A Triumphant Return to Indonesia
Apr. 21st, 2023 10:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
capn_n_pyeHaving first attempted to take D’admiral and Chuckles and go visit Lombok in April 2020, we were finally ready to get it right this time.
In the last week of school, we kept waiting to come down with COVID again. We didn’t. We braced ourselves for the 6.20am Gull “Got No Friends To Take You To The Airport” Bus to break down. It didn’t.
We gloomily expected Virgin to cancel our flight after we got to Tulla. Against all likelihood, they didn’t either.
We were quite sure the woefully underpaid Virgin baggage handlers were going to send at least one of our bags to Fiji. Not this time! We thought about how that Jetstar flight one time made it to Darwin before anyone realised they didn’t have permission to land in Denpasar and they had to turn around and come back to Melbourne, and how this could be the closest we’d get to the Gili Islands. It didn’t happen!
It was, in fact, quite as smooth a flight as one could hope for, unless you count one of Stinky’s students being on the same flight, but that was actually quite funny because she almost shat herself when Pye talked directly to her. And if we circled around for ages before getting around to landing, well, at least we landed in the end.
Furthermore, D’admiral and Chuckles have a friend whose daughter works for Virgin, and she had wrangled us all exit-row seats – it was almost civilised!!
We had planned a brief stopover in Legian to hit up as many tailors as we could, so on arrival had a bit of a scout around and a reconnaissance mission to see if Bintang still tasted the same.
Spoilers: it still tastes the same, but the price has increased.
Back in the room, Moose immediately picked up a boyfriend. They got along quite well, because Moose, like the room, is all about the aesthetic and doesn’t actually function that well in real life.
We chose to stay on the same street as we had in 2016 because we hoped that every second shop would still be a tailor – and it was! I mean, yeah, okay, probably about half of them had shut down, but there were still plenty in the vicinity.
We shunned the party scene that is Legian on Easter Saturday to have the earliest night imaginable in anticipation of our orgy of orders to be made. Sure enough, we were ready to go before even the earliest of tailors had wandered into their shops. Fuelled on three years of pent-up frustration and ideas, we cut sick. There were suits to order, there were shirts! There were broken zippers in tops we couldn’t be bothered replacing that needed to be rectified! There was length after length of batik to be fashioned into tops! Most creepily, there was a pair of probably-not-possessed puppet dolls wearing Chinese clothing that needed to beyassified Indonesian-ising. The puppet was more than happy to be included.
The Chosen Tailor was immediately on board and were downright giggling by the end – they noted him down as ‘the child’ and promised to take good care of him (and promised that they had milk at home for him and that he wasn’t out of a horror movie, despite what Stinky says about him).
The puppets shall now be named Om Zam and Tante Sinda in their honour. Stay tuned for the finished product…
All that shopping is thirsty work for those unaccustomed to the tropical heat, and given the demographic of customers in Legian (and the plague attrition rate), we found ourselves gracing more sports bars in 24 hours than our entire lives up until this point. We liked the bit where a cicak (a lil lizard) drew Stinky’s attention when he scampered down into the wall-mounted offering…
… which meant she was watching when a fat rat shouted “THAT’S MY CUE!”, sidled in doing high kicks, and grabbed a choice bit of offering, before shimmying up the wall and pissing off out to share his snacks with Vishnu or whoever. Moose was enchanted and, quite frankly, envious.
No rats were in evidence when we then dashed to go stock up on books and dictionaries at Gramedia, but there were children as young as three nominally in charge of a vehicle in the mall.
Alas, Stinky stopped recording before the kid pranged it into the wall (gently), but this is just the sort of great shit you don’t get at Westfield.
The next day we were up as early as can be to shoot through and visit the neighbours. Garuda has apparently stopped or limited flights from Denpasar, and since we have no desire to die on any one of Indonesia’s budget airlines, our next best option was a fast boat.
It was a noisy and at times bumpy boat, but it was what it said on the box. You’re allowed up on the top, but given the rain and the wind, that was a less engaging option than the inside seats.
After a few hours, we had zoomed past the island our plane had endlessly circled, were across the Wallace Line and at Gili Trawangan, the largest of the three Gill Islands (‘gili’ is a local dialect word for ‘island’, so who wouldn’t love to visit the Island islands?). There are no cars (or motorbikes, or dogs) on the island, which means everyone either walks around, borrows a bike, or jumps in a cidomo. It’s a tough life!
Incidentally, it was during this trip that we learned that ‘cidomo’ is a combo of ‘cikar’, ‘dokar’, and ‘mobil’, which means nothing to anyone else, but we found delightful (the ‘mobil’ part is apparently for the car tyres they have).
