Day 166 (Saturday 29th) - Meno & Crazy Girl
So as I think I mentioned, we have made the trip from Gili Trewangan to the impossibly quiet Gili Meno. After an absence of three years or so, within minutes of our arrival this afternoon at least 4 or 5 people had recognised and greeted Filip, including one chap who shouted from his shower as we walked passed. Either there have been only a handful of visitors since, or Filip stayed far longer than anyone else usually does, or the locals all have incredible memories. Personally, I think it's a combination of all three. We are staying at the Kon-Tiki bungalows (in no way affiliated with the universally despised tour company), which is all very well and good, even if it is on a completely unlit path, and has a place for my hammock. We had a nice dinner at Mallias Child, where people seemed to know Filip best, while the rain poured down, again. After a few Bintang and a shared bottle of Arak with the Swedish and German chaps next to us, we moved onto the bar. I need not be more specific as the bar is the only place that is open after the restaurants close. It is actually called Rust Bar, but this was never explicitly stated. For some reason three more bottles of Arak, in jugs with Sprite and an incredible amount of fresh squeezed limes, were ordered. At the bar we met three interesting girls - a very naive seeming American girl, a Greek girl who had been educated at international school and had a baffling accent, and a blonde English girl who had the worst taste in music I have ever heard. Her iPod was plugged into the system, and when I went to see what the options were, I discovered that she was the person I had been talking about and looking for for weeks - the person who actually buys music by Rihanna, Britney, and anyone else horrible you care to mention, and all with a stunning lack of irony. I would add more to this list but I have repressed the memories of all the others. In the end the only thing to put on was the Michael Jackson HIStory album. She had 1 song by QOTSA, but it was from the Radio 1 Live Lounge album, and I suspect that she favoured the Lamar and Jamie Cullum tracks...
After she overheard me commenting on her tastes, she asked in consternation "Do you not like my music?" I replied "No I don't, it is without doubt the worst collection of music I have ever seen" with a frankness that surprised even myself.
Anyway, that is not the point of my mentioning her. After a confusing interim period, she put her fingers on my forehead, and then smacked my brow with the flat and heel of her hand, making a satisfying noise and a small amount of pain. She then asked me to do the same to her - I was at first reticent to do so, as I can't think of a single incident of my hitting a girl in the face, but after she repeated the action and the request a few times I returned it, reasonably hard I thought. I was informed that it sounded crap and had to be harder - this escalated into a wierd game of chicken; she would hit me, then I would hit her a little harder, and so on and so on until one of us gave in. Due to the awkward nature of hitting someone like this (you only get a 'run-up' of about 4 inches, as your fingertips never leave the forehead) this wasn't as bad as it sounds, and I think that a pleasing noise was the aim, rather than to inflict pain. This changed however with phase 2 - a full-on slap of the face. I was again slightly taken aback and refused for a short while, but once again I was persuaded, and a very odd exchange began. Quickly we were taking it in turns to slap each other, and not entirely holding back either. I was repeatedly informed that my slaps were variously "lame", "crap" and "not making a good enough noise". We had drawn a small crowd by now (everyone in the bar on fact, but as this consisted of the other two girls, four or five local guys, Filip and the aforementioned Swede and German, it was still small), and I think that the combination of Arak and spectators drove us on a little. One slap had her reeling and falling into Filip's lap, with a gasp from the crowd, an immediate feeling of regret from me and the mumbled concession that "that was a good one" from her. This went on for what seemed like entirely too long, until some unknown threshold was reached, and she suddenly turned to her friends and stated that it was time to go as they had to get an early boat. With a "Cheers!" and a wave they were gone, leaving us all baffled and me feeling a little used. This sequence of events has not gone unnoticed, as every time I walk through the village (or at least along the beachfront road) at least three or four laughing locals ask me "Where is Crazy Girl?"
Oh, I should mention that tomorrow is Mohammed's birthday, which is why the restaurants all closed early and the bar closed immediately after we left, as all the staff and local clientele had to go to the mosque in the village early for a big ceremony and communal meal, to which we were all invited - by a group of blokes who were just as drunk as we were. I am trying to imagine the spectacle of a rag-tag bunch of hungover tourists and locals stumbling into a Mosque for a morning feed in honour of Mohammed - this would be a little sacrilegious to say the least, so we politely declined. Well, actually the Swede and German went along I think, but I have yet to press them for details.
Day 167 (Sunday 30th) - It's Sunny! Finally!
