Almost paradise...........

So we set off on foot away from the big resorts and started asking at every place along the way, it became clear pretty quickly that because it was high season the prices were ridiculous, some places were asking 200 quid a night to stay on the floor! It seems lots of westerners have bought land on the island, built 'boutique beach chic' huts and are asking sky high prices for them! Eventually after about an hours walk we arrived at the western side of the island and found a very sweet Javanese bungalow which, much to Terry's surprise, we decided to stay in for the next few nights. I have no idea why but i took no pictures of the place at all, the bathroom was pretty simple, open air with just a tap and a diy flush toilet and the room was massive, the guy said we could have as many people as we wanted to stay in there to bring the cost down but we decided to keep it to just us two!!! It was very sweet tho and had a massive front balcony/verandah type thing where we put up our newly purchased hammock and between here and the barugas on the beach we managed to lose a few more days of our trip in the lovely sunshine. This side of the island was very peaceful, not much going on except a few cafes and some stunning sunsets in the evening but the only problem was that the sea went out about 500m in the mornings and all that was left was massive stretches of dead coral, so, there wasn't exactly much swimming to be done which was a shame! God i must sound so ungrateful, but we have stayed in so many gorgeous places i wasn't gonna start settling for anything less this far into the trip!!!! So after three days in the bungalow we again decided to move and see if we could find somewhere that was even closer to perfection!!! After another few hours walking around we found a sweet bungalow which was right at the end of the busy strip, nice and quiet and by a bit of beach with sea to swim in - wicked!!! So we put up the beautiful new hammock again and managed to lose another few days eating tropical fruit and banana pancakes for breakfast and swimming in the crystal clear waters and walking around the island admiring the beautiful views. We did walk down into the busy part one night and treated ourselves to a film and popcorn in the individual beachfront cabana cinema things, genius idea, first one we have seen during our trip and we thoroughly enjoyed the very salty popcorn and the Hangover was hilarious!!! After a week on Gili T and having stayed in 3 different places we decided it was time for a change in scenery and booked a boat over to Lombok. Although Gili Trawangan was beautiful in parts, we couldn't help leaving feeling a little ripped off and cheated in a way, the accommodation was all so expensive, food in the main was an absolute rip off and it just wasn't quite what we had been lead to believe, don't get me wrong it wasn't a bad place and I'm very fortunate to have been able to go there, but it's an island I wouldn't really recommend unless you have more money than sense and want a compromised version of paradise, it was just really sad to see an island that had been so badly destroyed by tourism.

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