Turtles... again...

You know how turtles are one of only three animals with a crystal lodged in their brains so they always know east from west? And how they're so smart they return to the beach they were born on thirty years later, despite only having seen it for a few moonlit minutes in the dash for the sea? And how the clever little babies just know to head for the moon when they hatch because it'll lead them to the ocean? Don't believe all the hype.

We arrived on Selingan Island mid-morning, and after the usual talk from the tour guide, decided to head for the beach. Shortly thereafter, squeals of delight were heard from atop the dune, where we, too, soon saw tiny blue heads poking up out of sand, as an army of baby turtles came charging towards the sea. Even the existence of an arrogant Aussie man who persisted in holding his camera 5cm from their noses and walking backwards to get his shot, did little to lessen the sheer delight I felt in seeing this for the first time (seeing them released from a hatchery is simply not the same.) 

Soon the army thinned and then stopped entirely as the last, awkward, little tanks reached the water and transformed into graceful sea creatures, raising their heads now and then to get their bearings. We all knew that we might have increased the survival rate by as much as ten-fold simply by being around, keeping predators at a distance - one case in which I believe (and I'm sure there are many who disagree) human intervention is okay - in a way, it's just making up for the negative intervention: plastic bags in the ocean, polluted waters, brightly-lit island resorts... (and on, and on, and on...)

But the true test hadn't yet arrived. I walked to the back edge of the beach to see if I could spot the now empty nest. From the dune forest I heard the sudden grunt and rustle of a monitor lizard, and as my eyes adjusted to the relative gloom, I realised that half the babies were still stuck in the forest, blindly flapping away from the short, and being picked off by a huge monitor lizard and his small minions... What to do? Baby turtles are endangered, monitor lizards are not. A fellow visitor said she'd been told, "If you have to touch them to save them, do it." Basically you can leave them to die in the forest, or you can at least give them a fighting chance in the sea. So in we charged, hauling out soft little bodies from the leaf debris and entangled roots, and passing them out like a bucket chain to the sand. I told the lizard to back off, and he did, though I admit it may have been the wild eyes and waving arms rather than any true sense of conscience. An Italian angrily told me to let nature take its course, but I explained they were dying in the forest, and another guest explained that we were carrying out the instructions of the rangers, of course a much more knowledgeable source than a holidaymaker, and he quietened down. He was wearing Speedos, anyway, and it's hard to take a middle-aged man in Speedos seriously.

When we'd helped all the babies we could find, and the forest floor was free of all rustlings but the ones of a pissed-off monitor lizard, and we were back on the beach, the guilt kicked in. Apart from ill-fated rescues of baby birds as a kid, this was the first time I've ever intentionally interfered in nature and touched a wild animal. Although I hate cruelty, I'm not all that sentimental about animals, and recognise the fact that all animals need to eat, even the nasty ugly ones with lots of teeth... If turtles weren't so endangered and monitor lizards so not, I wouldn't have done what I did. 

A week later, I got to talk to a marine biologist, though, and she told me I'd done absolutely the right thing.

So there.

Turtle soup and other No-Nos

We left from the jetty at Sandakan in high spirits, ready for the 45-minute journey across the Sulu Sea to Turtle Island National Park. Past the super-modern angular mosque and the pretty water village; past a Philippine cargo ship and low houseboats waving laundry like shapely flags. The headland disappeared behind us, while upfront darkness loomed - perhaps you might not have felt its looming, but as someone who feels queasy on a bridge, it loomed. Soon the rain came, spattering the water into texture, forcing the boatman to lower the canvas sides. We sat in darkness, noisy darkness, the sound of the engine filling the small space. Looking out the back, just grey sea, grey sky, and in true Sabah style our lime-green boat.

After 45 minutes, solid land started appearing again - little grey islands, dressed in grey trees and beige slices of beach. And then the air cleared a little, and the grey sea turned to bright turquoise, the coral causing dark hiccups as we slowed, and stopped, right on the beach. Someone leant a wooden stepladder against the bow and we all stepped prettily down onto the sand. Well, mostly.

Turtle Islands Park is made up of three small islands (yes, really) on which there are turtle sanctuaries (honest) and which have collectively been a national park for nearly 35 years. It lies right on the border, so that the next island you can see from the beach is Philippine. Southern Philippines. Where they still eat turtle soup, and munch on turtle eggs for breakfast. It hasn't been an altogether easy ride for Sabahan environmentalists... Pulau Selingaan, the only island with tourist access, is visited by 15 to 20 Green and Hawksbill turtles every night of the year. As we walked up the beach ot the cabins, we crossed over their curious tracks - like the tracks of a small tractor that's dragging a body behind it, say - and (repeatedly) fell into the cavernous holes that used to be nests. The reason these are holes and not nests is, of course, entirely eco-friendly: a team of rangers waits up every night, stealing the eggs as they drop from the mother turtles, and carefully reburying them in a safe hatchery, then, two months later, releasing the newborns back into the moonlit sea. It's all a terribly romantic job and reignites my 8-year-old self's desire to be a marine biologist.

One side effect of this protection is that the beach is wonderful, and only inhabited by the twenty tourists staying on the island, while the snorkelling is amazing - just a metre or so off the beach, you better pick up your feet, because otherwise a multi-hued parrotfish or a bright blue starfish is going to get you. Or, arg, one of the millions of very healthy-looking sea slugs. Really. It took me about an hour to persuade my sister to go any further than the end of the sand.

Apart from dodging the vicious little beasts, I spent the late afternoon sitting and watching herons hunt amongst the rockpools, and raucous kingfishers swoop in on unsuspecting prawns in the shallows. It's well worth a visit, even if turtles don't rock your boat. Which they do. Obviously.

So at night, after dinner and a well-made video that roundly castigates the Philippines for being such turtle-murdering meanies, we sit and wait. It's very dark outside the main building, so as not to put off the turtles, but we can see the torches of the rangers going back and forth until one cries out "Turtle!" We all grab our cameras and hurry down to where he crouches with a bucket, grabbing each soft, round egg as it falls from a 1.5 metre Green Turtle, a beautiful creature who's in a birthing trance and isn't in the slightest disturbed by the fifteen tourists oohing and aahing over this encounter with a real-life dinosaur.

The ranger watches her carefully, and as soon as she's rested he shoos us off the beach. We see a couple of other turtles in the moonlight, but only one is allowed to be disturbed each night so we let them be. Up to the hatchery where we watch the 79 eggs being re-buried in a lizard-proof hole, carefully labelled with the date, species, number of eggs, and number of clutch since January 1st - 869 clutches have been stolen and coddled so far this year. Our pleasure is somewhat reduced when the ranger tells us less than 1% of these turtles might actually reach adulthood. But it's a start.

Finally it's back down to an empty stretch of beach to watch a bucketful of babies ("...and here's one I prepared earlier!") being returned to the ocean. Almost all of them waddle frantically straight for the torchlight being shone on the water, but three head for us and I'm permitted to gently turn one around and set him off in the right direction. He's soft and grey and his flippers smack my fingers, and I just know that he's going to be one of the 1%.

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.