Sport Diver Article

If you are feeling like a trip to Bonaire, this article will make you jump on the plane! Great writing by the talented Tara Bradley accompanied by my photos. Enjoy!
http://www.sportdiver.com/photos/dive-bonaire-no-compass-necessary?src=SOC&dom=fb

The Marlboro Man
I grew up with their slogan, "Come to where the flavor is." I saw on a newsfeed that one of the original marlboro men had passed away.
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/01/15/winfield-long-serving-marlboro-man-dies-in-wyoming-at-85/21130376/?a_dgi
I know he wasn't one of the original cast, but every time I hear about or read about the marlboro man, I no longer think of the iconic cowboy from the west, I immediately think about this gentleman that I met in the Solomon Islands. He is wearing a cowboy hat of sorts and who knows, perhaps he was part of a more grass roots advertising campaign for Marlboro.
The Marlboro Man.... the flavor is in the Solomon Islands!

FLY IS CHEAP…AND FUNNY!

I love traveling within Indonesia. The local airlines always provide an adventure. You know when an airline’s slogan is “Fly is Cheap” that you aren’t going to receive 100% good quality, but you will undoubtedly have a good story to tell when and if you arrive at your final destination. On my most recent Indo flight, I found myself seated in the exit row. You know you’re not in the states anymore when you are completely crammed into the exit row with your 45 pound carry on bag sitting on your feet like an anchor.  In case of an emergency, I would have gone absolutely no where!

As usual, it’s swelteringly hot on the plane as we wait for the flight to take off. While digging through the bulkhead pocket for anything that I could use as a fan, I found this safety information card that is my new favorite souvenir. These drawings may be my favorite illustrations of all time.  I will give you a few hints as to whats going on before  you read the card. 1. This is not a warning that x-ray vision will catch things on fire. 2. This is not a warning for passing care bear cloud mobiles. 3. This is not a warning to try and bend the spoon with your mind.  

Now you can read the rest of the card, but I warn you it’s sort of disappointingly boring after seeing the illustrations. 

MOONSHINE IN BALI

As a little girl, I used to pack up my suitcase and put on my “traveling clothes” which consisted of a huge hat and shawl that my grandmother gave me for dressing up. I would take my bag, packed only with a teddy bear and head deep in the backyard where I would lay in the sun and dream of all the exotic foods and people that I would see if I were really traveling. The thrill of experiencing a new culture is still what keeps me traveling today! I don’t think it’s possible to experience another culture without comparing it to our own. I don’t see myself as extremely southern, and yet the more I travel the more I realize that being raised in Alabama definitely left a mark on me and how I view other cultures.

In the south, it’s not uncommon to see semi-clear liquid being served at cocktail hour from mason jars. This near 100 proof alcohol is better known as hooch or white lightning, but it’s all moonshine. Just this past Thanksgiving, a friend brought me a few bar items as a hostess gift, including a mason jar full of what I thought was hooch. My mother always warned me that drinking anything out of a mason jar would make you go blind and none of us at the table weren’t looking for a 2 day hangover, so we all politely declined the mason jar. Sadly, it turned out my friend had made a simple syrup for our mixers and we had all unnecessarily avoided his generous gift, but you can see most southerners are familiar enough with moonshine to be wary of gifts in mason jars. The Dukes of Hazard might have made this liquid famous but making “shine” has been a tradition in the south for a long time. 

On my first trip to Indonesia, I was riding through the streets of Bali, enjoying the exotic temples and food stalls that reach out into the streets jammed with motorcyclists. I had been curious before arriving here if the world’s largest muslim country would be very different from my own.  Imagine my surprise to see a familiar semi clear liquid in old alcohol bottles and water jugs being sold every 10 feet or so at the road side stands. I was shocked that a country of devout muslims would have street stalls of hooch everywhere! Of course, as soon as I saw a guy pouring the contents of one of those refilled whiskey bottles into the gas tank of his motorcycle, I realized that yet again, my southern upbringing had caught up with me.  In my defense, I’m pretty sure the chemical make up of both the Bali “hooch” and southern shine is roughly the same!

Bon Dia Bonaire | Scuba Diving Destinations | Caribbean | Sport Diver

Bon Dia Bonaire | Scuba Diving Destinations | Caribbean | Sport Diver

Here is a link to my recent article on Bonaire in Sport Diver magazine.  I truly love diving in Bonaire and hopefully this will inspire you to visit!

The Day I Discovered I'm not a Feminist

The Day I Discovered I'm not a Feminist

   New Year's day, January 1, 2000.  The start of a new year and a new century.  History will remember many things about that big day like Y2K and the world panic over computers failing.  For me, the 21st Century will be indelibly marked by it's start at the Montego Bay airport.  My sister, brother in law, and I left Bonaire heading back to the reality of life in the states.  Our flight had a stop in Montego Bay on it's route to Atlanta.  As you might have guessed, Air Jamaica was not running it's new year's day flights on time and our one hour stop turned into six hours.  All flights were delayed and the airport was overflowing with people.  We stood patiently until three seats became available.  Just as we sat down, the seat next to me opened and strange looking, bizarre smelling older man sat down next to me with a large plastic bag.  Out of the bag he produced a metal hospital style bedpan and a large bread fruit!  No, the bedpan was not clean and yes, he did peel and eat the entire bread fruit while he sat next to me for what seemed like another century.  Try as I might, I could not convince my brother in law to swap seats with me.  I guess Gloria Steinem would condemn me for starting the 21st Century with only this thought in my head..... "The man should have to sit next to crazy person eating anything from a bedpan!!!!"

It's true, convictions of equality for the sexes are shot to hell when there's a crazy person sitting next to me eating from a dirty bedpan.  

You don't have to tell a southern girl to ride in the back of a pickup truck...

Due to a "native uprising,"  the US State Department listed Port Morsbey and all of Papua New Guinea on it's list of dangerous places to avoid.  Because of this, many liveaboard dive boats in the area were having a hard time convincing people to come to Papua New Guinea for vacation.  But as usual, the O'Neil family was game for going diving no matter what the situation.  So my mom, dad, sister, brother in law and myself ended up as the only guests on a 120 foot liveaboard dive boat with the single exception of a British ex-pat.  We all felt a bit sorry for this very posh British lady who had moved to Singapore with her maid many years ago and was now stuck with a family of Alabama "rednecks" on this boat in PNG.  The boat staff asks for any dietary requirements well in advance of your trip so that they can try to have all possible requests imported from Australia.  Our family compiled our list into one sentence, we all enjoy that most southern staple, Coca Cola and would be so happy if there was some coke and diet coke on board.  Our British friend had a 2 page list of flax seeds, wheat germs and special vitamins that she needed to maintain her healthy lifestyle.  Imagine her complete gaul at the breakfast table on the first day of the trip when she saw my mother cut the fat off her bacon and give it to my dad to eat!  He of course devoured it and washed it down with an ice cold coke.  Luckily, our new friend had a great sense of humor and though shocked, she began passing her bacon fat to my dad as well.  I think she was more in awe of the Alabama cultural experience she was receiving on the boat than the New Guinea experience outside the boat.  She asked so many questions and gamely began using "y'alls and mams."   About half way through the trip we stopped near Walindi Plantation and were offered an excursion through the palm plantation to a natural volcanic hot spring.  Excited by this, we all got off the boat and walked over to the 2 door pickup truck that was to take us up the hillside to the hot spring. Without a word from our driver or between any of my family, the Southerners all climbed in the back of the truck.  My dad and brother in law being gentlemen had of course left the area over the wheel well for us ladies so we wouldn't bounce quite as much.  Our posh friend was standing beside the truck with her mouth open.  "Surely you don't plan to ride back there?" she says.  We all looked at each other wondering where else 6 people are going to fit in a 2 seater (ok maybe 3 seater if we are talking Alabama standards) pick up truck.  We tried to explain to her that the bumpy ride would probably be much better in the back but she was welcome to the inside seat if she preferred.  Immediately relieved she climbed in the cab where she was rattled and rolled in that old truck with it's very worn shocks.  After one week on the boat and one very rough pick up ride, we finally won her over.  On the way back from the hot spring, she road in the back of that truck like a true all american redneck.  You just don't realize how different you are culturally until someone stares at you like you've lost your mind for doing something that comes very naturally to you.  A few years later, I received an email from our British friend after Hurricane Katrina.  She wanted to know if her Alabama friends had come through the storm unhurt and was it true that so many people where I lived had guns like she had seen in the news coverage of the hurricane's aftermath.  I didn't have the heart to tell her yes, she's probably still having nightmares about riding in the back of trucks and eating bacon fat, why add to her list of worries.

I Survived the Road to Tawali or the Flat Tire

I survived the road to tawali or the flat tire

Getting to and from the Tawali dive resort in Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea is not for the faint of heart.  Arrival goes along the lines of a 24 hour flight to Port Morsby from my home in Alabama, a puddle jumper over the Owen Stanley mountain range in a plane that has seen better days, and arriving in the metropolis of Alatou, PNG.  This is followed by an hour van ride on a dirt road, and then another hour on what I suspect is a pig trail, an uncomfortable wait in the dark New Guinea night on an empty pier, a very wet 30 minute boat ride to the resort which sits majestically 100 feet above the dock in other words MAJOR STAIRS.  Why do all of this?!  Simple!  The scenery and diving is as unspoiled and beautiful as any I’ve ever seen.  

Moonrise view from Tawali Resort and a small fisherman in his canoe

Scenic Reef in Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea

Watching the morning sunrise, looking out from the cliff over the ocean as the local fishermen form their coffee clatch around the bait wells they’ve made on a shallow part of the reef, families rowing their kids by canoe to the next village for school, or a black tip shark making a final cruise over the shallow reef for a bite to eat, these are the sites that make the journey worth it.  The first dive will erase every cramped airplane ride of the last two days.  Mating cuttlefish, rhinopias, massive cleaning stations, great hammerheads and minke whales are just a few examples of the amazing beauty that awaits on these reefs.  Like any trip though, all good things must come to an end and the thought of reversing the long travel  is tiresome.  We awake in the dark so that we can make it to the airport on time for the once a week flight back to Morsby.  The boat ride back is extremely wet.  Lots of dive gear filling the back and very little free board equals me being so soaked when we get back to the strange little dock at the end of the pig trail, I step behind a tree to wring out my shirt and pants.  It was so dark with no ambient light, who would be looking in the dark Papua New Guinea jungle, well apparently the driver who had parked and I assume slept in the van and who stepped out from behind the same tree.  Our van is loaded with 6 divers, massive amounts of dive gear, rediculous amounts of camera equipment, the driver, a mechanic from the resort and his tool box.  The driver begins to load us up by putting all of the bags in the back of the van. Well as any good Alabamian knows, don’t put all the heavy gear in the back on those rough roads or we will blow out a tire.  As we all try to move the bags forward, the driver becomes very upset, after all this is a fancy resort and he doesn’t want us to sit our wet butts in with the bags.  We fought him as much as possible, but in the end the dive and camera gear had the van low riding in the back and the inevitable happened.  Just as we came to one of the villages, our back tire is blows.  Not to worry there is a spare under that mountain of luggage!  We are all tightly wedged in this van and unsure of our driver’s ability to change a flat and very concerned about our ability to still make the weekly flight as all of us are certain we do not want to discover the Alatou motels!  You should know, my dad bears a striking resemblance in personality to the dad in the movie, “A Christmas Story”.  All my life the man has been  a dedicated and speedy tire changer.  We never actually timeed him, but I’m sure he was timing himself.  Sadly though he was wedged into his van seat in the back near the mountain of luggage and unable to get up.  So he turns to me and says, “get out and change the tire on this thing!”  I wouldn’t want anyone to time me, but I am capable of changing a flat.  I get out to help speed the driver along only to discover that the mechanic has already gotten out with his tool box.  By now, daylight is breaking and we are attracting quite a crowd from the village with our luggage unloading and tire changing.  I grab my camera to take a few photos of the village kids laughing at us and look back expecting to see the driver and the mechanic working vigoursly to change the tire.  Well, the driver was hard at work with the jack, but apparently the mechanic had gotten out his toolbox so that he wouldn’t have to sit on the ground to smoke his joint.  Seeing our chances of making the flight dwindling, I did the only thing I could think of to help and started throwing bags into the front of the van.  The driver finishes the tire, the mechanic finishes his joint, and off we go still hoping that the plane will wait for us.  

Changing a flat in the pre dawn hours 

One of the bridges put in by the Australians

I asked the driver what happens when he has another flat and has already used his spare?  “Oh not to worry”  he says, "Then I just drive a bit and get out and hand pump the tire and then drive a bit and get out and pump the tire".   This story gathers a collective groan as we all picture what could happen between our pig trail and the airport.  Luckily we arrive without further disaster, excited to see that our plane has waited for us.  Looking at our plane on the tarmac I see the pilot get out and start taking pictures of the airport.  Ok, I’m worried about flying in the infamous PNG mountains with a pilot that has clearly never been here before and is taking pictures of the airport like he’s never seen one before, but he made it here so maybe we will make it back.  Then he turns and starts taking photos of the plane like it was new to him too!!!  I was about to give up on my ride home and revisit the idea of an Alatou motel when a group of five nuns came in to board the flight.  I took that as a sign from heaven that we would make it back to Port Morseby and we all boarded the flight.  I only apologize to whoever had to sit in my seat on the next flight on that plane because even with the time for the flat tire, the joint, and the pig trail, I was still soaked in saltwater and left my seat on the plane very wet.  

Sunrise in Alatou

Waiting on a lonely pier in the dark

The quiet reefs in Milne Bay

A fisherman on his way to morning coffee

Rhinopias

I'd never seen this airport either, so like the pilot, I took a picture!

The Cassowary Ransom

Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea is literally miles from no where.  Small villages dot the area around Tawali Resort and the resort's infrastructure provides a living for many of the villagers in some way.  Life without cars and very little electricity in a place surrounded by exotic birds and incredible reefs may seem idyllic especially in these rustic hunter gatherer type villages where a traditional way of life is still practiced, however, the green eyed monster of jealousy lives here just like it does in any big city.  Let’s not forget that the heritage of these people includes ancestors who practiced head hunting well into the 1950's.  From time to time,  living in the shadow of a luxury resort has caused a few problems with the local people.  Tawali kept two Cassowary birds as pets in a fenced enclosure for the guests to enjoy and get a rare up close look at a very large and dangerous bird.  Unfortunately one of the cassowary escaped it’s habitat and was caught in a nearby village where a plan was hatched to ransom the bird for 50kina (at the time of this story that was about $15 USD).  The people at the resort were outraged at the blackmail attempt and refused to pay the ransom.  The villagers warned that if the money was not paid, they would kill the cassowary bird.  Well, the resort stuck to its principals, and to prove they were serious, the villagers killed the bird.  Now like I said, this is a hunter gatherer society where nothing is wasted, so after killing the cassowary, they cooked and ate him.  Apparently cassowary is delicious to the local palate.  The villagers were at the resort very early the next day offering 50 kind, now the established market rate for a cassowary,  to purchase the remaining bird for a tribal feast.  I know I ate a lot of “chicken” while I was in PNG, perhaps I too enjoyed a bite of cassowary.

I think this is the one that survived.  They look like they would be a little tough to me!

It's Hard Being Southern in a Foreign Land

It's Hard Being Southern in a Foreign Land


No matter how far I travel from home, I will always be Southern.  I will always obey the rules of Southern hospitality that my mother ingrained in me even though that might mean I am saying yes mam and no sir as a sign of respect to an older New Guinea Islander who understands no English.  I will always look forward to that first glass of sweet tea and bbq sandwich when I get home from my travels.  Hopefully you can understand that I carry a lot of my ideas about food and home with me wherever I go.  I didn't realize how much until I was on a live-aboard dive boat in the Maldives with my dad.  The chef was trained in classic French cooking and the breakfast crepes were heavenly.  All of the food had been quite good so when they announced one night that the dessert would be lemon merengue, imagine my excitement!  I do so love a good lemon merengue ice box pie as it is more commonly known in the south.  Nothing in this world tastes as good on a hot afternoon as chilled lemon merengue pie!  When we were each served a small ramekin, I thought how clever to have made individual pies and to keep them so cold in these small dishes!  As my dad (also southern born and raised) and I began to dig in our ramekins we turned to each other in disbelief.  "Where's the pie?" I asked.  Dad said, "I don't know.  Mine doesn't have pie either!"  Of course the rest of the guest, most French, some yankees (California and New England) wanted to know why the two of us were digging for gold in our ramekins.  "Where's the pie?!" I said again in response to all of their questions.  One of the French said, "There is no pie, it is merengue."  Huh.....Where I come from there should be pie under here.  You mean y'all are just going to eat the merengue?!  They ate it and thought it was wonderful.  Poor, poor, sad people who don't know that merengue is what you put on top of an ice cold lemon pie and often scrape off to the side so you can enjoy more pie!


