I signed up for a 3-day scuba diving course on Gili Trawangan, and that makes life very simple. Every morning at 5:45, the sun comes up like a nuclear bomb going off and the neighbourhood roosters go bananas. I cover my eyes with my arm and lie still for an hour, then go outside, say hello to the three or four hotel employees busy cleaning their own footprints off the tiled floor, and eat breakfast. Then I hike twenty minutes over to the dive shop, politely waving off offers from early-rising weed dealers. I dive, read my big blue PADI book, and fill out multiple choice tests with questions like these.
True or false: Open-water PADI certification qualifies you as a small-animals veterinary surgeon.
What clear, breathable gas, composed mostly of nitrogen and oxygen, is compressed into the compressed air cylinders used in scuba diving?
If you are running low on air, you should: A) ascend immediately and explode in a pink foam of nitrogen bubbles and lung tissue; B) swim around in a tiny circle wringing your hands; C) signal to your partner and execute standard ascent.
At least, this was the first day. Later on, there was a lot of mucking about with compasses and dive tables, and I had to prove that I could swim 200 metres and tread water for 10 minutes. Before I tried, I wouldn't have bet that I could do either of those things. My 200 metres would have been very interesting to watch. I think I invented some new strokes; I wish I could remember them now.
I did four dives. After every dive, my instructor would slap a waterlogged guide to reef fish down on the table and tell me what we'd seen. Around the reefs, there were sea turtles, giant clams, sweetlips, clownfish (which my instructor insisted on calling 'Nemos'), lionfish, trumpetfish, and things I've forgotten. We found a patch of moray eels, their heads sticking out of crevices like mucus-coated sock puppets. Once, my instructor looked over excitedly and put her hand over her head like a fin -- the sign for 'shark' -- but it turned out to be just a pair of cuttlefish. But seeing cuttlefish is also good, if you like things that are ghostly and otherworldly, and I do.
At lunch, I'd go to a restaurant, and one or two of the island's skinny stray cats would come over and meow piteously at me while I ate. If there was room, they'd jump up onto the chair with me, and if no one drove them away, they'd jump up on the table and sniff at my plate.
In the afternoon, a heavy, soaking rain would come down and flood the road. In the evening, the rain would stop, but there would be flashes of lightning in the distance, and strange thunder, like someone moving heavy furniture across the top of the sky. The mosquitoes would come out to tank up on intoxicant-rich backpacker blood and fly off unsteadily to lay eggs with terrible genetic flaws.
A friend of mine described Gili Trawangan as "a Survivor island where most inhabitants battle neither unforgiving elements nor lack of food, but 7 hangovers a week and symptoms associated with untreated syphilis". There's something to this, especially down at the busiest part of the strip, devastated by runaway reggaefication, where dive shops and beach bars take turns hosting the nightly island party. I can't really say, though, because I was usually in bed by about 10, knowing I'd be lucky to sleep past 5.
How I got back to Bali
For my last night in Indonesia, I booked a big tourist hotel near the airport on Bali. To get there, I took a speedboat directly from Gili Trawangan.
What that was like
The plan for the next 36 hours is to 1) fly up to Hong Kong; 2) spend most of the night in Hong Kong airport; 3) fly on to Tokyo.
True or false: Open-water PADI certification qualifies you as a small-animals veterinary surgeon.
If you are running low on air, you should: A) ascend immediately and explode in a pink foam of nitrogen bubbles and lung tissue; B) swim around in a tiny circle wringing your hands; C) signal to your partner and execute standard ascent.
At least, this was the first day. Later on, there was a lot of mucking about with compasses and dive tables, and I had to prove that I could swim 200 metres and tread water for 10 minutes. Before I tried, I wouldn't have bet that I could do either of those things. My 200 metres would have been very interesting to watch. I think I invented some new strokes; I wish I could remember them now.
I did four dives. After every dive, my instructor would slap a waterlogged guide to reef fish down on the table and tell me what we'd seen. Around the reefs, there were sea turtles, giant clams, sweetlips, clownfish (which my instructor insisted on calling 'Nemos'), lionfish, trumpetfish, and things I've forgotten. We found a patch of moray eels, their heads sticking out of crevices like mucus-coated sock puppets. Once, my instructor looked over excitedly and put her hand over her head like a fin -- the sign for 'shark' -- but it turned out to be just a pair of cuttlefish. But seeing cuttlefish is also good, if you like things that are ghostly and otherworldly, and I do.