Chuckles’ and Pye’s cidomo got a head start but was swiftly overtaken by D’admiral and Stinky’s (Pye believes they cheated). Here we have us simultaneously failing to get a good photo of the other’s cidomo…
…and here we have Stinky doing a great job trying to get everyone in shot (the driver is standing in for D’admiral).
Despite being the biggest gili, Gili Trawangan is still about the size of a postage stamp. Indonesia has so many volcanos that most beaches end up with black sand, but not Gili T!
It’s sexy and it knows it. It’s also crammed to the gills (gilis?) with hotels and beach-based tourist opportunities, because of course it is. Oh, and also check out this cool beetle on a waru (magnolia) tree!
Our hotel was much classier than our lil Legian stopover, and was also in the business of making the most of its beachfront. And our hotel was really into punk, just look at its hair. Oh, what a tough life!
Of course it started bucketing down rain just as we were finally ready to get in the pool, but what else would we expect?
Instagrammers and other people who like sunsets enjoy hanging out on Gili T’s west coast to watch the sun set over the water, Bali and Gunung Agung – we’re sure it’s great, if you can spot the sun, that is (or the volcano!).
Oh no, now we have to hang around and drink beer waiting for the sky to change, oh such woe! Moose demanded a glass of wine, he is getting very big for his boots.
People seem to love getting on a wee horsie and trotting along the beach a bit (not unlike the toddlers in the Bali Galleria Mall, actually…).
… and we watched an oil rig being towed somewhere…
The really nice skies actually happened after the sun snuck away unobserved – look, the oil rig turned into a party boat!
Apart from the venues that decided what everyone needed was to hear dance music remixes of songs blasted at 11, it was so pretty on the beach that we stayed there for dinner, too. Didn’t do any ‘shrooms, though (not for want of the opportunity lol).
Gili T’s beauty isn’t just on the surface, there’s a lot to enjoy under the sea too. It’s practically a legal requirement that all visitors must take to the sea at their earliest opportunity, and we are very law-abiding people. Whee!
Off we go!
You don’t have to get far off the coast at all to find lots of coral reefs, lots of fishies and turtles, which is a lovely bonus for those of us who hate being on boats. The coral has seen better days in many patches, but the sheer quantity of it is staggering. D’admiral got all the best pictures, on account of being cool enough to get down a bit closer…
Mind you, Pye spotted this heart…
…and this squishy boi who appears to be trying to grow a swastika..? This is odd because Lombok and the Gili Islands are predominantly Muslim and the swastika is (famously) an ancient religious and cultural symbol of the Hindus.
… in other news, we all noticed that apparently scuba divers’ bubbles appear pink!
But before you could say, “Well, isn’t that pretty!” a big fat green turtle cruised by to capture our attention.
Pye was stalking him pretty efficiently and was right over the top when she saw two big bombs exit his bum. “Oh no!” she thought, “I’m about to eat a cloud of turtle shit!”
Happily (and educationally) she was able to observe that turtle poo doesn’t float. Learning is fun! Speaking of butts, Stinky liked this marine bum – nature is so beautiful!
Alas, a couple of the spots we stopped at were also wildly popular with the dominant species on the island, namely wannabe influencers. Bless them, they really added to our cheeky bum count for this holiday (it should be noted here that the current fashion is to have hungry-bum bathers, so it’s not like we’re hunting for bare bottoms, they are just endemic in the region).
Our second last stop was above the wreck of a big pontoon that was scuppered long enough ago to have apparently moved from ‘environmental disaster’ status to ‘excellent draw for divers’. They seemed to be having a splendid time down there, and the dive dudes from the tour had fun showing off how clever they are at free diving…
…while those of us just using the surface of the water enjoyed trying to catch their bubbles while looking at a plethora of fish – it was like being inside an overstocked aquarium! Or a screensaver. Or a TV in a dentist’s waiting room…
Not far away is an example of one of Indonesia’s favourite things – shoving some art in a pretty spot so that people will come and take photos with it! In another iconically Indonesian move, our boat left the scuba divers to go drop us off, and then left us there and buggered off back to get the scuba lads. At least they came back for us!
Anyway, this particular piece is a group of statues apparently all cuddling their special someone while staring at each other.
It all looks very atmospheric and cool in photos and it definitely comes up well on Instagram – as long as you time your shot, that is…
It was like a traffic jam – which is another Indonesian icon, so it's probably appropriate. It was pretty funny to watch the girls try and get down there for their pose cos you can’t really get down there without providing a full snatch show lol!
Conclusion: we liked the bits with the fish and turtles better.
But we did make friends with Audrey and Jerry, a nice pair from Ireland. As we got off the boat at the end of the day, Jerry said, “Not to sound too Irish, but who wants to get a beer?” Not to sound too Australian, of course we did, although we chose not to go to one of the two Irish pubs that are on Gili Trawangan.
