Gili Islands

Saturday August 18 was travel day. We were off to the Gili Islands off of Lombok. We originally saw them from Gunung Agung. They're nice for relaxing and snorkeling. I got up at 6am, checked that JoJo and Nick were awake and snoozed another ten minutes. Sleepy. We ate some breakfast, JoJo payed with credit card... it pretty much settled us again for the flights that I had covered to Jakarta. By 7am we were all packed and met our ride to Padang Bai where the ferry leaves for Lombok. The ride was only about half and hour but our driver was stressing because he saw all the funeral ceremony preparations along the way... he figured he'd get stuck in all of those on his way home. We got dropped at a restaurant,... the office, as the driver called it. Yucky tourist smokers chased us to wait outside after we got our ticketing situation straightened out and booked a return trip for 130,000 Rp per person. Turns out to have been a good decision, the trips to Kuta, Bali cost 175,000 Rp if you book them from the Islands. Nick and I bought some cheapo sunglasses and we all rolled onto the ferry.

The ferry ride lasted about four hours. There was a sun deck where I found a shady spot and napped for some time, and write from some time, and listened to music for some time. It was a super relaxing ride. Lots of tourists were getting burned in the suns. Silly Bules. We pulled into the bay where the ferry was to land and started doing 360's. The ferry spun in circles about 6 times. WTF? turns out the other ferry hadn't left the terminal yet and our ferry had to try to keep its position in the harbor channel. Since the ferry can't just engage the sideways propeller it was circle spinning for a while. It all ended up making sense.

Off into a touristy bus with some goofy German guys who kept goofily yelling "Apa Kabar" (What's Up) out the window... We got some big smiles :) There was a stop halfway through the Lombok trip where we could take a potty break and buy some snacks... instead of those options be busted out a Hacky Sack and started kicking that and had a great time incorporating one or two of the guys who were working for the transport company. It was fun and a great break from being wedged into a little tiny van seat. But the fun dream head to end and we were wedged once again, this time to be caught in the traffic caused by a parade. Travel day getting longer than expected. Once we got past the parade we did happen upon a monkey forest. Those fatties were just sitting at the side of the road watching the cars go by, waiting for someone to feed them. Rock on, monkeys.

After an eternity we finally got to Bangsal for the ferry, the last segment of our trip to Gili Air. Things were a bit confusing when we got there but after some asking around we found the boat that we needed and had a nice 20 minute ride to the island. Some girl almost sent this bag porter for a swim when she couldn't find where her wallet was as the boat was leaving. The porter guy was up to his chest in the water by the time she squeezed some money into his fist. It struck me as odd that the boat driver didn't wait for him... it all made sense later though. I'll write about it in the departure from the Gilis a few days later.

Once on Gili Air there was a lot of pressure to take a horse cart to our accommodation. We declined as we'd been sitting all day and wanted to carry our stuff for a small distance. There was a local soccer game that we watched for a while before we made our way to Gili Air Santay, the bungalows that were were going to be staying at for the next few nights. On the way we passed a lot of cute little open beach front restaurants. Each one had a different assortment of fresh fish displayed on a little table out front. Mhhhhh... We were gonna be eating like kings.

We checked into our little bungalow. 2 mosquito netted beds and a porch with a hammock. What more could you ask for. The tap water tasted of salt. On a small island like this it's probably difficult to get non-salty water out of the ground. We wandered off to a cure restaurant and had some fish curry and a grilled fish. The fish was probably a good amount for 2 people and cost only 60,000 Rp. Wow, a large fresh grilled fish with side dishes for $7. That kicked ass. We were to have a different fish every evening that we were on the island. Always from that day's catch. Yum. Then we slept.

Sunday August 19 brought the chill island life. Sleeping in. A chill pineapple pancake breakfast. Some snorkeling. We didn't see anything too special. One interesting thing is that up the coast there were some warm and some cold sections in the water. The warm sections were super churned up but were really piss warm. JoJo gave an audible shudder when she passed back into the cold zone. It happened over half a body length. Incredible how the two types of water stay separate.

We took a leisurely walk around the island. It took maybe two hours. We saw these little swarm of fish that were chased by bigger fish. All the little ones would take to all jumping in the air over and over creating this seemingly boiling spot in the water. It was fun to watch. I accidentally dropped my camera's polarizer filter into the water after turning it the wring way to adjust it. Luckily no water got between the two layers of glass and now I have learned the lesson never to turn the front piece in the direction that unscrews the threads that hold the filter on. Very important. On pavement that would have been a $70 mistake.

We booked a snorkeling trip by boat for the next day (60,000 Rp per person) and cruised on the the Star Bar that Johanna had run by getting her exercise that morning. They had a happy hour. The savings weren't extreme but it was fun to sit around and have a few froofy drinks. The bartender put on some reggae for me. How did he know? Then it was off to find some dinner. We ate some Red and some White-ish fish. They told us Black and White Snapper but I learned later that the locals don't really know the English names of all the fish, so they just call it [Color of Fish] Snapper. We stayed at the table a long time and payed Hearts, one of the guys at the restaurant gifted us a little smoky smoke. The tobacco mix ain't the greatest thins wasn't the best but it was a nice gesture.

