Shipwreck diving, Balinese New Year, and Nusa Lembongan

Since we are now scuba certified, we decided to try our skills in Bali! We went to a place called Tulamben to the U.S. Liberty shipwreck. We hired a guide and some scuba gear and we were off! For $40 we got to go on two dives throughout the afternoon, have a guide with us the whole time, and get transportation to the site! (Too bad this hobbie is so addicting because it is going to be much more expensive at home!) Both dives were absolutely amazing! We saw a starfish, some kind of fish that looks exactly like the coral except occasionally his mouth moves or he will swim to a new spot, a Moray eel, yellow and red clown fish, a school of thousands of silver fish, not to mention we got to swim through a sunken ship! We both said we feel like little kids again everytime we get back from a dive...its the most exhilarating feeling! After getting both of our laundry done for about $8 (hand washed and hung dry) we headed back to Kuta where we originally started our Bali trip. On the 26th it's the Balinese New Year! That night the streets were filled with thousands of people, all ages, to see the parade through town. The people here spend months making these floats and creating a whole performance where there is a a guy narrating in a scary voice and music playing. They all make their floats dance and tell a story (not that we understood the Balinese but we got the idea). After the parade they march all the floats down to a temple on the beach and burn them. We are not exactly sure how good our Balinese-English translating is but the festival represents something about purifying all of the negativity from the years past, getting rid of any bad energy or evil spirits and starting over. The celebration goes on until about midnight and then the streets are dead until 5am on the 28th. We had to go grocery shopping the night before to get anything we wanted because from 5am on the 27th until 5am on the 28th no one is allowed to be seen in public, use lights, work, talk (or make any noise), eat (if your Balinese). Basically you are locked in your room for 24 hours. If you violate any of the rules it is possible for you to be handcuffed and taken away by the police (guess they take their holiday's pretty serious)! We spent the entire day watching the 15 DVD's we bought the night before on the lowest possible volume setting and eating cups of noodles. Needless to say, we were excited to start a new adventure the next day and see the outside world!
So after our lock down, we headed to Nusa Lembongan, a small island off the southern coast of Bali. We just got here this morning but spent all day laying out at an infinity pool where if you are laying on your lounge chair it looks like the pool runs into the ocean. After the pool we headed back to our bungalow, which we are paying a total of about $7 a night, to watch the sunset. Around 5pm the tide goes out about 1/2 mile from the shore leaving all the boats stranded and just small pools of water left. As the sun sets it reflects the red and orange colors into the little pools left behind by the tide. We have seem a million sunsets here but this is definitely one of the most amazing!

Tomorrow we hired a boat to take us to another part of the island to snorkle for a couple of hours....can't wait!