Gili and Nusa Lembongan

Hello! Phew, much has happened since Ubud. We have spent 4 wonderful weeks in Indonesia - which has quickly become our favorite country in Asia. Ubud was our only planned destination before we flew to Flores in mid February, so we asked around and got travelers recommendations on where to visit.  We ended up spending our time in on the Gili island known as "Gili T", Nusa Lembongan, and then to Amed in the quiet east coast of Bali. It's been an epic time, so we'll try to share the best of it with you here.

 First, we hopped a boat to Gili Trawangan, one of three small Gili islands off of Lombok, the island east of Bali. No more Balinese art or statues or culture, this place was mostly Islamic, as is the rest of Indonesia.

Gili Trawangan turned out to have lovely snorkeling and fun diving, with some new and different marine life than Thailand. The island culture itself was fun too, a lot of local young people from Lombok island come to work here and they're friendly and down to hang out with the travelers.  We planned on only spending one night here as this is known as the party island, while nearby Gili Air is the quiet one. Well it's the low season and everything was pretty quiet, so we stayed put for 5 days of water fun.We'll post a few pics here, but save the best underwater stuff to compose and post when we get back. Patrick's got some incredible video footage. We got to see our first cuttlefish here.  We found one while snorkeling and spent an hour with it.  Unlike octopus which disappear quickly once spotted, cuttlefish hang out and watch you, change color and shape to camouflage themselves and only move a few meters away when you get too close.  They are also predictable, so we were able to find ours again the next day in the same spot. We were very, very happy about this. Best snork ever.

Our house and garden for the week 

Loved our place, but soon found it to be a little too close to the mosque and its daily prayer callings. About 4 times a day, singing/chanting for 15 minutes, broadcast over a loudspeaker for the whole island to hear. Not too bad, but the first call was at 4:20am! That was bad. 

 Night fun on Gili T

7 month anniversary at a beach side Italian joint, moon rising.

Night time bike riding to a dark beach to check out the southern hemisphere stars. 

Orion is straight overhead and upside down!

The poor but adorable horses on Gili T, luckily they never go far at a time or uphill.

There was a turtle hatchery on the island so we got 

to see the babies. So tiny and fragile, palm sized. 

It's a wonder they ever make it off the beach.

 Bike to Snork. It's a great combo.

We'll miss those smiles.

After Gili T we hopped a boat south to Nusa Lembongan, a little isle in the Southeast of Bali. A few folks, including the Seattle-ites we met on Koh Tarutao, recommended this place so we checked it out for a few days. Though the lack of easy access snorkeling was dissapointing, the lovely scenery, and best-yet diving made it a nice visit. 

Leaving the Gilis. Nusa Lembongan here we come.

 We had some amazing drift dives there over the healthiest coral we had ever seen.  The current can be frustrating when you want a closer look at something or you want to take a picture, but floating effortlessly and quickly over acres of reef while turtles, moray eels and thousands of fish of all sizes shapes and colors flow by is an incredible experience.

Leather mushroom coral.

Octopus!

 Oh for the love of a better red filter. But you get the idea.  We'll pull the color out of this one when we get home.

And then there was this. Out of the blue (ha ha, literally) came the giant manta rays.  This was truly a jaw dropping experience, what a thing to see. Hard to believe these beautiful alien-looking creatures inhabit the same planet as us. 

Patrick's got his GoPro at this moment, we haven't seen the video yet but here's to hoping he was steady.

 Post-Manta smiles.

 Patrick, doin' his thing.  Again, the camera doesn't pick up much color 25 meters down.

 Above land, we didn't capture everything we wanted to on camera here. Which, really, is often the case - most of the best and authentic moments don't include photo snapping.  I guess we have relaxed into our travels enough to not carry a camera at every moment. One camera-less evening we watched the most lovely sunset here -  rainbow streaked skies, punctured by the towering monsoon clouds complete with a rare clear view of Bali's large sacred volcano Gunung Agung on the mainland, glowing purple. And it all reflected on the calm sea, cross hatched into sections by the seaweed farms. Well, words can't do it justice but you get the idea. There were seaweed farms everywhere, which was a nice sight since it is a sea industry that is actually sustainable, as opposed to dynamite fishing or the capturing of tropical aquarium fish using cyanide. Gridded plots just off shore dilineated the farms and local farmers rowed out in their little boats with big woven baskets to collect the crop. There were tarps laid on the beach for drying seaweed and the whole place smelled strongly of the sea.

Farmers headed out to harvest.

  We were dissapointed to not find seaweed on the menu anywhere, that seemed strange, though I suppose in many places, especially in the US, the story is the same. Local food is shipped away to a distribution center to be spread out all over the world, rather than eaten at the source. Such is our global world. You all will probably see the Nusa Lembongan seaweed before we do!

We hired a local boatman to take us on a little tour de mangroves. These plants can use saltwater as well as fresh water. They are an essential habitat for a lot of young and small marine life, much like the seaweed.

 Bike ride past town and temple.
 Nusa Lembongan is back in Bali, so the stone temples were back again.

A reward for a very sweaty bike ride up. This is the port town, where we stayed at another nice little homestay.

Floating offerings to appease the evil spirits of the sea. 

Here's a bit we have learned so far about this culture: The Balinese have a unique version of hinduism endemic to their island only, and visible everywhere. Indians brought hinduism to Java centuries ago and when the empire there crashed, the artists, high priests, and intellectuals fled to Bali. Their hinduism was mixed right in with Balinese religion and culture, giving the island the rich cultural, artistic, and spiritual systems still in practice today. It is a belief system that pervades all aspects of life and has a strong belieif in animism. Spirits, good and evil, are everywhere and it is up to the Balinese to maintain an equilibrium between them. So they make offerings and build temples, and put them in specific directional spaces, toward or away from the sacred volcano, depending on what kind of spirit they are intended for. Their directional system is not a fixed north/south like ours, rather it is oriented toward the mountain or toward the sea. There are 11 directions, 8 compass points, the center, and up and down. Each has a symbol, color, day of the week, number,...and more...associated with it. There are many gods that represent many things, and they adorn all houses, roadsides, the airport, and everywhere in between. There is no Balinese word for 'Art' as it has historically been an integral part of culture and religion, not something produced separately. Of course, tourists are changing that a bit. But we are at least trying to understand the beautiful things we buy!

Well, where to next? 

We heard the area of Amed had good snorkeling so off we went!