Today has been a break from the norm, in that we awoke to blazing sunshine, before noon as well, and Filip and I went for an outstanding breakfast of Chicken Curry Meno style, and spent a large amount of the day lying in the sun reading - In A Sunburned Country is truly an awesome book, it's rekindled my glee and anticipation about going to Australia, and helped me to make some decisions about what to do there, and made me more confident in ones I have already made. For example, it would appear that the Indian-Pacific Railroad is an incredible and unmissable journey to make in first class or at least with a sleeper cabin, but to be avoided if one is staying in the Daynighter coaches as I would have been. Here the passengers (when Bill Bryson encountered them) were "sunken-eyed" and "had been riding upright for two days...and still had twenty-four hours to go" with "no dining car, no lounge bar, no cozy berths to crawl into at night". This is a journey to be made when time and money are on my side, I feel. Equally I have been assured of the wonderful nature of Perth (which I know nothing about), Melbourne (about which I have heard only good things) and Sydney (where I spent a very happy 6 weeks or so last time I was there), and also of the unremarkableness of Darwin, which I was previously somewhat miffed to be missing out on, although I have heard it described by my friend Rob, from Sydney, as "just a hot hole". Adelaide may be worth a visit if possible, although not an essential stop, and I definitely want to try and revisit Byron Bay as well as trying to get to Noosa, Fraser Island etc. - all places I missed out on before for no reasons other than I had no idea they were there until I had aleready passed through the relevant areas, and that I was following someone else's itinerary.
The day rolled along slowly, I had a vigorous (for me) swim against the current in the bay, impressed with the fact that it was warmer in the gin-clear waters than out of them, even in the sunshine - I have never really understood the adjective 'gin-clear' until i arrived here. I was swimming in 5 metre deep water and could see the bottom as if I was looking through a bottle of Bombay Sapphire - there was an ever so slight turquoise tinge, but no blurring of details, and incredible visibility. Apparently the sea here is regularly above 30 degrees, although I can offer absolutely no source for that other than a half-remembered conversation an a feeling that it's true Eventually, as it has every day, the rain started around 5 o'clock, so we moved to one of the sheltered platforms that dot the beach (called Barugas or something of that ilk), where I decided to drink copious amounts of tea, partly due to the excesses of last night. Last night took a toll on my wallet as well as my face and sobriety, so I took it easy, and Marcus (who has been feeling crap all day - these Swedes have no immune systems) and I were in bed by midnight. We were awoken by Filip creeping in and asking to borrow my iPod at some wee small hour, before announcing he was going to sleep in the hammock and had agreed to teach English to a group of 7 local kids at 1 pm tomorrow. As he didn't surface until half three, I assume he failed.
Day 168 (Monday 31st) - Rainy Days
There is an issue with being on a sparsely populated idyllic coral-fringed gorgeous speck in the ocean - when the weather is crap, there is nothing - and I mean nothing - whatsoever to do. Lying on the beach in the sun reading counts as an activity, whereas doing the same on a chair outside your bungalow does not, for some reason. We awoke to another torrential downpour - it seems strange that in what seems like such a short expanse of the world, i.e. the Southeast Asian peninsular, the high season can vary enormously in only a day of travel. It was high season on Koh Chang, the same on Phi Phi, low season here, somewhere in between in Singapore, and god knows what in Laos. Probably some sort of research into these things before I departed would have been wise, although everyone seems to agree that it is unseasonably wet at the moment anyway, so probably it couldn't be helped.
So far today has consisted of an inordinate amount of hassle from necklace, sarong and hammock salesmen - serves us right for eating by the 'harbour' - a severely disappointing sandwich, a swim and a mosquito ridden adventure, for Marcus and I, Marcus, me and me respectively. I swam round the island a bit towards the breaking waves, which I would have thought surfable if I hadn't already been informed that there was a razor-sharp and barely submerged reef causing them. This was confirmed when I sat in a Beruga (I'm going to call it that, regardless of what it actually may be) and saw a few badly damaged and somewhat amateurishly repaired surfboards tucked into the rafters. I made another discovery too - the ruins of the Bougainvillea Resort. Only 150 metres or so to the south(ish) of our bungalows, there are the remains of what must have been a very sumptuous resort, featuring a sizeable and empty pool (empty of clean water, full of stagnating rainwater and a perplexing number of discarded flip-flops), at least one bar and one restaurant, and a variety of enormous semi-detached bungalows. I found one that was open, and ventured inside to find perfectly made and mouldering beds, reasonable bathrooms, mosquito nets and small fridges still in place, and a note thanking the "lovely guests" for coming to stay despite the Lombok riots of 2000 which had left Lombok as one of the "unsavest islands in the area". This made me think that maybe the place had been deserted for quite some time, although why it hadn't at least been partially investigated for salvage and saleable goods I can't imagine, unless a sudden and unplanned departure was for some reason necessary. Baffling.
I have also finished my book, necessitating a visit to one of the few bookshops around the island, to try and find a replacement. This proved impossible, as the only bookshop I found had a collection of about 100 books, the vast majority of which were in Swedish or German. The (still rainy) evening brought, well, not much really - we went to the bar to meet the German and Swede, whose names I still haven't learnt, for a couple of bottles of Arak and not much else.
