Postcards from Meno
After hearing about them for years, we finally made it to the Gili Islands, which lie just off the north west coast of Lombok. Gili means small island in Indonesian and that's exactly what they are: Tiny flecks of sand gathered around the high points of a drowned ridge, a remaining finger of which points toward the islands from the Lombok mainland to almost touch Gili Air.
Most folks seem to head for Gili Trawangan, the largest of the islands which sports a well developed party scene. Friends have said Trawangan reminds them of Kuta 20 years ago, but we were after a laid back four day break from work and so opted for the adjacent Gili Meno which promised peace and quiet, white sandy beaches and good snorkelling.
It's a long boat ride from Bali's Benoa Harbour to Bangsal Harbour on Lombok, where the fast boats have to call to register the passengers they're taking to the islands. Once there though, it's a quick hop across the water to Gili Trawangan where the fun begins.
We were headed for the Sunset Gecko which lay almost directly opposite the jetty at Trawangan and was clearly visible across the narrow strait that separates the two islands. We were told we'd have to wait and pay about 50,000Rp each to catch a boat to the jetty at Meno or we could pay 250,000Rp for the three of us to charter a boat to land us on the beach at Sunset Gecko. Seeing as we didn't fancy lugging our packs across Meno in the heat, we opted to pay for a charter. It wasn't until we'd paid that we were told the tide was too low to permit the boat to approach the beach and that our charter would take us to the jetty. Sigh...
Luckily we were able to convince the boat's owner that we didn't mind wading ashore and prevailed upon him to take us straight there. As it turned out, he managed to negotiate the shallows and put us ashore anyway. Guess he just wanted to take us somewhere he had a chance of getting a return fare...
There's a lot of cheaper places to stay on Meno than the Sunset Gecko, but none of the ones we saw had the same ambience. The Japanese owner Hiro has built his establishment to have as little environmental impact as possible, and our two storey bamboo and thatch bungalow was straight out of a whimsical tropical fantasy. It looked out across the strait toward the crowded beaches of Trawangan, beyond which the mountains of distant Bali rose blue on the horizon against the evening sunsets.
It was the perfect place to relax, and that we did. Until the last night. The thumping doof that drifted across the water from Trawangan presaged an attack of killer mosquitos that made sleep impossible. Normally I don't feel mosquitos biting, and being deaf in one ear makes it easy to ignore their whining, but the mozzies of Meno were plain evil. Every bite stung and went on stinging. The net in our room had a small gap which we didn't have pins or thread to close and only way to avoid the ensuing bloodbath was to stay up, ward them off and wait for the onslaught to abate. It didn't. Not until the sun came up.
Sitting there in the grey light of dawn it occurred to me that I'd solved the mystery of why two of the largest accommodation establishments on the island are abandoned ruins: They both sit near the shore of a brackish lake that is the only potential mosquito breeding spot on the island. Sunset Gecko was at least a kilometer away from the lake and I shuddered to think what it must have been like for guests of those now defunct establishments on a night like the one we'd just suffered through. You would have been reduced to a withered husk before your evening cocktail's ice had even begun to melt.
Potential perfection once again ruined by mosquitos. They were completely unfazed too by the special Neem oil repellant that Sunset Gecko makes - which certainly vouches for the repellant's non-toxic, environmentally friendly credentials. I wonder if there's a critter on Earth - apart from the malaria plasmodium and a few nasty viruses - that would suffer if mozzies disappeared from the face of the planet. Anyway... enough about them...
Gili Meno: Last sunlight before the storm bathes the beaches of Trawangan
The Meno good stuff:
No traffic. No cars. No motorbikes! So no fumes - just the scents of ocean, incense, casuarina and cooking.
Round island walks through groves of casuarinas where the only sounds are the voices of wind, wave and the occasional hello from the island's friendly inhabitants.
The sweet ponies that pull the little carts that are Meno's trucks and taxis.
Night skies dark enough to be full of stars.
The ever changing cloudscapes above Rinjani - Lombok's big volcano that looms above the island's eastern horizon.
The western horizon's wet season storms and sunsets.
The not so good stuff:
Those terrible mosquitos.
The sad state of the reef surrounding the island. Maybe there's less damage in deeper water, but everywhere we snorkelled had been ruined by dynamite fishing and dragging anchors. If you'd never seen a healthy reef before there's plenty to catch the eye - the coral and fish are doing their best to come back - but it's a desert if you've snorkelled the Bandas or somewhere similar.
Discovering that the beach at Sunset Gecko wasn't pristine white sand like it appeared in the photos, but pristine white coral shards that wanted to eat our feet and afforded no place to lie. It made pretty sounds when you walked it though...
Seeing the throngs of barely dressed, boisterous revellers on Trawangan obliviously offending many of the island's inhabitants. The locals are too polite to ever say a word about it (and they're busy trying to make a buck) but you can see it in their eyes...
Bottom Line:
We loved our stay on Meno and recommend the hospitality of Hiro and his team and the delightful castaway ambience of the Sunset Gecko, but all in all - given the time and expense of getting there - we'd rather take the bike up through the mountains and return to Amed next time we have a long weekend.
The snorkelling's better and there's no damned mosquitos!
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