Back to BaliI

I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve fallen for it but......”It’s recommended you are at the boat dock one hour before the scheduled departure time” We check out of the beautiful Living Asia resort after an early breakfast, a last swim and a luxuriate by the pool so that we can be at the dock by 12:00, one hour before our scheduled departure. We stop off at a few beauty...and I mean BEAUTY spots on the way back Bangjal dock.

The organisation around the Ekejaya fast boat sets the pulses racing! We bounce over the rubble that constitutes a parking area raising a huge cloud of dust. Ekejaya Check In is written in ball point on a piece of paper in the windscreen of a small van, the tail gate is down on which sits an unsmiling little man in sun glasses, he looks at our phone receipt and says

“You wait here” gesturing to the general sea front. The whole process has taken 9 seconds....

“What do we do with the other 59 minutes 51 seconds we have to wait?” we ask

He shrugs.

We try and find a seat in the shade, which is where all the locals are. We find a kind I’d seat but squashed in by lots of families, some are smoking and lots are hawking. We decide to move before we lose all hope of being able to breath smoakless air and/or throw up. We would rather stand in the searing heat!

The waterfront is lined with local boats ferrying to the local islands, manly for local people. Every now and then a totally incomprehensible series of shrieks, screams and guttural bellows announces through a deafeningly loud and distorting PA system the departure or arrival of another overcrowded death trap. Families carrying infants, chickens, pigs, scramble through the surf and onto the low slung boats that then putter out through the waves, every now and then an engine gives up the ghost and a boat drifts, helpless at the mercy of the waves and current, 40-50 people peering out of the sides, holding babies, controlling nervous pigs, dogs, chickens, some offering advice to the sweating boats man who tugs at starter cables, adjusts something or other, smoke from his inevitable fag drifting up into his face as he pours fuel direct into the carburettor in order to shock the motor to life. A cough, a splutter, a small explosion, a huge cloud of smoke and off they go to a certain watery death.

Having been at the sweltering dock one hour before our scheduled departure and as it happens a full 59 minutes and 51 seconds earlier than we needed to have been, should the boat have left on time, the scheduled departure time of 13:00 is now past and the boat as yet hasn’t arrived. From where we are we can see the boats two previous stops at Gili Meno and Gili Air.

Kim asks where the boat is at 13:20.

“It’s just left Gili Air and is on it’s way” is the confident reply.....

I can see the boat just approaching Gili Meno from where I’m standing so two stops to go before it arrives. The crossing is a peach, beautiful flat blue sea, a featureless blue sky overhead. Back in Bali we’re bundled into a minivan where a driver spends the next 45 minutes trying to cause multiple vehicle pile ups with some of the most aggressive driving I’ve ever experienced, and I’ve experienced some, let me tell you! At one point the nice man sitting in the front whimpers very loudly as our driver slams on the breaks as we hurtle towards the car in front. Kim breaks into uncontrollable laughter, I think it was either that or smack the driver round the back of the head.

Back at the Villa, our Aussie pals are out with friends so washing done we head to the beach for a lovely meal and a long, long talk about how much we’re loving this part of the world.

Lombok was a serious slice of absolute paradise. Beautiful, peaceful, the staff from reception had all come down to the car park to wave us off, great big two hands over their heads waves, smiles a mile wide.....

”Till next time” they’d shouted.

Another Sunday buffet of outdoor barbequed pig, lamb and beef all you can eat style, for less than a fiver. We’re joined by Dave and Robyns friends Paul and Vicky, a lovely couple who we’d like to have seen more of if time allowed. Paul has spent yesterday at the beach and so today he resembles a Swan match, face bright red and radiating heat. Kim and I go with Dave for pm cocktails at the beach, a couple of beers at the villa and before we know it........ our last day in Bali....for now.

Out for a last meal at La Playa, a stunning spot on the waterfront, amazing food, the lovely Uni a Balinese friend of Davids and Robyns has come along to say goodbye to us and she brings nuts! Not just any nuts, these little darlings are roasted with thai basil and god knows what all, if they are not the best nuts I’ve tasted I don’t know what are. She has unfortunately bought enough to take up our entire 20 kilos per person baggage allowance on the trip back to Malaysia so we’re forced to leave some with the Aussies....Don’t eat em yet! We may be back!!

What an amazing time we’ve had here with David, Robyn~Lynn and their friends. Hugely generous, funny and inspirational. They really are the full package. They’ve made us think very hard about the possibilities that retirement offers, in terms of how you can be a useful, engaged citizen of the world rather than struggling through horizontal sleet to the allotment. We have to say goodbye very quickly or we would never leave them, or their beautiful home.

Till next time!!