Monday August 20 we went on the snorkel tour with a boat. It started at 9:30 and we were soon in the water dicing with sea turtles off the coast of Gili Meno... or was it Gili Trawangan, I forget now. It was sweet to see the turtles. Unfortunately my sinuses/ear is still clogged so I can't get pressure equalized for deeper dives so I was doing a lot of snorkeling on the surface and not a lot of diving to chill with the turtles. Oh well. We hit an unremarkable dive site before stopping for lunch at Gili Meno where we were quickly surrounded by guys seeling us various trinkets. Go Away. Trying to eat. I did cave and bought a bracelet from one dude but I put him through hell trying to pick just the right one out of his bunch. Moo. I felt like a cow being shuttled around with all the other Bules. We did two more snorkel sites after lunch. One of them was a repeat of what we had done off the shore the day before. Uhm, great. They told us they were going to be feeding Nemo fish but it ended up no being Nemo fish at all. They made a big swarm of these medium sized stiped fish by putting a bunch of soaked bread rinds in the water. It was fun, but Nemo fish they were not. Grrr, false advertising ;)

That afternoon we were all pooped and just lazied around a lot. We had Red Snapper for dinner and stuck around and played cards. The waiters at the restaurant ended up being the guys who were our snorkel guides and we hung out and drank rice with with them until late. Nice welcoming people here. Great Vibe. They made me play some guitar. Damn I'm rusty.

Tuesday August 21 Johanna woke up sick. Boo. She read for most fo the day while Nick and I chilled out and had lunch. I went for a walk and collected some sea shells and made a little bit of beach art with coral pieces. High tide was to erase it soon and I didn't have my camera on me. Too bad. That happened to me once before that I made a cool pattern on a beach and then had no camera to document it with. Wishing I was Goldsworthy but I'm not. By the evening Johanna was well enough to go for a walk to see the sunset on the other side of the island. There were these cool spindly star fish all over the shallow water and I probably stepped on a few of them trying to get out to the little sand bar to take some photos from a different perspective. Sorry, little critters.

Nick and I got dinner at the same place as we went the night before. This time we ate Leather Jacked Fish and some squid with prawn for appetizer. All out. It was our last evening there so we had to live it up. We sat around and hung out with the guys running the place again. The owner was making fun of French people and their accent when speaking English. He told us of this one time when he was cooking and his server came to the kitchen saying that he had gotten an order for a Pineapple and Onion crepe. What? He sent the server back to verify. Yes, Pineapple and Onion... he made it and a few minutes later a Frenchman was cursing "What the 'ell is this?" Turns out he wanted Pineapple and Honey but could neither say Honey nor could he understand the Indonesian saying Onion back to him. The restaurant owner did a great imitation of the French accent. Right on the money. Priceless.

Wednesday August 22 was another travel day back to Raja Gardens in Seminyak on Bali. We got up at 6:45, got some breakie in us, paid (180,000 Rp a night) and were ready to take our horse cart across the island at 7:30. The boat didn't leave until 8:15 so we had plenty of time to relax on the other side. When we got over to Bangsal, the port on Lombok things got confusing. The horse cart guys were trying to charge too much for a 1km ride. No one told us where to catch our continuing ride. We ended up being suckered into waiting outside this dingy restaurant until we realized we had to walk to where the horse cart guys were taking people. In the tour boo it talked about sort of a Mafia in that area where the locals won't let the buses any closer to the port than the parking lot and then tried to extort rides out of all the tourists with luggage. Didn't work on us though it did confuse us for a while. We were later told that there are routine fights between travelers and the locals. I can believe it, they were trying to take us all for suckers and I got really pissy and defensive at anyone who approached me. It's just some people trying to make their way in the world.They see all these rich people rolling through on these tour bus companies and they want to get their slice of the pie. It sucks that it has to be done in such a negative manner. Seems like it would be a much better experience to charge a flat port tax or something,.. but then the free-for-all hustle of the horse carts wouldn't pay off for the horse cart guys because the tax would probably go to a school or something. I'm not sure how to solve it. It sucked.

In the halfway stop we played hacky sack with the transport company guy again. He greeted us with a big smile.

On the ferry I met a guy who barely got there in time to get on. He had taken the regular local transport. Bemos and such. It took about an hour longer but all in all his trip to the Gili Islands from Bali probably cost about half of what we paid. Fine if you've got no schedule to keep and want adventure. I might have done it his way had I been by myself but we were trying to minimize travel time so we paid a bit more. On this ferry there was a lot less space. Part was because they didn't have the roof be a sun deck. Part of the problem was that there was a mattress section inside that they charged 20,000 Rp to rent a mattress in and a VIP section that they charged 25,000 Rp per person to enter. F that. We sat outside in the dirt and played hearts for the trip.

The transfer to the bus to Kuta was smooth. We ended up paying the driver an extra 40,000 Rp to take us to Seminyak and we were back at Raja Gardens.
Actually, we bargained the driver to 30,000 Rp but paid him 40,000 Rp. The Ali principle, but while keeping your own integrity of not being a sucker. I know what the ride is worth, I'm choosing to pay you more.

We dropped out stuff in the rooms and beelined for Zula, the yummy vegetarian restaurant. We split a Mediterranean Platter. It kicked ass. It really did.

Johanna and Nick were leaving the next day. That must have been in my head. The next day I woke up having dreamed about being back at work wondering why I hadn't gone to Australia and SE Asia. Hmmm... I sure home I'm still going to those places...