Have you seen my Kite?

It all started with 35 knot winds, the sand was leaving the safety of the beach and blowing inland to our eyes. Our instructor (bless him) said , "you guys aren't allowed out." We agreed that we would have no control of our kite in such strong wind. So, we decided to leave paradise and go over to the next island to explore on mopeds (think tiny, light, baby motorcycles ). First, we rented the mopeds on our island and then they had to be transported to the other island. Most cargo gets transported on little canoe like boats with outrigging to keep it stable but the waves from the wind tried its best to blow our little boat over. When we arrived on the big island 4 men picked the bike up so no salt water would get on the bike. Once we started on our exporeation we found out that the moped had no rear brakes (but more on that latter). Now there is a major festival happening only once a year on this island and we head toward it, but first we decided to head to a local waterfall. After 3-4 hours of riding and a few questions on directions we find the dirt road. Now on a dirt road, with a moped, in the hills, you might need rear brakes to slow down. So we almost lost it several times. Rob was wearing only flip flops poor choice driving. Another guy acutally did fall and scrape up his bike. It hadn't rained in sometime so the waterfalls were a little smaller than we had expectd (more like water drips). But we enjoyed swimming in fresh water for the first time in months, so fresh and clean! Back on the bike, for a few more hours with the wind straight at us at 35 mph, we are driving at 40-60 mph. Leah's arms getting tighter and tighter as the pathetic craft was buffeted by the storm winds all around us. No bathroom breaks, no lunch, four hours following the guide to someplace we hope has food. We arrive 3 hours late for lunch, but it tastes good. We are way late and have to skip the party since we thought the last ferry was at 6. The next day we found out that our guide went back over to go the the festival! Strange. We have found that communication can be a little tough sometimes.

We have decide that mopeds are not the best mode of transport. We did however discover how gas is sold in the small towns. They reuse old litter glass coke bottles and fill them will gas, then they put them out in front of their home/tiny shop. It looks like a funny colored coke and it took us a while before we were willing to put it down our gas tanks. It is a very handy thing as long as you only want one or two liters of gas!

Made it home alive and slept. A new day dawns, the wind is down, we go to set up our kite. IT IS GONE!!!! In 8 years of operation, no one, had ever lost a kite. We had only owned this kite through one session which for us was an hour of use. It was gone. They checked all the other kite stores, the entire beach, and made phone calls. To top it off, Leah stepped in dog poop without shoes on.

Our luck had changed. Cursing fate, and licking several days of wounds we actually considered ditching the other kite and heading to Thailand. Dinner, a hour running, and 30 minute swim later we buy another kite. Get back on the "horse" and today had the best day yet for both of us! Still swallowing way more than our alloted amount of salt water but we are getting it.

We are currently extending our visas for another 38 days in paradise. We are also keeping up with our meditation every morning and evening for an hour. We are also very excited about our new purchase of a water boiler. We can have tea and oatmeal whenever we want. Oh the small pleasures of life!

A sample of our moped touring