We really should have, though, so we could have measured how big they are, so then we could do the maths on what percentage of this 15km2 island is Irish pub. It was a very big day, so a cidomo ride back to the hotel for a rest was very welcome. Thank you, horsie!
As our sunburn from the day became obvious (and infuriating, on account of how we had conscientiously reapplied between each snorkel, much to the benign bafflement of our Korean, Indonesian and Indian boat-mates), we enjoyed our reward of another beer and sunset on the beach…
… nominating D’admiral as Captain Singaraja (sorry for the demotion)…
… while Chuckles got artistic with the tree and the night sky…
… and Mars popped up to say hi.
We had a day at leisure the next day (very unlike us), and who could dare call themselves a person if they didn’t explore more of an island than the beach out the front of the hotel? There are enough bicycles for hire on the island that each visitor could have three each, but we had a plan to walk around the northern tip of the island (where the road becomes a sandy track), and anyway, bike riding doesn’t look all that comfortable.
(“That bike has chlamydia and now so do you”)
The pretty white-beach coastline is a repeating line of bars, hotels and dive shops, and oh yeah, this goat.
Moose was delighted to find a pair of stuffed brethren waiting on one beach – he was getting a bit bored with all the humans.
Although, on the other hand, he was devastated that the pirate-themed hotel had shut down.
He tried to comfort himself by posing aesthetically in a carefully crafted context so that he could try and make people on the internet feel envious…
The paparazzi went wild!
Chuckles gave it a go for herself but didn’t really see the appeal.
It should have come as no surprise to find that the weather was ridiculously hot, so what a happy coincidence it was that there was a proliferation of picturesque spots to stop for rehydration at the very tippy-top of the island.
Sadly, while they look pretty, those chairs were wildly uncomfortable (see: aesthetic over function, ah ha ha ha). Still, we stared out to sea and did our best to spot the southern tip of Kalimantan (spoilers: the curvature of the Earth got in the way).
In the north of the island, cashed-up travellers give way to unwashed backpackers, souvenirs, and even more snorkelling/diving providers. Oh, and places to rehydrate!
We decided that cutting back across through the middle was clever rather than trying to circumnavigate the whole island (Pye insisted on referring to this choice as ‘circumcising’ the island, but was rightfully ignored). Somehow this meant the gentle stroll of a couple of kilometres we had initially intended turned into about 5km instead whoops.
Somewhere in the middle there, Stinky found a stray bell for Chuckles’ bell collection. Then Chuckles spotted the gap on a cidomo! Thanks to the blinkers, the horse didn’t notice we kept it.
Speaking of blinkers, why do the cidomo horses wear blinkers? It’s so they don’t see the man getting the money for sitting there, instead of the horse who does all the work!
We were as hot and sweaty as a pack of horses that need to unionise by the end of our walk, but in another stunningly useful coincidence, there was a pool right there!
We love a good swim-up bar, and guess what, they’ll serve you food there too! We had no choice but to have lunch in the pool – something that in all their 71 years, D’admiral and Chuckles had never done before.
Pye thought it would be hilarious to order chicken chowder, because nothing could be funnier than eating a soup while sitting in the soup of a swimming pool, but was again cruelly ignored.
We so rarely do nothing on a holiday that lying around doing nothing is quite the novelty.
We didn’t stay in the pool too long, YOU stayed in the pool too long.
From Gili T it was thence to Lombok proper. The island put on a thunderstorm all morning, so we didn’t even have to feel bad about doing more nothing before checking out. It bucketed down the whole way across to Lombok (via a speedy lil boat, 10/10 would recommend), confiscating all the usual views of neighbouring volcanoes and delightful coastlines. We had to wait till lunchtime before Mt Agung showed its face again!
It was also aesthetically pleasing from our hotel and Moose got all pensive staring out at the view…
The hotel is another splendid example of what your money can get you in Indonesia. Everything was very beautiful, but the place is huge, and they’ve spread everything out along winding, disorienting paths – we like to call it ‘Melbourne Zoo’ing it’, they’ve definitely made the most of the space, but it’s hard to know where the hell you are or where you’re going!
When we escaped the grounds, we decided to take our laundry for a walk (Rp80.000,- for the lot vs Rp9.000,- per pair of knickers). We got about five metres from the gate when a helpful chap called Abdul asked what we were doing, clutched his pearls at the very thought that we were planning to walk for eight minutes to go to a laundry. Turns out the one we were aiming for belongs to his niece (allegedly) and he was all like, “Come on, I’ll drive you!” Then we let him take us somewhere for lunch, then back to the hotel, and he still didn’t ask for any money – we like this ‘drug dealer’ approach to picking up bule! Give ‘em the first taste for free, get ‘em hooked.
