Getting back to my point, there being so few people on the island, they've apparently found no need for a police force, and to reduce noise and air pollution, they've all agreed to not have any kind of motorized vehicles on the island. There's hardly a need for them, anyway. You can walk around the island in a couple hours or less, it's so small. The other forms of transport are by bike and by horse and buggy. We rode a buggy from the harbor to the hotel, and got ripped off (by like three dollars at most, though) because we were staying at the nicest hotel on the island. But after that we never needed a buggy.
One of the activities we did on Gili T was to rent some bikes for a few hours and bike around the island. You can tell my mom took these next two pictures, but I won't say why, to be polite.
To her credit, however, my mom did notice this sign.
Then we found what appeared to be a much nicer beach than the beaches around our hotel. Here's one of those three-strip-style beach photos.
Our plan was to finish biking around the island, then go back to the rental guy and extend our rental time so we could go back to the beach.
But after we hit this part of the island, it started to get too sandy on the road, and we had to drag our bikes through sand in really long stretches, then we'd get some nicish road for a few seconds, then back to dragging. It was so exhausting we had to stop to get something to drink at one of the other hotel's restaurant. Then when we finally got back to our area, we couldn't find the rental dude. It wasn't like a proper shop, just some dude hanging around a bunch of bikes by the road. So we were like, fuck it, we'll just bring them back late and pay the extra money. That probably happens a lot.
But by the time we got back there, the tide had changed, and you can see all those damn rocks and coral right at the water's edge. So it was again unswimmable.
So we just sat in the couple inches of water a bit, and walked up and down the beach, looking for shells. Then we ended up getting the bikes back in time because there was no reason to stay very long at a beach you can't swim at. We went swimming in the pool instead.
At night, the island has a lot of reggae music playing and stuff like that. No local music, it seemed. They would have a party on weekend nights, and maybe weeknights, too, I'm not sure, but which bar having the party would rotate so everyone got a fair chance at revenue. But actually, we didn't really experience the partying that much, because we would be so tired out from swimming and biking and being in the sun. I think we went to bed at 10 or 10:30 every night. We did have a drink after supper one night, or rather my mom had a drink, and I had a water, and that was okay. I'm not much of a partier, though.
The restaurants were pretty cool because they were all along the beach, and a lot of them had resident cats. I think my mom took like a hundred photos of them, and I also took a few, but I won't bother you with ALL of them.
This kitty was our first close encounter. It patiently waited for scraps, which I never give to restaurant cats, but I think my mom gave it some.
Then when we went to the restaurant next door that night, we found that it was also the territory of that cat.
And another cat.
And then we saw that the orange cat had a little twin.
And then finally, they became triplets, and we assumed that was mom there, in white. Isn't that precious.
My mom's shoes and cat.
All the cats on the island had fucked up tails, as feral and semi-feral cats often do, so my mom felt right at home with them. All her cats have fucked up tails.
Here's the restaurant we had lunch in the first day. It was an Indian place with a hookah bar, but we didn't try that part.
They gave me a whole bucket of korma, and I couldn't even finish it. Bintang was the local Indonesian beer, reasonably cheap, so that's what my mom drank when she had beer. I don't think I tried it, but I'm sure it tastes like every other beer I've ever had.
Because of the whole having to import fresh water from Lombok thing, everything was more expensive in Gili that in Bali, but we still got lunch for at most fifteen bucks for two, including beer and/or cool fruit or coffee drinks, and supper wasn't much more. At this one place they had a chocolate lava cake, and I got that for dessert twice. It was awesome. It was almost as good as that dessert place in Cyprus.
ALMOST.
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