Gili Meno, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
We arrived on
Gili Meno with accommodation booked and a full itinerary of sunbathing & relaxation on the horizon. We found our bungalow cozy & new. We unpacked and got settled in while enjoying our welcome juice. It was late and we didn't do much that evening apart from sample the pizza and scout for cheap beer. We took a walk a little way down the island to get our bearings and we saw some lovely shells on sale that are used to make jewellery at home for a bargain price. Ali was a little excited to say the least. It was a lovely evening and we ended it by reading on our balcony and we called it an early night. The next morning brought beautiful sunshine and we were certainly in the mood to explore the island. We decided to take a walk around the island as we had heard that it only took about an hour. We walked down the beach in the white sand and through the sea. It was so clear it was unbelieveable and it was just like being in a salty swimming pool. Our walk took us right around the edge of the island and Ali collected some interesting shells and bits of coral for our collection
. We decided to stop for a breather on the other side of the island and gather some rays before we returned to our side. We managed to secure a raised open front beach hut to have some lunch, not bad eh? After the remaining stroll towards our bungalows we were ready for some chill time and we got ready for the evening banter. We decided to go a little further up the beach and we sat at a little restaurant and sample an Indonesian dish which was very tasty. We set on a quest for cheap beer and eventually found it from a little stall at the end of the beach. This became one of our regular runs during our stay. After another early night we were ready to take on the might of the sun the following day. We managed to get a really good spot on the beach underneath a small tree so we had plenty of shade as the sun was so strong during the afternoon. I decided to try and tackle snorkeling again as the sea here was much calmer than in Lazy Beach and I really wanted to see the reef. It was absolutely fantastic and I never looked back. This activity dominated most of our time on the beach for the next few days and we loved exploring the reef and seeing all the tropical fish and I even got a glimpse of a huge Sea Turtle. We spent hours in our spot just reading, sun bathing and snorkeling. We even managed to reserve our spot for the next two days by getting up early and placing down our towels under the tree. We also managed to find somewhere that did decent takeaway sandwiches so when the reading and swimming got too much we could eat as well
. I don't know how we survived, it was so busy on this island! He he. On a a couple of the days on our way back from the beach we passed some cute little goats in this tiny field so we would feed them and made sure they weren't starving in the intense heat. We also sampled the freshest coconuts ever, we watched one of the guys that worked for the bungalows climb the tree and pull them off by hand and then slice and dice it for us. Pretty sweet! One evening we decided to take a walk to the other side of the island to witness the sunset as it is the best view from there. We had a spectacular view as the sky grew a deeper red and we had the imposing Mount Agung on Bali to complete the skyline in the distance. We had dinner and then took a rather novel taxi home. A horse drawn cart! The only way to travel on the island! We completed all of our evenings by reading and chilling on the balcony with a beer or two, it was such a nice island to be on- total tropical relaxation!!.
