminds me of when I lived in Florida.  After growing up in Florida, the beach bar kind of place has never felt like vacation to me.  It just feels like weekend.

I had an interesting conversation with Yohan about Europeans and Americans.  I had some similar conversations with Alex about this too.  Americans are quick to be friendly, talk to strangers, introduce themselves, etc.  Most Europeans are not.  There was one Dutch guy that wouldn’t talk to me and when he left the bar, he said goodbye to everyone but me.  The next night he sat at the bar and talked to me as if the previous night had never happened.  Americans find it rude when others are unfriendly or standoffish.  And of course, all Americans are not friendly, but those that tend to travel tend to be quick to connect and talk with other travelers.  Johan’s response was, “He’s Dutch”.  We talked about how the forwardness of Americans is about as uncomfortable to some Europeans as their lack of forwardness is to us.  I think this may be part of why we have the reputation of being loud and obnoxious, although most Americans are so loud.  So, on the surface, it appears that Americans value connection and Europeans do not.  But, I don’t think this is the case.  I wonder if Europeans avoid connection until it’s “safe” until they know someone a little better.  I wonder if Americans are doing the same exact thing by being overly friendly.  Are they avoiding real connection by being too quick to connect shallowly with everyone?  Of course this is just generalized and the observation of the moment.  I reserve the right to change my opinion later.  It is interesting the way we will avoid real contact.  You go into any restaurant or bar and the first thing everyone does is get the wifi password so they can “connect” with the world out there, completely withdrawing from the actual world in front of them.  I’m guilty of it too.  I tried to make quite a conscious effort this week to put the phone away.

My last night here I ate by myself at a taco restaurant.  Both Johan and Alex left before me.  The food was not great, but I ate there more out of curiosity than the thought that they would get Mexican food right.  The bonus was that they had seating on the third floor overlooking the docks.  The sunset was wonderful – every shade of hot pink you can think of.  Today I went to a higher end hotel where you can pay to use the pool.  This is one of the hotels that was booked up when I went to look at hotels.  If it had not been booked up, I would have stayed there although it was quite a bit more expensive than the one I did stay at.  It was worlds nicer.  As much as I didn’t like my hotel, the people were nice, the food was good and they took me to the airport for free.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore