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<\/p>\nMy visa was nearing expiration in Australia (I had 90 days left), and my speeding tickets were exceeding $1700 Australian.\u00a0 The speeding tickets were from cameras.\u00a0 In the United States, the Constitution protects us (you can fight and win those tickets 100% of the time in the USA, but not in Australia).\u00a0 It was time to choose a new country to visit, at least for a short while. To me it made sense to leave my beloved Oceania and head north.\u00a0 Looking at the map, Southeast Asia beckoned.<\/p>\n
Indonesia, in particular, seemed to be the best choice, and it would be my next destination.\u00a0 Bali, to be exact.\u00a0 This would provide a less westernized culture than the previous countries I had visited.\u00a0 Another advantage was it appealed to my new interest.\u00a0 I kept hearing how magnificent the scuba diving was there.\u00a0 So that would be incorporated into my adventures.<\/p>\n
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After the whirlwind trip through Australia, the first three days in Bali (except for some morning surfing) were spent resting in my hotel room.\u00a0 I needed the time to recharge and just sit back and pretend I was on vacation.\u00a0 Yes, I know I am sort of always on vacation, but even with this laid-back lifestyle the constant moving becomes a fulltime job.<\/p>\n
Once rested it was time to book several ferries and boats out to Komodo National Park (it isn\u2019t easy to get to).\u00a0 Visiting this epic National Park would provide me with the chance to see Komodo dragons, the largest lizard on Earth, as well as plenty of opportunities to hone my new skills as a diver. This was an experience that I could not miss while visiting Indonesia.<\/p>\n
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The day trip to Komodo Island was fantastic.\u00a0 What made it most memorable was actually seeing a few of these giant reptiles in the wild, as up close and personal as I was comfortable with.\u00a0 That distance happened to be\u00a0 about 6 feet for me I soon learned. Even though being in a tour group of 20 people when the Komodo dragon chose a path, our group was instructed to let it through.\u00a0 The crowd parted like the Red Sea and the giant reptile chose the direction it wanted, and it moved with a purpose!<\/p>\n
These giants can move up to 12 miles per hour.\u00a0 Some weigh as much as 150 pounds.\u00a0 They can take down local deer and they have no natural enemies.\u00a0 This meant we were guests on their island and without a stick or other type of weapon we were not on the top of the food chain. It’s always a humbling moment when you realize this.<\/p>\n
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After a day exploring Komodo National Park with large sticks in hand, I found myself in Flores, Indonesia.\u00a0 It’s a small island about an hour\u2019s boat ride from Komodo National Park.\u00a0 Little did I realize how much of a scuba diving mecca this was (see any of my previous articles about my lack of planning).\u00a0 There were literally dive shops and tours every three to four buildings.\u00a0 It was that densely populated with the scuba community.\u00a0 It was perfect.\u00a0 This would be a great home base for a week or so to dive and continue catching up on rest from the Australia travels. It now was time to book a scuba adventure in Bali, Indonesia.<\/p>\n
More epic adventures are here!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mike Huber My visa was nearing expiration in Australia (I had 90 days left), and my speeding tickets were exceeding $1700 Australian.\u00a0 The speeding tickets were from cameras.\u00a0 In the United States, the Constitution protects us (you can fight and win those tickets 100% of the time in the USA, but not in Australia).\u00a0 It … Continue reading “Indonesia: Part 1”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":27659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[96],"tags":[4290,4291,4288,4289],"class_list":["post-27650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feel-good-stuff","tag-bali","tag-indonesia","tag-komoda","tag-reptile"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/20240708_173605.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27650"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27808,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27650\/revisions\/27808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}