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Published: August 9th 2007
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Sunset...
..Gilli Style! Hi from Bali.
Arrived here from Borneo, via Kuala Lumpur, last week. Headed straight for Kuta, probably the most famous tourist area in Bali. Realising we only had 9 days we wasted no time in organising some day tours of the island. So the next morning up we got and joined our guide for a temple and sunset tour. Our guide was called “Aldo”, and he turned out to be really fun and friendly. Once I realised his English was good, I bored him to death with question after question about the island and its culture.
The Day tour took us to a few temples and sights around the island. Being honest, most of these were just “fillers” before the main event, a visit to Tanah Lot Temple on the south coast. The Temple is built on a rock formation that pokes out of the sea, just off the coast. Apparently, the temple site is occasionally used for a “Monkey Dance Ceremony”, where holy people gather to perform some kind of ritual. I’m not entirely sure what the “Monkey Dance” entails, but Lucy is quite certain I’d be good at it!! Aldo took us to the temple cave where
we received a Hindu luck blessing and offered donations to the temple. This included having rice pressed to our forehead and a flower placed behind our ear! Don’t see why we paid a “donation” to look like berks for an hour! After our spiritual experience we found a nice viewing spot and waited for the famous Tanah Lot sunset. It didn’t disappoint. From the right angle, the sun sets behind the temple and creates an amazing silhouette effect (you can see from our picture)! Chilled out for a while, sipping drinks, and taking it all in…
Next day we met up with the same guide (Aldo), and set off on another island tour. We visited the “Elephant Temple”, which was an ancient Hindu temple with fantastic gardens and scenery surrounding it. Although the place was great, we never got a proper answer as to why it’s called “Elephant” Temple! There wasn’t really any indication of Elephants (living or dead) in the whole area; if you ask me, it’s a name gimmick to get tourists interested!! Oh yes, this temple offered me my introduction into wearing a Sarong!! Not the most macho attire for me, but I think I pulled
it off pretty well! Hey, if it’s good enough for Mr. Beckham….
The next site on our itinerary was the “Mother Temple” (Pura Besakih), regarded as the most holy place in Bali. Had to don another Sarong; this time a sexy little black and white number with a pink (!!) belt. Aldo wasn’t allowed to take us into the temple; this is because the local guides want to rip off every penny they can form tourists. After showing our ticket a weasel faced little man told us, “you can take a guide for a small donation fee towards the temple - just 30 to 50 Dollars”. Guideless, we started the long walk up the Temple complex. “Mother Temple” is actually a series of small temples (23 I think) that are all known under the one umbrella to make things simpler. Although the temples are very nice, personally I found the scenery more impressive. As you climb further upwards, you get an increasingly good view of the whole area and the surrounding mountains. Afterwards we continued our tour, which took in some minor, non-descript, sites before dropping us off at a small beach town called Padangbai.
Padangbai was a
Gilli Taxi
Miss Steptoe was delighted to inherit the family business!! nice change of pace from the touristy Kuta. It’s a small fishing town with just a tiny beach and a row of restaurants! Spent the first evening enjoying a beach side meal and hit the hay pretty early. Woke up with the birds (well the dam cockerel woke us up!), to make the most of our whole 1 day in Padangbai. Chilled at the little beach in the morning and got “swarmed” by sellers! Made the mistake of buying a couple of items which only made matters worse. News spread that a couple of English berks were up for buying, and so we were surrounded by tons of them! Decided to go and find the other beach we had heard about. Took a long “trek” over winding roads and through forests in an attempt to find it, which we eventually did about an hour later. Had to half clamber and half climb down a small rock face to get down to the white sand. Once on the beach someone pointed out a track and asked us, “why didn’t you just take the straight road from Padangbai”!! Great…….
We spent the entire next day traveling by boat, ferry and bus
from Padangbai to the Gilli Islands! The journey was a real headache, but the destination was to prove perfect. The Gillis are 3 Tiny little paradise islands east of Bali; Gilli Trawangan, Gilli Meno and Gilli Air.
They do have:
White beaches and blue sea
Great restaurants and bars
Friendly and kind people
Great Parties with decent atmosphere
World Class Sunsets
Amazing Dive and Snorkeling spots (saw tons of turtles!)
They Don’t have:
Any Cars or Motorbikes
Over zealous drunkards
All Night Techno Music
McDonalds
Nutty Posh Girls kicking your door in!!
Hope this list gives you some idea of how much we loved the Gilli islands. Spent the daytime just relaxing at the beach, doing the odd bit of snorkeling with turtles and sipping drinks. The Early evenings were spent gasping at picture perfect Sunsets (see pictures). At night time we grabbed some excellent food at the chilled out restaurants and enjoyed the odd cheeky drink at one of the parties. At one point we were contemplating cancelling the rest of our trip and just staying at the Gillis indefinitely!! However, we could only manage to sneek one extra day before having to head back to Bali to
Gilli Air Beach
Not too shabby either! meet our schedule. Arrived back in Kuta today (2nd August) and just fainted into bed after an intense day long journey which included our ferry being held up for 2 hours. Next time I go to Gilli, (and there will be a next time) I’m going to splash out and catch the expensive “Fast Boat”.
A morning flight beckons us to Singapore tomorrow, where Miss Hepburn will be your blogger. Yeah, yeah - bet your all cheering again!!
Well, its bye for now
Dan and Lucy
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Shout Outs Get well soon - to my cousin Paul; thinking about you mate.
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RT Lynn
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Sunset City!
Love the pics Dan ! Did you know England is under water now? You're in the right place matey, it al looks wonderful! Keep the blogs comin'. Love Lynn XX