Below you will see a copy of my Gammie's Lemon Ice Box Pie recipe and perhaps have a better understanding of what I was expecting in my ramekin.  Notice that the merengue part needs only the words, add merengue, as in it is a bland topping that everyone knows how to make and add to the finished pie.

You Don't See this on Law and Order

You Don't See this on Law and Order!

Not too long ago I had the chance to fly on my dad's plane into Curacao.  While the pilot, my dad, and I were waiting for fuel, a small plane came in with a Venezuelan tail number.  The pilot and a very well dressed man got out and spoke to the ground crew about acquiring some assistance unloading cargo.  While they waited, the older man came over to admire our plane and to tell us how much he had always wanted something similar.  Our pilot is a virtual encyclopedia of planes and was asking him about the fuel range of his plane.  The man replied that they had been very concerned about the 45 mile trip from Venezuela with the weight of their cargo.  The plane didn't look that small so we all became curious about their cargo.  Very shortly a team of ground crew and airport police arrived to begin unloading the cargo off the man's plane.  I've never actually seen what kilos of cocaine look like, but I have watched loads of Law and Order and therefore felt certain that I was correct in assuming that the large, square packages wrapped in black garbage bags and duct tape being unloaded from the south american plane must surely be drugs.  It seemed so obvious, that it prompted a quiet discussion between the three of us about how happy the man seemed to have help unloading his drugs.  Were we watching a drug bust, or maybe dirty cops helping a drug lord?  We were offered a ride to the customs part of the airport by one of the airport police who was no longer needed at the "bust".  As we drove away, I couldn't help asking if the policeman knew what was in those packages.  "Oh sure," he says, "The senior is bringing in a load of gold bars."  Gold what?!  Like Fort Knox, James Bond, Goldfinger type of gold bars?!  "Of course," the policeman says like I'm the only person he has ever met that hasn't seen gold bars unloaded before.  Frankly I would have said my chances were better at seeing kilos of cocaine come off a plane!  My only regret is that we didn't have time to talk further to "the senior".  I mean, if he really liked our plane, we were all in agreement that he could have it and any one of us to go with it for just one of his gold bars.  I later read in one of the dutch papers that with Venezuela's failing economy and their proximity to the dutch banks in the Netherlands Antilles, that banks in Curacao were having to put a limit on the number of gold bars each person is allowed to deposit.  I'm certainly glad to have that knowledge in case I ever come across a stack of them again.  

Attack of the killer hermits

In the great conflict that is man's struggle against adversity, many battles have been fought in hopes of taming nature.  And so my own war began when we bought the Casa Finca, our house in the hills of Bonaire.  A few epic battles with nature have already been won and lost there.  First, the herd of very naughty goats that were tamed back by a small fence.  Then the invasion of mocking birds and bats attempting to roost in my chandelier and build nests in my aluminum christmas tree.  And of course the ever present and extremely stealthy iguana that sees the edge of our pool as his toilet.  He is known affectionately as the phantom crapper.  But it is a new enemy that has attacked this summer, the dreaded hermit crab.  The Casa Finca straddles some ancient rode that hermit crabs have used for centuries to reach the ocean a couple of hundred feet below. (Or at least that's the tale I've chosen to believe)  At night, they come crawling out of every century plant and cactus on the property making their way through the parking court to the front door.  I'm not talking about a dozen crabs, I'm talking about an army of hermits.  If the door is open to catch the breeze, they come right in and head towards the ocean on the other side of the house.  If the door is closed there is a pile up on the hermit crab freeway as they all try to climb the stucco walls of the house.

At first I thought these creatures to be peaceful and even felt sad when I was told that the local fishermen crack them out of their shells and use them for bait.  When I found one naked after his shell was cracked by a swift kick across the courtyard from my dad who had been bitten as he sat at his work table, I gave the poor animal one of my prize kokolishi shells for a larger home.  Now I see these vicious creatures in a new light.

