Position,  08.21S  116.07E

This is where I was lolling reading my book this morning

--John was having a massage.

 

If you wish dinner can be set up in these gorgeous gazebos. 

There seem to be lots of honeymoon couples enjoying 

romantic dinners, not to mention pair of young chaps.

 

This is the arduous walk we take to our room. Sunken bath, 

antiques, teak floors, and best of all, ABC tv and wifi.

 

The past couple of days have been quite a contrast to the previous six weeks of travelling through the 'real Indonesia' during Ramadan. 

When arrived at our anchorage at Medana Bay, Lombok, I happened to reread a travel article I had saved from the Age about Lombok and the Gili Islands. Imagine my delight when I realised that the Oberoi Resort  was only a 10 minute walk from where we were anchored. The very night of our arrival we and Tom and Suzie from Priscilla hot footed it over to the resort with cocktails in mind. Amazingly, we managed to get a very good deal on staying a couple of nights. (Fellow boaters are of course horrified at our decadence, especially when we can eat quite well at the marina for about $3.) 

Next day we went around in our dinghies to be met by a full welcoming party bearing frangipani leis--the full monty in fact.  The staff were very amused by back-pack wearing guests arriving in their own boat--no airport transfers required. The resort is quite the nicest any of us have ever stayed in--they even arranged for a charming young hairdresser to drive an hour way on his motor bike to give us much-need hair cuts.

The staff to guest ratio is enormous, the resort providing employment for many of the young people we had already met in the local village. The cocktails and food are first rate, with a special curry night last night.

The only downside was that John and tom had to dinghy around the peninsula each day to run the generators while Suzie and I swam read and had facials and pedicures.

Although we have officially checked out of the resort we'll  be back there for dinner tonight and their weekly cultural show. 

I'm already scheming about how we can find our way back here next year--via Sarawak, Borneo, Sabah and Sulawesi.