Gili Nightmares

Trips like this are always full of bright ideas that don't quite work out.  The trick is to identify them when they are occurring and take evasive action!

One such bright idea was Gili Meno. 'A Paradise' they said.  The trip out was fraught in a manner than we weren't quite prepared for after all of the joys of Ubud.  But it improved on the final leg with a splash-tastic boat ride across some beautiful, still waters that also included a large barracuda being caught by the boatboys whilst we were at it.

The island, on the surface, was a paradise.  Soft sands, luscious jungles and idyllic homestays.  But it was hot.  You've arguably never been so hot in your life.  There was nothing to do but 'zombie around' (that's the words I used at the time it seems) and try not to melt.  Even the couple of walks that we tried to take at reasonable hours of the day were aborted due to mosquitos and heat, respectively.

The homestay was a bamboo construction on stilts.  We didn't manage to sleep a wink due to its overly-close proximity to the sea - which seemed to be getting closer and closer as each hour passed.  We later attributed our 'freaked out' nights to the fact that it was haunted and that the much-reported suicide on a neighbouring island had screwed up the place's 'balance'.  Ok.

And the only place to eat that seemed safe was this creepy pergola set amongst a forest of trees that had been strung up with fairylights for Christmas that played tunes.  We decided that the whole thing was like something out of a David Lynch movie.

It was, of course, very touristy and we made chums with a couple of medical students from the UK who were taking their commitment to tanning very seriously indeed.  The heat didn't seem to bother them in the slightest.

But my first and only foray into snorkelling was a triumph - the coral, the blue seas and the hundreds of fish.  'You can see where they got the inspiration for batik from' I wrote.

  

Happy Ubudian Christmas

Bali, in many respects, was the whole point of the trip.  The idea that Gamelan music would be echoing over every rice paddy was a dream that we dreamt during a rather boring music appreciation class at Southampton.   But we were, indeed, here.

Not after, however, a lengthy and exhausting trip on a very hot bus sat next to a very fat man.  The arrival in Denpasar was alarming in its midnight mayhem but we somehow managed to make it out of town to a place in Ubud that had been recommended to us and who's owner was waiting at the bottom of the steps for us at 4am in the morning.

And our Ubudian experience began in this gorgeous, garden-set bungalow where a chronic case of gut-rot set in.  E left me to it whilst I tried to ride the journey out in bed.

Ubud is rightly famous for its art, its atmosphere and its Monkey Forest Road.   We made many discoveries of our own, notably a cafe with its own turret that we made our own.  The biggest discovery was, however, the Bechak Dance.  About 10 minutes in I remembered an account of it that J gave me, weeks and weeks ago in India.  I laughed out loud at the memory and at the spectacle of around 100 sarong-clad men 'chak chak'ing their way through the most extraordinary ritual of dance, stamping, fainting and more!

There was little doubt that a great deal of Ubud was laid on for the tourists but a great deal of the fruit-carrying and flower-laying was part of everyday life.

And Christmas was approaching.  The run-up was marked with a complex and neck-burning journey back into Denpasar where I collected a good handful of letters for us both.  And E being a Dane, we celebrated on Christmas Eve with a treasure hunt, poetry writing, present-exchanging and BBQ Duck dinner.  You can tell from my writing that I'm the happiest and most excited that I have, perhaps, been for the duration of the trip.

I was well onto Day 108 and it wasn't as if the trip to date had been a bust but you truly felt that this was, indeed, the reason why we came.