In Love with Lombok

Unless you are actually Indiana Jones (and don’t think I don’t try), it is tough to have much drama on business trip. They are all pretty much the same, high heels and powerpoints. Just last week I was forced to spend five days discussing quantitative research methodologies – which was as dry as it sounds until you looked out the window and remember that you are in Lombok, this tropical paradise just east of Bali in Indonesia.

I will spare you the details of my actual presentation (there were greek symbols involved), and instead post pictures of my scuba diving adventures. I was able to escape for a day and a half – two day dives and a night dive. In general the diving was fairly standard, clownfish, bomb-headed parrot fish, a white tip reef shark or two, phosphoresce at night… but then there were the turtles. So many sea turtles. It got to the point where you just stopped counting them and started just hanging out with them. And what you don’t get from watching Finding Nemo is how big some of these bad boys are. The average full grown turtle size is 3-4 feet long and they routinely weigh more than I do. And if you are hovering between them and where they need to be, it is advised that you move on along. I posted a couple of what I consider to be the most photogenic of my new friends.

I have subsequently left Indonesia and flown to Tanzania, stopping just long enough to see the boys in Singapore (and gorge myself on chili crab) and lose my luggage in South Africa. But eventually me and all my various bits have found ourselves to Dar es Salaam for a couple weeks. I am staring down some long hours in the office, but I will see what I can do about having at least one Indiana Jones adventure for you.