waking up in bali

I have a "carpe diem" mug and, truthfully, at six in the morning the words do not make me want to seize the day.
They make me want to slap a dead poet.
-- Joanne Sherman


on day two, the alarm goes off at 630 am.

i previously had an epiphany: no matter where you are going, it's tough to get out of bed in the morning.

corollary to that epiphany: no matter where you are, it's hell to get out of bed in the morning.

a morning person, i am not.


but that's the irony of a vacation isn't it?  you go on a vacation to relax, and nothing relaxes more than sleep.  but sleeping in when you're on vacation on an exotic island (or a european city) is just so wrong.  so you force yourself awake, and in the process stress yourself out, which defeats the whole purpose of a vacation.  so, we should all realize: a stressful vacation is not an oxymoron.


moral of the story? vacations are for stress junkies.  if you want to relax, stay in bed instead, and eat a tub of chocolate ice cream once you wake up at half past noon.


i digress.

i drag my bedraggled self out of bed, look at my peacefully sleeping wife, and decide, why should i have all the fun?

so i pounce on her, and muster as much bleary eyed enthusiasm as i can, which amounts to hoarsely croaking, "wake up, dearest.  we have that 830 am tour you booked us on."

it was all a ruse really, to get her into the shower first, so i can get another glorious 5 minutes in bed.

5 minutes later (my wife insists it was 30 minutes), i wake up (again), and fumble my way through my morning ritual.  it helps that the showers at nusa dua are some of the best i've taken.


imagine a torrential downpour, or maybe a typhoon, but without the cold gusts of wind or the occasional flying piece of roof or wet animal, and with all that water coming at you from a 6 inch shower head.


and if that was not enough, the hotel provides you with a second telephone shower head with which to drown yourself further, in case you survive the first drowning.

having survived my first experience of voluntary self drowning, we head on down to the breakfast buffet.  (my wife and i are buffet junkies, by the way.  we keep tabs and copious mental notes about which hotel's breakfast buffet is best and which ones we'd rather forget.)

breakfast by a burbling fountain takes some of the sting out of getting up in the morning

going to bali off-peak means having your choice of seats.  you could also wake up ridiculously early before anyone's had a chance to shamble their way to the breakfast buffet

the staff at nusa dua and very friendly and attentive.  
they will also will help you stuff yourself silly with food and caffeine.

we have a nice leisurely breakfast (i pigged out and gorged myself with food enough for a starving village) and find out we have some time before Mr. Lucky arrives and so took in the sights of the hotel grounds once more:

we also took some standard, customary pictures of us standing beside landmarks, which was the proper, tourist-y thing to do.

before photoshop, this used to be conclusive proof of having gone to some exotic destination.  nowadays, it's another chance for people to magnify the photo and look for tell tale signs of bad copy paste jobs. 

every self respecting tourist does this

Mr. Lucky and Mr Made finally arrive and herd us into the car.  And with a quick and quiet lurch, we're off to another adventure within our bali adventure, this time a road trip across the island of Bali.

[to be continued]