Shout outs to James and Laura from the USA; Felicia from
Sweden and Gwen from Holland. Not to mention the guy who looked just
like John Locke from Lost – a very weird encounter when you're on a
desert island!
And special mentions for Danny, Tim and Larissa from
Germany; the beautiful, classy Marga; and Paul, Paul, Emmanuel and
Kerry from the UK. Thank you for the music!
Dave and I thoroughly enjoyed being long-term
residents at the bungalows, sitting in our spots at the bar,
imparting our hard-earned (?!) knowledge of the island to newcomers like sage
locals, and reaping the benefits of being well established customers
– such as extra helpings of fruit salad, free chips, and use of the bicycles when we needed to do a run to the shops.
Speaking of bikes, one of our favourite and most amusing
novelties on the island were the ice cream vendors who, since there's
no motorised transport on the Gilis, cycle round with an coolbox
strapped to the front of their bikes and a loudspeaker playing out
the jingle announcing their approach. So funny!
Danny, Tim and Larissa were lovely and quickly became firm friends and partners for sharing
music and playing hours and hours of cards. Our 'Shit Head'
tournaments (Becky: UK, Dave: Australia, Danny: Germany, and Ali:
Indonesia) were fiercely fought battles for international supremacy.
Shame we didn't keep score.
We also enjoyed the local
kitty soap opera. There was a serious love square going on, which was
very entertaining... Sambal the resident cat had a girlfriend (Mrs
Sambal) who was being wooed by Marley, the big black cat from Legend,
the reggae bar further down the coast. Then there was Mama Cat, who
was looking after the last surviving kitten of her litter of four,
who we're pretty sure was the first lady in Sambal's life, as the
kittens all looked very much like him! She and Mrs Sambal really
didn't get on; there were a few stand offs and at least one cat
fight. Who needs TV?!
Sambal. It's tough being so in demand! |
Mrs Sambal |
Dave and I had a lot of
fun messing about on boats when we were on the Gilis, including a
couple of day trips.
You can easily do ferry
hops between the three islands; Gili Trawangan is the 'party' island,
Gili Meno is the really quiet one, and Gili Air is somewhere
in between (the Goldilocks island - juuuuuust right). We paid a visit
to Gili T for a day, which is bigger and slicker than Air and with a
slightly more commercial edge and not quite so laid back.
You can
definitely tell it's the party island – mainly from the groups of
very hungover looking teens dragging their flip-flops to a local
eatery for a fry-up, and the pretty blatant marketing of hallucinogenic fungi.
It's still very beautiful
though and we walked about half way around the coast then cut inland
to find somewhere for lunch and looked around the shops before
hopping on the late-afternoon ferry back to Gili Air. When we got
back it was quite a relief to return to the chilled place we were
calling home! And like the pros we are, we made it back just in time
for happy hour. As we sat drinking our Bintangs and munching some
free popcorn in Blues Corner Cafe bar, looking out at the beach, we
saw a kingfisher come down and land on the sand, gobble something
down and then fly away. Sadly it was too quick for us to get a
picture but take our word for it that it was very pretty and exciting. Not as thrilling as the other wildlife sighting we were soon to be treated to
however... the indigenous Indonesian sand digger monster!
A few days later, we
decided to venture out on a snorkelling trip and go out on a boat
with a group. It was a pretty good bargain at about a fiver each. We
were up early and both very excited to get into the crystal clear
turquoise waters that we'd heard are so perfect for seeing tropical
underwater life. However, the further the boat got away from the
shore, and the deeper the water got, the more freaked out I got,
until by the time it had anchored and everyone was getting their gear
on, I was in full-on panic attack mode! I was just really scared of
getting into the deep open water and could hardly move! But Dave
calmed me down and as soon as he said "You don't have to go in
if you don't want to" I was fine, and stayed very happily on the
boat, sunning myself on deck, looking at the reef through the glass
bottom and taking photos of Dave in the water. He had three really
good dives and saw three turtles, lots of tropical fish and starfish.
