Turtle heaven

Gili Meno, Lombok
20th November

Lombok island promised some 'proper' travel. Not too many tourists go there, and being driven through the setting sun towards our first stop, Sengiggi, I felt deeply happy as we passed through fields of maize, watching the Muslim locals going about their business. No pretentious shops here, no touts. Just people doing their thing.

Trouble is, as we so often find when on the road, our destination turned out to be nothing like the places we had passed through. Sengiggi was an odd beach town with slightly sleazy bars and massage parlours, loud karaoke and little else of interest.















We stayed a few hundred yards inland from the town strip at Raja's guest house, just next to the mosque, which, of course, set its loud speakers a-trembling every morning at about 5am. That was after the karaoke had pumped till 1am, and before the roosters and dogs started their ruckus at about 6. No, we didn't sleep well.

There was that rare thing, a decent bakery, in Sengiggi, though, so the next day we feasted on warm bread and (ooh) cold, French butter. And we spent a nice day on the beach where the boys learned to paddle a surf canoe and I got sunburned making sure they didn't sail off into the sunset.



















Our next stop, Gili Meno is one of three tiny islands just off the north-west coast of Lombok. It is renowned for being a great place to spend some relaxing time and for its reef life, so there we went - part of the journey via an extremely overloaded boat (see pic above) - and it was lovely.

Gili Meno isn't an authentic Indonesian experience, mind. It is inhabited by a village-worth of Muslim locals who mostly cater to the tourists (and a really out-of-tune muezzin calling the prayers). But it's a really chilled out paradise island with white coral sand and tiny numbers of polite sarong and bracelet sellers who will politely go away if you don't want to buy something. Yes, really.















After a worrying hour of searching for an affordable space among the expensive boutique resorts, Maja found us a small bungalow 500 metres inland that cost only 60,000 rupiah a day - that's about £4. It was basic, but suited us fine. After Maja and the boys had started snoring each night, I'd watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy on my laptop while swinging in the hammock. I even tried sleeping in it, gazing at the stars, but found that after a few hours, the comfy positions run out.


Gili Meno turned out to be amazing for aquatic life. On my first snorkel, I came across my first ever live turtle idling around the reef edge and I swam with it for a few minutes - almost touching it but never quite being able to sneak up on it. Then Maja went out and saw several more. Rather jealous, I went out again and suddenly I was among a group of three turtles that were grazing the coral. We also found a large lionfish here, right by the boats in the beach 'harbour'. Snorkelling doesn't get much better.















Maja grabbed the chance to improve her diving here and took the advance PADI course. So while she was learning how to tie knots and retrieve sunken objects, I was looking after the kids, which mostly entailed sitting around while they played on the beach. Occasionally I would hassle Aron into doing some maths or English homework, but mostly we just had fun.

One of Gili Meno's charms is that it has no cars or motorbikes. Instead the locals use horse-drawn carts to get around - or their feet, as it's not a big place.













The locals also totally love their cock-fighting and you'd see wicker-work cages of their beautiful feathered gladiators scattered around every dwelling. As it says in the guide: 'Gambling is not legal in Indonesia, but...'















We made good use here of the little cheap warungs (basic but often good eateries) based on the beach. These mostly provided little bamboo platforms at the edge of the beach with a thatched roof on which we'd sit while eating or whiling away the hot hours. One local food speciality that I really got into was gado-gado - mixed vegetables covered in a calory-loaded peanut sauce. Mmmm. Simple but so yummy. The boys and Maja made the most of the decent spaghetti on offer.


After a perfectly chilled out week here we had to move on - before we were ready really - already feeling the pressure of a two-month visa that was fast ticking away in a nation with so many fantastic islands to visit. We headed for the port of Lembar and the ferry to Sulawesi - a land that to me promised true remoteness and strange, new cultures. I was only half right...