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| Cant get enough of these sunsets! |
The tide was out pretty far so we decided to take the opportunity to walk around the bend to see what was on the other side. It was only about 1/2 mile but saw some pretty interesting things. The first we came upon was a worship service or celebration of some sort. They seemed to be having a good time.
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| These two photos are patterns made by tiny crabs |
The walk was mostly on sand but there were so many tiny crab dwellings we had to keep stepping around them. I didn’t want to hurt any crabs! There are huge rocks along the beach that were pretty cool and many of them had shells of crabs or barnacles stuck to them.
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| Beautiful area around the bend of the beach. |
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| These very large rocks or boulders lined the beach area. |
One area we walked across, some neighbors shouting a friendly hello. They spoke English! We waved back and continued on. At the end of the beach was a small village so we didn’t invade on their space but did take the opportunity to take some nice photos of the boats all lined up on the beach. All we had was Chuck’s old cellphone so the photos aren’t the greatest. These boats are mostly used for fishing but also pleasure riding. They are very unique. Chuck calls them weed-eaters because of the type of motor and the sound as it moves across the water.
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| Such beautiful shells but so tiny. |
These boats are called jukung or kano. It is a small wooden Indonesian outrigger canoe. It is a traditional fishing boat and that’s pretty much what we have experienced here, but newer uses include SCUBA diving. Rain was back this afternoon but we had the entire day outside with the rain beginning around 4 pm.
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| This cave looked a little creepy. |
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| A local cemetery. The stones all look the same shape but different heights. |
That was perfect for us since it will cool it down and we can enjoy the nice breeze instead of the aircon being on all night.
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| Some of the local boats we found in a group. Bad photos from iphone. 😒 |
Something we have been meaning to mention is that each country we have been to outside of Europe that all use Euros, has had different currencies. I am trying to collect at least 1 banknote a.k.a. paper currency for each different country.
For all of Europe I have a few Euros but they are coins. Its hard to get a small denomination in Euros. For England, we have a British Pound with the Queens face on it. Did you know that when Charles takes over the crown, all currency must be changed to have his face on it? While on Jersey Island, which is under the direction of the crown (U.K.) they have the Jersey Pound. The queens face is on the banknote however there is a hologram of a Jersey cow. Its pretty cool!
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| This fence is homemade with just trees and wire. |
You can spend the British Pounds here at the same value but you will get change back in Jersey pounds. In all the Arabian countries such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the currency is Arab Emerite Dirham. We used either credit card or Euros in these countries so I wasn’t able to obtain my usual collection however I found a small coin on the ground so I kept it.
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| Net fishing. |
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| Pulling in the catch. They catch sardines with the nets. |
Morocco has Moroccan dirham. The smallest banknote was 20 dirham but that is only $2 USD. Now here is the fun one. The Indonesian Rupiah has very high denominations but the exchange rate is so low that we have 4 million Rupiah and that’s only $300 USD. The smallest banknote we have is 1000 Rupiah which is $.07 USD. It’s hard to not think that 10,000 Rupiah isn’t a lot of money. It’s less than $1 USD.
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| A group of fishermen using nets with the boat. They were shaking all the fish out of the net into the boat. Presumably, these were sardines as well. |
When we are ready to tip at the end of our stay, we’ll have to remember how much we want to tip vs. what the conversion is. Our meals are about 200,000 Rupiah per day. That’s only $10 USD! Its easy to think you have a lot of cash when you have a full pocket full but it’s actually very little. The cost of living here is very minimal.
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| A baby gecko. I can’t get the big ones to slow down to take a picture. Too quick! |
I believe it is even much lower than Morocco. The USD can go a long way here. I am excited to get all my collections together when we are finished traveling. I just need to come up with some type of plan for them all.
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| Example of pricing on a menu at a restaurant. Our coffee here is only Rp. 5,000 per cup |
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| Rupiah banknotes – about 4 million Rupiah – $300 USD |
I am collecting banknotes, sand from the beach, a postcard with a stamp is being mailed to the US and a key chain. The sand and key chains are weighing our suitcase down so we’ll dump them in storage or somewhere safe on our first trip back home (America) so I can work on the next batch.
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| One of the boats, jakung up on a rock as a decoration |
Today was a good day, tomorrow promises to be better. We are grateful for each day we wake up and more than blessed to be traveling at this point in our life. Just today we realized we have been traveling for 9 months so far and its as if we have been doing it forever. We absolutely love it! I hope we have been giving a good description of our travels along the way. I’ll need them when I’m asked about our travels along the way or in the future.
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| This is looking over the water at Jakarta, Indonesia. A few mountains over that way. |
May God bless you always!
Chuck & Lea Ann
WorldTravelReynolds 