July 20 - A piece of paradise and then onto dry land.

July 20 Day 156

                I got up early and did my usual stubbing my toe and banging my head on the way to the bathroom.  Because of the low ceilings and sills on the floor, both of these things happened to the passengers on a daily basis.

                We had breakfast and then headed to our one major stop for the day.  This was a small island where we would snorkel and then land and enjoy the beach or hike to the top of a hill.  Like we did on the waterfall hike, we put our dry stuff in a box which was rowed over to the beach for a later pickup.

                The snorkeling was the best of the trip, with pink stingrays, clown loaches and a wide assortment of other fish in good quantities.  We walked around the nice beach which was on a narrow spit so there were two sandy strips facing in different directions.  We decided to put on our shoes and look at he hill but the path was very worn and people were slipping and crawling as they came down.  Our British friends were among them but said the view was worth the hassle so up we went.

                Going up was slippery so we wet slowly but they weren't kidding.  The water was all shades of blue around us and the setting of our small island surrounded by other ones with lots of white sand and lush vegetation.

                We carefully picked our way down the hill with many short slides and Meg sending time on her backside and getting help from our other boatmates who were going down with us.  We bypassed the souvenir stand although some of the komodo statues were pretty cool and put our dry stuff back into the box.

                We took our time snorkeling back to the boat and the colourful fish were still there.  We changed into our dry stuff back on the boat and started backing for the end of our trip.  We had lunch and were just about to head to port when the Romanian couple crawled out of the water.  They had been missed in our pre-lunch head count and might have been left behind if they had swum any longer.  They reported following some sharks and the crew made them a quick lunch as our regular one was completely devoured.

                n the way to port we organized a tip envelope for the crew and said our goodbyes.  Getting off the boat was tricky as we docked next to other boats and had to walk through narrow spaces on occupied ships to finally get out. 

                Meg was tired so we negotiated a cab to our hotel, which was probably for the best as it would have been a 20 minute walk.  The gardens were lush but the setup was strange with reception being in a little hut in the garden.  The place was huge with nice porches on all the rooms and we enjoyed a proper shower and airing out of our stuff after four days on our boat.  The internet didn't work in our room and you had to go to an open hut where the staff hung out to get it to work.  Our laptop was starting to get ornery as it wouldn't always take a charge when plugged in and was sitting at less than 20% power much of the time.  We also had a tv in the room but were told that the reason we couldn't get any reception on it was that it didn't work.

                After a rest we decided to explore the town and find somewhere to eat dinner.  We stopped by the kitchen, where they really wanted to know what time we would like breakfast.  They explained that they were training a bunch of students from the local high school and needed things to be organized.  This explained why we  didn't have any towels in our room and the woman who showed it to us and carried our bag would not accept a tip.  Almost comically on time, there was a loud crash in the kitchen as one of the trainees learned a loud lesson.

                Finally, one of the English speakers on staff showed us a shortcut from the hotel that took us down a dark alleyway and across a few lawns before hitting the road.  We had no map and followed our intuition to figure out which way was downtown and we turned out to be correct.

                The stores at the beginning of our walk were practical shops aimed at locals but gradually became more trinket/diving shop/ restaurant as we continued.  Someone had ripped off the town with cheap metal panels that covered gaps in the sidewalk but were bent, flimsy and in various states of destruction. 

                By the time we got to our restaurant everything was very touristy and we met our British friends.  They had booked a dive for the next day and had eaten at a local hotel that they said was okay.  We wished them well and went to our recommended place which had various dishes in trays that you could combine how you wanted.  We had no idea how long they had been out there but when they brought out a fresh tray of curry I grabbed that and everything was good.

                The food was nice if a little pricey for Indonesia and the juice we ordered took forever to get to us.  While we waited we watched cloud of mothy flies cluster around the streetlights and wagered whether the people stopping into the dive shops across the way would purchase a trip of not.

                Once our juice came it was delicious, heavy on the fruit, light on the water and sugar.  The walk back was warm and we took our time.  One side effect of having our boat trip was that for a solid week afterwards the room or street that we were on seemed to move like waves underneath us until our bodies adapted to being on land again.

                We found our shortcut back, being careful not to touch a stray, stripped wire that hung down in our way.  Back in the room we climbed into our bed that seemed to be moving like a lifeboat and floated off to sleep.

The view from the top of the hill.

We don't know why these were here, but they made for a good picture.