At lunch, I'd go to a restaurant, and one or two of the island's skinny stray cats would come over and meow piteously at me while I ate. If there was room, they'd jump up onto the chair with me, and if no one drove them away, they'd jump up on the table and sniff at my plate.
In the afternoon, a heavy, soaking rain would come down and flood the road. In the evening, the rain would stop, but there would be flashes of lightning in the distance, and strange thunder, like someone moving heavy furniture across the top of the sky. The mosquitoes would come out to tank up on intoxicant-rich backpacker blood and fly off unsteadily to lay eggs with terrible genetic flaws.
A friend of mine described Gili Trawangan as "a Survivor island where most inhabitants battle neither unforgiving elements nor lack of food, but 7 hangovers a week and symptoms associated with untreated syphilis". There's something to this, especially down at the busiest part of the strip, devastated by runaway reggaefication, where dive shops and beach bars take turns hosting the nightly island party. I can't really say, though, because I was usually in bed by about 10, knowing I'd be lucky to sleep past 5.
How I got back to Bali
For my last night in Indonesia, I booked a big tourist hotel near the airport on Bali. To get there, I took a speedboat directly from Gili Trawangan.
What that was like
- The day before: Book the boat at the dive shop. Fill out lengthy paperwork with personal details.
- Morning of departure: Go down 'to the harbour,' as directed. Wonder which stretch of beach is 'the harbour', and decide it's probably the bit around the disintegrating concrete jetty.
- It isn't. Ask someone; directed to a ticketing office down the street for 'check-in'.
- Fill out the same paperwork completed the day before.
- Get a ticket. It has 'Scoot' under 'name', 'Sweden' under 'nationality', and is otherwise blank. Point this out to agent, in case he finds it interesting. He doesn't. Sit down to wait. Think about asking vaguely Scandinavian-looking guy opposite whether his name is 'Scoot'. Decide it doesn't matter.
- Wade aboard.
- Almost get rammed by rival fast boat company apparently operated by thrill-kill cult. Three or four guys stand at the bows of each boat and strain to keep us apart. Notice it's the same company that capsized one of its boats recently.
- Go across to Lombok to drop off a family with a toddler. Watch slow boats being loaded up with supplies for Gili T: Women are wading out to a boat, each with two large sacks on her head. A boat with two enormous containers for fresh water is waiting nearby.
- Head out into the open sea for Bali. The staff pass out seasickness pills and small bottles of water. Take one of each.
- Stare at the horizon as the ride gets rougher. The boat starts climbing up on the swell and slamming down hard into the trough. It's like riding a wheelbarrow down a flight of stairs. The Australian owner staggers back and forth, holding handles set into the ceiling. He encourages people generally, and picks out those who look like they might throw up and suggests they get out of the carpeted cabin into the 'fresh air' at the back.
- Follow the example of an experienced-looking backpacker nearby and go limp.
- Carry on this way for three hours. The cabin is full of limp, bouncing forms immobilized by Gravol and seasickness.
- Reflect on company slogan, 'The Fun Fast Boat'.
- Get out at a wooden jetty somewhere. Decline offer of ice cream from men with push-carts.
- Reel up a path to a restaurant, where there's a man holding a clipboard with detailed information on all of us and our hotels. He studies the clipboard carefully, puts it down, and starts randomly stuffing people into minivans.
- Driver goes to the first hotel. Somber security guards, mindful of the recent terrorist attacks, look under the car with mirrors.
- Driver asks the rest of us whether we know where our hotels are. We don't. He laughs, and says that that's OK.
- Driver confesses that he's not really a driver: He works at the restaurant.
- Driver checks his notes, and asks me twice what the name of my hotel is.
- Driver goes to second hotel. Somber security guards look under the car with mirrors.
- Other passsengers get out. Driver looks at me expectantly. Driver says "your hotel". I contradict driver. Driver is thunderstruck.
- Driver and I tool around southern Bali for half an hour. Driver reads out the names of likely-looking hotels and looks back at me hopefully.
- We stumble across the hotel. A jovial security guard waves us through with a careless laugh.
The plan for the next 36 hours is to 1) fly up to Hong Kong; 2) spend most of the night in Hong Kong airport; 3) fly on to Tokyo.
