The Daily Show in Indonesia is the sunset spectacle.
During the early evening at about 5 p.m. I would pick my toes through drifts of soft sand to find the best two-for-one happy hour deal to watch the sunset. I would walk along the northwest coast of Gili Air Island to a beach lounge, usually empty and with a young man at the entrance who beckoned with his hands and his words, “Yes? Sunset? Yes?”
Sunsets on the island were a daily reminder of constancy and peace. Each day, right on time, the globe in the sky fired up a new display of colors that faded from radiant pinks to mauves to indigo. You’d think it’d be the same show every time, but some variation in the atmosphere, puffs of clouds or polluted haze perhaps, shook things up.
I could have sat there on the beach forever, watching sunsets until I turned to stone.
