Travello Hotel Manado

20 Dollars less in our pocket, a lot closer to the equator. After an amazing final night in Bunaken we took the ferry back to Manado. From there, the bus to Gorontalo. A nine hour jeep ride through tiny villages, by an abundance of rice fields, passing election posters, rivers and not so solid bridges. When we reached the mountain range the drive became less pleasent as the many curves that our driver had to enter with a speed of 80 km/h kept ...

... ride out was totally uneventful and what's great is that there really aren't any dive sites longer than a 15-20 minute boat ride away. It's always nice return to the resort for a short break before heading back out again. That does beat spending an entire day out on the boat some times. The scenery really reminded us a bit of Puget Sound. Obviously it was much warmer, but Lembeh ...

... the next batch. The peanuts are delicious! This village in particular was also a lot of fun in that many, many children showed up to greet us and see what we were up to. They absolutely loved posing for pictures, and had the best time looking at themselves on the camera display screens. You would have thought you were listening to kids on a ride at Disneyland or something ...

... was completely full, as the staff continued to bring out food to feed 30 people, which was way beyond our little band of 10. There were many different dishes and flavors to choose from, not all of which agreed with the American palate, but many of which were delicious. They do love their spices! Day 3 at Minahasa will take us back to Bunaken for more fabulous wall diving. None of us can hardly wait!!

... so occasionally had to sneak sips in the bathroom or out the back behind the garden shed. I felt like a school kid sneaking out for a fag... The country literally shuts down for the month of Ramadan, with people cancelling pretty much everything (business doings & work of any kind) because they 'do not have enough energy' due to lack of eating. The funny thing is though, they don't actually stop eating, rather they glance desperately at the ...

... was a knock on effect of the coral burns or some allergic reaction to something else. I'd had something similar happen before. Luckily Tina, who ran the place had some steroid based cream and that cleared it up pretty quick. The coral around the island is pristine and was home to a wide variety of marine life, I saw white tip reef sharks, in caves, a huge turtle, bigger than me, octopus, frog fish, scorpion leaf ...

... It was hard to say. So we began searching for flights and found a good deal to Jakarta. We had been thinking about boating into Indo via Bintan (the next island over in the Riaus), but decided that the 5 day trip would eat up our 30 day visa too quickly. We hadn't been planning to go to Jakarta at all so we were a little lost (ok incredibly lost) when we arrived and immediatly started to look for a flight out ...

... which made it slightly spooky as you looked below you to the deep blue. The surrounding seas were incredibly deep - thousands of meters in places, and 800 meters between our island and the neighboring island that is only about 1 mile away. Deep. , , Among the more interesting critters we saw, were: ghost pipefish, turtles (some enormous), scorpionfish, leaf scorpionfish, at least 3 types of lion fish, a giant flathead fish (aka crocodile fish ...

... in this country is that no travel agent seems to have any information about anywhere that isn't fairly close e.g. no one in Bali could really tell us much about Sulawesi (some hadn't even heard of it?!), Sumatra or Flores, and the last published Rough Guide is 3 years old. It's partly a reflection of the sheer size and scale of Indonesia, and partly the lack of cohesion or centralised information. (So thanks Pete and Greg for your recommendations re Mt Bromo and Flores respectively).

... the taste is simply quite disgusting. I won't recommend it as a gourmet dish. Unless you're serving someone you really hate. So amongst all the strange things I've eaten, the Bat overtook Whale's sperm as the strangest and most evil dish on earth. I didn't realize at that time how exactly these bats come about into the restaurant, but we will tomorrow morning. Wait till you hear about the Traditional Market visit in the morning.