Paradise Lost

As cliche as it is, all good things come to an end. Our 11 night stay on the Gilli island was absolutely incredible but the wheels started to fall off after the 9th night.

Being that most people in this part of the world are Muslim, there are a few things that I found weird but don't care to talk about. I do want to comment about what they are doing to piss me off. Every day there is a loud speaker that blasts out the sound of a man singing. If this man was say, Micheal Buble I wouldn't be able to control myself. However, the voice is similar to the one heard in the Indian song that everyone seems to know and make fun of. Since all the locals on the island wake up at un-godly hour, the first song is played between 4:30 and 5:00am. What the hell do people do so early? The song does not only wake me up but also wakes up the incredibly large population of roosters. You can find these roosters all over the island but they normally like to hang out where tourists are sleeping. All the roosters on the island proceed to cock-a-doodle-do at each other for 45 minutes which should be enough to wake everyone on the island up. But it seems to only wake up babies who then cry for the next half hour. I have nothing against babies but the shrill sound of their cries at this hour in the morning reminds me of someone scratching a chalk board with a nail.

Everyone knows that Muslims are elaborate planners and have worked out a perfect plan to get under my skin. To anyone other than an expert on human behaviour (which I am) they would blame the baby or the parents for that matter. I, however, know to trace back through all the series that lead to me lying awake in my bed from 4-7am.

The morning I made this discovery, we were evicted from our beautiful room because someone made reservations a few months in advance. How anyone other than Veronika and myself know about this diamond in the rough is beyond me. So I started to think about it and came to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe we were being kicked out of the presidential suite because we hadn't paid a dime up until that morning. I have never been kicked out of a place (sober at least) and it was a tough pill to swallow first thing in the morning.

Veronika and I sat down for breakfast, which is provided by the lady who owns the bungalow. The breakfast progressively got worse as the days went on. We still got our eggs and toast but what the hell is the point of having sunny side up eggs if the yolk is cooked solid? Some would call this nit picking but I say those should keep their opinions to themselves. Anyway, the lady offered us the room across the hall for $3 less per night. Veronika wasn't having it and wanted to negotiate so we ended up getting $10 off per night. Scores!!!!!!!! The odd thing was that the lady put up no fight. When negotiating, Asians are known to fight for every 50 cents. I knew something was up.

And my hunch was right. The new room looked like it was at one point a closet and they gave their retarded nephew a bunch of materials and a whole afternoon to turn it into a profitable closet. The result was absolutely incredible. One wall was stone, which we thought was a nice touch, had a head board for our bed which was on a 45 degree angle. Half the head board was attached to the wall while the other was dangling. The 2x4's on the ceiling were crooked so I started to think that this retarded nephew might have been blind as well. The bed was partially inside the room while the part directly under the head board was resting on gravel and soil. The bathroom was a diamond shape. Only issue with this is the dimensions were completely out of whack and every time I used the toilet it felt like I was in a phone booth. The experience very much reminded me of London Pub. This room sucked but we really needed to get to the beach for our after breakfast nap. So we took it for one night.

Later that night our A/C didn't work and our room was hotter than the sun, I'm sure. We decided to play cards outside and take our towel because the only couch in the lobby was being used by an uncle who had no place to stay and used the couch as his home. Veronika grabs the towel and we head out. Then Veronika's bracelet started to move. Then she freaked out and flung her bracelet onto my shorts. Wait a minute. The bracelet was a massive cockroach. I screamed like a girl and wasn't the same for the rest of the night. I enforced the rule that we should sleep with the lights on and in the morning to find a new place to stay for our last night.

Morning came and this time the man singing on the speaker didn't wake me up. I didn't fall asleep. We started to pack and more of the roaches decided to show their face. What purpose do cockroaches serve anyway? Can someone please find out and post it in our comments section? Some big angry spiders also showed up. I have been damaged psychologically. Every time I get dressed now, I make sure to throw my pants and shirt against the wall three times before I stomp on it before I even consider putting the clothes on.

We have since left the island and now find ourselves in some hole in the ground called Sengiggi. It is a road divided into three sections: North, Central and South. I read about it in the Lonely Planet and it was literally described as a ghost town. There are plenty of buildings and shops but they are all boarded up and have long been abandoned by their owners. Veronika and I make up two of the ten travelers currently here.

While looking for a place to stay I came across some grass looking bungalows that wanted $30 per night. "What do you get for $30 per night?" I asked, and the response was "a bed and a fan." In North America that is what you would expect but in Asia there should be a lazy river and a chocolate fountain in my room. And who the hell makes buildings out of grass? Hasn't anyone here read "The 3 Little Pigs"? If the wolf from said story were to find out about Sengiggi, CNN and BBC would have to rip themselves from their 24 hour a day coverage on the global economic crises to cover this tragedy.

We wanted to book a 3 day volcano trek from Sengiggi and decided to read a few brochures about it provided at the travel agency. Normally brochures really embellish how great things are, which is a good strategy to help sales. This brochure took the opposite approach. One portion of the brochure read: " Every 3 feet we moved up we slid 1 foot back. The gravel is like walking in bean paste and the ice cold winds make it difficult to look up. When you finally make it to the volcano's summit in a frozen stiff and exhausted state you will rest for an hour and watch the sunrise."

We for some reason inquired about the price and were told that it was $200 US. Sign me up!

Needless to say we are leaving this hell hole first thing int he morning and will not look back.

Love,


Marc


P.S. I would like to apologize to all of the following, if they happen to still be reading this:

Muslims
Asians
retarded nephews
the people of Sengiggi for tipping of the wolf that will wreak havoc
Muslim roosters
babies