SHARKS!

Yup. I got to see sharks. And this time, I was not in a cage. :)

So we came to Bali and spent a few days getting our bearings in Kuta, which is super touristy. We decided to come all the way out to the Gili Islands, which are on the east coast of Lombok, the island directly east of Bali. We have been here for the past few days, soaking up the sun, enjoying the relaxing nature of being on an island, and enjoying the company of a lively crew of hodgepodge travelers we met on the boat out here. We did a couple of dives yesterday, and I got to see black tip reef sharks, probably about 2.5 meters long. They are SO graceful. I was in awe. I was absolutely mesmerized. We also say 4 huge turtles, just munching on coral and swimming around. There were some other really fun big fish, like batfish (they look a lot like butterfly fish) but they are about 2 feet long. They are really cool. And the best part about all of this diving is that when you are underwater, none of these animals even care that you are there. It was great. ;)

The food here is amazing, considering they pull most of it right out of the sea in front of you, so you couldn't get it any fresher. Yummy.

Okay, one really weird thing that I will share about Indonesia is that there are a ton of cats here. And most of them have short, stubby little tails. So we asked around to find out why this was. Apparently when a street cat is "adopted" by someone, they chop off about half of it's tail to let other people know that that cat is being taken care of. Weird way to show love and ownership, huh? This disturbs me a bit, so I have decided that they also need a carefully worded letter. in regards to this particular matter.

Dear Indonesia,
Try collars.
Love,
Annette

Let's see if that helps...