Paradise...

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I won't lie...I'm actually in paradise. When you think of a beach paradise you picture an island with white sand beaches, hammocks, thatched platforms with pillows overlooking the crystal blue water and parties until the early hours of the morning. This place exists. I know this, because I'm there! Off to coast of Lombok lies a chain of islands known as the Gili Islands. Each with its own distinct character and personality. Gili Meno, a ghost town with so few people you can go for days without seeing anyone. Gili Air, a fun little island with a carefree attitude. And Gili Trawangan, the upbeat of the three full of travelers from all over the world, here to dive, to surf, to eat, to drink and most of all to have fun all day everyday until the sun comes up! But in the days leading up to island paradise I do have some stories a suprising humour to tell.

After our departure from the surf town of Canggu and the cultural centre of Bali, Ubud. We followed the west coast to the surf town of Medewi. Little to no surf and a downpour kept us from doing any surfing but a little Bintang and more then a little gambling over a few games of crazy eights kept us entertained. I won about 10 000 rupiah that day, the equivalent of $1.00 Canadian. A German guy even went as far as to call us "lazy drunk girls". I gave him the evil smirk, and muttered something about Hitler under my breath before walking away. Did I seriously just get in trouble for having fun on my own vacation? He's lucky he walked away breathing. Brawl averted and we moved further along up the west coast.

By this time, our Balinese driver, Dawa from Ubud had struck a deal with us, he was now our personal chauffeur. Originally only meant to drive us from Ubud to Medewi he suggested he drive us the entire 5 or 6 days. We played hardball and for a mere 1, 500 000 rupiah ($150.00 CAN) he was no ours for the remainder of our adventure. "Where will you stay Dawa?", "Oh, I have family all over the country." and although he came only with one pair of clothes, every morning he emerged in something new. After Medewi we drove to the North Western tip of Bali and through Taman Nasional Park (yes, its spelled, Nasional...my education is not regressing!)and down to the arid beach town of Pemuteran. Here we snorkeled, visited the Reef Seen Turtle hatchery where Boomer the Green turtle and Billy the Hawkesbill turtle reside with the hatchlings. An attempt to release both has been made several times with little success. Boomer constatly returns and Billy continues to fall ill before her release. Both are now part of the future breeding program at Reef Seen. Its a strange reltionship that goes on there. The locals dig up the turtle eggs off the beach and the program pays higher than market price to buy them for the program to ensure they are released and not sold on the black market. That night we are discussing the horror of movies like, Hostel, The Hills Have Eyes, Wolf Creek..etc. Just as are summing up the latest saga of Hostel II, the power goes off. Their is scrambling, screaming and much commotion. When the power kicked back, we're found huddling in the corner on one of the beds..bahaha!

Next stop was the town of Toya Bungkah and the base of Mount Batur, the second highest volcano in Bali. Here we awoke at 4am to literally scramble up an insanely steep slope of rock and lava to watch the sun rise. We then proceeded to eat an egg and banana sandwich cooked from the steam of the volcano. We almost killed Keira and their were moments when we thought she was lost..but 20 minutes after Crys and I summited...her little face popped over the last ascent and she smiled triumphantly..and held back any form of tears..at least as far as we could tell!

The final stop on the Grand Tour of Bali was the beach town of Amed. For the first time, we kicked off the Jandals and drank a Bintang on a towel by the beach. I am now a bronzed goddess and pity the ghostly complexions you will sport all winter long. Our snorkeling was short lived as a storm blew in and stirred up the reef. More Crazy Eights and an early bed time saw us up for 7:30 when we left for the port town of Padangbai.

This is where everything gets entertaining...
Dawa drops us off, we pay him, thank him and tell him that if we need a driver upon our return we'll be sure to call him and pass his card to friends along the way.
We are immediately swarmed by hagglers trying to sell us everything from cans of Coco-Cola to speed boat rides to the neighboring region of Lombok. I was fully prepared for the flurry of activity but Crystal however had a small nervous breakdown, through a bit of a fit and stormed off. She did return with tickets, so despite the humour I found in her fraustrations, it was productive. An hour later we board an overcrowded ferry boat to the Lembar port in Lombok. We drag backpacks and surfboards up the steepest metal stairs you have ever seen to the top platform. Its got to be at least 45 degrees in the sun with the humidity and over the next 5 hours I felt like bacon on a frying pan. It was hell! My SPF 45 sunscreen worked like a charm other than the red strip on my right wrist which i apparently missed. Keira however, who is ghostly white bruns to a crisp and has been sporting what I am sure are 3rd degree burns (no joke) on her face ever since.
Our arrival in Lembar is similar to Padangbai and we barter until we get transport to Bangsal on the far tip on the island for a fair price. Our driver is absolutely insane, so combined with the already dangerous traffic laws (which literally don't exist) we are swerving in and out of traffic which consists of pedestrians, scooters, horse drawn carts (cidomo's), stray dogs, and other cars. On several occasions Crystal and I could be seen gasping or covering our eyes as we narrowly escaped death. On top of it...this douche bag pulls into a yard full of goats and chickens and tries to tell us its the ferry. We bicker back and forth and an exubarrant arm gesture and the words BIG FERRY! seem to get through to him. Lucky for us, this cost us the last public ferry of the day. An already aggrevated Crystal stomps around trying to figure out the best deal, while I snap up 3 tickets. She returns and has a small fit when she finds out I went ahead and bought them. I'm chuckling to myself and she's livid we have to wait for the other vans to arrive. To make the situation worse, they load us onto a boat and then tell us we have to change boats because their are too many of us. Her face is now a bizarre shade of red. I continue to chuckle to myself!

20 minutes later, nothing matters because we have arrived in paradise. And since Monday night...we spend our days in the pool, reading in the hammock out front of the bungalow and partying with the rest of our carefree neighbors. My second night was spent chatting with new found friends until the sun came up...who knows if I'll ever leave. Tomorrow I am diving for the first time since I took my Open Water course in Mexico and Saturday morning I start my Advanced Open Water course...after that I am free to dive whenever and wherever. Mom you'll be happy to know that my dive instructor Bruno, is French...your never in bad hands with the French.

In closing...Keira's burn has turned to an open sore/scab on her chin. Turns out SPF 15 doesn't work at the equator...who knew???

xoxo
T

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