Gili Air--Day 2

A sunny morning after a noisy night of French guests and staff partying to bongo drums and loud music. It finally broke up around 11 or so. Wouldn’t be so bad except the girls cottage is right across from the bar. Court wandered onto the porch at one point ready to do motherly battle but realized taking on a bunch of drunk, fun loving guests who did not go to bed early was probably not her best move.

Today, fueled by egss and Bali coffee, we tried more snorkeling just offshore. Amazing colors and sizes and shapes -- better than what we saw in Bali off the boat. Seems the whole family Schrieve is hooked on this sea-gazing activity. We took turns with a mask which worked out well. Tomorrow we’ve signed up for another snorkeling trip to the three Gilis -- Air, Meno and Trawangan (or “T” as the locals call it). The latter is the party island. Maybe the French people should go there.

Anyway, we had a lovely day in which Mom paid too much for a necklace made of “rope and a bead“ (according to Anna). Court is still pretty naïve when it comes to the touts who woo her with lines like “handmade” and “one-of-a-kind.” Luckily we still had enough money to buy some yummy wood-fired pizzas, chicken nuggets and garlic bread for lunch at a beach café.

Then the rains came again but we got home before it started pouring this time. Anna of course wanted to jump right back into the pool -- thunder and all -- but we made our mermaid take a little break while we tried again to use our laptop with the island’s painfully slow hotspot. Then the folks took a little pre-dinner walk to the end of the island which was very quiet and lovely. Maybe tomorrow we’ll catch a sunset and view of the Lombok’s volcanoe, Ganung Rinjani.

We dined on dinner down the road and had some yummy Thai food while grooving to Nora Jones. “Not reggae” the girls noticed. We’ve seen more cats on Lombok than on Bali and dinner tonight was no exception (under the table not on the menu). There are also lots of geckos, cows, roosters -- ah the roosters -- and tonight a rather large cockroach in the bathroom which Mom was surprised to learn was alive when she went to pick it up. Hal saved the day.

Off to do a little reading and then, hopefully, get a quiet night’s sleep.