Fun guy

Day enough? - Gili T

Bali isn't quite the only island of sin and blasphemy within Indonesia's borders and the fact I was off to another one was entirely coincidental. The Gili Islands are three little specks near Bali (but nearer Lombok). Gili Trawangan is the party island, Gili Meno is quiet and romantic and Gili Air is a mix of both. Eschewing self-inflicted romance or halfway houses I booked my passage to Gili T.

Without any motor vehicles to speak of, seriously horsecarts are HGVs here, it was a tonic to Ubud's buzziness. Speaking of tonic if you are having some with gin be cautious as counterfeit spirits have been known to be sold on Gili T. The methanol in them can turn you blind and it is just not worth losing your sight for a drink as unenjoyable as a G&T. Better to stick to natural products I say. As I passed a beach bar I was beckoned over and thought it worth a look. I'd been yearning for some levity since Laos so gave the barman my money. Pedro was a fun fellow but I was struggling to feel the same about his wares. He was unfailingly friendly though and as we sat and watched the waves together (potential for misunderstanding there in retrospect) I decided to just ask him if he was gay. He looked sheepish and probably not a little wary but said yes anyway. You had to feel for the guy. Not only would he face discrimination in his own country if his orientation was widely known but, even worse, I would have to tell him that I wasn't and would never be more than a customer to him. Will I ever stop breaking the boy's hearts?

The toilet rolls falls to the floor and I weary. It's soaked through and for the first time in five months I wonder if I am too. Soaked through with experience, effort, endless days and eventful nights. My phone is broken, sand creeps through the holes in my shoes and the tears in my clothes grow. Touchy-feely hawkers, thin rungs on bunk-bed ladders, a phlegmy cough that never abates. A thousand-yard and a foot that is finally objecting to my depredations. It all paints a ragged picture. "Do you have any small bills" they ask here. No, only large ones. It's a great deal but has this been a great deal? That remains to be seen. Four hours of sleep sharpens all these points into fine needles and perhaps tomorrow all will seem well. And I can still take a short walk to sit by lapping waves and watch the clouds turn pink over the mountains. It's not a hardship but how do I justifiably say that this had begun to feel hard? I've got about a month left and I'd keep going past then if money allowed but I suspect it would be less for the joy of it than the avoidance of what comes next. A return to normality. Rory would take issue with that idea and he'd have a point. A new normality is needed if you can put aside that freighted term 'normal'. The wind blows brisky onshore and I hope for a storm to wash me clean of this funk. Maybe you can get tired of the pretty girls and the live bands, the blokes and the booze. Hedonism as a routine. Too many options, too few decisions and too much....too much stimulus.

The thing that disturbed me most was that I really didn't want to go to South America. I didn't want to go anywhere. Yet, when Yeamon talked about moving on, I felt the excitement anyway. I could see myself getting off a boat in Martinique and ambling into town to look for a cheap hotel. I could see myself in Caracas and Bogota and Rio, wheeling and dealing through a world I had never seen but knew I could handle because I was a champ. But it was pure masturbation, because down in my gut I wanted nothing more than a clean bed and a bright room and something solid to call my own at least until I got tired of it. There was an awful suspicion in my mind that I'd finally gone over the hump, and the worst thing about it was that I didn't feel tragic at all, but only weary, and sort of comfortably detached.

-- Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diaries