That evening Pye was very excited to catch up with one of her old students – Maddi has a scholarship to have pretty much whatever adventures she wants in Asia, and is currently a month into a four-month stint in Lombok, after eight months in Yogya. She’s an absolute legend, talks a mile a minute, great storyteller. She’s not even sick of people murmuring “Tinggi!!” (‘tall’) when they see her walk down the street!
She posted about it on her Instagram story, which then elicited the greatest comment we’ve ever seen
The next day was, on paper, a day of free time to rest or lounge by the pool. Only that’s not how we roll! Moose made friends with some of the hotel’s other guests…
…while Stinky dashed off to catch up with Bu Dayu and the leadership team at their sister school in Mataram, and the rest of the jolly crew jumped back in old mate Abdul’s car and asked him to take them to Lombok’s big fancy mall. But because of Ramadan, it was opening later than we thought, so he offered to show us some traditional weaving (songket) – who could have possibly seen an agenda coming?! Still, we were happy enough to go and check out a co-op in a village and marvel at the skill of the women who do the weaving, while at the same time proving that none of us would be able to do anywhere near as well.
And if there was a shop attached and we happened to be just so impressed with their skill that we felt inclined to pay a bunch to buy the product of their work, and if presumably Abdul gets a kickback for bringing us in – well, then, that’s all just a happy coincidence!
These startling and unforeseeable events meant that instead of wandering around the Lombok Epicentrum Mall for an hour before Stinky and Bu Dayu joined us, they got there first.
Malls during Ramadan are funny, because everyone pretends that no one will be eating at any of the eateries, and devout Muslims’ forbearance is protected by food outlets popping a curtain up so that the faithful will not be tormented by the sight of yummy forbidden snacks while shopping for their end of Ramadan clothes (everyone else who was cheating was doing it via the Lombok equivalent of UberEats).
We say ‘yummy’ forbidden snacks, but we think we might make these croffles forbidden for us too, if only because we think they would be quite terrible (mmm beef and cheese waffle croissant).
Most people weren’t at the mall for the culinary delights, it was all about buying new clothes for the end of Ramadan. Last time Stinky was there, the mall was brand new and the floor space was taken up by her students performing a dance!
The new, modern mall was actually fairly dull, with none of the whacky weird shops or amusement park stuff we used to enjoy. Moose still liked it, though.
Speaking of Moose, Bu Dayu was kind enough to ask ‘And how is your Moose?’ about half an hour before we all met up and Pye whipped Moose out for that glamour shot, ah ha ha ha, she knows what’s important! Bu Dayu took us to lunch at a Chinese-Indonesian place, while Stinky carefully tallied up just how much of the day could be now classed as a tax write-off.
Since the mall had let us down and we still had a bunch of pressies in mind, Abdul was big-hearted enough to take us to one of the giant souvenir shops beloved of domestic tourists.
Although we could get most of the products from various hawkers on the beach, we are much too lazy these days (plus the beach folk don’t give us tax deductible receipts for our classroom supplies!). D’admiral loved it!
Old mate Abdul had one more commission – er, I mean selfless suggestion – in mind, and to be fair, the man might be a certified genius. This might actually be the longest we’ve ever gone on an Indonesian holiday without getting a massage! Untenable!! Chuckles and Stinky’s snorkelling sunburn was not yet at the massage-ready stage, so they focussed the ladies’ energies on their hands, feet and faces…
… while Pye was curious to find out what a traditional massage involved. It turned out to include rather more punching and hair pulling than she is used to in a massage, so at a few moments she wasn’t sure if she was getting massaged or bullied. And the lady’s fingers might have been made out of iron rods?? Still worth it, though (unless that’s what the lady told Pye she had to say or she’d get more of the same…?)
Abdul carefully deposited us back at the hotel and left it up to us to decide how much to pay him for the day (which is exactly the sort of thing we hate, because we never know if we’re being too mean or too generous).
We discovered that D’admiral had used his time brilliantly to scout out somewhere that sells beer (convenience stores outside of Bali are not allowed to any more), and we decided to hydrate and spend a few minutes admiring the fruits of our labours. But as Stinky sat down on the bed, she felt rather strange. In fact, the whole room felt strange! Oh yeah, this is what an earthquake feels like! You can’t tell, but this view was wobbling just a bit. Earthquack!
We experienced only the mildest of wibble wobbles, but we imagine the folks near Java had a bit more difficulty – at least it was a deep one!
After such a busy day doing important things, we were up for a quiet evening eating at the hotel. But we forgot it was a Friday during Ramadan! Friday is the holiest day and the partiest night! Every man, woman, child anddog cat was at the restaurant, enjoying the stunningly loud live music – not to mention the hotel’s own special effort at light pollution
We did a bit more Instagram training for D’admiral and Chuckles…
… before we decided that we actually weren’t vibing the loud noises, but were too tired to go out on a quest for somewhere else. This led to another first for us – just order room service! Genius! If Abdul were here, we’d give him the credit.
