In the colourful land of Tír na Óg
The Indonesian doves do, surely, go on, and on, repetitive and inane as Irish wood pigeons and not as sonorous. But, usefully, they get one out of bed soon after dawn.
On early mornings on the Gili islands, off the north coast of Lombok in Indonesia, the air and sea are as clear as crystal, the sun warm and the sky blue but for sweeps of high, white cloud. A strong breeze blows, with no chill in it, only refreshment. By nine o’clock, the sun is warm; before long it becomes, to our Western skin, a burning sun. As the morning hours pass, humidity rises but the wet season is almost over. Sometimes, in the late afternoon, the sky clouds over and there may be an hour of rain.
But it is in mornings that this small island of Gili Air is at its pristine best, the great, green bulk of Lombok, with its densely forested hills and valleys, a dramatic presence five miles away across the strait. The sea between, as far as the white fringe of surf that marks the reef, is so transparent that sand or sea grass show as vividly as if on land. Beyond the reef, the water is deep, cobalt blue.
A very attractive feature of this and its smaller neighbour, Gili Meno, is the accessibility and diversity of marine life. Snorkelling in water no more than chest-deep, one can sometimes even see marine turtles. But always there are fish of a dozen varieties, each different from the next in the most ingenious concoctions of colour and form.
Why the Great Creator, or the chemistry of emergent life, found reason to paint the creatures of the sea so extravagantly and surreally must surely make the questioning mind wonder. Yes, the fins, tail, mouth, eyes, internal organs must be tailored differently, species to species, to equip them for their niche, but surely, in colouration, half the art would have sufficed, and they would still be things of beauty.
They are, yet again, examples of some predisposition of evolution to make our planet forever pleasing and interesting to the eye. There was no stinting in the labour of designing and painting fish, nor in the creation of the corals around them. No terrestrial garden can compare. And the sight of new corals growing on a sea floor carpeted in the white skeletons of their antecedents, blown to annihilation by dynamite fishing, gives hope. Perhaps, good sense, or good laws will prevail and the dead reefs, once the gems of the marine universe, will return to life once more.
Gili Air is the second largest of the three islands. Sadly, its uniqueness has a short lease to run. Development is apace and soon it will be another “costa” Bali.
We fled Bali, and Ubud, its artistic centre, where the streets teem with foreigners, and arrived by ferry in Lombok. The ferry to Gili Air landed us at Gili Trawangan, the “party island” of the three. We had intended to pass through but seeing an advert posted by a (quotes) Irish pub saying that it would be showing the Ireland-England rugby game at midnight, I persuaded my wife that we should stopover.
At the Tír na Óg, the management was Indonesian, the only European, a pleasant Englishman. The game was “streamed” from a computer, and he action stopped dead at, especially, cliff-hanger moments. Our man is in the air, diving for the line, ball in hand. The screen freezes. We wait. Full 30 seconds later, we see him impacting with a big-bellied English forward and biting the grass of Twickenham after a noble ‘attempt’ rather than, as we had hoped, a noble ‘try’.
The highlight of the evening was meeting young Barry from Sligo and Mairead from Mayo, moving on from Australia where their work visas had expired. So, after hours of fun swopping yarns of their travel now, and our travels long before they were born, we had once again proved the old adage: “It’s not only the places you go to, but the people you meet on the way!”
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