05.10-15.10: 'Welcome to my paradice'

We got up early the next morning, and got picked up by the shuttle bus that took us to the harbor at Padang Bay. We had a quick breakfast there, before boarding our fast boat. 2 hours later we jumped off in Gili Trawangan. We decided to leave our backpacks at a restaurant so we could go in search of accommodation without too much hassle. We found a quiet and decent place up in the ‘village’ that offered free breakfast until 11.15. Hehe. Jono wanted to check out the waves on the east side of the island, so we went out exploring. Later on that evening, due to the overcast weather, we found a restaurant where you can sit in a private hut and watch pirated DVDs of your choice while you eat dinner. AwesomeJ

The next day we walked down to the beach for some sun tanning and snorkeling. Maja snorkeled for the first time with Jono as her teacher, and loved it. The conditions were perfect; crystal clear blue water on top of white sand, beautiful coral and loads of brightly colored reef fish. After realizing we were about to get seriously sunburned, we headed back for a shower. Back at the room we met a French girl who was staying in the room next to ours. She was travelling by herself and since we were both heading out we asked her if she would like to join us. Jono was set on eating wood oven pizzas that night, so a couple of minutes later we found ourselves eating amazing mushroom (no magic) pizzas. We had been discussing heavy topics like religion, politics and eating disorders for a few hours before we realized that we didn’t even know each other’s names. The typical backpacking introduction has more to do with ‘where are you from?’, ‘how long have you been travelling?’ and ‘where have you been so far?’, rather than names and age. Now we know that her name was Alex, so we’ll try to not refer to her as ‘that French girl’.

The following day was a lazy one (again). We mostly sat around on the beach, Jono snorkeling and Maja bargaining hard for a Lombok pearl necklace. We were only planning on staying on Gili Trawangan for two nights or so, but we really enjoyed the place, and couldn’t see any good reason to move just yet. This island is supposed to be the ‘party island’ out of the three Gili Islands, but that is only one side to it. This place is so laidback and chilled, with no cars or motorbikes (the transportation consists of bicycles or horse and cart). There is a great selection of restaurants and accommodation, but without much hassle. The locals are lazy but friendly. We’re battling to understand what a lot of them do for a living, since many of them just sit on the side of the street all day with a guitar singing made up songs that basically go like ‘Hellooo… where are you goiiiiing? How are yooooooou? Have a good holidaaaay’. We have heard rumors that the song ‘Welcome to my paradice’ was written about Gili Islands, and it’s easy to believe.

On our fourth day on Gili T we decided to rent bicycles and ride around the island. It was more dragging the bicycles through the sand more than riding, but worth doing anyway. The island is quite small, and it only takes about two hours to ride/drag around it. This day was actually a bit rainy with a cooler temperature something that was greatly appreciated since the last couple of days have been insanely hot. We haven’t invested in air con in our room, and the one fan that we have doesn’t really reach all the way to the bed, so we are now longing for a good night sleep. We have now developed a system which Jono calls strategic sleeping. Every night we buy two solid frozen water bottles. Jono takes an ice shower before going to bed, while Maja soaks her sarong in water and tries to fit her whole body underneath it. We then cuddle the ice bottles until they melt (which usually takes under one and a half hours). We have also established that it helps to move around in the bed so that you don’t sleep in the same spot and warm it up where the mattress absorbs the heat. It is obviously also essential to not let any body parts touch each other. After a few nights like this we had to ask ourselves if it is all worth the effort to save 60-70 rand/kroner on not having air condition.

On day five Jono went on a snorkeling trip in a glass bottom boat, which visited the three Gili Islands. He was accompanied by Alex and her friend from Germany Carina, who is also staying next our room. The diving was exceptional, and the boat stopped on multiple dive sites around the islands. We saw lots of coral, giant clams, lots of turtles, sea snakes and fish of all colors, shapes and sizes. That night we went out to dinner with Carina at one of Gili T’s biggest party places Rudy’s pub, and evening turned out to be quite magical…

