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Published: November 23rd 2007
Indonesia's paradise islands - The Gili's
Gili Trawangan and Gili Air, nearest neighbours- Kayaking and fishing between two of the Gili islands, what a nice way to spend the day!Day 254 to Day 276 (09.09.07 - 21.09.07)
Leaving Australia behind was a little sad, but actually we were ready for it, as money was running out and it was quite crippling to stay any longer on a backpacker budget, with all the expensive trips we did, all totally worth it of course, but we were soo looking forward to the rather more cheap Asia. South East Asia would be our third contient on this trip, and a refreshing change in culture and style after a few months in Australasia. Starting at the bottom just across the gulf between Australia and Asia, we would make our way up through Asia, starting logically in Indonesia.
The Indonesian Archipelago
The Indonesian archipelago, stretches more than 50000km, and a voyage through the 17,508 islands would be an epic experience and never just a journey, full of marvellous scenery, wild shores, komodo dragons, mountain hobbits and vast plains, yet it is a country not without dark corners. Civil unrest and natural disasters seem to come as standard, thus it is putting some tourists off; it's not the easiest country to travel in - but the country is there ready to
Gili Trawangan
beautiful unspoilt white sand beaches on this paradise island, the mountains of Lombok in the distance be explored and it is one of phenomenal natural beauty and incredible diversity. It is this Indonesia that is moreish, and rather hard to swallow, but all totally worth it.
Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, is no hard-line Islamic state although at first glance you would believe that it was. Most Indonesian's today are adopting social attitudes aswell as other trappings of Western living from baseball caps to doughnuts, and TV seems to be playing a significant role in this cultural revolution, and is found at the heart of most Indonesian homes. However 27% of the population are living below the poverty line, and despite the fact that the economy is now stabilising, there is a yawning gulf between those with and those without. Thus there is mistrust of the Western-style reforms prompting extremist branches of Islamic fundamentalism to act out, on occasions such as the 2002 Bali bombings. Indonesia's national motto "They are many; They are one" doesn't hold strong, when in this diverse and disparate archipelago it seems that the apparently solid unified nation isn't living this out.
As the world's fourth biggest country by population after China, India and the USA, it would
Sharing fishing knowledge with the locals
The poor boys will never catch a fish with the swedes knowledge!! they were eager students though! seem that with more than 255.3 million people the country would face overpopulation - this is however an unheard of concept, even though more than 50%!o(MISSING)f Indonesians live on the main island of Java.
Little did we know before hand, but we were here in Indonesia during the holy month of Ramadam, this special month, was extremely interesting to travel in, to see the culture and lifestyle that Indonesians live and the hardships they endure when fasting in the tiresome heat. We probably saw a slightly different Indonesia than we would have seen at another time of year.
BALI
Bali is branded a technicolour fanfare of golden beaches, ultramarine emerald seas, palm trees and suntans to most package tourists. There is however more to be discovered once outside the main centres than the predictable but lovely seaside motifs. Bali is ultimately the little isle with everything you could want to find on an island. Kuta, the islands boisterous, funfilled monument to holiday hedonism is not pretty, but rarely dull and definitely not one of our favourite places.
We flew into Bali from Perth, known to most people as a beautiful paradise island full
Rehabilitated turtles
On the beach in a little swimming pool were hundreds of tiny turtles, apparently they were rescued from poachers on the island and would be released in two years when they are big enough to survive for themselves. This seemed to be a successful rescue mission by the locals as when snorkelling we saw several adult turtles munching away on coral! of honeymooners and those seeking a tropical hol (mainly aussies), well first stop was Kuta, party centro, and basically the centre of Bali, esp for tourists, this of course does mean it has a few bad traits, one being this was the location of the 2001 and 2005 bali bombing in which a lot of tourists were killed; it is seedy, dirty and full of greed, we spent just a day and 2 nights here and couldn't wait to get out, not just because of the overcommercialisation, we were suprised to see Kuta had a TOPSHOP, M&S, and Next....just a few of the shops in the mall, but the prices were the same as at home, and not quite what you want to see on the other side of the world!
Ubud
Ubud, was a worthy stop-off for us in our short time in Bali, and presented the otherside to partying on this island. The beating heart of thriving arts scene, Ubud is Bali's most idiosyncratic town, an overgrown village where life moves at a sedate waddle, where Bali's most technicolour Hindu heritage is most vivid. We wandered around the hindu palace and explored the restaurants,
Motherly love
This monkey "Lu Lu" was the star of the island - and adopted this abandoned kitty as her baby - and overendulged the poor cat with love - inc picking all its fur off thinking there was flee's - it was a cute family! craft shops and fantastic markets here allin amongst the rice paddies.
