Checked in at last!

Well! We Waited all day, and finally the first official visited the boat at about 4:30ish. The visit was quick and painless and was mostly focused on his enjoying a tot of....$@&@! Had to taste it to be sur it wasn't some dangerous liquid explosive, I guess. However, it was now too late to do any other official stuff...BUT...we were allowed to go ashore.

So, we did. A small army of young men waited on the beach to pick up the dinghy (the very heavy dinghy!) and carry it up the beach. For a small fee (35,ooo rupiah...about $3.50)' they will do this as often as we wish each day. Ashore at Teddy's bar (also called Pantai Laut) we enjoyed a light meal of prawns and Bintang beer and the society of friends while politely fending off the first barrage of vendors attempting to sell carvings and ikat weaving. Pantai Laut has free wifi! We'll be back tomorrow.

We slept long and hard only interrupted by the call to prayer at 4am-ish, which was surprising not too unpleasant, despite lasting maybe a half hour. After coffee, we dinghied ashore first thing to be first in line with rest of the officials, and all went quite smoothly. We are now officially IN Indonesia.

Gwen Hamlin
Cafe Getaway
Sent from my iPad