Anyway, we needed to save our energy for the culture-laden bonanza that Stinky had lined up for us the following day. Bring it on!
In the last week of school, we kept waiting to come down with COVID again. We didn’t. We braced ourselves for the 6.20am Gull “Got No Friends To Take You To The Airport” Bus to break down. It didn’t.
We gloomily expected Virgin to cancel our flight after we got to Tulla. Against all likelihood, they didn’t either.
We were quite sure the woefully underpaid Virgin baggage handlers were going to send at least one of our bags to Fiji. Not this time! We thought about how that Jetstar flight one time made it to Darwin before anyone realised they didn’t have permission to land in Denpasar and they had to turn around and come back to Melbourne, and how this could be the closest we’d get to the Gili Islands. It didn’t happen!
It was, in fact, quite as smooth a flight as one could hope for, unless you count one of Stinky’s students being on the same flight, but that was actually quite funny because she almost shat herself when Pye talked directly to her. And if we circled around for ages before getting around to landing, well, at least we landed in the end.
Furthermore, D’admiral and Chuckles have a friend whose daughter works for Virgin, and she had wrangled us all exit-row seats – it was almost civilised!!
We had planned a brief stopover in Legian to hit up as many tailors as we could, so on arrival had a bit of a scout around and a reconnaissance mission to see if Bintang still tasted the same.
Spoilers: it still tastes the same, but the price has increased.
Back in the room, Moose immediately picked up a boyfriend. They got along quite well, because Moose, like the room, is all about the aesthetic and doesn’t actually function that well in real life.
We chose to stay on the same street as we had in 2016 because we hoped that every second shop would still be a tailor – and it was! I mean, yeah, okay, probably about half of them had shut down, but there were still plenty in the vicinity.
We shunned the party scene that is Legian on Easter Saturday to have the earliest night imaginable in anticipation of our orgy of orders to be made. Sure enough, we were ready to go before even the earliest of tailors had wandered into their shops. Fuelled on three years of pent-up frustration and ideas, we cut sick. There were suits to order, there were shirts! There were broken zippers in tops we couldn’t be bothered replacing that needed to be rectified! There was length after length of batik to be fashioned into tops! Most creepily, there was a pair of probably-not-possessed puppet dolls wearing Chinese clothing that needed to be
The Chosen Tailor was immediately on board and were downright giggling by the end – they noted him down as ‘the child’ and promised to take good care of him (and promised that they had milk at home for him and that he wasn’t out of a horror movie, despite what Stinky says about him).
The puppets shall now be named Om Zam and Tante Sinda in their honour. Stay tuned for the finished product…
All that shopping is thirsty work for those unaccustomed to the tropical heat, and given the demographic of customers in Legian (and the plague attrition rate), we found ourselves gracing more sports bars in 24 hours than our entire lives up until this point. We liked the bit where a cicak (a lil lizard) drew Stinky’s attention when he scampered down into the wall-mounted offering…
… which meant she was watching when a fat rat shouted “THAT’S MY CUE!”, sidled in doing high kicks, and grabbed a choice bit of offering, before shimmying up the wall and pissing off out to share his snacks with Vishnu or whoever. Moose was enchanted and, quite frankly, envious.
No rats were in evidence when we then dashed to go stock up on books and dictionaries at Gramedia, but there were children as young as three nominally in charge of a vehicle in the mall.
Alas, Stinky stopped recording before the kid pranged it into the wall (gently), but this is just the sort of great shit you don’t get at Westfield.
The next day we were up as early as can be to shoot through and visit the neighbours. Garuda has apparently stopped or limited flights from Denpasar, and since we have no desire to die on any one of Indonesia’s budget airlines, our next best option was a fast boat.
It was a noisy and at times bumpy boat, but it was what it said on the box. You’re allowed up on the top, but given the rain and the wind, that was a less engaging option than the inside seats.
After a few hours, we had zoomed past the island our plane had endlessly circled, were across the Wallace Line and at Gili Trawangan, the largest of the three Gill Islands (‘gili’ is a local dialect word for ‘island’, so who wouldn’t love to visit the Island islands?). There are no cars (or motorbikes, or dogs) on the island, which means everyone either walks around, borrows a bike, or jumps in a cidomo. It’s a tough life!
Incidentally, it was during this trip that we learned that ‘cidomo’ is a combo of ‘cikar’, ‘dokar’, and ‘mobil’, which means nothing to anyone else, but we found delightful (the ‘mobil’ part is apparently for the car tyres they have).
Chuckles’ and Pye’s cidomo got a head start but was swiftly overtaken by D’admiral and Stinky’s (Pye believes they cheated). Here we have us simultaneously failing to get a good photo of the other’s cidomo…
…and here we have Stinky doing a great job trying to get everyone in shot (the driver is standing in for D’admiral).
