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To get to paradise you have to wait a while in purgatory, Gili Trawangan is no exception. The Bangsal sea taxi terminal is a mafia run establishment, where hawkers and touts make it their mission to extort as much money from tourists as possible, the ferry coordinators make it their mission to keep the tourists in the fly ridden, sweaty, squalid terminal building as long as possible, and the hapless traveller eventually gives in and purchases something - least that's the plan. Every hawker has their own special lie: "Trawangan is full of malaria, yellow fever and dengue, only $30 for these pills", "you must buy a return ticket from me, there are no ticket offices on the island", "transport?". Eventually after losing count of "no"s and rapidly running out of "thankyou"s the gods of bangsal sea taxi terminal deem that you've served your time and are free to finally sit on a taxi to the Gili Islands.

After the bustle of Bali an island where there are no dogs, scooters, cars or buses and the electricity drops out for a few hours every couple of days is bliss. Nothing to worry about and only relaxing unwinding and diving to occupy the time. (Plus a broken image server on travelblog and expensive, unreliable and slow Internet connections, fixed now back to relaxing again...). Gili Trawangan has a reputation as "the party island", bars and bungalows line the main strip, almost a kilometre uninterrupted, every alcohol or mushroom induced pleasure is catered for (I'm fairly straight laced apparently so didn't try mushrooms). Movies are projected onto screens at a few places, some across swimming pools and others in mini theatres. By day the beaches are used to top up tans and bases for snorkelling, at night everyone moves to the bars and restaurants, least that should have been the case...

Even party islands get quiet, all year every night of the week there are huge parties, till 4-5am in the morning, a different venue each night. Except during ramadan (Islamic period of fasting, and good thoughts) when everything calms down. Parties are stopped, bars are not allowed to play music too loud, mental note: avoid ramadan in future. As the low season kicks in each day people I have got to know leave, and fewer people arrive. I leave tomorrow to continue the trend, to Lombok, there's a volcano with my name written on it... Rinjani, no that's not my name, but I have to climb it to make sure it's not up there somewhere, 3,726m high and towering, no one else seems to want to go so I'll be on my own again for a while.

What I did in Gili Trawangan

I've dived 5 times in Gili Trawangan, to be honest the coral reefs are not the best, El Niño hit badly here bleaching and killing much of the coral, but the larger life is good, I lost count of the number of turtles, tuna, snappers and triggerfish and saw 7 sharks (5 together). Manta Point was my favourite dive site, mainly because of the 5 white tipped reef sharks that rest there during the day. I dived with Manta Dive.

Overall the island is a rough circle of about 3km diameter, surrounded by sandy coral beaches. On the west side is the main build up of bars and accommodation, generally very popular with backpackers. There are at least 5 dive shops, and all the associated boats, instructors, divemasters and gumph. Accommodation ranges from $3 - $30, I'm staying in a little family run place for $3 a night, clean and basic and all I deserve. Food ranges from 50c for local dishes away from the strip to full course meals for about $10, but a good meal can be had for $2.

Walked around the island, watched the sunset, ran round the island, walked around the island again, watched endless movies, ate mint tim tams (Australian chocolate biscuits/cookies - very good), hung out at Manta Dive (where I went fun diving), drank with new friends, said goodbye to new friends (getting used to this now), sunbathed for 1 hour, read books, chatted, taught the guy who runs the homestay “Under the Bridge” by Red Hot Chilli Peppers, learnt “Stairway to Heaven” in return, fixed broken server from dodgy Internet café and ate tons of barbecued tuna steak. That ends the brain dump, one week of my non-dive related activities.

Complaints

To some of the guys (hawkers and touts) from Trawangan - please stop asking me every five seconds if I want weed, mushrooms, transport or something, and show a little respect towards women who get 10 times worse than I experienced. Would you talk to your sister that way?

To women from the western world - remember to walk around the streets and restaurants in a little more than a bikini, this is a Muslim island and with guys like those above they don't need any encouragement.

Pensive Plans

I'm going to do my divemasters, a month long course and working in a dive shop, getting to the point where I'm qualified to lead divers around sites I'm familiar with. The instructors course is the next stage beyond that. Still to be decided where, but when, soon.

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