Bali & Gili Islands

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Bali take one
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We landed in Bali after dark to be bombarded by taxi drivers like I've never seen! I couldn't tell you what the interior of that airport looked like because all I could see was taxi driver faces. We eventually decided to let some lucky fellow drive us to our hotel in Legian. This should have been a roughly 15 - 20 minute drive, but anyone that has been to Bali knows that the traffic in the evening is horrific, so took us closer to an hour. We were pleasantly surprised by the hotel, with friendly faces greeting us and room with a tv, kettle, fridge and a bathroom with an actual separate shower! All of this a complete novelty to us by now.. As we were only there for a couple of days we spent most of our time at the beach and 1 day at a nearby beach club before booking our boat over to Gili Trawangan. Our first night we are a local 'warung' where I had a terrible experience with the food. So the last night we went to a Mexican which was amazing! Thank god for the Mexicans.. Then an early night to catch our transport to Gili T the following day..
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Gili T
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As always our transport was roughly an hour late to pick us up from our hotel to take us to Padangbai harbour on the other side of he island. A couple hours drive and a very long wait for the boat, we were finally on our way over to Gili Trawangan. The Gili islands are made up of 3 islands - Gili T is the largest and most popular, Gili Air slightly smaller with less to do and Gili Meno which is the smallest. We were staying on Gili T for 5 days and were really looking forward to it. We were greeted on the beach by Tim who walked us up to our guesthouse - there is no transport on the Gili islands, only horse and cart so everyone basically walks everywhere. We settled into our basic room after a long journey and then set off to explore the nightlife. We quickly found our way around and knew the best spots to go. Most evenings were spent at the Irish bar which oddly enough seemed to be the cheapest place to drink (Irish bars are usually the expensive ones). We also spent a couple of nights at the local open air cinema which played a good film every now and then. Most days on Gili T were spent relaxing and beaching. It got pretty tiring as there was a mosque right next to our guesthouse so we were woken every morning at 5am by the prayer calls. The rooster next door also didn't help with the sleep deprivation.. One morning we walked up to the turtle conservation where they keep the endangered hatchlings until they are big enough to set off into the sea, so cute! We also did a snorkel trip one day as we were guaranteed to see a turtle, and see a turtle we did! It was amazing to swim with them after all the snorkelling we have done! The food on Gili T was surprisingly good! Great bbqs and a very good pizzeria which we weren't expecting. We said our farewells and headed off in the morning to catch our boat over to Gili Air for the next few days.
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Gili Air
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Air was most definitely smaller and quieter than Gili T. There is a lot of work taking place which looks like they are trying to get a few more resorts and restaurants on the go for tourists. Our guesthouse was a bit of a walk from the pier but it was really lovely and had everything we needed, including a proper shower and wifi! It was also quiet which was a massive bonus! We spent both of our days at a nearby beach club as the staff were lovely, the food was good and we could use their pool and sunbeds a for free! As Gili air is much smaller, everything is much more sporadic, there isn't one main place where the restaurants are so it was a bit of a walk every night to find somewhere but that was ok! After a peaceful couple of days we booked our 'fast boat' back to Bali to spend our remaining time before heading to Australia.
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Bali take two
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We grabbed some breakfast down by the pier while we waited for our fast boat - fast boat just isn't the way to describe this journey. What should have taken roughly an hour and a half to 2 hours ended up taking 3. On a packed boat with no air con and huge waves, this could easily be someone's idea of hell. By the time we reached Padangbai I never wanted to look at another boat again! We then had another relatively long wait for our bus to take us to Legian. As they were doing multiple drops we knew it would be a bit of a journey.. After a few hours of driving I started to recognise where we were and luckily asked the driver to stop as wee were starting to go in the opposite direction we needed to go! A short walk and we found our hotel. It's such a blissful feeling to be in a room with a bed, an actual bathroom, air con, wifi and a tv. The basic rooms in Asia are fine, but being in a nicer place gives you a whole new kind of appreciation! The Bali hotels are oddly cheap and we had breakfast included so great deal! We were to be in Bali for 5 days however our target amount of money for Australia was creeping up on us so we agreed on 2 days of outings - the waterpark and a waterfall trek in the north. The hotel had a pool (result) so our other days were mainly spent topping up our tans ready for the chill of Sydney. Our second day we went to the waterpark - the third best in the world apparently. We had a great day having a bit of fun, but still a lot of stairs to climb! On our penultimate day we set off on a 3 hour journey up to he north of Bali for a jungle/waterfall trek. We had a great guide who showed us all the different trees and plants that we were walking through, which included clove trees and Cacau plants. We got to try some raw Cacau which was surprisingly nice! We stopped off at a local family house to have a fresh coconut before setting off for the waterfalls. The first stop was a lagoon which was beautiful, but absolutely freezing! As we got ready to head down to the next tier the rain started.. Trying to trek through the jungle in the pouring rain is not an easy task and of course I fell over, covering myself in mud. We made it to the next tier where people were jumping off the 10 meter drop. Starting small, we followed our guide up to the 5 meter drop where we could slide down the waterfall. I foolishly volunteered to go first having no idea what was in store. They counted down and practically just dropped me down this waterfall. 5 meters doesn't sound like a lot, but it sure feels like it! Another little jump before we had to think about stopping as the rain was getting to heavy meaning the water flow would be too strong. We were stuck in a little hut for about an hour while the rain poured before we decided to brave the last bit of the trek. A really great day but very exhausting. Of course we have ourselves the next day off to recover before saying goodbye to Asia and boarding our night flight to Sydney.

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