10 Days in Tropical Paradise

Such brilliant stories from Gili Meno -- what a vacation paradise.  If only it wasn't 3 days transport away from Canada, I would be there every holiday I had!

Our arrival was less that ideal, as we arrived totally exhausted after 12 hours of travel, just as the sun was setting, and just as the rain was starting!  After asking a few places if they had a room (no, sorry, we're full), we decided to divide and conquer: Jen with the bags, me roaming the island in search of accommodation.  I made a friend (not surprisingly), who escorted me (in a tropical monsoon, by the way), to all of the bugalows on the north part of the island -- basically calling all of his friends to see if there was a room available for me.  What a lovely man (named Kim, by the way).  I was finally convinced to a place (well, there really wasn't an alternative), even though Kim couldn't find the key and the hotel owner wasn't around (sketch, I know), so I walked back to Jen totally drenched and totally starving.  We went to eat at Kim's place (actually, his sister's place called Ana's cafe), and devoured everything while the most amazing thunderstorm I have ever heard happened around us.

We saw a shark, with her baby, and then a manta ray!

As we were eating, another traveler came in -- but we soon learned he was an island resident, having moved to Meno as a dive instructor.  Filip was his name and was to become our good buddy in the following days.  When we finished our meal, Kim walked us to our bungalow (again, in the pouring rain) but it was not the one he had shown me earlier (which apparently was rented, hence why no key)... so we were shown to a completely sketchy room at the back.  Oh man.  I'd rather not relive that night....

Needless to say, we were up at the crack of dawn to find new accommodation.  We walked the entire island, hoping to find something -- but it was quickly dawning on us that New Year's Eve was a bad time to be in search of a room on a very small island... after walking the entire beach, we found one room, for only one night, and the bed was flooded by the monsoon the evening before.  We took it, gratefully.  :)

It rained the entire day on New Year's Eve, which was a pretty big pain given that we needed to move all of our belongings to the new bungalow, which had giant puddles on the floor!  So tragic.  I think Jen wanted to kill me for bringing her to this tropical raining hell with no hotels.  :)

The rain petered out in the evening, so we showered and attempted to dress up for the big night.  We treated ourselves to king prawns, while sitting in a bungalow overlooking the ocean.  It was a really nice, peaceful evening -- complete with bumping techno music playing from the nearby bar (I thought Meno was the quiet island?).  And peaceful until a group of wonderfully friendly Indonesian men decided to be our dates for New Years Eve!  It was a great night, complete with fireworks from all three islands at and after midnight, lighting up the ocean around us.  Beautiful!

Jan 1 and the sun was shining -- hooray!  I forced Jen to get an early start with me, as we again plotted to move to a home without a wet mattress.  We were in luck and the prime real estate on the island had a room, waiting for us (we made friends with the owner the previous evening...).

So we started 2009 with a clean and dry bungalow, on the beach, in the sun.  I soon made another friend, Ande, who I began to call my one-stop shopping.  He quickly rounded me up a hammock to hang from our rafters (rented, of course, as I have no bag!) and two snorkels.  We spent the afternoon following him around the waves, gawking at the ocean life not 20 metres from our bungalow door.  Live coral, steps from the beach!

Jen was pretty hooked after a few hours of snorkeling and we made plans with the dive school for a refresher course for me, and an introduction to diving for Jen, starting the next morning.  Bright and early (dive school starts at 8:30am!) we woke up for the 3rd morning in a row (is it really my vacation?), but full of energy for the day to come.  Our friend from a few nights ago, Filip, was our instructor.  Jen was hooked after 2 minutes in the ocean.  Not bad to see three turtles on your first dive ever, eh?  The refresher was great and convinced me to get my masters certification.

So we were effectively dive bums for the next 5 days.  Getting up early, eating breakfast with our new friends Anto and Rahim, walking over to the dive shop, getting our equipment and seeing the ocean!  Lunch break followed, often with a quick snorkel trip as we waited (often more than 2 hours) for the food to arrive (because the restaurants are just on the beach and the coral is so close!).  Then, back to the dive shop for an afternoon dive, or, for Jen, dive school.  Although Jen and I had seperate instructors (me with Filip and Jen with Linda), we were often at the same dive site or riding the same boats out, which was really nice.  The pros of having a private (in my case) and semi-private (for Jen) instruction!  Evenings were spent at Kim's place, with dinner and guitar music.  We were often joined by Filip and Linda, for stories about how we screwed up on our dives or did something well.  Hanging out with your dive teachers is definitely a riot!

As dive school ended, we became antsy to leave (as in, definitely did not want to leave our idyllic world).  We opted to stay one more day -- this time as "fun divers", certified divers without an instructor, and booked one more evening at Malia's.  The next day, we planned two fun dives, led by the Indonesian dive guides, who we had made good friends with over the last few days, but hadn't actually dived with because we were always with our instructors.  The head dive guide, Sulman, insisted on always being with us, promising me to show me a shark!  And he did!  We saw a shark, with her baby, and then a manta ray!  So spectacular, and all within the same view.  It was unbelievable.  For our second fun dive, we saw an amazing coral wall and several turtles.  We even spent our safety stop (3 minutes) with a turtle having breakfast.  It was really outstanding.  Sulman was a terrific guide.

After our dives, we had the afternoon to snorkel, and basically get ready to leave.  By now, everyone knew that it was our last night and we had many invitations for how to spend it.  In the end, we went back to Kim's, joined with a woman we met diving in the day, followed by Filip and Linda later in the evening.  What a nice night -- sadly our last in island paradise!