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Published: February 28th 2008
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We booked our transport out of Ubud, relieved we were leaving and hopefully looking forward to some nice weather at the beach for Christmas. We were more prepared this time around for the journey to be a hassle but it actually wasn't as bad as we expected. We arrived in plenty of time for the ferry and even had time to have a banana jaffle for breakfast. For those not acquainted with jaffles, they are simply toasties...the Indonesians though take toasties to a whole new level putting bananas, pineapple, egg and various other things in them. Banana jaffles, in our opinion, are definitely the best followed closely by ham and cheese!
Anyhow, we were only a little worried arriving onto Gili Trawangan on 20th December with no accommodation booked after our experience of the hotel owners hiking their prices in Ubud. As it happens we were very lucky and got a bargain of a room for 150,000 rupiah (£7.89) - it was a nice A-frame cottage with air con, hot water, breakfast and a 'traditional Balinese outdoor bathroom' which can cause problems...more on this later. Some places on Trawangan were taking the piss though with their prices - some places
wanted 300,000 rupiah (£15) for a fan room with cold water bathroom!
We had a fantastic first couple of days lazing on the beach, soaking up the sun then...it started to rain and it rained and it rained. This is where the disadvantages of a 'traditional Balinese outdoor bathroom' come in. There was a tiny shelf over the toilet which wasn't enough to shelter it, so we had several Laurel and Hardy moments going to the toilet in the rain with a rain coat on trying frantically to shield the toilet roll from the driving rain and keep the umbrella over our head at the same time. It's funny how we have so many 'toilet stories' from our travelling!
As it got closer to Christmas day the island got busier with a lot of the accommodation being fully booked, the parties also started! Christmas Eve was a great night with us having a lovely meal and several 50p double vodkas and sprites whilst sitting in little nipa huts next to the beach. The rain had held off and we were hoping for the same on Christmas day. We were so excited to be at the beach on Christmas
day, last year we spent Christmas in New Zealand in a camper van, so we were hoping to be able to fulfil a dream of Donna's to spend the day on the beach. Unfortunately the weather didn't co-operate...it rained BUT there was a period of around 1 hour where it didn't rain so we legged it down to the beach and lay there just to say we had done it; lets just say the locals looked at us very strangely! Our Christmas meal was steak and black pepper sauce with baked potatoes all the while sheltering from the rain.
Even with the weather being bad it was still a great place to spend Christmas, we loved every minute of our time on Gili Trawangan. After visiting last year we were so worried things would have changed but they hadn't, it was the same as we remembered. There were a few welcome additions, like wi-fi internet in one of the restaurants and a few more accommodation options. The food here was great, Donna even ventured the barracuda steak a few times which was a reasonable £1 with rice and salad included, other dishes like chicken curry were the same price
Donna modelling the outside toilet...
...Neil wanted to take a pic of her on it in a rain coat, it did happen but no way is it going on the blog! and we got huge portions. We certainly didn't go hungry and the mangoes were the best we had tasted in Asia!
We were very reluctant to leave the island but we couldn't have stayed much longer as we had only budgeted for 7 days. The atmosphere on the island was just right with a great mix of people ranging from younger backpackers to families and retired couples. The locals even came out to join the parties on Christmas Eve and day to wish the 'tourists' all the best. All in all it was a perfect Christmas not spoilt at all, even by the rain!
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