Sunset

It was only on our last afternoon that we realised we hadn't left a 200m stretch of sand around the harbour since we arrived. Accordingly, at 4pm we set off from Rawa Indah cottages in the opposite direction to the usual.

Over the past few days we'd all been harbouring not-so-secret desires to pack up our lives back home, buy a little beachfront plot, and open a small hotel or bar, lazing our days away on the beach with a cold Bintang in hand. These dreams were somewhat crushed by the discovery of three abandoned hotels on the west coast of the island, all clearly backed by some serious money, all now sporting some serious spiderwebs.


We later found out that the land had been bought from the local chief, but the government didn't agree and kicked the owners off. Apparently Indonesian property law is as murky as the long-unused pools at the hotels...

It was about 30 minutes up the coast that we came across Diana Bar, a roughly built collection of three huts on stilts overlooking the channel between Meno and Gili Trawangan.

















The decision to stop was made in short order, and we climbed the rickety ladder to a platform above the bar, where a low table and cushions were laid out, and a hammock swung lazily from two posts, just waiting for us. We ordered a few Bintangs and settled in to watch the sun set over Gili T.


The menu was so appealing we realised we hadn't brought enough money, and as the last red glows faded over the the sea, Leigh and Liam decided to head home and collect their cash. Luckily, there were a few old bikes leaning nonchalantly against a tree, which the bar owners turned out to be willing to lend to their customers, so off the two of them rode.

Meanwhile, the sun, which had been snickering behind its hand, not quite finished yet, suddenly exploded over the landscape, painting everything a deep red. Poor Leigh and Liam!


We waited for them... and waited... and waited... Just as Cait and I were getting a little worried (Robyn was more easygoing), two dark shapes emerged out of the darker shapes of the trees. They'd ridden around the entire island, in the dark, negotiating deep and silent sand piles and an unknown path to get back to us! Their food was cold, but enjoyed with relish anyway, while we boasted about the amazing post-sunset sunset - they'd been around the other side by then.

It was such a pleasant spot, we sat for hours playing cards and drinking our last Bintangs ever.

Night was fully entrenched by the time we ventured down to the ground again and made our way home, heading the other way round the island so we could see a little more of the place we'd stayed in for days. It was a lovely walk - the north-western side was much less developed than the east, with expansive resorts hiding in the thickets, and a couple of restaurants dotted here and there on the beach. We all agreed though that the estimate that's commonly given (of one hour to round the entire island) is a lie...

Island

It was straight onto the beach and into the sea for us then, a lovely blue-green sea with a slight swell, warm and clear. Heavenly!

We colonised a beach gazebo at the optimum distance for the beers to reach us cold from the restaurant's fridge, and there we stayed until after dark, when, our bellies filled with nasi goreng, we returned to our rooms. We'd requested an extra mattress in our room - there being three girls sharing a double bed - but the owner didn't seem willing, so eventually we just asked for an extra room. Occupancy was decided by the traditional Korean method: Rock Paper Scissors, and Leigh won the extra room to herself. The salt-water showers didn't leave us feeling like the cleanest bodies in the world, but we went to bed tired and happy anyway. At about 10pm, Cait and I were woken up by Leigh whispering at our window: she'd just found a scorpion in her bed! We all agreed it was best to just kill it, and for the next ten minutes listened to Leigh's shoe as it thumped the wall in pursuit. Things eventually went quiet, but in the morning, considering the location off the beach and the slightly unclean feel of the place, as well as the deadly insects in the beds, we all decided it was best to leave. We hoisted our packs onto our backs and went off down the beach in search of something cleaner and prettier, and found it in Rawa Indah, a collection of sweet cottages, fronted with airy verandahs and strung with shells and coral. The owner was Austrian, so no concerns about cleanliness!


We'd made plans to snorkel that morning so we headed back down the beach to Gili Meno's Turtle Sanctuary.


Run by Bolong, a wiry, 30-something islander, it's just a collection of rubber pools and old baths shaded by thatch in which turtles of varying ages doze on top of each other. Bolong pays islanders to bring turtle eggs to him instead of eating them; he carefully stores them and, when they hatch, protects the babies until they're about 8 months old, when he releases them into the sea. It's his one-man stand against the rapid decline of hawksbill and green turtles around Lombok. He told us they decimated more than 10kg of fish a day, and with no formal funding, he relies on tourists using his boat, or donating money for a chance to release an adult turtle, so we decided to contribute to the cause and go on a snorkelling trip. It was a tough decision...

Bolong's boat was a traditional one, but with two glass panels in the bottom, which made the trip all the more exciting. Because of his expertise in turtles he took us straight out to a point right on the edge of the reef where we almost immediately saw a green turtle lazily flapping his way through the deep water. As we swam, we were protected to our left by a coral wall; to the right, the waters descended into blue darkness and were a little scary! I saw about five turtles swimming, and another two on the surface after I'd exhausted myself and was sitting on the boat. We also went to a shallow reef, bustling with parrotfish, anemone fish, and unknown bright purple and blue flashes of life.

