My favorite place to sleep

Along with many highlights of our trip, one of my favorites was getting to sleep here:



On the first island all of the houses were inland. We didn't have the option to sleep outside over the water. It was SO hot and stuffy. At night the house where we stayed closed up all the windows to not let any mosquitoes in and keep all fresh air out, of course.

So when we arrived on the second island and were shown to our home, a beautiful place built over the water, I began begging our guide to ask the host family if we could sleep outside. She felt hesitant to ask and so I reclined to just sleeping in the small bedroom they had offered us. The family had a nice long dock that extended out over the water where they enjoyed relaxing and fishing at night. They served us tea and snack outside while we sat and talked the first afternoon.

After a little while our guide found the opportunity to ask the host family and they were delighted that we enjoyed their back dock so much that we'd want to sleep out there. So as the sun set and we got sleepy they gathered some mats and pillows for us and we made a nice bed outside.

I loved sleeping outside where it is cool, listening to the sound of the water hit against the shore, and looking up at the stars as I drifted off to sleep. The nights that we were there the moon was really full and bright. Oh how I love the moon... it's my favorite. And then to wake up to the early sunrise painting colors across the sky, I couldn't wait.

We were all sound asleep when we were suddenly awoken by a voice, "mau hujan." It was 4 am and one of the sons had come to tell us that it was about to start raining and we should go inside. The lightning and thunder were getting closer, so there was no way to protest and brush it off like it wasn't going to happen. We got up and gathered our things and went inside to get at least a couple more hours of sleep.

The next night we were going to try again. It started raining after dinner and so we thought that all was lost and we weren't going to get a second chance. But eventually it did stop raining. We got our bed set up and sat outside with some of the younger people living in the house. We told stories and they showed us how they usually fish from the back dock by throwing some fishing line in the water with bait on the end. They insisted that they normally catch fish every night. I was very excited because my dad has passed on to me a love for fishing :) and so I was determined to catch a fish that night. I tried for hours and no fish. Eventually all the girls fell asleep and the guide and I were still up waiting for the fish to bite. Finally I fell asleep too and when I woke up I noticed that the line was still in the water. All night fishing, but still no fish. However we did get to wake up to an early morning sunrise over the water, even better.