Despite being the biggest gili, Gili Trawangan is still about the size of a postage stamp. Indonesia has so many volcanos that most beaches end up with black sand, but not Gili T!
It’s sexy and it knows it. It’s also crammed to the gills (gilis?) with hotels and beach-based tourist opportunities, because of course it is. Oh, and also check out this cool beetle on a waru (magnolia) tree!
Our hotel was much classier than our lil Legian stopover, and was also in the business of making the most of its beachfront. And our hotel was really into punk, just look at its hair. Oh, what a tough life!
Of course it started bucketing down rain just as we were finally ready to get in the pool, but what else would we expect?
Instagrammers and other people who like sunsets enjoy hanging out on Gili T’s west coast to watch the sun set over the water, Bali and Gunung Agung – we’re sure it’s great, if you can spot the sun, that is (or the volcano!).
Oh no, now we have to hang around and drink beer waiting for the sky to change, oh such woe! Moose demanded a glass of wine, he is getting very big for his boots.
People seem to love getting on a wee horsie and trotting along the beach a bit (not unlike the toddlers in the Bali Galleria Mall, actually…).
… and we watched an oil rig being towed somewhere…
The really nice skies actually happened after the sun snuck away unobserved – look, the oil rig turned into a party boat!
Apart from the venues that decided what everyone needed was to hear dance music remixes of songs blasted at 11, it was so pretty on the beach that we stayed there for dinner, too. Didn’t do any ‘shrooms, though (not for want of the opportunity lol).
Gili T’s beauty isn’t just on the surface, there’s a lot to enjoy under the sea too. It’s practically a legal requirement that all visitors must take to the sea at their earliest opportunity, and we are very law-abiding people. Whee!
Off we go!
You don’t have to get far off the coast at all to find lots of coral reefs, lots of fishies and turtles, which is a lovely bonus for those of us who hate being on boats. The coral has seen better days in many patches, but the sheer quantity of it is staggering. D’admiral got all the best pictures, on account of being cool enough to get down a bit closer…
Mind you, Pye spotted this heart…
…and this squishy boi who appears to be trying to grow a swastika..? This is odd because Lombok and the Gili Islands are predominantly Muslim and the swastika is (famously) an ancient religious and cultural symbol of the Hindus.
… in other news, we all noticed that apparently scuba divers’ bubbles appear pink!
But before you could say, “Well, isn’t that pretty!” a big fat green turtle cruised by to capture our attention.
Pye was stalking him pretty efficiently and was right over the top when she saw two big bombs exit his bum. “Oh no!” she thought, “I’m about to eat a cloud of turtle shit!”
Happily (and educationally) she was able to observe that turtle poo doesn’t float. Learning is fun! Speaking of butts, Stinky liked this marine bum – nature is so beautiful!
Alas, a couple of the spots we stopped at were also wildly popular with the dominant species on the island, namely wannabe influencers. Bless them, they really added to our cheeky bum count for this holiday (it should be noted here that the current fashion is to have hungry-bum bathers, so it’s not like we’re hunting for bare bottoms, they are just endemic in the region).
Our second last stop was above the wreck of a big pontoon that was scuppered long enough ago to have apparently moved from ‘environmental disaster’ status to ‘excellent draw for divers’. They seemed to be having a splendid time down there, and the dive dudes from the tour had fun showing off how clever they are at free diving…
…while those of us just using the surface of the water enjoyed trying to catch their bubbles while looking at a plethora of fish – it was like being inside an overstocked aquarium! Or a screensaver. Or a TV in a dentist’s waiting room…
Not far away is an example of one of Indonesia’s favourite things – shoving some art in a pretty spot so that people will come and take photos with it! In another iconically Indonesian move, our boat left the scuba divers to go drop us off, and then left us there and buggered off back to get the scuba lads. At least they came back for us!
Anyway, this particular piece is a group of statues apparently all cuddling their special someone while staring at each other.
It all looks very atmospheric and cool in photos and it definitely comes up well on Instagram – as long as you time your shot, that is…
It was like a traffic jam – which is another Indonesian icon, so it's probably appropriate. It was pretty funny to watch the girls try and get down there for their pose cos you can’t really get down there without providing a full snatch show lol!
Conclusion: we liked the bits with the fish and turtles better.
But we did make friends with Audrey and Jerry, a nice pair from Ireland. As we got off the boat at the end of the day, Jerry said, “Not to sound too Irish, but who wants to get a beer?” Not to sound too Australian, of course we did, although we chose not to go to one of the two Irish pubs that are on Gili Trawangan.
We really should have, though, so we could have measured how big they are, so then we could do the maths on what percentage of this 15km2 island is Irish pub. It was a very big day, so a cidomo ride back to the hotel for a rest was very welcome. Thank you, horsie!