Day 169 (Tuesday 1st) - Snorkels and Sunsets
Yet again the hasslers were out in force this morning, and we conceded to two purchases - Marcus bought a fetching sarong, which he has worn ever since, and we hired some snorkels and masks. We were assured that the snorkelling on this side of the island was fine, so we swum out to find a disappointing array of stuff to see - the highlight, I suppose, was the submerged metal-framed shapes of a giant Starfish, the skeleton of an aeroplane, and a few other oddities - all of these have been put there by someone on the island in the hope (which os gradually coming true) that corals will settle on them and make an interesting underwater attraction. Right now, however, if not viewed from the right angle they resemble a tangle of wires on the seabed. Filip assured us that the snorkelling was far better over on the other side, so we walked off to check this out, without any money or water, as we had been told it was a short journey. This was a lie. After 15 minutes or so in the blazing heat we saw water in the distance, only to find that it was the saltwater lake in the middle of the island, which seemed far larger than is feasible. We walked around to find the path abrubtly stopped, just after the sign directing us to Diana's cafe. We persevered for a short while, until we realised we were doubling back on ourselves, so we gave up and returned to the east beach, cursing Filip all the way. I had a bit of a paddle around again and saw some Trevally and some 3m long sea cucumbers or worms of some sort - they were beige with brown spots, writhing about in a most unsavoury manner on the bottom. Also there were loads of little Jellyfish in the sea, the round ones with no tentacles, about the size of Kumquats. We thought them to be harmless but both Marcus and I emerged with what may have been a few small stings on our faces, which were pesky rather than painful.
We resolved to return to the other side for sunset, but going by horse and cart this time as the driver would probably know the way better than we did. We did, and he did, and it was awesome. The cart ride was hairy at times, with the tiny horse (somewhere between a donkey and a pony it seemed) pulling with all its might. At one point it seemed as if we would fall out as we crossed some heavily rutted muddy ground, but the driver seemed unphased. We arrived unscathed and jubilant at having reached the other side, and quickly got a gazebo thingy and a couple of beers. The sunset was fantastic, the clouds were of every variety possible, and glowed everything from bright orange to deepest purple as the sun went down behind the barely visible bulk of Gunung Agung, on Bali. When night had truly fallen we went to get a cart back to the other side, only to find none were available. We were told it was slower but easier to walk round the beach, and that there were "many lights". This turned out to mean a bungalow or house every 500m or so, with absolute blackness in between. Fortunately Marcus had his headtorch, but angled it far too far ahead so that I, shoeless, encountered various squishy and spiky hazards on our journey, which was in truth simple and uneventful, but felt like a perilous adventure. We came back and bought a few beers and settled in on our balcony to play some cards - a novel game the Swedes called "Shitman", better known to you and I as Shithead (Bastard in Scottish, Idiot in Finnish). The losses were split between myself and Marcus about 60-40, while Filip won every time, somehow. I suck when pitted against Swedes.
Day 170 (Wednesday 2nd) - Last Day on Meno
Exhausted for some reason we retired to bed pretty early, but due to the shitness of my mosquito precautions - the net in the bungalow ends 3 inches above the level of the mattress, so any mozzie headed for me had a completely unimpeded trajectory, and the fan rotates at approximately 4 rpm as well, so it was incredibly hot all night - I was eaten alive, and woke up sporadically all night, before giving up around 8ish and coming outside to find a perfect day, the hottest one so far, and a pretty good end to our time here - we have decided we're definitely leaving at 7:30 tomorrow morning for the long haul back to Bali. A problem arose when i attempted to go for breakfast; I am sure I kept aside just enough money to pay for our accommodation and food until leaving, so I should have had around 200,000 RP in my wallet this morning, however when I checked I had only 50,000. I have no idea where the money can have gone, we didn't go out last night so I had no opportunity to spend it, I have checked every pocket in my clothes and bag, but yet there is no sign. It's only about £8, but it was just what I needed to get back to Bali. As it is I have had to borrow some money from Marcus, meaning that whatever our individual plans we have to be together on Friday morning for my trip to the bank, which is pesky to say the least.
Oh, also we have all fallen in love with the Pineapple girl - her name's Sophie, she sells fresh pineapple and coconut on the beach every day, skillfully chopping a whole pineapple into some sort of fruit lolly in a matter of seconds. Filip said he remembered she was beautiful from when he was here before (three years ago, so she would have been 15), but since then she has got married, had a kid and split up with her husband. Filip just returned grinning from the beach, to announce that he has arranged to meet her back here in about two weeks, when she'll cook him dinner - just the two of them. Lucky bastard.
