A week in Paradise

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Today is Jespers birthday... He 's still not quite well but we have to celebrate tonight anyway.

We arrive in Padangbai in the East with a shuttle bus around mid day, from here we'll catch a slow ferry, as they call it, to Lombok. We check in at Made's Homestay, right on the beach. We go for some very nice lunch; fresh grilled fish. The Mahi Mahi is really a fantastic fish... Later on we walk up the cliff to the right of the harbour and get to a very nice little beach: Bias Tugal. Very secluded and beautifull, but the current was too strong for the kids to swim. They had fun anyway throwing sand to each other... In the evening we go for pizza, we're a bit fed up with the local food, and of course a cocktail. We choose a drink with some local spirit, Arak, and it tasted very juicy like and nice. It tasted too juicy like so Stef asked to add some of the strong stuff...now we tasted the Arak too good, Stef ruined the cocktail... Happy Birthday Jesper....!!

That was that day. Next morning up early to get on the slow boat -public boat- to Lembar in Lombok. The ferry is scheduled for 9 am and leaves 10am. At that moment we realize we forgot a camera at the homestay, ok, we'll have to go back. There are lots of local people on the ferry and they all seek a spot to lay down and sleep. The tourists go up and seek a spot in the sun, some of them lay there in bikini. The crossing will take 4 hours... Alternative transportation is the fast boat; those people will get to the harbour by the Gili's in 1h15... but they also pay the price for it ( IDR 600.000) while we of course choose for the real and cheap way of travelling (IDR125.000).

After 4 long hours we reach Lombok... it's hot and we haven't eaten really, just some fast indo food: mie soups. We buy some rice and fruit at the harbour and find our way to the bus that's gonna bring us to Bangsal harbour in the North West. The bus looked quite 'used', but okay, here we go, packed with other tourists (mainly Dutch). Here's when we ate our rice packages. 10 minutes ? Something like that yes, and then, pfeww, flat tire!!! I knew this was going to happen!!! Moments to remember 😊 Anyway, we reached Bangsal after crossing some mountains with beautifull views to the ocean on one side and Gunung Rinjani, a huge volcano, on the other side! The trip is not over yet, we get dropped by the 'bus station'; a bar where tourists can unload and unwind...and of course spent money. Everything is thought trough... 17pm the boat to the Gili's leave so it's time to go and then it seems you still have to walk 1km but hey, there they pop up, the cidomos (men with a horse cart) who can bring you fast and of course 'cheap' to the boat. We felt like we didn't have a choice, we were already on the move since 8 am, the kids were so tired, Ask didn't even sleep, and this was just going to get to us, so we bargained for IDR 20.000 for a tiny horse and all of our belongings and ourselves... We felt a bit pitty for the horse. The others walked to the harbour, that's also what we would have done without ... kids!

Gili Air comes first, then Meno and Trawangan. But funny enough we get dropped last at Gili Air. Most of the peole (youngsters) go to Trawangan to party. It seems also very busy there. While we cruise the water the night falls and we get to see the full moon clearing up the sea. The captain has difficulty to find deep water to get a shore, second time good time. Where the hell should we go know, it's dark and not a lot of living souls around. Except for the cidomos... They know there's a chance for tourists arriving at this time and looking backwards, we were very happy for them! We were hesitating to walk or to take one of those cidomos again (this time we needed 2 they said because there were no pavements and it's harder for the horses to ride on sand, and this meant dubble price IDR100.000). So we got into one cidomo again and yes, it took quite a while before we got to our accomodation... what were we thinking? That we could walk all this stretch with luggage and tired kids??? Crazy parents! The horse did a good job and immediately we were delighted by the nice atmosphere on the Island... 8pm we got to Gili Air Santay, our accomodation on the east side of the Island. We had a drink by the restaurant right on the beach, a young crew welcomed us and we had some delicious food. This was great...

The Gili's are just fantastic. There is no motorized transportation. Can you imagine how peacefull it gets? People walking or biking and once in a while a cidomo comes by. And for the rest, there is the most unspoiled clear blue water around. Swimming, snorkeling, fishing and not to forget...diving. We decided this should be the spot to take a dive, it was 10 years ago... And we were very happy for it, we saw so many nice reef fish, turtles, morena, langoustines, scorpion fish, ray, blow fish, tuna, barracuda, calamares, lion fish. The first dive was exciting just for the act of it and Stef also used all ( yec it was just on 0 bar) her oxigen on 36min diving... Of course the sea was quite rough that afternoon and there was a lot of currents. Second dive we got to enjoy more because we didn't have to concentrate so much on technique and we felt more relaxed. We did the dives seperately, so somebody stayed with the kids while the other one was out having fun! The kids also enjoyed the under sea world, we hired some snorkeling gear and Liv and Skye loved to be out there and explore the deep blue! The day we went to Meno they even saw turtles out there!!

For the rest we hired bikes one day, and went for a day trip to Gili Meno. In the evening we enjoyed just relaxing at the restaurant with the view to the ocean and Lombok and the Rinjani volcano. Trully a very nice experience, the Gili's.

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