The rest of the day was spent knocking off a couple of books. I counted up that I've read 16 books so far on this adventure. Which is not bad considering I wasted a lot of time on two massive and ultimately turgid tomes (Keith Richards' autobiog Life and some sort of sci-fi thing called The Passage which was over 1000 pages and just the first of a trilogy. If you can't get it all out in 1000 words there's an editing problem, my friend). Actually, I do have one thing to say about yesterday - for those always looking for book tips, read The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. An incredible debut.
We've been eating all our meals at the restaurant here at Juliantos by the sea. They do lots of Sasak (Lombok region) and Indonesian dishes as well as some western stuff like jaffles and spaghetti, which is great because after the food poisoning I've been wanting really plain bread/ pasta stuff. Being an island, there are a lot of fish here, but the running jokes about the freshness of the fish (one comment I read was it is considered fresh if caught this month) is kind of putting us off. So we haven't needed to venture out much. Normally, I would have at least walked a circuit of the island - which is about 4km once around, but I haven't even managed that! Phil has run around it a couple of times and tells me it's pretty much the same all round.
There is basically a path that rings the entire island right along the coast. I think i mentioned before, no motorized vehicles are allowed so it's walk, use a pushbike or take a cidomo - horse drawn carriage. All the accommodation - mostly bungalows - sit just behind a path maybe 20 metres from the beach. There are a couple of dive schools and a few bars and restaurants. In the middle of the island you can find the villages where the local fisherman live and I presume some the hotel staff. Although I got up this morning at 5.45am to watch the sunrise (unbelievable, i know) and came across the restaurant staff here sleeping on the floor outside the kitchen. At least it is warm:
You can see fantastic sunrises and sunsets from the island. On our first night I dragged GOMP out to a bar with a particularly good sunset view. He doesn't really like sunsets and isn't afraid to show it! This is what we went to see:
Just awful, isn't it? (cue extreme sarcasm).
If you look closely, you can see a shadow of a bump in the middle of the sunset which is Mount Agung, Bali's highest mountain.
You can see Bali from Lombok (and the Gili islands), but you can't see Lombok from Bali. This is despite Lombok's Mount Rinjani being more than half a kilometer taller than Agung. I heard a few people in Lombok say that - you can see Bali from Lombok, but not Lombok from Bali and I think it is used as much figuratively as literally. I am astounded by how little information there is about traveling to Lombok given how much there is to see and do there.
GOMP insisted this view (in the opposite direction) was more interesting:
Ummm, nice too, I guess. I think I'd rather the glowy orange sky. The beach bar we went to looked like this:
And this where we're staying:
It's got air con and a decent bathroom for Rp 550,000 or about $60. A bit more expensive than Bedugal or Lovina, but I was happy to pay the extra for air con and I'm glad I did cos it's super hot here.
The reason I picked this particular accom is because a couple of people on trip advisor said the snorkeling is amazing and you can swim with turtles right outside the door. And it's true!!
Today, armed with a long sleeved rash vest (purchased yesterday on the island) I gave snorkeling another try. As we headed towards the water, a French girl told us that there were turtles swimming just offshore and pointed to a spot. I did see a jellyfish on the way out, but almost immediately afterwards spotted a huge sea turtle just munching away on algae. Talk about a distraction! That jellyfish could have broken out into a terrifying Hakka and I would have pushed it out the way to follow the turtle.
Phil and I were able to follow the turtle for about half an hour - and we could have stayed longer. At one point our turtle met up with two others - another adult and a juvenile who ate together for a while. It was absolutely incredible. It was so close you could touch it (no exaggeration - Phil reached out and touched its shell for a second) and while it saw us, it obviously decided we were harmless enough and kept on doing its own thing.
Apart from the turtles, there were more varieties of colourful tropical fish than you could count as well as amazing blue coral and huge blue starfish clinging to rocks. I have wanted to try diving and I'm sure it's quite a different and awesome experience, but it's hard to imagine how to top swimming right next to a gorgeous, graceful sea turtle only about 50m from shore for as long as you please.
I haven't bought an underwater camera (yet) so I have poached an image from the Internet for you:
We've got a couple more days in the Gilis before heading back to Legian in Bali and hopefully there'll be more aquatic adventures...
- Posted using heroes in a halfshell... You know the rest.
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