Friday 28 August 2009

No Paradise without a burning dump


Apart from resizing, absolutely no Photoshop!!

One of my cheaky colleagues, Amang


Welcome to my office ;))




Chilling on the jetty.....no guitar for a change, but Ugung is great on waterbottle drums :D


No paradise without…….so far, Gangga has shown itself from the nicest side: beautiful weather, no mosquitoes and only 3 cockroaches in three weeks. We all know, though, that there must be a dent in it somewhere….

During one of my first (sleepless) nights on the island, I decided to grab my water bottle and sit outside on my porch in the moonlight. Only I couldn't see the moon. It looked rather foggy actually. And it smelled like…..well like….ehm……burning rubbish?!?!

Even at that time of night with a week of insomnia behind me, I quickly concluded that someone was actually burning waste/rubbish/garbage (depends where you're from) in the middle of the night.

And so it is. What do you do on a tiny little island? We obviously try to recycle as much as possible. Bottles, cans etc are smashed and brought to the mainland for recycling. Everything organic is being used for compost. And the rest……is burned at night, when the guests are asleep and will not get their precious holiday disturbed by the smoke and/or smell.

We have our own water purifying plant here and of course our own power station, since the solar panels don't generate enough power for the air condition units. We are as environment-friendly as possible - but alas the expectations of today's tourists (I will not call them travellers) are so high that we have to compromise at the cost of nature.

When I read some online reviews before going here, the main 3 complaints were:
- not enough pressure in the shower
- cockroaches on the porch of the bungalow
- have to re-programme the AC settings every time the generator is switched (3 times per day)

I mean, pppplllleeeeeaaaaassseee…….we're on a tiny little island in Indonesia, surrounded by trees, mangrove etc. What exactly do you expect? The NYC Ritz Carlton???

Luckily, not all guests are like that - and some of them actually come here for the spectacular diving.

On a different note, you may (or if you're not on Facebook, may not) have noticed that Jan and I are back together again. YES, I know, I know, I know.

We've talked (chatted, emails) for hours and hours (think I sleep 3-4 hours per night on average) and we've decided that our relationship deserves a second chance. Soooo many things were wrong in our relationship and the surroundings definitely played a major role in that! We're starting with a clean slate and then we'll take it step by step; Jan is planning to come to Indonesia asap - if not for work, then at least for a visit.

My new favourite picture for the situation is that leopards don't change their spots, whereas the ugly duckling did turn into a beautiful swan. I hope and believe that Jan is unfolding the beautiful swan within him.

Enough for now, must get back to life in Paradise ;)) Stay tuned for the exciting entry "First Underwater Impressions", which has been delayed, following the sad (but total) breakdown of my regulator….

Yours
QoW

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are you a manager yet? Winter is around the corner here, so this is more important than coocharachas:)
Good to read that you are having a good time!
Chat soon!!
Sanna.

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