And I managed to see a turtle through the glass-bottom, so was really
pleased with that.
During our last week, we
even managed to venture off of the island over-night - quite a
wrench! - when Ali took us over to Lombok. Dave and I jumped in an
outrigger early one morning and were met by Ali at the harbour in
Bangsal. He'd arranged a friend of his to drive us to Senaru in the
north of the island where we could visit some waterfalls. We trekked
through some lush greenery, sometimes wading through icy cold,
fast-running mountain springs, and pretty soon found ourselves
sprayed by fresh tumbling water and swimming in freezing cold pools.
The perfect antidote to the tropical heat!
Afterwards we piled,
dripping wet, back into the car and drove south to Mataram, where we
visited Ali's mother-in-law's warung for something to eat. Ali and
his friend ordered a range of local dishes, including fried fish,
gado gado and tempe and we all tucked in. We also had the priviledge
of meeting Ali's young wife and his 8 month old son Zidane who, like
most children, was inexplicably enamoured with Dave and couldn't take
his eyes off him!
After lunch we were back in the car and off to
Sengigi where we checked into a small homestay that Ali knew. It was
cheap and simple and, most importantly, close to the local karaoke
bars. Another friend of Ali's, Daffy, joined us for some early
evening drinks, getting-to-know-you-chit-chat and invaluable 'Shit
Head' lessons.
Then it was time for Dave, Ali and I to hit the town,
where we soon found a karaoke club we felt lived up to our
weekend-rockstar status. Asian karaoke is something else! They seem
to take it 100% seriously for one thing - no tongues in cheeks here
- and the songs and videos are projected onto a big screen while the
microphone's brought to you so you can serenade the audience from the
comfort of your big leather sofa.
We watched about an hour
of Indonesian 'classics' sung by the locals, with Ali helpfully
translating the stories of the songs for us. There was a huge
variation of themes:
- boy loving girl who didn't love him anymore
- girl loving boy who didn't love her anymore
- boy loving girl who still loved him but was marrying someone else
- girl loving boy who still loved her but was marrying someone else.
Soon it was our turn, and
Ali eagerly called over the man in charge of the microphones to ask
if we could request some English-language songs. This was no problem
and he brought us over slips of paper, telling us to write down what
we wanted to sing. Doubtful, we asked if he had a list of the English
songs they had. No problem, we were assured, just write what you
want. So sticking to our failsafes, I scribbled down 'Son Of A
Preacher Man' by Dusty Springfield and Dave chose 'Let's
Dance' by David Bowie. Our slips collected, we waited patiently,
drank our Bintangs and listened to the wonderful renditions from the
locals. Pretty quickly the guy came back, shaking his head 'no', they
had neither of these songs. What a shock! So we were ushered up to
see the DJ in his booth. After a lot of failed suggestions and
confused shaking of the head (Who are these 'Guns N Roses'? 'Pulp'
who?) we fell back on two songs there was no way he wouldn't have...
Mariah Carey's 'Hero' for me, and Brian Adams' 'Anything I
Do I Do It For You' for Dave. And the reception! It was like
X-Factor, when you sing a first line of the song and then the
audience immediately gives you an encouraging round of applause (or
that's what I've been told!) They were all so generous and
enthusiastic, we couldn't not reward them with another – thank
heavens the DJ had an everyone-knows-it classic so easy to duet:
Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' of course! It was such a great
night, so much fun!!!
The next day, after a
breathtaking drive along the bays of Lombok's north western coast, it
was back to Gili Air for our last couple of days. And we were feeling
more than a little pouty about it. We spent our time mostly at BBB,
hanging out and partying with our friends, and soaking in the sights,
sounds and smells of the wonderful island we'd come to love so much.
So lucky we had lots
exciting adventures ahead of us to look forward to, or I don't think
we'd have been able to leave!
Our contribution to Bintang's farewell sunglasses collection |
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