Oh wow… I guess it could be said that I’m living the dream…
Days spent snorkelling, interacting with the locals, eating delicious local Indonesian food, sunsets and swimming and beautiful views, gorgeous temperatures, and a little project to keep my mind interested and my body active. And a pretty cool guy to do it with…
Yesterday I slept through the sunrise but got up soon after and started the day with a walk/jog along the beach track that goes around the whole island in the morning before the sun got too high. On the way back I stopped at one of the resorts along the beach where our friend Ketut had ordered a humumgous papaya for me, and took it back home. Made was making a washing line for us and busy unravelling the cord we had bought in Lombok so I helped him for a while and ate the papaya and some fresh yellow watermelon. Then we went to Endang’s place – the lady who I rented the bungalows from – and were fed a huge lunch of local Nasi Campu and fruits and a desert of bananas stewed in palm sugar syrup… This was a gift of appreciation for me spending the time to set her up on AirBnB. Made had told her I’d set us up on it and got two bookings already and she was soooo excited and keen for me to do it for her other five bungalows at her place. That exercise took about three hours as I had to set up an email account for her, set up an airbnb account for her, take the photos and organise all the blurb and her financial account details etc etc. Explaining anything to a local takes forever and usually three or four goes, even to those who speak English well, so you can imagine doing this with translation from Made, to someone with next to no computer or email or technological experience at all. Just for them to get their head around the fact that they would be informed via SMS and have to liaise via email was overwhelming! But we did it, and this morning she called asking us why she hadn’t had a booking yet lol!
Then Made and I went to the beach for a relax and a long late swim. He played the guitar as we sat by the shore as the tide slowly came in and the moon rose and every other single person left the beach. Sooooo mellow!
When we first got back to Gili Meno one of the many holiday people we bumped into that recognised Made from previous years’ singing and music playing, was a Russian man. He was so keen to have Made sing for his family again that we set it up – as much as anything is EVER set up here – to meet them on their last night.
So eventually after their early evening activities they came to the beach and settled in with a flask of wine, candles placed in holes in the ground, and a pizza to share. They had bought some firecrackers for their son who never ever even goes outdoors back home in Moscow. Both the man and his wife are journalists for the biggest newspaper in Moscow and they travel frequently. Their English was extremely limited, but they told us they rarely ever go to places a second time but they just loved their time with Made singing on the beach last year that they came back, specifically to see Made again! He said he spent the winter in Moscow in 50 degrees below zero dreaming of the beach at Gili Meno and singing with his friend Made . So we sang songs and laughed and they must have toasted their wine glasses with us twenty times through the night! Do Russians do that???
We sat on the beach till midnight…and had to drag ourselves away from them to walk back through the village to the bungalows. Made sings songs in broken English and makes a million mondogreens(!) but plays extremely well and has a great way with people. He is soooooo quiet during the general course of the day that it surprises me sometimes when he gets his guitar out and entertains. He has nothing to his name but has got by with his innate and lovely musical talent, his ability to read people and relate to them in a natural, very down to earth way – he holds the respect of everyone I’ve met here and in his home town.
All in all I can’t complain now…life is treating me pretty darn well…
And this morning our guests arrived! How exciting!
The second booking is tentative, a French couple from Vietnam. When I organised these bungalows I figured I could recoup some of the money from guests but hadn’t even thought about the fact that I would be meeting people from all over the world and how interesting it would be!
Ciao for now guys, time for another snorkel…
Here’s some photos of my living the dream reality….
Ps Made and I sing pretty well together – he has a great ability to feel music and go with the flow and improvise and harmonise… I think we actually sound pretty cool as a bit of a duo lol. We just need to learn the words properly hehe, last night I got my iPad out often and we all sang along with the lyrics enlarged for us all 🙂