Heading home

I am in the Taipei airport, heading home.  I am on hour 9 of 28 and my first of two 4-hour layovers.  I have resorted to senseless blogs in an attempt to kill time.  Appropriate for the final journey.  

Taipei is where I first discovered the automated floor urinal.   On this visit, I discovered each toilet is equipped with an emergency button.  If you push one, say for 2-3 seconds, nothing happens.  Strange.

I have a 4-hour layover in Taiwan and have explored all areas of the airport.  I offered to pay the golf cart guy $5 to take me sight-seeing, but he said no, so I went by foot.  Points of interest include free massage chairs, a museum of Natural History that sells the items on display, and an entire boarding area devoted to Hello Kitty and filled with travelers taking photos.  The departing flight goes to Hong Kong.

Diving in Bali

Today I did a wreck dive off the Eastern coast of Bali in Tulamben.  The ship was the USS Liberty, a US cargo ship sunk by a Japanese submarine in 1942 during WWII.  The boat was originally grounded, but a volcanic eruption in 1963 sent the ship into the sea.  It is a shallow, easy wreck dive.

We saw sting rays, nemo and lots of other great fish.  It was a beautiful 2 hours drive to the east side of the island, full of lush landscape and padi fields.  This was the trip I was going to do by motorbike before my white-knuckled test run. 

My motorbike experience

On Thanksgiving, an ex-pat suggested that I rent a motorbike and explore the east side of Bali, rich with scenery and culture.  My only previous motorbike experience was in Nha Trang, and I made it through unscathed.  Looking back, it didn't seem so hard, and the traffic in Vietnam seems worse than Bali. I decided it was a great way to spend a couple of days.  I thought about renting a car, but dismissed the idea for fear of having to simultaneously conquer driving on the left side of the road while seated on the left side of the car.  I started by renting a motorbike for a day to get used to the feel and the traffic before I took off on a 4 hour journey.

This time, I knew how to get it started, which gave the appearance of knowing what I was doing.  However, when I exited the shop, instead of turning left, I lost my ability to maneuver and went straight towards the jewelry shop across the street.  I almost went in.  I turned and looked at the guy who just gave me the bike who was now sprinting towards me, looking frantic.  I shouted, 'don't worry, I've done this before' and was off.  Being on the left side wasn't so bad, just follow the crowd.  I shortly realized that the traffic is about the same as Nha Trang and turning is the scariest thing in the world.  For that reason, I found myself only making left hand turns.  So here I am, going in circles when an oncoming car decides to pass the person in front of them and pushes me into the 10" high curb.  I caught it with my shoe, but it was messy.  From that point forward, I was scared shitless.  I stopped to collect myself and get Petrol from a road side stand that poured the gas from an Absolute Vodka bottle.  Once I was composed, I headed off again, continuing only to turn left.  One of my turns landed me going the wrong way on a one way street.   I saw this as the final sign that I should return the motorbike and call it a day.

I was back at the rental shop within 45 minutes of my departure.  The guy at the shop looked as relieved as I felt when I drove back in.