Don't Panic!!: dolphin tour

Wanted to spend the new year eve alone with my gal away from the hustle and bustle of a city!!! so as i heard from an acquaintance about this beach place where you can see DOLPHINS!! yes, DOLPHINS! the funny ones which live in water, jump through a loop in aqua world shows areound the world. The friendly cute creatures with a snout for a nose.

So we set off at about 12 in the afternoon, on the way had tongseng kambing (mutton soup) and sate kambing for lunch. stopped on the way in a public beach called KLARA (Kelapa Rapat) for a dip in the sea but settled for a boat ride around a nearby island. we enquired more about this place of DOLPHINS in klara, our boat driver said, yes its about two hrs from here and you have places there to stay for the night. so we set off at about 3 o clock to TELUK KILAUAN.

It was more like a roller coaster ride navigating the roads of Lampung. a 20 km stretch of muddy potholed roads made sure that my car needed a double session at a car wash. We enquired in PASAR BAWANG about the whereabouts of kilauan bay. surprise! surprise! a bawang resident advised us to take an ojek to kilauan rather than driving down. he said even his 4WD toyota hardtop cannot climb to the village. that sounds interesting, where do i park my car if i take an ojek.... so i thought let me atleast drive down to the nearest place to Kilauan. thats what i did, climbing up a hill on a muddy newly laid path with traces of past landslides. ITs turning out to be a crazy adventure. wait! this is not adventure, compared to what lay ahead.

after climbing up this muddy trench along the way negotiating our own heart which was asking us to go back home, we reached a place which probably hardly sees any civilization, there i saw a small board pointing the way to Kilauan - a steep downhill rocky climb intersected by too many streams, and only 3 KM. I drove this entire 3 KM stretch in the first gear and with my heart in my mouth beating loud enough to echo in the mountains!!!

atlast we reached and found out there is no such thing called cottages or resorts or five star hotels or wisma in this place. Hence had to stay in the kind hearted Balinese LURAH (village head man)and was also invited for a fireworks and new year party of a visiting politician. we had dinner at the lurah's house and discussion on religion, india, bollywood, ispektur vijay. I knew that this is going to be a long night.after a long chat with the enthusiastic locals on why I am here (to see the dolphins) we were suggested to stay the night there, watch the dolphins in the morning and leave the next day afternoon. when u are surronded by villagers in a foreign unknown village u have no other choice but listen to them. no electricity, no cell phones...in a way ppl there live cut off from civilization as I know!

and a nagging frightened gal with u is not of any help anyways.

so strolled a bit on the beach, watched the fireworks and then called it a day at 3:30 am on 1/1/10. probably my first time where i stayed awake so late and not had a single drop of liquor!

i was offered a place to sleep in the main hall of the lurah's house. very ind of his family. and my sleep was interrupted at 5 am thanks to the crowd in the house.

Mr sulaiman the man who was going to guide/drive us to the place where we can see dolphins were there at sharp 6 30. surprise! the tiniest boat in the world was to be our ride!!! no! thank you! but cannot go back all the way without seeing the dolphins!! so i thought i will go alone! but women! u know! how illogical they can be!! atleast i think so!! so the three of us sat in the tiny boat negotiated through the waves.... crossed the bay and entered the huge open waters.... could see the famous krakatau volcano island, met a boat coming back to the mainland from the sea, when enquired the guy in the boat was frightened in the waters and wanted to go back to dry land!!! thank you! that was very encouraging!!

now sulaiman breaks the news saying that the boat is probably not fit for sailing as its support structure according to him is not good!! so we turn back, stop on dry land and repair the boat. once again we started of tho see the dolphins! this time changed our direction to join the dolphin chasers from Jakarta.

after sailing for 3 hours on arduous waters and one sighting of a huge sea tortoise we could see the three boats of Jakartans circling around on the ater. once we neared them then we knew that there were 100s of dolphins there. jumping and splashing and somersaulting. It was a sight to watch. lumba lumba! dia suka bercanda!! as the politician told me the previous night. it was euphoria!! no words can describe how i felt then!! managed to click some photos in my new nikon d 90 even though the boat was shaky and it was splashes of water everywhere.

my only loss was my blackberry which got wet during the boat ride. i dont know why i carried it on the boat in the first place.

here are some pics from the trip.

Kelapa Rapat -coconuts!