Oh Hey, From The Gili Meno, or, Mmmmmmm, GILLI!?!?
That’s all we’ve been saying for the last 3 days – hasn’t gotten old yet. Updates from this leg of the trip have been slow because everything here moves too peacefully and leisurely to really warrant anything more frequent. Out of the three Gili Islands (Trawangan, Meno, Air), Gili Meno is the smallest, the least developed, and the most laid back. A guy we bought more Bintangs from on our day trip to Gili T yesterday told us that the local saying is Gili T is where you go to party, Gili M is where you move on to for your honeymoon, and Gili Air is were you return to the year after with your baby.
We haven’t been over to Gili Air yet, but the guy way pretty spot on about Gili T because it was wild. We heard it gets even crazier at night but even at 2PM we had people coming up to us every 5 minutes asking us if we wanted to buy mushrooms and we went to this cool-looking restaurant off the beaten path and felt like the vibe was weird for some reason we couldn’t put our finger on until we realized that everyone else except for us in the restaurant had said “SURE!” to the mushroom peddlers. No one’s shoes were actually on their feet and everyone was all melted into their beanbag chairs and you couldn’t tell what color anyone’s eyes were because their pupils had gone on a rampage and had commandeered their entire ocular cavities. So we politely saw ourselves out and sat at an overpriced beachfront restaurant instead and felt less scared that the people dining next to us were going to try to eat us.
Indonesia has miraculously changed my DNA; I’ve gotten up at 5:40 without complaining twice, and this morning, when I got up at 7:30, I actually said “man, I slept in!” In any case, getting up early for the sunrises is 100% worth it; we take a 5 minute bike ride around the bend to the Northeast side of the island and it’s an empty beach, mountains ripping out of the fog, and an incandescent egg yolk sun that looks like it’s going to burst open and drip all over the water and burn it up. Never seen anything like it. Jason, you were very correct about this!
The other amazing thing way in which I have been irrevocably Indo-ed is that I am getting so good at saying No. The vendors here are not only persistent, they remember EVERYTHING and they use it against you. Look/Luke, our best friend slash arch nemesis, comes back over to us every day (I think he follows us wearing an invisibility cape because it does not matter where we are on the island he just shows up again) with his jewelry box and says “Listen Liz and Kevin, you said yesterday ‘not today maybe later’ and now it is later and you ALSO said that you wouldn’t buy something from anyone else but me so if you aren’t buying this pukka shell necklace – which would look really nice on you Kevin like we’ve discussed – then I’m assuming that you must have bought one from someone else and we agreed this wouldn’t happen so you’d better explain yourselves now!!!” or something like that. However, I still remain necklace-less. And VHS-less. And sarong-less. I’m truly growing as a person.
Last night we went to our boat friend One’s sister’s cafe and we drank more Bintangs and listened to acoustic island-flare versions of popular Western songs, such as Zombie (guess who requested that one). You have to drink Bintangs when you are barhopping because there are rare cases in the area of methanol poisoning from drinking cheap liquor – if you see a 10 cent drink the going advice is to say no thank you I’d like to not have my stomach disintegrate and become blind (I guess what happens from methanol poisoning). On the way home Kevin’s bike chain came off and he fell off of his bike into the dark forest, right onto his flashlight that he probably should have been using. He’s got a sweet bruise now.
All in all, my recommendation is this: If you are looking to spend a week being steeped in perfect Bintang-induced bliss, and the feeling that this, yes, is enough, then buy your ticket (well multiple plane tickets, a car ride ticket, and a boat ticket) now.
