Bye, Bye Bali................................ Single tear.

So... Let me begin by summarizing my last few days in the Gilli Islands. On Sunday, I basically vegged out at the beach all day, rented a bike and killed myself laughing trilying to ride it around on the sand, then watched sunset with my newest travel buddy Anna, and had a great dinner on the beach consisting of fresh fish and all you can eat salad bar. Mmmmmmmm!! The next day, my last full day on the island, i decided to go scuba diving. I read in a guide book that the gillis were one of the best places to see manta rays, and I've ALWAYS wanted to see one. I asked around and nobody i spoke to could confirm my research. In fact, one guy i was asking said he had been diving there for 18 months and had seen them only twice. Nevertheless, i knew id be disappointed if i didn't do a dive so I motored down to the dive shop, and booked in for the 11:30 dive. Then I killed a couple hours tanning and got ready to go. We got all suited and I was paired with a nice Aussie guy named Nigel. We did backwards rolls off the boat into the water. About 30 seconds after we were all in, one of the dive masters looked down and started screaming MANTA!! MANTA! I thought she may have been kidding around, but I quickly bolted down to see for myself and SURE ENOUGH, a giant manta ray was right below me!!! It was amazing. They are so huge and super fast under water. Once he noticed he had company he swooped his giant wings twice and was gone faster than we could blink an eye. Right after that we saw sea turtles, and then we saw a 6 foot reef shark!!! It was so awesome. Even the coral was amazing. I have never seen nature produce such an array of technicolour art. It was easily the best dive I've ever done and it only coat $40! Far cry from what they charge at molokini eh dad!! I finished the dive with a smile from ear to ear as I checked swimming with manta rays off my mental life list.

Later that day, I designed a tattoo, went to a dodgy indonesian ink shack and paid $30 to have an old indonesian guy named "Indian" scar me for life.. No big deal. Just another day of Christy's adventures in Asia....

Now let's have a quick break while my mom (and all of my serrogate moms) have a minor freak-out.

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Now that we're all done freaking out, I'll go into more detail. Mom, feel free to skip past this if it will make our next phone/email conversations less painful for us both. So... First of all I will explain the tattoo- it is the word Balance, and I had it put on the lower outside edge of my right foot. It can be hidden by dress shoes or showed off in flip flops. I brought my design to the shop and had the guy, Oli, attempt to redraw my design on my foot with a ball point pen... We attempted this 3 times until I came to the conclusion he is in the wrong line of work. He said "no problem, it's not so good now, but I do better with the machine" I was like.... Hellllll no brotha, if you can't draw that on my leg with a pen, there is NO WAY you're going near it permanantly. So he said that he'd call his friend to draw instead. About 45 minutes later this guy named "Anick" shows up riding on the back of a bicycle rat trap. He's about 45 years old, with salt and pepper hair down to his butt that is braided into two pigtails and wrapped in leather. He wears a full american indian tribal ornament with beads and fur around his neck. I still dont inow what all thats about, but this is why he goes by the nickname Indian. The best part was that he spoke no English. Take a moment to try an explain a piece of art to someone without words to tryluly appreciate how difficult this is... After several rounds of charades and oictuonary he finally drew the tattoo pretty close to the way I wanted it and busted out the tattoo machine. I screamed the whole time. Evidently the bony area of your foot where there is only a very thin layer of skin is one of the more painful parts of the body to tattoo. Meh- live and learn.

The next morning I left the gillis and boarded the fast boat to ubud. I met four canadians on the way and we found a cute hotel to stay in. I've spent the last day and a half exploring the city and culture here. I went to a traditional Balinese dance last night at ubud palace, played with some cheeky little monkeys in monkey Forrest, and took a four hour Balinese cooking class with my new Canadian friends over dinner tonight.

Tomorrow afternoon I am flying to kuala lumpar, Malaysia where I will meet up with Kris and figure out a plan for the next few days/weeks. I will let you guys know my new phone number for Malaysia when I get around to buying a new sim card. Hopefully in a few days I will be updating you all with my latest crazy stories of being a sassy blonde in a southeast Asian Muslim country. I'm prepared with some long pants and conservative tops this time, so hopefully it won't be as shocking as java was. Anyhooooo, keep it real. Xo, Christy.