The next day Maja woke up sick. Carina was puking in her room as well, and since Alex had been sick the day before, we blame her:P Jono had to spend the day nursing Maja back to health. The next morning she was almost as good as new, the only exception being a strange rash that had taken over her arms and back. It looked pretty freaking and itched like hell, so we decided to seek professional advice. After visiting two clinics, gotten Maja’s blood pressure measured twice and argued the doctor blue in the face about whether or not she had diarrhea, we found ourselves back in the room with a whole lot of funny creams and different colored pills. Maja decided to skip the diarrhea pills (since she never claimed to have diarrhea in the first place), and ate the allergy pills instead. Later that morning Jono walked down to the harbor to ask when the Island Hopping boat leaves for Gili Air. The guy selling tickets could inform him that the first boat in the morning leaves at 10.30 and the next one leaves at three. Since it was already midday we had no choice but to wait for the three o clock boat. Down at the harbor at three o clock however they could now tell us that no, there are no boats at three. The second departure is at four. This wasn’t too big of a deal since we were hungry anyway, and we decided to sit down for lunch. When we came back to the harbor at four however, the boat had already left. We asked if there were no other departures before next morning at 10.30, and they told us that it wasn’t and that the morning departure was not 10.30 but 09.30. Irritated about this asian perception of time, we took our backpacks back to our room and booked in for another night. The next morning we thought it would be better to be extra early, and met up at the harbor at 09.15. This morning the boat had decided to leave at 09.00. We started to get second thoughts about this whole project. Were we not supposed to go to Gili Air? We managed to get on the four o clock boat however, but only after stubbornly sitting at the harbor more than an hour in advance.

The boat trip to Gili Air took about 45 minutes. The wind here is pretty crazy, and the waves banged against the side of the boat, wetting everyone and their possessions with salt water. One unhappy traveler sitting in the front of the boat was particularly soaked, he became more and more miserable with each splash. Maja thought this poor guy was so funny that she even took a sneaky photo of the guy. On Gili Air we walk quite a distance to check into a little bamboo hut, where we were promised we could see the surf if there was any. Maja decided to take a nap while Jono went for a jog around the island to see if there was anything worth seeing. The island is very small and can be walked around within two hours. Along the way Jono spotted the place he wanted to take Maja for dinner. It was a cool chilled little place on the beach, with a projector screening a movie. We were amazed by the excellent service, delicious food and the fact that we even got free pop corn. The next morning the wind was still howling, which ruined any chance for a surf. However, the main beach was pretty protected, so Maja had her second snorkeling lesson. She was very excited to see her beloved box fish, even though it was behaving (as she described) ‘like a nerd’, hiding underneath the coral. Jono saved the day by chasing him out, making Maja a lot happier than the poor harassed box fish. That night we went back to our movie place. Once again the food was amazing, and just when we started to wonder where our free popcorn was, the waiter came with lollipops. No complains! We decided to have an early night so that we could head off to Gili Meno the next morning, but when the alarm went off at 06.30 Maja quickly decided that it would be perfectly acceptable to catch the afternoon boat instead and Jono didn’t need much convincing. We killed a few hours at the beach before we jumped on the boat, and 15 minutes later we arrived at Gili Meno. Here we followed Lonely Planet’s advice (for the first time in Indonesia) and took into a nice bungalow on the beach. Jono fell madly in love with Meno within minutes, and claims it is his favorite island so far. It is the smallest one of the Gili Islands, so there are not many tourists around. The locals are very laidback, and since there is only a handful restaurants and ‘resorts’, there is nothing much to do here except relaxing. Jono is convinced that each reef he dives on is better than the next, and it’s been hard to get the goggles off of his face since the minute we stepped on the island. The only complain we have about this island is the noise. There seems to be a constant noise competition going on between the toke-geckos, the roosters, the cats and ‘that dude’. The toke-geckos are quite tolerable compared to the roosters that sound like they have a throat infection. In addition to that they have no sense of time, so even though their main show goes off at five in the morning they keep the screaming up more or less 24/7. The cats basically own the island since there are no dogs here. Their tales have all been broken or cut off by the locals, due to some strange Asian superstition. We don’t know if this is the reason, but the cats keep moaning like their dying, and it all sounds pretty disturbing. ‘That dude’ is in a league of his own. Allah only knows why he feels it is necessary to scream at the top of his lungs through his distorted speakers at twelve minutes past three in the morning. Or whenever else he feels like it. Usually 6-8 times a day. For about half an hour each time. We have now spent two nights here on Gili Meno, and tonight will be our final night. We plan to catch the ferry early tomorrow morning (that is if Maja can wake up in time) to go back to Gili Trawangan, and if all goes as planned we should be back in Bali tomorrow afternoon.