I could have stayed for the rest of the day, but my stomach was grumbling about having missed breakfast in the hurry of moving and being on time for Bolong, so we returned to the island for lunch.

The next two days we spent in a heady daze of beach lounging, napping on sunloungers, and reading books - especially hard for me, who had an exhausting selection of beautiful new books to choose from, thanks to lovely Liam and Robyn.

We had fresh grilled fish one night, selected from a table of the day's catch, a man lazily fanning the bugs away with a palm leaf.

We ate on a big deck above the sand, the waves gently washing the shore.

Another night we decided to have a cocktail at the only real bar on the island. Our barman started off on good barman terms, but the terms rapidly got awkward. He told us of the dire shortage of women on the island, and that he "wants Western girls, but they're too tall", so at least he "has imagination." "I do this," he says, reaching down below the counter and grinning, sending my mind into overdrive before his hand comes up with a sketch, actually rather good, of a naked woman. Every night, he says, he draws "pretty women", and his masterpiece, an oil painting, brought out from the back of the bar... well, let's just say that up close it looked rather indecent, but from further away, he kept telling us to step back... it looked even more indecent.

Another time we sat on a deck watching lithe children leaping around in the shallows, hitching rides on boats for a short way, laughing uproariously when the boats picked up speed and the slippery poles gently slid the brown arms back into the water.

Slightly further out, fishermen stood with bare torsos and straw hats, working their nets calmly and methodically, sometimes calling out to friends passing by on boats.

It was a time of rest, of calm reflection. At night we lay on our beds and listened to gecko songs - surprisingly loud for such a pale, small thing. During the day we tried our hardest to be true layabouts, but the beaches were shared with islanders carrying treasures for sale - rich cloths and lengths of ikat, turquoise bracelets and pearl necklaces, fabric hammocks and stone boxes, bowls of fresh fruit, which they'd expertly slice up for you there and then.

The Lombok pearls were bewitching; strings of gorgeously imperfect circles, shining white and demure cream, cloudy blue, and the daring, strong black. My first day I got gloriously ripped off by a long-haired man called, rather romantically, Peace. It was okay though - I think of it as a tip for having such an engaging personality. And in international terms, even the most expensive pearls were unbelievably cheap. So cheap that I checked every purchase with fire and bites, leading one man to comment, when Robyn also bit hers, "it's great to sell pearls to people who really know the real from the fake." Mmm. That one had a good selling technique: shameless flattery.

Robyn turned out to be the negotiating superstar - not as weak as Leigh and I, who felt bad going what we thought was too low. She wasn't perfect though: she bought one item for three times the price Leigh later bought it for... oh how we laughed! (No, not really... well, maybe a little...)

Boat

Sitting on this breezy verandah, seashell chimes gently clinking, my feet framing a turquoise sea a few metres away, I can't quite wrap my mind around the fact that I am here.

It's been a long journey...

Just hours after descending the mountain, and a full eleven hours after waking up (!) we'd packed our bags, said our goodbyes to Made, and clambered into Guntur's van for the short drive to Padangbai, the port where we were to catch a slow boat to the Gili Islands. All going well, we'd be sipping cocktails on the beach by 7pm. "All going well." Loaded phrase that. Using it seems to alert the god of bad karma to your situation, and he spends the next few hours working out how he can best screw you over. Of course, we arrived in Padangbai to discover that the Perama boat was cancelled for the next two days due to "technical difficulties". Options are limited between Bali and the Gilis, so I was slightly worried reporting back to the others. My panic was exacerbated by the loud and obnoxious man shouting at me that he had a cheap option for us, Rp250,000 only, no, Rp 200,000, special price for you, really really! We tried to discuss it amongst ourselves but he kept thrusting his head in the car windows and shouting. His deal sounded excellent and he promised to have us in Gilis by sundown - and no other company could promise that without the use of one of the very expensive fast boats. Of course, this promise is what made me doubt him - I'm African, I've learnt that nothing is that easy, and if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. We asked Guntur for his advice, but he was typically Indonesian, just as he had been during other situations in our time here. Despite being scrupulously honest himself, he couldn't bring himself to interfere in another Indonesian's chance to rip us off. He, in his careful manner, simply told us it should be fine, and we, trusting Guntur, agreed with the obnoxious man on Rp200,000 each. It was only then, round the back of the car, that Guntur quietly told me to take good care of the ticket I'd been given and not to relinquish it to anyone until we were safely on the second boat to the islands (the laborious route we'd bought involved a public ferry to Lembar on Lombok, a private bus to Bangsal in the northwest, then a private boat to Gili Meno.) The public ferry was due to leave in 10 minutes; I looked up from my talk with Guntur to see four young men with Obnoxious Man grabbing our bags from the car and setting off at a fast pace toward the port, so I quickly said goodbye and thanks, and raced after them, dodging traffic and pushing our way past the ticket collectors onto the ramp.

