Day 37: Free boat ride for 3? I choose Ashwin, Danny... and T-Pain

Before we begin the day's chronicle, we'd like to backtrack to last night's dinner. As the one restaurant we favored in this one road town was not serving food after 9, we walked across the street to a small guesthouse run by an incredibly friendly husband and wife. As soon as we ordered our food, the two of them went into the kitchen and for 45 minutes slaved away cooking our meal - preparing everything from scratch - as we watched a movie with a few surfer bros. When the food finally arrived and we took our first bite, the amount of effort that went into its preparation was immediately apparent. It was the best chicken curry and fried noodles in SE Asia (and averaging two of each of these a day, we have a large enough sample size to confirm this with confidence). When the bill came to a total of 4 USD including drinks, we felt it was unfair to pay so little given the amount of work performed so we decided to give them a 100% tip. When we handed over the money and told them the excess was for them to keep, both of their faces lit up with the most sincere gratitude. They proceeded to smile and get to know us with question after question in broken English. Making their day made our day and was one of the most gratifying experiences of the trip.

Getting to the Gili Islands is no easy task - it's not just a hop, skip, and a jump, but rather an early morning wake up, a 1 hour bus ride (complete with blasting Bob Marley songs), and a 2 hour express boat, followed by an hour walk in search of a place to stay with availability. However, the boat ride was actually a lot of fun and we enjoyed sitting in the sun on the railings being occasionaly cooled off by the waves splashing against the hull. With three 300 hp outboard motors, the 20 person "Mahi Mahi" sure moved fast (in fact, the public transportation option takes 5 times as long, and correspondingly costs 1/5th the price). "Yeah, we never thought we'd be on a boat. It's a big blue watery road..." but unlike T-Pain we weren't able to find any mermaids (we did have our swim trunks and flippie-floppies, though).

It's the high season here and they thoroughly understand the concept of supply and demand. In fact, we believe the entire 500 person island is one giant cartel, as all prices are identical (from housing, scubadiving, dining, to the trinkets sold on the beach) and nobody is willing to negotiate. Whenever we bargain for a better price, the only response is that their "boss" set the price - little bit creepy.

After finally finding a decent room, we enjoyed a beach side lunch at an eco-friendly establishment (complete with solar water heaters and an all-organic menu, if that even means anything here). It was so good, in fact, that after spending the afternoon relaxing on the beach, we returned to the same restaurant for a candle-lit dinner at a table for two right on the beach - sounds romantic doesn't it? The snapper and butterfish (properly named based on it's taste) were cooked to perfection and couldn't have been more fresh - the shipping log showed that it had been caught this morning and delivered this afternoon. When 4 attractive women sat down at the table behind Ashwin, Danny insisted that we make another trip to the salad bar and "enjoy" another Bintang. While Danny enjoyed the meal's impromptu extension, Ashwin was equally pleased with the one-of-a-kind experience of having such an exquisite 3 hour meal 10 feet away from the waves washing up on shore.