If any of you want to go on holiday to a beachy palm-fringed island, where G&Ts cost 40p and the biggest decision you have to make is whether to have another scrumptious banana pancake or go snorkelling in the reef that surrounds the island, then look no further than Gili Trawangan.
The "Good Book" calls it the party island so there are tons of restaurants and bars to cater for your every whim, but as it is low season (it rains quite a lot, although we've had geat weather) it is almost empty - perfect!
We met some lovely lads - Charlie & Martin (gappers from London, both lovely guys) - on the boat on the way over and we followed them to their hotel where we met a smashing couple - Stu & Chantal (Fantastic people who lead the good life 6 months working and 6 months traveling (plus Stu can make sheep dance, thats right dance - check out England's country shows if you don't belive me... well he is a Kiwi (sorry Stu couldn't resist))) - all of whom made our week in Gili T a fantastic laugh (and probably all contributed to our state of near-constant inebriation - seriously I had more hangovers that week than in the previous 3 months!!!).
El decided to splash out (no pun intended, ok, maybe it was) and did her Open Water PADI (beginner's scuba diving) and Kieran did his Advanced (next level up). He did a night dive which Chris, our instructor, said was one of his best night dives ever! We saw white and black tipped reef sharks, giant parrotfish, turtles, triggerfish, lionfish, frogfish (very rare) not to mention amazing coral - what a wonderful place to learn to dive! Our German instructor, Chris, was patient, funny and very professional and an added perk was that we were able to use the hotel where the dive shop was based's idyllic swimming pool, salt water but it had a waterfall how cool!
The food was yummy - Anna's every night for gado gado, the drinks were cheap and
plentiful, the locals were funny and friendly, the company was excellent, even the magic mushrooms were an experience (but you'll have to ask Kieran about that as my mushrooming days are over!). All-in-all a perfect and wonderful island and I can't think of a single thing to bitch about it...
Trying to shower in the rain - the only fresh water available
Erm, well there was salt water in the taps so showering off sea-water was a bit pointless but hey, it was well worth it for such a great time. (This even was quite fun as instead of rain being a bad thing everyone looked forward to it and raced home to have a fresh water shower from the stream that came off the roof, the locals must have thought us all mad! - Kieran.) It was sad to see all our friends leave and once they had we also decided to go, but not before our karma gave us a little fun...(read next entry)...
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