My hotel was located in an isolated place in the Lamboya region on the island of Sumba in Indonesia. I was absolutely stunned as I was shown to my little house. The view from my own terrace was this:

There was a cable coming out of the bathroom lamp though, so I wanted to adjust that. But it moved!!! On closer inspection I discovered a gecko, not a cute little one but a 30-40 cm long one, apparently having set up living quarters inside the lamp. It got upset by this disturbance and made a noise that sounded like a door hinge in bad need of oiling.

As night fell, I noticed that the gecko had a friend living behind a textile wall decoration. It stuck its head out at 6 pm all three evenings I spent there.

It appeared that there were no other guests in the hotel, a great pity given its outstanding location. Before dinner it was a meditative experience to watch the sun set.

Dinner was served on a big terrace with a gorgeous starry sky above, no light pollution here! It was accompanied by the sound of geckos calling out to each other: eeeeoooo, eeeeooo. They were indeed very loud. And many. I didn’t get quite used to having them so close by, I must confess, so I closed my suitcase carefully every time I left the room. And I avoided to turn the inhabited bathroom lamp on – there was enough light anyway.