Arghh, I've been unable to do a write-up on our trip till today, as the last few days have seen me besieged with all the nitty-gritty that have been put off while I was away. Not that they are all cleared up, but since I'm hopelessly tired from doing administrative work I reckoned I'll write while in office instead. LOL .. and there's actually a CCTV in my room.
13 Mar Saturday
We packed up, told the Brownie to be a good boy, and headed off to T2. The freaking plane was delayed for one whole hour, as only one runway was in use. Hello, Changi, anyone there? That, and we had this couple with 3 kids in front who obviously had underage sex (and prolifically, at that) and now have major trouble taking care of their spawn. I almost ( just give me another 5 mins ..) snapped at the silly woman, as did the passenger in front of them. Perhaps on my next plane ride I should pack a souvenir copy of "Basic Parenting for Dummies" to present to them.
In any case, our pilot was most excellent. He cruised at a high altitude and managed to get us in to Mataram Airport at Lombok just barely 30 mins late. It was a dingy place. Our driver was waiting for us, and we spent an exhilarating 45 mins on the MPV, traveling through the Monkey Forest to the seaside dock, followed by a 20 min speedboat ride. It was surreal, with hundreds of stars sprinkled across the inky black sky, with the wind rushing past our ears and the inviting scent of a pristine coral sea. After a while, we could see glittering lights ahead which promised so many exciting possibilities. It was at that time that I felt like I was truly leaving everything behind on shore, and that the holiday had really begun.
We were shown to our hut at Manta Dive Resort by the night watchman, room no.3. I call it a hut out of structural resemblance, but facilities and cleanliness wise it was of above-average resort standard. The wooden floor was clean enough to sit on, there was a safe deposit box (I managed to lock it up - PERMANENTLY - within the first hour ..), a mini bar fridge, a quiet air-con, an outdoors veranda and a very nice outdoors shower which was likewise cleaner than I could ever have hoped for. At USD$55 a night, it was a good deal. There was of course USD$20pppn accommodation to be had there, but after hearing stories first-hand about sweltering hot nights in the other chalets, we both felt that it was dough well-spent and if we were to return again, we'd stay here again without a doubt.
First night was spent wandering the streets and having a quiet drink over at Rudy's - little did we suspect that we'd become "regulars" there night after night! Of course, we just HAD to sample the "magic mushrooms" of Gili Trawangan. (These are Psilocybin mushrooms ..) At IDR150,000 a pop (it was blended into a drink), which was about S$20, it's expensive by local standards. The stuff sends you into uncontrollable fits of giggling when it works, but its effects are dose-dependent, as I found out later (refer to our last night on Gili Trawangan) I had a bad night, as the shrooms took way longer to work on me, and subsequently I was still jittery when it was bed time.
14 Mar, Sun
Nothin' doing on this day, except for fixing up our next day's dives (OOOH DIVES!!) and a spot of touring around. We came by the turtle conservatory right in front of Dino's cafe, and I made a small donation for this worthy cause. The locals bring in turtle eggs otherwise destined for poachers or seagulls, they are hatched, stabilised and later released into the sea. Rest of the day was spent snorkeling, where we almost trod on stonefish which Yx discovered, played with a few small flounders, and later chanced by a large patch of beautiful snorkeling reef right in front of Dino's. We underestimated the sun, and ended up rather burnt.
Now, here I must bitch about the awful food on Gili Trawangan. For an Indonesian island, the food is through-the-roof expensive. Expect to shell out 40,000 Rp (S$6) for some nasi campur, or mixed rice. That'd have been fine if it were good, but it's so awful I think a compost bin would have rejected it. The nasi goreng was intensely sweet and salty at the same time, and their feeble western fare ... well, just bring loads of cup noodles. The only nice things we've had there was the grill right in front of Manta Dive. Granted, a whole snapper costs 50,000 Rp (S$7) while a spotted grouper goes for 90,000 Rp (S$12), but those were really quite nice. (A few doors down, a highly acclaimed grill is asking for 40,000 Rp - PER HUNDRED GRAMS) Rudy's also serves rather ok food, we had a try of their barracuda steak and it was good value for money.
As we had to dive the next day, we asked our newly-found friend Martok at Rudy's to get us a watered-down version of the shrooms for the night, which was enough to make you feel happy but that's about it. It came at a discount too. And if you ever drop by Rudy's, try out the Murder Melon Juice - some alcoholic watermelon juice, at the meager price of Rp 50,000 ($8?) per JUG.
