The next morning, I thought I was feeling well enough to go diving, yay! Just an occasional dry cough but at least I didn't have any congestion.
Breakfast:
Sliced pineapple, yay!
Mie rebus - weirdly, there was almost no chicken meat - just chicken soup and mostly noodles. Sambal by request. My wife had more "2 eggs any style".
After breakfast, we were picked up by the dive company, brought to their office about 10 minutes away to check in, sign wavers etc., fitted for equipment, and then we were driven to the "marina" which is really just a beach where a bunch of boats land. We met their traditional outrigger style boat and headed to the first dive location.
The first dive was fantastic - we saw white tipped reef sharks, sea anemone with clown fish, moray eels, octopus, a small turtle munching on sea grass, and lion fish (they've become invasive).
Afterwards, we headed to Gili Trawangan, the largest of the Gili islands (and a very popular party island), to change tanks and get some lunch. No cars are allowed on any of the gilis - everything is either foot, bicycle or traditional horse drawn "carriage". Originally we were supposed to get 90 minutes on Gili T, but it turned out to be more like 60. In my research, I had found a local Taliwang restaurant around the corner from where our dive boat lands, but on walking around, everything on that block was deserted.
So, instead, we went back to the main street as time was running out before we had to be back on the boat. Unfortunately, the tourist place we went to for lunch took a long time to get our food out, so we only had like 10 minutes to eat before getting back to the boat and in the hurry, I neglected to take pictures. I had a tourist version of Taliwang - similar to that in the hotel, and my wife had a fish/chips.
Some shots and video of the main street:
I don't know how many locals actually live on Gili T - at least in this area, it seems completely devoted to tourists. But we didn't really have time to explore.
The second dive was fantastic too - among other stuff, we saw a HUGE turtle at least 4 feet in diameter, hanging out just out of reach before it cruised off for the surface for a breath of air. I had been dying to see a large turtle up close like that, so we were really excited.
I'd highly recommend diving/snorkeling the Gilis - there's so much reef life around there and the visibility was really good.
We got back to the hotel around 3-4PM and shortly later, I started feeling not so well again - more coughing and then some congestion and a low grade fever. I wonder if all the diving/climbing in and out of the boat/etc. was a little much for me at the time.
So, dinner back at the hotel around sunset:
Lawar bebek - duck salad with long bean and grated coconut
The hotel's version of beef rendang with fried water spinach. The flavor of the curry was pretty muted but you could tell there were a bunch of dried spices like clove and cinnamon. Traditionally, rendang's origin is western Sumatra and is what's called a dry curry - it's cooked so long that there's no remaining liquid - we'll see this later on in the trip.
More grilled local tuna with sambal matah and of course
more shrimp chips....
