Bicycles and horse-drawn carts and carriages passed by me as I walked down the dirt-covered, automotive-free streets of the island.
Fifteen minutes after I arrived at the shop, Nick, my host, returned from his morning dive trip and fifteen minutes after that, I felt like I'd known his open snarky self for years. He and his best friend Tayler and some of their dive buddies took me and his other couchsurfer, Brenna out for lunch at one of their favorite local spots, where wisecracks, puns, and ketchup packets alike were thrown across the table with abandon.
Afterward, Brenna walked me back to Nick's place, a cute, cottage with only a bedroom, bathroom, and hammock-strung porch, attached to an identical one rented by Tayler, the pair comprising Pondok Linda. It seemed I couldn't get away from eponymous dwellings on the islands off Bali.
When Nick finished work, he met us at his place and entertained me with stories of his convoluted travel and romantic histories. In exchange, I let him go through the photos of my trip which he critiqued and commented on comically and mercilessly, much as he did with me personally. Key example: "I like you. You smell like you're in your thirties." (For context, Nick and I are the same age.)
That night, the dive shop hosted a barbecue to which the boys invited B__ and me, as well as Lauren, my friend from Bali who had come to the Gilis knowing I was there as well and who had managed to find me within 10 minutes of my arrival. At the barbecue, we met Selena, a friend of the boys who also worked as a dive instructor, but at another shop down the road. For the first hour of the party, we four girls sat on top of the ice chest drinking beer, chatting as girls do, and watching the mind-boggling spectacle that is Nick and Tayler's interaction.
Now, I have a lot of close male friends. I would even go so far as to say I have more guy friends than girl friends, so I've observed a lot of friendships between guys at quite a close distance. But never in my life have I seen anything to rival the bromance of Nick and Tayler. A complex system of intuitive hand signals and a near-telepathic awareness of one another's thoughts made verbal communication between them all but unnecessary. Unmuddied by the mundane informational exchanges essential to the rest of us mere mortals, their conversation consisted almost entirely of banter, in-jokes and antics which veered toward the edge of lunacy when viewed from the outside, but which I'm sure made perfect sense to them. At one point they broke into a choreographed handshake dance unintentionally but hysterically similar to the "Dance of Joy" so often performed by Larry and Balki on "Perfect Strangers."
As Nick put it, they "brolong" together. The boys had been traveling as a pair for the greater part of four years, had first bonded over a mutual love of pajama pants, and had recently made a pissing contest out of their follicular growth. First one to cave and cut his hair owes the other fifty bucks. (At the time of publication, they're both still looking like Hanson brothers.)
After a great first night, which ended with Nick and I trying and failing to sneak into one of the isle's hotel pools, the next day I met Lauren and her buddy Dom for some snorkeling. We hardly had to swim at all, as the current ran quickly enough to move us down the coast as we observed the diverse marine life below. Later, Lauren and I met up with Selena for some sunbathing on the beach, where Lauren worked it old-school movie star style.
We ate dinner with the boys at the night market at the stall of the inimitable, pint-sized Anna, a local vendor who traded flirtatious barbs with Tayler, her favorite customer. Selena and I split a whole fish, barbecued to perfection, which we washed down with bizarrely delicious avocado and chocolate shakes. We chased those with a pitcher of gin and tonics at Rudy's Bar. Then the night got interesting.
Every Wednesday night on Gili T, half of the island congregates at the bar known simply as "Irish" and gets a lil' rowdy, and this was no exception. We drank and danced, and I bought Nick and Tayler two rounds of drinks to thank them for their hospitality, for which Nick in turn thanked me with a big ol' bear hug...
... and a Vodka Joss. Joss is basically... powdered Red Bull on steroids. Perfectly legal, but powerful. Five minutes after drinking it, my energy had doubled, and I wanted everyone to share in my exuberance. I convinced Lauren and Dom to stay out, despite early departures the next morning, by carrying Dom around for a while. I have no idea why this worked, but it did.
I'm not going to get into all of the night's debauchery on here, but let that serve as an innocent example of the fact that a good time was had by all.
I spent Thursday sleeping in, then lazing about the beach once again. I got lunch with Nick-- who I'd begun calling Snicholas for reasons I can't remember-- at the same spot as the first day, and I had an absolutely delicious tuna steak sandwich, for which I would return the following two days as well. That evening, he, Selena, Tayler and I went down to Sunset Bar to check out the titular event.