As our sunburn from the day became obvious (and infuriating, on account of how we had conscientiously reapplied between each snorkel, much to the benign bafflement of our Korean, Indonesian and Indian boat-mates), we enjoyed our reward of another beer and sunset on the beach…
… nominating D’admiral as Captain Singaraja (sorry for the demotion)…
… while Chuckles got artistic with the tree and the night sky…
… and Mars popped up to say hi.
We had a day at leisure the next day (very unlike us), and who could dare call themselves a person if they didn’t explore more of an island than the beach out the front of the hotel? There are enough bicycles for hire on the island that each visitor could have three each, but we had a plan to walk around the northern tip of the island (where the road becomes a sandy track), and anyway, bike riding doesn’t look all that comfortable.
(“That bike has chlamydia and now so do you”)
The pretty white-beach coastline is a repeating line of bars, hotels and dive shops, and oh yeah, this goat.
Moose was delighted to find a pair of stuffed brethren waiting on one beach – he was getting a bit bored with all the humans.
Although, on the other hand, he was devastated that the pirate-themed hotel had shut down.
He tried to comfort himself by posing aesthetically in a carefully crafted context so that he could try and make people on the internet feel envious…
The paparazzi went wild!
Chuckles gave it a go for herself but didn’t really see the appeal.
It should have come as no surprise to find that the weather was ridiculously hot, so what a happy coincidence it was that there was a proliferation of picturesque spots to stop for rehydration at the very tippy-top of the island.
Sadly, while they look pretty, those chairs were wildly uncomfortable (see: aesthetic over function, ah ha ha ha). Still, we stared out to sea and did our best to spot the southern tip of Kalimantan (spoilers: the curvature of the Earth got in the way).
In the north of the island, cashed-up travellers give way to unwashed backpackers, souvenirs, and even more snorkelling/diving providers. Oh, and places to rehydrate!
We decided that cutting back across through the middle was clever rather than trying to circumnavigate the whole island (Pye insisted on referring to this choice as ‘circumcising’ the island, but was rightfully ignored). Somehow this meant the gentle stroll of a couple of kilometres we had initially intended turned into about 5km instead whoops.
Somewhere in the middle there, Stinky found a stray bell for Chuckles’ bell collection. Then Chuckles spotted the gap on a cidomo! Thanks to the blinkers, the horse didn’t notice we kept it.
Speaking of blinkers, why do the cidomo horses wear blinkers? It’s so they don’t see the man getting the money for sitting there, instead of the horse who does all the work!
We were as hot and sweaty as a pack of horses that need to unionise by the end of our walk, but in another stunningly useful coincidence, there was a pool right there!
We love a good swim-up bar, and guess what, they’ll serve you food there too! We had no choice but to have lunch in the pool – something that in all their 71 years, D’admiral and Chuckles had never done before.
Pye thought it would be hilarious to order chicken chowder, because nothing could be funnier than eating a soup while sitting in the soup of a swimming pool, but was again cruelly ignored.
We so rarely do nothing on a holiday that lying around doing nothing is quite the novelty.
We didn’t stay in the pool too long, YOU stayed in the pool too long.
From Gili T it was thence to Lombok proper. The island put on a thunderstorm all morning, so we didn’t even have to feel bad about doing more nothing before checking out. It bucketed down the whole way across to Lombok (via a speedy lil boat, 10/10 would recommend), confiscating all the usual views of neighbouring volcanoes and delightful coastlines. We had to wait till lunchtime before Mt Agung showed its face again!
It was also aesthetically pleasing from our hotel and Moose got all pensive staring out at the view…
The hotel is another splendid example of what your money can get you in Indonesia. Everything was very beautiful, but the place is huge, and they’ve spread everything out along winding, disorienting paths – we like to call it ‘Melbourne Zoo’ing it’, they’ve definitely made the most of the space, but it’s hard to know where the hell you are or where you’re going!
When we escaped the grounds, we decided to take our laundry for a walk (Rp80.000,- for the lot vs Rp9.000,- per pair of knickers). We got about five metres from the gate when a helpful chap called Abdul asked what we were doing, clutched his pearls at the very thought that we were planning to walk for eight minutes to go to a laundry. Turns out the one we were aiming for belongs to his niece (allegedly) and he was all like, “Come on, I’ll drive you!” Then we let him take us somewhere for lunch, then back to the hotel, and he still didn’t ask for any money – we like this ‘drug dealer’ approach to picking up bule! Give ‘em the first taste for free, get ‘em hooked.
That evening Pye was very excited to catch up with one of her old students – Maddi has a scholarship to have pretty much whatever adventures she wants in Asia, and is currently a month into a four-month stint in Lombok, after eight months in Yogya. She’s an absolute legend, talks a mile a minute, great storyteller. She’s not even sick of people murmuring “Tinggi!!” (‘tall’) when they see her walk down the street!
