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Published: June 14th 2009
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Glass Bottom Boats
Admiring the ocean colours from our lunchspot We managed to make it to Bali alive after our Indonesian ferry crossing. My goodness Indonesia must be the most disaster prone and unsafe travel destination ever. The stats are pretty frightening and we still intended to take a 5 hour ferry journey to Lombok after Bali.
We arived in the hell hole that is Kuta. It was like leaving Indonesia. Although nice on the drive there, Kuta is a bit of a dive and very westernised with hundreds of designer shops, cheap eats and shawdy hostels and hotels. We got a room in another prison like hole and realised that we hated Kuta immediately. It was ok for cheap eats and cheap beer but even the beach is pretty ugly. Kuta is only ok for surfing and nightclubbing (are we sounding old here?) and as a stop over to organise your way out of the place so that is exactly what we set about doing and promptly bought a bus and ferry ticket to Lombok so that we could get to the famous and paradisical Gili islands.
The ferry would be 5 hours, thereby increasing chance of an incident. As it turned out it was a bit rough
and the boat was rolling a bit, this made Vik quite nervous and feeling sick, it just sent Neil to sleep as it reminded him of being in his bed offshore.
We survived to the other side and were picked up in a bus and taken (eventually!) to the boat for the Gilis. If we had any doubts about the ferry then we neednt have worried as the little boat that was to take us across to the Gilis was really difficult to get on due to the boat being knocked about in the swell and one lady got hurt. The boat was frighteningly overloaded with people and we were practically sitting on top of each other. There are 3 Gili islands, Gili Trawangan (most popular and dubbed the party island), Gili Meno (quiet and peaceful) and Gili Air (quiet with largest local population). We opted for Gili Meno.
We found accomodation with a salt water shower (no fresh running water on the island). It was difficult to see the islands beauty at first in the grey weather but the following morning in the bright sunshine we walked round the whole island and it was plain to see
why people fall in love with the place. The place has a sleepy feel with sections of crystal clear waters, some sections with surf, fishing and some nice sand, although full of broken coral. These were not the best beaches in the world but the atmosphere of pure relaxation was hard to beat. There are no motorised vehicles on the island so the mode of transport here is horse and cart. There are a few easy going guys selling handmade jewellery but one guy actually wanted to trade a necklace for Neils shirt that he had on. The white shirt was actually a bit gruby and had a curry stain on it. We pointed this out to him but he loved the shirt and was sure he could clean it up. We got a string of pearls and both parties were quite happy. The next day we saw the guy wearing the shirt and he had got it cleaned up and showed it off to us.
We went snorkelling on our own private chartered boat for 3 hours at several different sights. The snorkeling was spectacular. At first it looked as though it wouldnt be up to much and
Is this place real?
The amazing skies from just another sunset on Gili Meno they had taken us to an area too deep to see anything but then the turtles started swimming about underneath and eventually we drifted on to some beautigul corals with thousands of colourful fish. We spent 4 days on Gili Meno before the salt water showers had taken their toll. Our hair felt weird and we were up all night itching! We decided to check out Gili Trawangan and headed there for the night.
On Trawangan, we managed to get a hot fresh water shower which was bliss and we realised how much we take showers for granted at home. There are different grades of shower, hot or cold, fresh or salt, salt and cold being the worst. All the time at home we only have hot and fresh, we always have the best, it really makes you start to appreciate how much you take things for granted.
We realised on Trawangan why it is called the party island, and promptly realised that we much preffered Gili Meno and would head straight back in the morning. We got back to Meno and this time paid more for a cold rain water shower. We spent another 4 days here
Evening football match
You knew it was near dinner time when this was on. in total bliss getting into the rhythmn of the place, eating our 3 meals a day, visiting the friendly goats. Theres no need for a watch here, wake up hungry-eat, relax till hungry-eat lunch, relax till the locals gather for the evening football match-realise it must be time to go watch the sunset, then eat dinner; repeat as many times as possible. The sunset was so beautiful here that it looked like a painting and it was hard to beleive we were in the real world. We met a lovely young man, Jiree (not sure how to spell this). He was selling jewelery and also seemed to be working at the reastaurant that we were eating. At this restaurant the guys played this game (all day), called carambol. They also liked a game of cards (in between carambol matches) and Jiree agreed to show us how to play some of the Indonesian card games. My god, these are the most complicated card games you can ever imagine, with almost every card in the pack having its own rule. We taught some of the guys there how to play Speed cards, a hell of a lot simpler and they loved and
Jiree was laughing his head off whilst the guy Neil was teaching just couldnt get the hang of the game at all. Gili Meno is fantastic, we didnt want to leave but as it was Neils birthday we decided to go back to the party island for the night so that we could treat ourselves to a nice room with a dvd player and watch series 2 and 3 of heroes which we bought for about 6 GBP in Bali. We stayed an extra night as it took too long to get through all the dvds, and the guys on Gili Meno thought it was a real strange way to want to spend your birthday but we did get out a bit too, checked the beach, had a good meal and a few beers.
We decided that we really hadnt given Bali a chance at all and we would leave the last few days left on our visa to go to Ubud, the cultural heart of Bali. The place we found to stay was pretty cool, our bedroom was like it was in its own personal pagoda or something, with wood carvings in the door and stone carvings in
the pillars and all this for only around 6GBP. Ubud, is nicer that Kuta, but also full to the brim with souvenir shops and galleries, it once again didnt feel like the Indonesia that we had come to like everywhere else, we just didnt get the place. We headed back to Kuta for a final night before heading to Singapore for a few days. It felt quite sad leaving Asia, it felt like a big part of the trip was over and possible the best part as we really loved Asia. We will definately go back to Indonesia for a holiday, there are so many different islands to explore that you could go 100 times and end up somewhere new each time. Shame that we didnt see Flores and Komodo, but that will have to be saved for another time, you just cant see everything in one month!
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gayengardana
non-member comment
nice to meet you
hello mr neil and mrs. vik, i was so happy to see your photografh (mrs. vik at the "deck"). because i can to see the "deck" was i build. introduce my name gayeng from bali, iam a civil engineering and supervised that 'the deck" project at gili trawangan. do you now?... the owner of that "deck" is name mr. fahmi from jakarta, and sadly he was died when celebrate the grand-opening of that place. i tell you, the main plan he build that deck is to make that island more beatiful and make the foreign or visitor get a nice memory at there, only for love and pice, to build that deck is verry dificult because we are in the small island and so far to find something . we build that deck no for many, only for a good place and for a good facility to give the visitor. so if i see your ficture at that building now, i think the owner (in memoriam mr. fahmy) will to thank,s for you and he will happy "at There", because that building have famous in the world now. iam to thank for you , because the "deck" was i build can make visitor like you are get a sweet memory at that place. so... congratulation and thank you..SALAM..