It's hard to imagine visiting Nusa Lembongan without renting a motor scooter, or moto, as they call them. At $6 a day, it's worth it even just to go to dinner. But there is also so much to see that is not walkable and only painfully bikeable. The roads wind up and down steep hills, passing through lush forest and small but busy intersections before depositing you on beautiful beaches - some best for swimming, with soft sand and manageable waves; some best for surfing; and some that glow with an otherworldly hue that "blue" barely describes. I was a little worried about renting the moto, since the main road in town hardly seems safe. But the traffic thins to nearly nothing just a few minutes from town, and my fear seemed downright silly when we passed a horde of prepubescent girls riding in the opposite direction in their school uniforms.

In addition to the beaches, the moto took us to a few interesting corners of the island . We stopped by a "store" (someone's house with a sign out front) and got a soda and some gas. The sign said "petrol," but when we asked for it, the woman rode off on her scooter and came back with a bottle full. In the meantime we forced her husband to listen to our inane Indonesian. I don't remember what we said, but I'm sure it was inane. Farther north we encountered the mangrove forests, so we arranged for a quick tour by boat. The man poled our boat up a little creek, pointing things out as we went, until the mangroves blocked the way. The coolest thing we saw was little crabs with electric blue markings on their backs.

Back on the scooter, we got a good look at the island's second-largest industry after tourism: seaweed farming. People set out square plots in the shallows of the ocean to grow different varieties, then they collect it by hand and lay it out to dry in big batches. We're curious what happens after that but didn't get a chance to ask. In one spot, between Nusa Lembongan and a tiny neighboring island, dozens of canoes dot the shallows with people hunched over every few yards plucking seaweed . It's an interesting sight, especially when viewed from high above. One of our excursions took us up a very steep and windy road (where I briefly found religion) to an overlook where the canoes looked like tiny dots against the green squares, and the people disappeared into the backdrop of the sea. That ride up into the sky was our most isolated - we passed very few people and no "bule," as they call foreigners. So it was quite disconcerting when we heard manic voices echoing through the trees near the top of our drive. We investigated (despite the voice in my head yelling, "don't follow the manic voices, dummy!") and found a house in the woods with no people around, but with a loudspeaker blasting crazy dialogue into the air. We couldn't understand it, but if you imagine the soundtrack at the climax of a horror movie, it was something like that. Very creepy. We motor scooted away as quickly as we could.

Back in town, we didn't do much of anything besides eat. It's very hot here (not that I'm complaining), so any time I sat down on the Outdoor Bed for Relax, I fell asleep . I really wanted to get a massage ($12 for an hour? Don't mind if I do!) but I always felt so sticky and nasty that it seemed wrong to make a stranger touch me. On Sunday, Shen went surfing and I hung out on the beach. I guess the surfing was mediocre, but I got to see a funny juxtaposition of old and new. Everyone here puts out offerings to the gods in front of their homes and businesses, consisting of small baskets full of flowers, food and incense. While I sat at the beach, a couple squatted down near me, placed their offering, lit the incense...and started texting. I don't know if they were texting the gods, or if the gods even allow texting, but it made me laugh.

Our last morning was rainy, rainy, rainy. Seriously - rainy. Since our bathroom does not have a roof, I had to brush my teeth in my raincoat, something I have never before done in a bathroom. It was also hard to escape the fact that anything in the bathroom that one might want to sit on was soaking wet and only getting wetter. I loved the roofless bathroom, but it did have its limitations.

So that was Nusa Lembongan. It was the perfect way to start our honeymoon, because it actually felt like a vacation. It was beautiful, serene, and totally relaxing.