30.09 - 04.10: Bali romance

We arrived in Denpasar airport at around nine in the evening, and realized that we had no US dollars (or rupiers for that matter) to pay for the Indonesian visa, we needed to get through the passport control. We were however allowed to go to the ATM if we left our passports at the visa counter. We were standing at the ATM mocking it saying how ridiculous it was that it only wanted to give us 50.000 notes and that the fees were so high to draw money. The machine obviously heard us, because not only did it refuse to give us money, but it didn’t feel like giving us the card back either. At this point you start getting nervous, because you find yourself stuck between a grumpy machine and unfriendly Balinese people in the passport control, without money OR passports. After five minutes of pushing different buttons (Maja) and banging the machine (Jono), Jono decided to go and get help while Maja hang around the machine in case the card would miraculously come back out. And it did. Now how often does that happen? In the meantime Jono had sneakily taken our passports from the unguarded counter, deciding it was better to just walk the border post now and deal with it later. By the time he came back however, Maja had already taken money out in another ATM (a more cooperative one), and we could both wipe our horrified expressions off our faces, and go through the passport control. Legally. Now we just had to cross our fingers that no one and snuck any drugs into our backpacks, since that most likely would get us into even more trouble than an eaten credit card. Death penalty for example.

Half an hour later (plus a few fights with come crazy taxidrivers) we found ourselves in our beloved Kuta – Bali. Walking down Legian Street on an ordinary Wednesday night we were met by no less craziness than Kuta had offered us one and a half years ago. Drugs (“Ephedrine? Shrooms?”), prostitution (“Hey, you like young girls?”) and absolutely horribly drunken Australians in Bintang wifebeaters going completely mad. We were very late for dinner, but managed eventually to find a place that still served food. The guest house that we had booked into in Poppies Lane 2 was very close to Legian Street, and as a result to that we didn’t get much sleep the first night. We were repeatedly woken up by drunken idiots shouting “fuck”, “fuck you”, “fuck me”, “fuckety fuck” and the occasional “I’ll fucking kill you” with an Australian accent. So the next morning we got out of the place as quick as possible and started searching for a better one. We found a nice, chilled place (with a pool!) in the middle of Poppies and decided to stay there for a few nights. Since we had more or less skipped breakfast we felt it was acceptable to go out for pizza before we started our day. After, we walked down to check out Kuta beach, before we missioned off to Discovery Mall. We were both really excited to be in Kuta again, and for a long time we managed to fully enjoy the city without getting too irritated with the locals. It was fun to see that not much has changed since last time; all the same fake surf brands, copied dvds, bottle openers shaped like giant wooden penises and the slightly insulting stickers you can buy everywhere. An example of such a sticker is: ‘Stick ya &%!#ing %&¤ in a ØÆ#”ing dogs &%¤Æ!’ We are both unable to imagine who would buy a sticker like this, but we’re suspecting that the people who were keeping us up the first night might be in the target group.   

Next morning we woke up with not many plans, or so Maja thought. Jono however had big plans in mind. The day started with pizza for breakfast (again), followed by a swim on Kuta beach. Then Jono took Maja for a full body massage at a spa. We then headed back to the hotel room and while Maja got ready for the afternoon ahead, Jono went to ‘organize a scooter’ telling Maja he wanted to go and check out the waves at Uluwatu. The scooter was already organized, Jono’s real plans were to make special dinner reservations at a very romantic restaurant where Jono and Maja had their first date together one and a half years ago. A couple of minutes later we were on our way on the scooter heading for Uluwatu. Jono suggested that we stopped at some nearby cliffs overlooking a deserted beach and the ocean. On our way there the weather was starting to turn overcast and it looked like a storm was coming. But the moment we got off the scooter up on the cliff, the sun came through the clouds and showed off the most beautiful sunset. Some special words were shared between Maja and Jono, before Jono got down on his one knee and pulled out of his pocket the ring he had been carrying around in his backpack the entire trip, and proposed. Afterwards we headed off to our restaurant ‘Ketupat’ to celebrate with an engagement dinner. This place has beautiful little huts which had been decorated for the occasion, full of candle lights, placed around a lit up pool. This plus amazing food, great wine and lovely service made this dinner absolutely perfect. The celebration continued at a club where our friend Svein was DJing that night, and several toasts to the happy couple was made before we went back to our hotel to sleep.