The boys assured me that every sunset on Gili T pretty much surpassed the last, but I had never seen one, so the sight of Bali's Mounts Agung and Batur-- which I had hiked only a week previous-- silhouetted against an indigo and burnt orange sky impressed me plenty.
I spent the rest of the night hanging with Tayler, watching movies, playing with his computer and guitar, and looking through photos of his extensive travels. In the morning, he took me out to Shark Point to get my Adventure Deep dive certification, which would both count toward my eventual Advanced Open Water Diver certification and train me to dive to depths of up to 30 meters.
Tayler made for an excellent instructor. The goofy guy I'd hung out with the past few days disappeared and a consummate professional took his place as he clarified a number of points on which I was confused and guided me through the new material with a steady hand. We had limited visibility on the dive, so I didn't see any sharks, but a powerful surge kept things interesting, tossing us back and forth across distances exceeding ten meters. Once we'd surfaced, Tayler kept apologizing for the conditions, but I'd had a great time rolling back and forth, literally going with the flow. Besides, I'd seen my first sea turtle, so I would have been happy regardless.
We spent the trip back to the beach laying out on the roof of the boat, and the goofy guy returned as he told me about comic attempts at something called a "suspended prison guard." (It's dirty, so if you really want to know, go look it up.)
After Tayler signed off on my certification, I took a yoga class at a picturesque outdoor studio nearby. The very pregnant teacher nevertheless put us through a rigorous practice, most of which she impressively did along with us. Even when the power went out just after sunset, as it had in the Gilis every night I'd been there, and we were plunged into darkness, she soldiered on and we followed suit.
That night we returned to Anna's night market stall, where I tried a magenta-hued banana and dragon fruit shake paired with a scrumptious chocolate-filled pancake, and then to Rudy's for more gin and tonics. I spent most of the evening talking to N and T's buddy Andy and a lovely solo traveler named Emma, and dancing with Selena and another Aquaddiction dive instructor named Vinnie, but Tayler and Nick's moves most surprised me. For surfer-looking white boys, they know how to twirl a girl around a dance floor rather adroitly.
I decided to spend my final day on Gili T cycling around the island, which I managed with some difficulty. For most of my time there, I'd gotten everywhere either by walking or by riding on the pegs of Tayler's bike. The previous night I'd even tried sitting side-saddle on the back of Selena's bike to hysterically disastrous effect and ended up just renting a bike instead.
My rental looked like nearly every other bike in Asia: simple, straight-forward and street-ready, but it didn't exactly handle like a dream when the roads devolved into sandy paths for about a third of my journey. At least ten times, I ended up having to dismount and walk the bike for long stretches. The payoff justified the effort.
The far side of the island proved just as idyllic as the more populated half but felt wilder and more rugged.
After two hours of circumnavigation, I returned to town and ventured out onto the lone pier to appreciate the shoreline from a different angle...
... and to watch the locals bringing in their boats.
I met up with Tayler for lunch, and he helped me buy my fast boat ticket back to Bali for Sunday. I also tried to take another yoga class to unwind after my ride, but it had been cancelled because, as the note said, the teacher was "pregnant and tired." Instead, I stretched out in Tayler's room, assuring him that I wouldn't get the room "all sweaty and smelly" as he worried I would. Fortunately, the water didn't go out as it had the previous night, and I was able to shower off afterward and keep my word.
That night, the expats of the area held a farewell dinner at the night market for their Brazilian comrade Diego. I hung out for a bit, both there and afterward at the reggae bar, but the night ended fairly early and, tired as I was, I didn't mind.
The next morning, I said goodbye and thanks to Nick before he left on a dive trip, and then Selena and Tayler walked me to the departure point. They both left before I realized that my boat was running late, but fortunately Andy ended up being on the same boat, and he entertained me with excellent dive and DJ-ing stories, both as we waited and once onboard. He also consoled (and teased) me when I discovered that someone had stolen my beloved Old Navy flip-flops while we sat barefoot in a seaside hut, waiting for the boat. I'd bought them for $5 three years before, and they'd made it through 7 countries without wearing out. I had intended to hang them on a wall as a souvenir at the end of my trip. Of all the things I'd lost, those most saddened me.
Still, the blight of the flip-flop loss aside, I left Gili T having had one hell of a good time.
-Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Gili Trawangan, Lombok, Indonesia
It was so nice meeting you and I loved reading this :)
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