Paul and Amireh have the most amazing love story…

Paul is from Perth, Australia.  Amireh is from Los Angeles, CA.  They met in August of 2016 while she was on vacation and he was on staycation!  He was living on Gili Meno for about 1 year managing his villas.  Managing is a stretch as he was mostly relaxing on his beautiful beach.  He had inherited his uncle’s business which is the first tourist accommodation on Gili Meno, Mallias Bungalows, dating back to 1985 (some say 1983).  Gili Meno is a very remote and small, 5 km around the whole island, that is a Robinson Crusoe experience with no cars, fluctuating electricity and fresh water that up until a year ago was delivered by traditional wooden boat.

Amireh was on an extended holiday, doing some soul searching, some fun searching, some fish searching and searching for adventure in general.  She had spent the month prior in Dharamsala, India, completing her 500 hour yoga certificate and Reiki certification.  Their meeting was serendipity ! She had applied for the wrong visa in India and was forced to leave India early without completing her Reiki program.

Some of her classmates highly recommended Bali and the Gilis.  So she put a trip together last minute and landed in Ubud to do more yoga.  After a week she took the ferry to Gili Trawangan to spend a week diving.  That is when she met Paul, sitting at the dive center one morning.  He was chatting with the local dive guide and had been partying on Gili T the night before and had been stranded without a way back to Gili Meno – the neighboring island.  She went diving as planned, not thinking about this new mystery guy and then her dive guide began to talk about Paul on the boat telling her how nice he is, to which she responded “who is Paul?”  When they got back to land, Paul was at the dive center and they had a very long conversation.  He was indeed very nice.  They went to lunch and she told him she was leaving Gili T for another island nearby to continue diving with the hopes of seeing mantas.  Paul had never seen mantas and so Amireh invited him along.  He said yes!

The next day they met on Lembongan and spent a few days together before he invited her to Bali.  In total they spent a week together and had an amazing time.  Amireh left Bali to continue her adventure as planned before she had met Paul.  She went to Morocco, Spain, Greece, and the Philippines and all the while she and Paul stayed in touch everyday.  They agreed she would return to Gili Meno so they could spend more time together.  After one month, she returned to Meno and Paul and they spent 3 weeks together . They prepared for and threw a wedding for his close friends at the villas, and joined them on their honeymoon, they traveled together and fell in love.

Amireh had to return to the states to fulfill a contract.  She spent 1 month in the states and then returned to Gili Meno in November.  She began working as the GM at the villas.  One night after a very long day of work, Paul proposed in the reception area of the villas.  They had teir first religious marriage ceremony with all of her friends and family in Los Angeles in June and had a second marriage ceremony in Bali in July with all of Paul’s friends and family.  They now live in Bali and are expecting their first baby.