Sunday 25 January – we scooter around the island

Mr Albar arrived at 8am with our rental scooter, he also brought his son along and the two of them scrubbed off PolePole’s green fluffy bottom. We headed off on the scooter to join the Sunday crowds along the coast. It was quite a load on the scooter with our big snorkelling bag. It was a bit of a comedy show as we could not get the scooter going, Rowan tried everything and Chat GPT, until I said maybe you have to flick the kickstand up. Bingo it worked, it wasn’t long before Rowan had found his biking feet. We did end up a dead end which was exciting as a lady told us to follow a path to the main road. The main and only road was in very good condition with smart pavements either side in the villages. It had a really local seaside feel to the place, lovely little villages with strings of shops along the way. It took a while to get out into open countryside, and when we did we realised we were nearly out of petrol! Luckily all the little village stalls sell petrol in plastic bottles, it is a dark green colour, initially we thought it was a drink of some sort, until we spotted a scooter being topped up with it. With little fuel and not knowing where we would next get fuel we decided to turn around, we had also passed the two snorkel spots we wanted to go to. Luckily we found a little stall selling fuel but we couldn’t work out how to get to the tank under the seat. Finally the lady serving stopped a young lad going by who showed us what to do. Happiness all round!

We stopped at the first Dive centre which had a good review on the NFL app. It had a security gate to the very fancy big newly built building, which we subsequently learnt was built by the government. It all looked very empty and under used. We paid the equivalent of about 50p to go in and discovered it was a long stone jetty built out over the coral. It had no access to the beach as the building was ontop of a steep bank. We walked down the very smart paved walkway to the jetty which was lined with elaborate seahorse lighting, already rusting badly at the base. The buildings appeared empty and only a handful of people about, non of whom spoke english. I opted out of snorkelling, Rowan jumped in at the end of the jetty, it was really high up, they must be catering for big boats. It did not look easy to get back up, there was a set of slippery concrete stairs with the first step so far out the water I would never have got out! I went back up to the main building to find shade while Rowan had a snorkel around. He finally came back, he said it was pretty good coral but not much fish life, he also had to crawl out as he said the concrete was so slippery. I was very happy not to have participated in that little excursion. With nowhere nice to sit we headed off to the next spot, which was pretty derelict but right on the beach. The snorkelling did not look that appealing so we sat on the beach a while under a lovely shady tree. Next stop was a recommended lunch spot overlooking the water, it turned out to be excellent local food, washed down with a very cold Bintang, but once again we were the only people eating. We’ve tried to establish why nobody is eating out, but get nowhere, it is the rainy season, so not peak tourist time, but judging from our novelty factor I don’t think they get a lot of foreign tourists, so goodness knows who eats out at these enormous restaurants, and this one is doing a huge expansion! We certainly have not seen any foreigners besides the Chinese opposite us in the marina.

Mid afternoon the Sunday papers were calling and a relax in the shade of the awning, catching a little breeze. Mr Albar came by to pick up his scooter, we were extremely happy to pay him £86 for the hull cleaning, he and his son had done a very good job. We had a lovely evening watching the buzz of town nearby, serenaded by the competing Imams. The speakers are so loud, it really feels like the 5 Mosques are competing, with each Imam trying to drown out the other. We also heard some woman singing for a while, as if in a choir. Very atmospheric with another good sunset.