On the passenger level we managed to find a narrow bench to dump our bags onto, then suddenly, Obnoxious Man's Obnoxious Youths started clamouring "$5 each bag!" while O.M leant in to me and said "You pay porter now." We refused to pay so much for a 2-minute walk that hadn't been agreed upon, and suddenly things turned nasty. Everyone was shouting, I was offering a more than reasonable amount and a guy snatched it from me. One of them even tried to appeal to Liam - "Talk to your women! They're being mean!" Leigh and I yelled that there was no further discussion, we were not paying that much, everyone on the boat was staring and I really thought we were in serious trouble. Then I turned to O.M., held out the ticket and snapped "Give us our money back, we're getting off this ferry." And he turned on his heel, lifted his hands, and walked off the boat. As if he'd been the head honcho and had just said "You're on your own, guys", the porters' protestations instantly became half-hearted and then melted away altogether in the face of such stony resistance from Leigh and I, and they slunk off. We collapsed onto our bench, shaking with anger and fear, and opened up Robyn's chocolate, in need of some sugar.

Our first introduction to an Indonesian ferry, ladies and gents, and the first time on our trip that the island's hospitality had failed. It was dismal. I had assumed the men were hired by O.M. and that we'd have to do no more than tip them a reasonable amount, but they assumed we were rich Westerners, they got greedy, and I hate greedy people...

Our minds and mouths started working and we decided we'd just been duped out of $100 for ferry tickets that would have cost us $3.50 each had we bought them on our own. We'd just been so worried and O.M. had been so insistent, and it all happened so fast. We put it down to a learning experience.

We had ringside seats facing out over the water. At our backs was an indoor section with two large decks on which entire families were settling down to sleep. Towards the front there was a small kiosk. We didn't have much time to take it in: the moment the men left, we were besieged by women who wanted to sell us cigarettes, fruit and dried banana chips. A woman who could have doubled for a typical African mama won the war and we bargained with her for some chips and cigarettes to see us through the journey. O.M. had told us we'd be in the Gilis in 5 hours, but I knew the ferry to Lembar alone would take that. We settled in for the duration.

Sunset was reddening the sea by the time the ferry ambled into Lembar Harbour, and we walked off the ramp amongst the cars and buses in darkness.


















Taking out our ticket for a rather dispirited look at the company's name, I was startled by the shout of a young man who was - oh miracle of miracles - holding a bunch of identical tickets, and who confirmed that there was, indeed, a minivan waiting for us! There was a long moment of silence among the group out of pure shock, as well as a bit of guilt for having spent the last 5 hours talking about how we could report O.M. for fraud! Unfortunately, though, we'd arrived too late for the boat to the Gilis so we had to spend a night in Sengiggi, an hour's drive up the coast of Lombok.

On arrival we chose the cheapest hotel we could find, and boy did we get it. The entrance, down a dirty alley, says it all.


We were woken up by the neighbouring mosque's prayer call at 4am, but that was okay. Having to buy our own toilet paper was a bit odd, but never mind. Even sleeping almost on top of each other was bearable. But the filth! We couldn't even walk into the bathroom without shoes on! None of us used our blankets and sheets, but spread out our kikoyis instead - my sheet even had old, dark stains on it... It felt like an ancient, small-town, Zimbabwean motel. We were so pleased to get out of there the following morning, we didn't even wait for breakfast!

It was on the trip to Bangsal Harbour that I realised something. Bali is a Hindu island, but it's an anomaly in the 17,000 islands of the Indonesian archipelago. Lombok is new territory for me, my first visit to an Islamic country, run primarily under Sharia law. There are still small Hindu temples dotted around, but the household temples and roadside shrines of Bali were now replaced by large, unwalled, beautiful mosques, shining white with lovely glass windows set high up, and intricate archways.

Bangsal Harbour wasn't nearly as bad as I'd expected - just a bare waiting room, women selling fruit and vegetables outside, and a long view over the sea.















From Bangsal Harbour we caught a private boat. The three islands were now clearly visible from land, three low-lying drops of land edged in white and turquoise. We couldn't wait to just get out there!


The boat ride was rough, with high waves that drenched us and treated us for free to Alton Towers Theme Ride-type drops. We passed Gili Air (confusingly, "air" means "water" in Bahasa Indonesian).

Gili Meno's "harbour" was really just a strip of beach where our boatman moored the boat to a wooden peg in the sand, and we jumped into the shallow waves to wade ashore. We walked 50m along the beach to find that the beachside huts I'd wanted to stay in were full, but a man offered us two rooms further inland for half the price so we followed him to his plain concrete cottages, staying just long enough to dump our bags. Our journey from Bali had taken 23 hours.