The next day started with amazing sushi at Discovery Mall, before we found an internet café so we could share the good news with our families. It warms that everybody is so excited for us!! On our last day in Kuta we went to get Jono an engagement ring down in the art and jewelry side of Legian Street. This day there was a celebration in Kuta, so on our way back we got to see a big parade coming through Legian. Later we went to book boat tickets to Gili Island, before we went to eat dinner at Kuta night market. This place has about 20 restaurants placed around an eating area. When you walk in there all the enthusiastic waiters and waitresses starts shouting and screaming, holding up menus, crabs, lobsters, fish and any other live animal they can get out of their tanks, to make you come and eat at their place. Jono the vegetarian was not so interested, and settled for vegetarian Nasi Goreng and morning glory (that’s water spinach if anyone was confused…). Tomorrow morning we head off to beautiful Gili Trawangan.

25.09-29.09: Still chilling in Koh Phangan

The next morning we still had the scooter for a few hours, so we went to eat lunch at a cool spot by the lake. The food tasted even more amazing than it looked (it looked really good, we added a picture of it), and staff there was super friendly (they even let Jono feed their fish). Back at the resort we basically just got back to what we’ve been doing for several days now; Jono snorkeling on the reef just off the private beach, and Maja reading books in the hammock.
One early evening our Icelandic friends popped up out of nowhere while we were having dinner. We had a nice meal together and they decided to move over to our resort for our last night. We decided to have an early night to make the most out of the following day. We didn’t really manage to make the most out of the day, but we did take a walk to the nearest liquor shop (which is pretty far away) with the ’Icies’ (Jono’s word). On the way there we walked along the road, so on our way back we decided to find a more scenic route, and ended up walking along the beach. The only problem about doing that is that the beach comes to an end and at the point there is a collection of big rocks separating the beaches. There was no turning back at this stage of the game, so we climbed (some of us carrying bottles of wine and rum) our way over the rocks and onto the next beach, which we soon enough realized was not our beach. Again we had to climb through another collection of big rocks. Thorbergur had had enough and through himself to the ocean, convinced it was the easier route, although Maja, Jono and Haukur beat him to the beach. We finally reached our resort, drenched in sweat and with some cuts on our legs, but with both the alcohol and a positive attitude intact. We arrived just in time for the guys to have a quick dive before sunset, and ended the day with a long dinner accompanied by beer and rum for the guys and Thai wine (surprisingly good!!) for Maja.
The next morning the four of us jumped on the ferry, the Icies going to Surat Thani (then catching a bus to Bangkok to see if they could locate Thorbergurs passport which he had left there at the beginning of the trip) and Maja and Jono going back to Koh Samui for one night.
In Koh Samui we took into a hotel close to the pier and went in search of dinner. We ended up eating at a bakery and discovered to our great pleasure that the people there knew what dark bread was, and they even sold it! We bought ourselves a big round bread, and (feeling a little bit extravagant) got ourselves some Philadelphia cream cheese from the grocery shop (expensive, but so worth it). Here, we must also mention the amazing selection of juices. Some examples; spinach juice, broccoli juice, aloe vera juice, purple carrot juice and beetroot juice. We got up early next morning to catch the bus at the harbor which was parked next to the ferry so that we could drive the bus onto the ferry (Asian Logic again). We were allowed to get off the bus to go and sit upstairs at the ferry, and when we got to mainland the bus took us down 4 hours to Hat Yai.
At the bus station in Hat Yai we managed to escape the harassment and abuse from the local tuk-tuk drivers (who seems to be convinced that if the shout and pull you, you will want to catch a ride with them….A.L!). Hat Yai is a pretty cool city with very few tourists. We found a nice (and super cheap) guest house, with a really friendly staff. We took the time to help the staff with some signs they wanted translated to English. With Jono being dyslectic and Maja being Norwegian, we can’t be quite sure if the signs came out grammatically correct, but we are pretty sure they will be more understandable the most of the English signs in Thailand. Anyway, for dinner we decided to go for pizza and found it quite amusing that our vegetarian pizza came with carrots and pies on it. Later we walked around in some of the bigger malls.
The next morning our pre-ordered tuk-tuk picked us up, and took us to Hat Yai International Airport. Having checked in for our flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, we decided to sit down for breakfast. Whilst enjoying our coffee a long line of little Thai school children walked past. Maja made the fatal mistake of waving back to one of them, not knowing how long the line was. Yip, it turned out the entire school was there, and a few hundred school children later we were still waving, smiling and blowing kisses, wondering if the line was ever going to end. After breakfast we jumped on our two hour flight to Kuala Lumpur where we had a two hour wait (we killed the time with starbucks and episodes of ‘according to Jim’), before we caught our final flight… next stop; Bali, Indonesia!