15 Mar, Monday
First dive of the trip! We settled breakfast with the included menu at Manta, and it was decent. A selection of either toast with margarine/jam, toast with eggs, or this sandwich which they call a Jaffle, which is really just the sealed kind of sandwich you make using the sandwich machine.
I was really psyched up for the dive, since we've heard quite a lot about diving the Gilis. Our dive guide was a local called Kantar (I call him "K" due to my nominal aphasia), and we also got to know this divemaster trainee called Julia, a heavily-tattooed, feisty Italian lady who turned out to be a delight to dive with and to bitch to.
We dived at the following sites this day:
Halik
Manta Point
Stingray
Surface conditions were seriously great (see my previous entry last October, where I almost drowned on the surface due to waves in Tioman) and apart from a gentle tickle at Manta Point, there was hardly any current at all. The diving surpassed my expectations. There were loads of turtles to be seen on almost every dive, some of the largest reef cuttlefish I've ever seen, and the occasional oddball like frogfish. Divers are sparse at most divesites, and at most there'd be only one other dive boat at the site. It helped that Yx and I were advanced certified and sometimes on nitrox, since we'd be able to go deeper where there weren't many other divers.Also, another great thing about diving at the Gilis was the proximity of the dive sites - 5 mins by boat for most, and the longest took 15 mins. Compare this to Bali, where we took a freaking 2.5 hour car ride to reach the Liberty wreck at Tulamben, or a 1.5 hour car ride followed by a 1 hour boat ride to reach Nusa Penida. (ok, both were worth it though!)
16 Mar, Tuesday
The usual pre-dive breakfast, followed by a short boat ride out. Sites of the day:
Simon's Reef
Hann's Reef
Meno Wall (night dive)
Hann's Reef was great! We did the dive together with Julia, and apart from the turtles, this place was teeming with stuff usually associated with muck dives. There were plenty of stingrays, nudibranches, garden eels and a few other curiosities.
Simon's Reef was really spectacular as well. We went down to over 30 metres using 32% Nitrox, and the landscape deeper down was a nice steep slope. Kantar tried finding some pygmy seahorses, but again we were sorely disappointed. The dive ended at 15 metres, which consisted of a series of bommies encrusted with Montipora corals, plenty of shoaling anthias and quite a few scorpionfish and lionfish. Definitely one of the nicest and healthiest reefs I've seen.
We actually wanted to squeeze in another day dive today, but due to the depth we went to at Simon's Reef, we couldn't off-gas enough at the surface even with Nitrox on. Bleargh.
We did Meno Wall as a night dive, together with this chap from San Fran called Trevor. I didn't like him much - no surprises that he's diving alone, without a buddy. Anyway, bitching aside .. Yx finally got over her fear of night diving! I can't blame her - the last night dive we did in Tioman wasn't exactly fun for her, as she got stung by some unidentified thing (I strongly suspect Hydroids). The dive started at 10 metres, a large gently sloping plain with soft colt corals and plenty of those darned Hydroids, and it dropped off to 20 metres with a vertical wall looming on our left. Current was mild at less than 1 knot, and there was a baby octupus, baby cuttlefish, and a few sleeping turtles. The highlight of this night (which was Yx's birthday anyway!) was when one of the turtles got so confused by all the lights shining at it, it swam straight towards me, changed its course, swerved past Yx and gave her a full punch in the stummy using its flippers. We had a good laugh about it after that!
17 Mar, Wednesday
A few sites today:
Shark Point
Meno Bounty
Meno Wall (yes, we re-did it in the day!)
Shark point was really disappointing. No sharks, no pygmy seahorses, just barren flat ground with large shoals of fish. For Meno Bounty, there was this odd sunken pier at one point which was quite creepy. Yx managed to pull off a few very nice shots though! The couple we dived with, 2 Canadians on a 4-month holiday, were fun. Anyway, we later came by them while looking for seats at the Irish pub, and they very graciously let us have the table. Lucky asses, they were off to Komodo and Flores for more diving after Gili. (That being said, I don't think I'll ever dive Komodo - I've heard enough about the very challenging currents there.)
We went on a day dive at Meno Wall, together with this couple which consisted of an idiotic girl and her rather better boyfriend. In the middle of the dive, Kantar signalled for us to let him know how much air we had left. It took the girl a whole 5 minutes before her boyfriend managed to catch her attention and let her know that Kantar was asking about residual air, and .... the bimbo took a look at her pressure gauge, gave herself a self-satisfied nod, and continued swimming - without signalling how much she had left! *rolls eyes*
Anyway, the real highlight of this whole thing was the eagle ray sighting. Julia did tell us that she saw one at Meno Wall some time back, but never did I dream that we'd see it too! It cruised by from a distance, slowly and surely flapping its "wings" and cutting through the water as if it wasn't there. I've never seen anything so graceful and so beautiful before while diving. Alas, shots weren't good, but we salvaged some.