THE GILI'S
In the turquoise waters north west of Lombok lie three wonderful little specks of jungle-green paradise. The islands are laid-back and truly beautiful, with few hawkers and no motorised traffic, where there are no dogs, but an abundance of cats with broken tails (which for a good few days fascinated us, we could just not fathom why all the cat's tails were disfigured, some unsatisfactory inquiries and research later, we discovered it is genetic.....not quite as intriguing as we had imagined!).
We left the hustling and bustling Bali behind and set sail for near by islands known as "The Gili's" which basically mean little islands. The shuttle bus would take us there we were told for a cheap price, and cheap it was but what they didn't say was that it was a true expedition and would take more 12 hours to get there....bus ride, local cafe, wait, ferry ride for 4 hrs, wait, bus, local cafe, local shop, bus ride, wait, fisher man's boat across.....really exhausting especially as there were extra excursions that we didn't want to go on, more ways
One monkey to another!
Christian and Lu Lu spending some quality time together to get money out of us, but it was nice to get out of Kuta, the true Bali lay in the rice fields and little communities on the way up and through Bali and Lombok, before we got to the island we would stay on.
Gili Trawangen
Gili Trawangan - a tiny paradise island that was peaceful, stunning, tropical and soo relaxing was where we stayed! Tiny it really was - it took less than an hour to cycle the whole way around it stopping off to swim in a few beaches. We happily whiled away hours and days just walking out from the white sand beaches into the crystal clear bright blue/turquoise water to snorkel, where we saw hundreds of fish, and turtles just minutes after going into the lovely warm water.....it was great........however paradise comes at a cost of course....there was no hot water on the island, and all the tap water/showers were sea salt water, and the electricity had frequent failings most evenings! There were no cars or roads, just horse drawn carts and locals offering to take you where ever you wanted not that there was many places to go except the
Bintang night
drinking some good old Bintang on the beach with friends Ryan and Laura who we spent a good few days with on the Gili's beach, but it was wonderful! We met an english couple, Ryan and Laura on the boat over, so hung out with them, drinking in the irish bar everynight and trying to find even better snorkelling points!
We also took another opportunity to dive, which was extremely good, we saw great fish and better coral than we saw on the Great Barrier in Aus! You can imagine then, we did not want to leave. So 5 days of chilling later we knew we would not be able to see anything else in Indonesia if we did not drag ourselves way from the sun, the beaches, and the all too desirable lifestyle out here!
Jakarta
Next we flew across to Indonesia's most populated island, Java, to the capital Jakarta, not really knowing why we came here except to see the capital city of such a vast country, we found it to be huge, dirty, smelly and totally full of chaos! Jakarta is by definition, a chaotic landscape of freeways, skyscrapers, slums and traffic jams - a city of thick skins, well you need one to live here. It is a fast paced city of function rather than
Lombok landscape
Typical image of Bali and Lombok, fields and fields of rice! one of our days walking between buses on the seemingly never ending journeys! form and as a result there's no much of a view. Underneath the concrete curtain, if you can hold your nose and dig in, the city is a microscopism of the nation at large, it is a pandoras box filled with all the good and bad of Indonesian life.
It is however a city so big and so spread out that its hard to get a feel for it at all, everything is miles away and there's a lack coherent centre as such, just sprawl! Anyway we spent 3 days exploring the chaos, the heat was unbearable as the smog keeps the humidity high and sweaty! One interesting encounter was we had dinner with a lovely Canadian and his wife at the World Trade Centre who were very informative on the lifestyle and culture here in Jakarta and Indonesia as a whole, it really brought the country to light and we thoroughly enjoyed our time with them! Some sight seeing followed, we saw Freedom Square, but taking the bus was a nightmare, a city of 20 million inhabitants by day and 14 million by night, it was impossible and crowded and smelly...so by the time we got anywhere we
Hindu temple in Bali
most of the Balinease are hindu, and temples like this one are a famous scene, this one is in Ubud didn't have much time to see anything!
Had we visited Indonesia after we had been to other countries in Asia, we would have enjoyed and got more out of it than we did. We not only saw just a microscopism of the archipelago, but we really did not do the country justice at all! Definitely another country for us to explore again in the future, as there are so many wonders there to be explored. The culture is interesting,the landscapesare stunning and the food is great, Kate did however contract "Bali Belly" which is famous amongst travellers, but this did not put us off!! From what we saw, the country takes some getting used to - another time someday we will be back!
Next stop was a short flight over to neighbouring Malaysia- more details soon!
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Linda
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Lulu....
Awwww i know i seen these pics alredy when meeting up with you in Thailand, but i never get tired looking at them, especially the pics with the monkey... how adorable!!! Hope you will have a safe flight to Saigon... them buses seem amazing!!! Luv you lots and lots. xxxxxx