Gili Meno Pt3

(Aside for you star watchers, I also saw Cassiopia which in the southern hemisphere is an "M" and not a "W")

We laughed ourselves to sleep that night ... ah Gili Meno.

The next day was another hard day of lying around, swimming in the sea, etc. As Angie said, the Gili's have renewed our sense of Indonesia being a decent place to be. Angie was just sick of people always trying to take advantage of us, demanding an unfair price for items (120,000 for bracelets when two stalls down for the same items, the old woman offered them for 20,000). SO Meno has renewed our sense that humans are still decent, even in Indonesia. For example, meeting Bar who became a friend, someone we felt as comfortable with as any of our good friends back home. .... there is probably more Meno, but I jump to yesterday, which started my long trek to try and get to Genevieve (I will get there i am sure). We had to leave Meno at 7:30 AM to catch the boat back to LomBok and back to the Ferry port on the other side (well not quite the other side). Anyway, it was a delightful drive and there were the smells again, but that will wait ... At the

ferry dock it was again, attack of the porters, and people selling us fruit, peanuts, snacks for the ferry, etc. And I did not have any rupiah left, and Ange had it all and we had our transport covered, with about 75,000 for meals until my plane (which departed at 10PM from Denpassar on the other side of Bali). Well as i have said they are desperate, but I was now Gili Meno mellow and having some fun. This one guy had bannas and pineapples (both of the small aisan variety).

And all I had were Thai Baht, so I was trying to convince him to sell me two pineapples for 20 baht
(about 2/3 of a dollar). He grabbed that bill, gave me two pineapples so fast and was gone! I thought, wow what a great deal! and now we have fresh fruit for the 4 hour ferry! along with Angie's 10K nasi campur -- white rice with cocunut, tempeh, and stir fried vegies, wrapped in a pyramid of brown paper -- a really nice meal as it turned out. Well about 10 minutes later the guy returned with his boss
who said that I had ripped the guy off by offering him worthless Thai money!!!!! What a hoot, I ripped off the rip off artist!! Anyway, he fairly insisted that i take my 20 baht bill back and i gave him the fruit back. One of his many competitors sold us honey dew melon AND two pineapples for half the cost (in rupiah) about 2 seconds later so we still had our fruit! Anyway, on the boat (because these guys board the ferry as you arrive like
pirates boarding the ship of spoils when the ferry arrives, and stay on as long as they can b4 the ferry leaves) he was trying to separate me from my two dollar bill as american dollars are good money anywhere in the world.
I was still trying to convice him that the fancier looking 100 baht bill was worth enough for his entire plate of fruit -- somehow the math never seemmed to sink in. Anyway, I didnt buy anything else from him, but it sure was fun turning the situation around on them!

Gotta go catch my plane to Aukland

until next time -- newo out./