18 Mar, Thursday
Last dive of the trip, this time at Deep Turbo! We were really, really excited, since I've heard nice things from Julia about the site, and we had Nitrox available today! But alas. Manta Dive's own gas mixing machines were down, so they bought Nitrox off another dive centre. The damned gas mixer at the other dive centre was obviously incompetent. We asked for 32%, and what we received was 29% Nitrox instead. F*ck.
Deep Turbo went down to 31 metres, where it was a flat plain with large bommies sticking out, each one encrusted with the most delightful giant sponges and colourful Acropora. It's a shame we only had 29% Nitrox, which meant we quickly ran out of no-decompression bottom time and had to ascend to 20 metres. Once again, Kantar tried in vain to look for the elusive pygmy seahorse. But I ain't complaining - that eagle ray from yesterday was worth the whole trip alone.
When we finally got to shore, I looked longingly at the whiteboard which listed the day's dives, wishing I had more time to do it again. The next time we go back, we won't bother with Halik, Shark Point and Stingray - I'll zoom straight for Deep Turbo, Simon's, and Hann's Reef.
For once, we didn't have any diving to do the next day, so we indulged in a full-strength shroom concoction, plus something a little more illicit. *wink* OK, I OVER-indulged. For some reason, I was convinced we were all underwater, and Martok and everyone else at Rudy's looked like fish to us. I seriously believed I was a cuttlefish. There's this cat who likes to hang around the veranda, we called her Tsunami (Yx thinks she's our tsunami warning ... like there's any high ground on Gili to run to ...). Tsunami sneaked into the room while I was still a little bonkers, which was a bad, bad idea. I somehow had this impression that Tsunami was a shrimp, and subsequently sneaked around the room stalking the cat. It wasn't until Tsunami ran in terror into the toilet, that I gave up the idea, declaring that I didn't like shrimps that taste of toilet. Oh dear. It was really fun though. And I think harmless. it's like having an alcohol high without the nasty effects of alcohol - just plain, pure happiness. No nausea, no hangover, no headaches, no gastritis.
19 Mar, Fri - 20 Mar, Sat
Last day at Gili, which was quite sad. I felt like I will dearly miss the dives, and of course the shrooms! Looking forward to better food on mainland Lombok though. The dive shop once again arranged for our speedboat plus car ride back to Lombok.
We arrived at our hotel, Puri Mas, which is located at Sengigi - the "main tourist strip" of Lombok, as it had often been touted. While on Gili, when people learn we're heading back to Lombok, they'd ask if we were staying at Sengigi. Wow, sure sounds like tourist heaven, no? Hell NO. The freaking place was like Kukup in Malaysia - 20 years ago, maybe. Shops were spare and run-down, with most of them not even open. The hotel itself was nice though, and from the beachfront we could see Bali's Mt Agung in the distance. It's quite magical, actually. The peak of Mt Agung would appear to rise out of nowhere, appearing as if it's floating above the sea. With a jolt of excitement, I suddenly realised what I was looking at - the Wallace Line! The strait separating Bali and Lombok happens to be the boundry that separates Asian and Australian fauna.
Anyway, nothing much to do on Lombok, except that we shopped for some bedroom items for the new room. Got them packed, and honestly, I couldn't recall ever feeling glad at the end of a holiday. I would go back to Gili, and will surely stay and dive with Manta again, but Lombok? Nah, it's not worth it.
Did up a video, which Yx thinks is a huge joke because of the lousy music. =(
Off for a holiday!! This has got to be one of my worst-planned ones. I started packing only last night, and still have half more to go today. And I haven't exactly planned what to do there, but Yx says it's supposed to be like that - idyllic and not like my usual OCD-laced holidays. And everyone's freaking me out with dark warnings about earthquakes and tsunamis. =( Will be back from Gili Tregawan next Sat. I think Brownie has a vague suspicion after seeing me pack my bags, but he has no idea I'll be gone that long.
We've finally done the final racking and bottling of our mead, and the taste is really quite spectacular. =) But making mead is no joke, seriously. It's been sitting there fermenting for more than a year already, I think. The only issue is that this mead is way too dry. I used Pasteur Champagne yeast for it, which supposedly has an alcohol tolerance of 17% ABV. For my next batch I think I'll double the amount of honey, so that there will be some residual sweetness after fermentation is done.
Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking
When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through for you
Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near
That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile
That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile
