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Published: March 2nd 2007
2 in 2 days, how much writing - i appologise, i think this one is going to be an essay?!
From Ubud we opted to go with Perama to the Gilli Islands, bit of a cop out tour group thing, but anything for any easy life! While waiting for the bus I recieved a very warm goodbye from a random man who'd tried to sell us a room on our first day, one big bear hug later, I was good to go!
We were bused to Padangbai and from there got a direct ferry all the way to Gilli Trawangan, it was such a nice way to get there, we were on the ferry with a whole load of other backpackers, pretty much the first ones we'd seen since being in Indonesia! and on the way we saw a huge group of minky whales and a couple of pods of dolphins, the crew seemed as excited as we were and drove in a couple of big circles so we could see them for as long as possible, what a great way to start our holiday in the Gilli's ( we later found that one of the diving instructors has
Barrouga
Where we ate over looking the sealived there for 11 years and never seen any whales so we felt even more special!). When we arrived on Trawangan we were greeted by a huge wall of people trying to sell us a room, another girl on the boat had a tip for a cheap place so we ignored everybody and followed her, only to find that although a lovely place it was way out of our price range, so back we traipsed into the fray to find a cheaper version. After much to-ing and fro-ing (much to the amusement of a couple of the restaurant guys who kept seeing us walking back and forth, back and forth!) we finally decided on a huge room with a proper western toilet, flush and everything, yay!!
Our first job on the Island was to find Emma a dive school she liked so she could do her open water, and so I could have a buddy! after visiting a few she decided on an instructor who was from about 10 mintues from us at home and started her reading ( Jane, I'm glad we didn't do it properly, that book is massive!) luckily it is alot easier to be at
Shakin her stuff
Em behind the bar in Rudy's 'school' when you can learn on the beach!
For our first night we met up with one of the girls from the boat and ate in a fantastic fish restaurant, all of the places on Trawangan are lovely, you sit in little barrougas over looking the sea on big cushions, totally relaxing little beach paradise. From there we went to the main bar on the Island, Rudy's. They have possibly the smiliest friendliest staff I have ever met, all with a slightly different take on the cockney accent! we however got stuck with 3 american guys who looked like they were straight out of california dreams; hawaiian shirts and big hair! asked to buy us a drink and actually turned out to be pretty nice guys, though kept going on about a 'burning man' festival in the Nevada dessert that we HAD to go to ( except we might have to go home and prepare for a couple of months first?!) very strange, think they might be making it up! Anyway, they apparently had no grasp on Indonesian money yet as they left a huge wad of it to pay for the drinks and left. Now I know we
should have found them and given it back, but being the poor travellers we are, it payed for the three of us to drink and eat for the next 2 days, so thanks guys!!
Emma started her diving course properly the next day so I spent most of the day hanging around by the pool not doing a hell of a lot, lazy really but I'm on holiday! Later on a guy from the island that I had met the night before came by and told me he was canoeing over to one of the other islands later if I fancied going, as I had nothing else to do, I thought I may as well. So off I went in a 'canoe' that was little more than a large bit of plastic with a dip in it for my bum! it was quite calm but the current was quite strong, and being the little weekling I am, my left arm is considerably weaker than my right, typically the current was going in the direction of my strong arm so i think I probably went in quite a few little circles, but made it in the end!
It was
Me, Anna, Emma
On a night out with Emma's diving buddy a really beautiful island the beaches are still washed up coral so a little painful on the feet, but aparently in a couple of months they will be pure white sand. We wandered around to the salt lakes, and the bird sanctuary ( dont worry dad, a couple of weeks have passed and I appear to be bird-flu free!) before watching the sunset over Mount Rinjani, a perfect end to the day! though the canoeing back was interesting, the waves had picked up by that time so to get the canoe in without capsizing I had to wade to my stomache before hopping on, so I was a little worried about the journey back, luckily despite arriving a little further down the beach than anticipated, we made it back in one (albeit very wet) peice!
Emma was quite shattered from her day of diving by the time i got back so after a lovely valentines meal from 2! we had an early night in preapration for Emma's first open water dive, and my first dive in ages! Unfortunately Emma woke up feeling really poo but decided that it was worth risking and we set off for our dive. I
had decided to do a total cop-out easy dive for my first one and thought I'd just be poncing around with Emma while she did her skills etc. but one of the divemasters decided to come along and took me for a lovely dive around Hans Reef, we saw about 8 turtles as well as giant parrot fish, puffer, angel, clown trigger fish and loads more. The only dissapointment was that all the coral was totally dead, but as I've never dived with turtles before that more than made up for it, unfortunately we were too early in the year to see any manata rays, but hopefully another time!
Em had another dive to do but I headed off to Lombok with Kuss to get some money for our trip to Flores and to have a look at the island. He had to meet someone for work so seemed a good idea to tag along, however due to unforseen circumstances (work guy being VERY late) we missed the last boat back to the island, needless to say I was less than impressed! luckily for me he was the perfect gentleman, and the next day after going to meet all
of his family (slightly bizarre!) he took me to see some beautiful waterfalls at the bottom of Mount Rinjani, they were a bit of a trek to get to but totally worth it, we went swimming in the crystal waters (read: totally freezing!) and ended up in a cave behind the falls looking out, felt like a different world
After Emma finished her diving we had one extra day so she could enjoy the beach before heading off to Flores. We have absolutely loved Gilli T so were quite sad to leave, we had a fantastic night at Rudy's though, we seemed to have been adopted by the barstaff and they always want us behind the bar dancing, Emma is given a straw 'microphone' as soon as she gets there so she can be part of the musical backing group, we love this place!! Bit too good a night though, didn't get in til 4 and up at 7 for our ferry, but hey ho, can sleep on the bus.....or so we thought!!!
So from Paradise we went to Hell, the bus journey was probably one of the worst money saving decisions we have ever made. It started
lombok
View from the waterfalls off badly when we got off the little boat to Lombok, we were herded into a horse cart without even realising (it even took off when em was only half on, sending her flying!) so an uncomfortable few minutes later we arrived at the 'bus station' with a hefty bill for what would have been a couple of minutes walk. From there we were taken to Mataram in a minubus, then transfered into a Bemo which was followed by a guy on a motorbike to make sure we got to the big bus station ok, aparently there are some unscrupilous types there ( following ok? we were quite worried buy this point!) we were then forced to walk around the market taking pictures of random children the guy knew while he showed us off as his 'very good friends from England' to anyone who would listen! After loosing the guy, we got on the bus for what we hoped would be an easy journey, sleep most of the way until the ferry. How wrong we can be!!
The first couple of hours were fine, got on the first ferry for a few hours, not a problem. Back on the
coach for a few more hours until we stopped for dinner. This was where it all started, the guy in the restaurant took our ticket and didn't give it back ( we thought he was the driver) which was to cause us all sorts of porblems later on with bus and ferry men not believing we had paid. When we got back on the bus we stopped about 100 yards down the road to pick up an indonesian family and what looked like their whole world, which would have been fine except that they decided to camp out on my chair. For the next 12 hours I had a guy asleep on my head (really), three children either attached to my leg or chair, and the enormous mother sprawled over from the other side of the aisle. If that wasn't bad enough, along came the smell... now i'm not usually particularly squeemish about stuff like that but seriously, I think one of the kids attached to my leg must have died or something, it was like nothing I have ever smelt before and it came in waves, getting stronger and stronger! it didn't help that at about 2 in the
more waterfalls
absolutely freezing! morning me and em got a bit hysterical, whether it was from laughter or not I'm not sure but the tears certainly came and everytime I laughed, i took a huge intake of the smell, making it worse, making me laught more, what a vicious circle!!
By the time we got to Flores, we just wanted to go back to our little Gilli haven! However, we were there now, make the best of it!! after a random night with a couple of hawaiian girls and and irish guy trying to organise a trip to see the Komodo dragons with a man who insisted on speaking about an inch from your face, our impression hadn't got much better. The only saving grace was their excellent pinapple juice (its the small things that count!). The next day, after lots of negotiating, we headed off to Rinca to see the dragons. They were really worth the journey, absolutley amazing creatures on an island that looked like it could be the end of the world, and you wouldn't be surprised to see dinosours appearing over the top of the hill! They are absolutley huge and live off buffalo which they kill with their
septic jaws and leave to die for a week, before taking up to 3 months to eat them, definately didn't want to get too close, though our guide kept trying to push us closer for a photo!!
After Rinca, Flores redeemed itself a little but unfortunately the transport there is very sporadic and there was no guarentee we would get to the other side of the island in time to catch our plane back to Bali, so after a lot of deliberation we decided to leave the island and head back to Gilli for 1 more night!!
Well worth the added journey to be back in our little paradise! from there we went back to Bali and flew to Malysia, which is where we are now, waiting to get a bus to the Taman Negra rainforest. We were sad to leave indonesia but it definately wasn't the easy first month we had anticipated, i think we both feel quite bad that despite all the amazing temples and landscapes we have seen, our favourite memories will come from sitting at Rudy's with their smiling staff and diving in the Gilli's, our second home!!
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Bev
non-member comment
So jealous!
Hey Sarah! Sorry I've not commented eariler - so busy here with work and seething with jealousy!! ^_^ I'd have loved to have seen the Komodo Dragons - hard to imagine how big they really are when you've only seen them in photos or on tv. The photos of the temple were brilliant - though I'm sad to hear about the vandals. Such a beautiful place! Hope you and Emma are having an absultely brilliant time (in spite of mad bus drivers and smelly passengers) - bring back tons of photographs! Everybody here will want to see them! Safe journey both of you. Beverley