Tidung: The Love Bridge

Reflecting on the future of our life together. 

We were lucky enough to be introduced to a super awesome tour guide during our first week here, and so far he has not failed to disappoint. Our first trip out of the city was a no brainer: The Thousand Islands. Morgan wasn't able to get us a place to stay on several of the nicer islands, but we figured we could start with the worse and work our way up. The trip was a fantastic experience and the island of Tidung wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I think I spent about $40 for all my food, lodging, snorkel gear, transport, and beer. In fact, I spent the most amount of money on beer. The water was fairly clear, the beaches were mostly clean, and I was able to make some new friends and get to know the current ones a lot better.

hanging out on the boat

Leaving the apartment at 5:00am we figured we'd catch an early boat, but unfortunately we got stuck waiting for a few more of Morgan's friends to get their act together. This is why Angie and I make such a great partnership: we are both go getters. We like to be on time, and we like to move. Waiting is not our strong point. Eventually we made it to the fish market, and thanks to the limited traffic we didn't have to wade through the fishy dirty waters, but were able to get a cab almost straight to the boat. We hopped on board with all 10 people and waited for the boat to fill up. You literally just sit on the ground, surrounded by a hundred other people. We passed the time playing cards, singing, and at one point reenacting the scene from titanic.

Titanic!

Once we arrived and walked to our lodging we were ready for some lunch and to jump in the water. The "food court" as we called it had about 4 options and they were all different kinds of noodles. I quickly signed up for the fried noodles with egg and a coconut, figuring the coconut water would help prepare me for my day/night of drinking ahead of me. Post lunch we were even warmer, so we headed to the love bridge to jump in. Rumor has it that if you jump off the love bridge with a guy and your aren't dating you will leave the island in a relationship. If you go with a boyfriend and jump off the bridge with him you will break up. I jumped off with a total of 3 boys and 1 girl and somehow ended up leaving in a domestic partnership with the girl. Yes, that's right folks! I officially asked Angie to be in a domestic partnership with me and she said yes :)

Coconut!

When I jumped off I was surprised at the warmth of the water. It didn't seem to cool me off at all, and so I wanted to swim in deep water. We took a short walk to find a clean beach and attempt to swim. We waded in the water, and at one point Tina touched a live plant, which very quickly buried itself in the sand. It was so cool!!! In order to get to the deep water we had to walk all the way out on top of dead coral to a pile of rocks and then head into the open ocean. Once we got in it felt so nice, and I got to see several striped colored fish as well as feel some very teeny tiny jellyfish sting me. It felt like a light electric shock, but for awhile I was freaking out and Dustin and Morgan had to calm me down.

Our beach

We headed back to the hut to grab our scuba gear and I was smart enough to grab my vibrams for the next walk on the hard rocks and coral. Lunch was necessary, so we stopped for a few beers before heading out into the open water. It is amazing what a light weight I've become, and though Dustin tried with all his might to get me standing in my flippers and teach me a few lesson about my goggles I couldn't handle the waves. I gave up after like 5 minutes, put my vibrams back on and snorkeled minus the flippers. All the coral was pretty dead, but I did manage to see some fish and to work on my "breathing using my mouth only" skills. I have to get better for the future. I finished some more lunch, meaning I had another beer and then I headed back to shower off and get ready for dinner.

Our Accomodation

After walking all over the island we decided on a place, which none of us ended up enjoying but we made it work. We sat around drinking beers, and telling each other riddles. Eventually it started pouring rain, so we bolted back to the hut, and once we arrived we noticed it was raining in, and our mats were getting all wet. We used our towels to try and fix the window so no more rain would come in and set up a game of cards on the floor. After the rain stopped Flame and Anam managed to get a fire started and we stood around it drinking up Dustin's vodka. I also managed to wade in the water in the moonlight with Flame, which is the only time the water felt cool enough.  At one point me and Dustin were forced to talk some guys down from a fight, which according to those listening in the hut we did a very good job at. At this point in the night I mentioned to everyone that it was best to cut our losses and head to bed.

Campfire on the beach!

I slept for an hour or two and we woke up to get coffee and more noodles for breakfast before packing up to head on the boat back. It was a windy morning, and luckily Tina had some motion sickness medicine which I took so I was able to take a short nap on the journey home. We chowed down on some A&W before heading officially home for an afternoon of watching TV and an early night to bed. All in all it was a fantastic first trip out of the city.