Blogs from Gilli Trawangan, Lombok, Indonesia, Asia - page 14

My glands are still up so no diving this morning. Grrrr. Alex is also suffering from an ear infection that will stop him diving for 2 weeks. He and Kasper have decided to leave tomorrow on the boat trip to Flores and Komodo to hunt dragons (by camera of course). The trip is 4 days there on a boat which does not sound ideal to me even if Flores and Komodo do sound amazing. Regardless, I am constricted by time and would not be able to go anyway. A day spend hanging around in the pool and on the beach again. Not what I wanted to do, but fun in its own way. By late afternoon, I had decided to give diving a try. If it hurt too much, I'd just get back on the boat. ... read more

Greetings to all! We left Bali early Thursday morning and headed east by boat to the Gili islands, located just off the coast of neighboring Lombok. In doing so we faced a Locksian dilemma (Goldie, not John), requiring us to choose one of three distinct islands: the uber-mellow Gili Air, the somewhat livelier Gili Meno, or the more freewheeling atmosphere of Gili Trawangan (known as Gili T). Reports of great diving, cheap food and drink, and more reliable electricity eventually swayed us towards Gili T. We decided to travel via the fast boat, which advertised a two-hour crossing powered by its "900 Horsepower!!!" engines, rather than the slow (read: lame) boat, which takes six hours. Despite our high expectations, our boat did not resemble the one from the opening credits of Miami Vice, nor did we ... read more

Gili T is amazing. It's an amazing little paradise. And somehow, EVERYONE on the island knew my name. I probably told my name to about 5 people on the island and after three days we would walk down the street and everyone would say hello to me by name. Not Stephanie for some reason, but always "Hi Katrina." Another favorite was "What's up dude?" as that is apparently what Indonesians think that Americans say every other sentence. Funny at first, a little wearing when you get it everytime you walk down the street and there is only one street on the island. We honestly didn't do that much on Gili T unless you count lying on the beach/ by the pool/ in our air conditioned room. Stephanie went on a fishing trip with some English guys ... read more

Back to the dive centre at 9 to start our formal training. Our instructor is a Londoner called Adam who is a great laugh and has told us where to go out on the island. ;-) We started in the classroom (a table on the beachfront!) and talked through some of the principles we had watched in the video and then it was wetsuits on and into the pool. This was a very bizarre experience and we learned how to do skills like setting up our equipment, take off our mask and replace it and get around underwater. the first tie you breathe underwater is so weird!!! Unreal. That afternoon we went out on the boat to do a 12m dive. I kid you not I was shitting myself. When we got to the dive spot, ... read more

UPDATE: Okay, not really an update as you haven't read the blog yet, but I want everyone to appreciate the photos. It took about 4 computers and two internet cafes to successfully load them. But anything for you guys! Actually I just really wanted to show you how amazing it is. So read on! So Steph and I still have 3 weeks left on our visas and we are wondering if we can extend them and move to Gili Trawangan. We knew nothing about the island when we arrived except that there are no cars or motorized vehicles (other than boats) and that it's a small island off the coast of the larger island of Lombok. Fortuitously we decided to take the expensive, fast boat. When we got to the jump off point for the fast ... read more