The photographs above are the ringleaders from the gang of 30 or so nasty hermits that I caught eating my dive boots!  My nightly ritual of rinsing my dive boots in a refreshing mix of mountain spring fabric softener and water and then laying them in the drive to dry was ruined by a pack of neoprene eating, long pincer hermit crabs!  I came back from dinner to find a mountain of crabs on top of my boots and the backs of my shoes completely gone.  I intended to get even with these trouble makers.  An opportunity presented itself a few days later when a I hired some local guys to help clean up the yard and haul away the undergrowth.  The fisherman in this group asked if he could have all the tasty hermits he found for bait.  I immediately got him a 5 gallon bucket.  He filled not one, but two buckets to the brim.  Oh joy, rapture, no more attacking hermits, they are all food for fish.  Within hours of my new hero hauling off 10 gallons of hermit crabs, night fell and with it came the steady march of a new army of hermit crabs headed straight for the front door.  I don't know the scope of their numbers, but I feel certain I have lost the war.  The cost of living in paradise just went up by a pair of new dive boots.

Merry Christmas from Bonaire or as they would say here, Bon Pasku!! Peace on Earth is my Christmas wish this year!

The Bloody handprint adventure

  I should have known that the trip to and from Raja Ampat would be an adventure when it began with a Singapore airlines flight where I was sequestered before take off for being on a terror suspect list because of my name, (and no, Jennifer O'Neil doesn't sound like a terrorist name to me either).  Although I felt there was no hope of ever returning to the United States after the airline had asked to hold my passport and gave me every search in the book, things seemed to be looking up when the stewardess brought us some hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts.  Landing in Bali without any luggage wasn't really a problem.  I was assured that it was a simple mistake and had nothing to do with me being on a Singapore Airlines no fly list.  After I got to the Ritz Carlton in Jimbaren Bay, I decided that it wasn't necessary to have luggage or return to the US, I would simply become the Eloise of the Pacific and live my life in that hotel.  The traditional music playing while you feast on an incredible breakfast and watch the coy swimming under your feet was almost to serene to be true.  But all good things must come to an end and so we moved on to Makassar, our overnight stop on the way to Raja Ampat. 

 We land in Makassar during a torrential rain fall, monsoon flooding type rain fall.  Running for the taxi line included the usual expression of distress on the part of all the drivers that my dad and I each carry two large suitcases with all of our camera equipment.  So after the fruit basket turn over it takes to put us and all the other guests that were going on the liveaboard boat and had met us in Bali, into taxis, dad and I jump into the oldest minivan on earth.  It is quite hot and humid with the rain, even by Alabama standards, so dad reaches up to turn the air to full power.  A mistake you only make once.  I do not pretend to understand all the inner workings of the mini van, but I know it's not normal that huge chunks of rock, dirt and ash blasted out of the AC onto us like we were being sandblasted!  This sparked a lively discussion with our driver who assured us that the AC would work on a lower setting.  He also mentioned that this kind of rain reminded him of tsunami weather.  His words, "maybe tsunami tomorrow, you know tsunami?"  Oh yes, I assured him as he deposited us at our hotel on the water, we know tsunami.  

I was told many times that we were staying at the most palatial hotel in Makassar.  For one night, how bad could it be?  So we're not at the Ritz anymore, but this place had other charms.  Upon arrival we were greeted by Christmas decorations and a pygmy man (a culture found in the Papua area) dressed up as a mini Santa Claus.  I never expected to see santa in a Muslim country even during the Christmas holidays.  The Muslim influence was heard in the prayer call that was so loud from my room I decided to pull back the curtain and check out the view.  The picture above is of the bloody hand print that was on the other side of the curtain.  If you read the caption on it, I'm guessing someone was praying in the wrong direction and it came with a brutal punishment.  The arrow pointing to Mecca was pointing in the opposite direction of the hand print, not a mistake made twice apparently.  If you are reading this and thinking that one night of this kind of entertainment could not possibly be enough, don't worry our flights were canceled on the way home and we spent Christmas day in Makassar at our favorite hotel.  Same basic experience but I asked for the executive suite, same room, no bloody hand print, and at an up charge of $40USD.  Be sure to ask for that if you're in the area!

Rice fields

The aerial photo is from our flight into Makassar.  The torrential rains had lifted just long enough to catch a glimpse of the rice fields.  Our taxi driver was quick to point out that it looked like tsunami weather as he drove us to our hotel on the waterfront.   The other two photos are from the terraced rice fields in Bali.  All of the rice farming looked like extremely hard work.