She posted about it on her Instagram story, which then elicited the greatest comment we’ve ever seen
The next day was, on paper, a day of free time to rest or lounge by the pool. Only that’s not how we roll! Moose made friends with some of the hotel’s other guests…
…while Stinky dashed off to catch up with Bu Dayu and the leadership team at their sister school in Mataram, and the rest of the jolly crew jumped back in old mate Abdul’s car and asked him to take them to Lombok’s big fancy mall. But because of Ramadan, it was opening later than we thought, so he offered to show us some traditional weaving (songket) – who could have possibly seen an agenda coming?! Still, we were happy enough to go and check out a co-op in a village and marvel at the skill of the women who do the weaving, while at the same time proving that none of us would be able to do anywhere near as well.
And if there was a shop attached and we happened to be just so impressed with their skill that we felt inclined to pay a bunch to buy the product of their work, and if presumably Abdul gets a kickback for bringing us in – well, then, that’s all just a happy coincidence!
These startling and unforeseeable events meant that instead of wandering around the Lombok Epicentrum Mall for an hour before Stinky and Bu Dayu joined us, they got there first.
Malls during Ramadan are funny, because everyone pretends that no one will be eating at any of the eateries, and devout Muslims’ forbearance is protected by food outlets popping a curtain up so that the faithful will not be tormented by the sight of yummy forbidden snacks while shopping for their end of Ramadan clothes (everyone else who was cheating was doing it via the Lombok equivalent of UberEats).
We say ‘yummy’ forbidden snacks, but we think we might make these croffles forbidden for us too, if only because we think they would be quite terrible (mmm beef and cheese waffle croissant).
Most people weren’t at the mall for the culinary delights, it was all about buying new clothes for the end of Ramadan. Last time Stinky was there, the mall was brand new and the floor space was taken up by her students performing a dance!
The new, modern mall was actually fairly dull, with none of the whacky weird shops or amusement park stuff we used to enjoy. Moose still liked it, though.
Speaking of Moose, Bu Dayu was kind enough to ask ‘And how is your Moose?’ about half an hour before we all met up and Pye whipped Moose out for that glamour shot, ah ha ha ha, she knows what’s important! Bu Dayu took us to lunch at a Chinese-Indonesian place, while Stinky carefully tallied up just how much of the day could be now classed as a tax write-off.
Since the mall had let us down and we still had a bunch of pressies in mind, Abdul was big-hearted enough to take us to one of the giant souvenir shops beloved of domestic tourists.
Although we could get most of the products from various hawkers on the beach, we are much too lazy these days (plus the beach folk don’t give us tax deductible receipts for our classroom supplies!). D’admiral loved it!
Old mate Abdul had one more commission – er, I mean selfless suggestion – in mind, and to be fair, the man might be a certified genius. This might actually be the longest we’ve ever gone on an Indonesian holiday without getting a massage! Untenable!! Chuckles and Stinky’s snorkelling sunburn was not yet at the massage-ready stage, so they focussed the ladies’ energies on their hands, feet and faces…
… while Pye was curious to find out what a traditional massage involved. It turned out to include rather more punching and hair pulling than she is used to in a massage, so at a few moments she wasn’t sure if she was getting massaged or bullied. And the lady’s fingers might have been made out of iron rods?? Still worth it, though (unless that’s what the lady told Pye she had to say or she’d get more of the same…?)
Abdul carefully deposited us back at the hotel and left it up to us to decide how much to pay him for the day (which is exactly the sort of thing we hate, because we never know if we’re being too mean or too generous).
We discovered that D’admiral had used his time brilliantly to scout out somewhere that sells beer (convenience stores outside of Bali are not allowed to any more), and we decided to hydrate and spend a few minutes admiring the fruits of our labours. But as Stinky sat down on the bed, she felt rather strange. In fact, the whole room felt strange! Oh yeah, this is what an earthquake feels like! You can’t tell, but this view was wobbling just a bit. Earthquack!
We experienced only the mildest of wibble wobbles, but we imagine the folks near Java had a bit more difficulty – at least it was a deep one!
After such a busy day doing important things, we were up for a quiet evening eating at the hotel. But we forgot it was a Friday during Ramadan! Friday is the holiest day and the partiest night! Every man, woman, child and
We did a bit more Instagram training for D’admiral and Chuckles…
… before we decided that we actually weren’t vibing the loud noises, but were too tired to go out on a quest for somewhere else. This led to another first for us – just order room service! Genius! If Abdul were here, we’d give him the credit.
Anyway, we needed to save our energy for the culture-laden bonanza that Stinky had lined up for us the following day. Bring it on!
