The paradise islands....

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Well, I decided to treat myself after lots of travel, so I'm now on the Gilli islands - a little slice of paradise. I'm currently on Gilli Trawangan, the "party" island - but it's Ramadan, so it's actually really nice - and kind of quiet. Just perfect really.

The Gilli islands are three small islands just off the north west coast of Lombok. Gilli Meno is the quietest, with only 300 inhabitants, Gilli T is the largest, with around 1500, and Gilli Air is somewhere in between. It took a long day's travel from Kuta in Bali to get here - first a bus to Padang Bai in Bali, then a ferry to Lembur in Lombok, then a bus to Bangsal further up the coast of Lombok, and then a small boat seating about 20 people, across the water to the Gillis.

I was going to head for Meno, since I'd hated Kuta so much and expected Gilli T to be kind of the same, but it was getting dark and noone else was going there and I didn't fancy finding a place to stay on a desert island alone. There are daily boats between them so I figured it was easy to switch after. Since it's low season though, Gilli T is just perfect, and I've not felt the need to go play Robinson Crusoe just yet. I've also met one girl from Holland who's so far tried and failed to leave the island for the past week because she just loves it too much - every night in the bar she's said "well, i'm off tomorrow, take care" and the next night, there she is again saying "ah well, I slept in, it's too nice here".

There's a row of cafes and bars along one side of the island along the beach, but it's very relaxed, with fishing boats and regular power outages. There's a cinema on the beach with huge cushions, and then a couple of bars with dvd booths - small wicker platforms with a couple of walls, where you can pick any dvd off the shelf as long as you order some drinks. It's very very easy to meet people here as well. The last three nights I've spent with a girl from Doncaster that I met my first night here, and we keep bumping into others we've both met on various parts of our trip, though mostly people from the buses or boats from Bali. The food is fantastic - very very fresh fish, and a huge range of foods, including the best sushi bar I've ever been too that will bring your food to the Irish beach bar next door.

There's also a turtle hatchery on the beach, where after the turtle's lay their eggs at full moon, the fisherman will bring any eggs that they find. The turtle's are then raised in tanks until 9 months old, marked, and then released into the sea as part of a conservation effort to increase population numbers.

These islands are some of the best places to learn to dive in the world, so I'm taking advantage, and I started the PADI open water 4 day dive course today. It's only been classroom and pool work so far, and will be the same tomorrow, but then we get two days of coral diving. I'm pretty tired from it today, but I get a small lie in tomorrow. After that, I intend to explore Meno and Air a little before I have to head back to Bali for the flight home.

Everyone's gearing up to the end of Ramadan now. It ends on the 30th of September, with a big party on the 1st Oct. From what we can tell, this island sounds like the right mix of tourists and locals to be invited to share in the festivities, so it should be really interesting.

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