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.
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