5:45 a.m. came fast, especially since I had a rough sleep all night while my body was metabolizing the deep-fried tapas I had been eating the night before. We took a small mini-bus with Chris and Ben to the east coast of Bali where we hung out in a restaurant until 8:00 a.m. when our speed boat, apparently the fastest in Bali, arrived to take us to Gili Trawangen, the biggest of the three main Gili Islands. On the way we each got a small water and a breakfast box, which included a tiny banana-bread pastry thing, three pieces of fruit, and a strawberry hard candy.
We arrived on Gili T at about 10:30 and were immediately accosted on the beach by guesthouse propietors. We almost decided on one but but ended up walking down the one main road to find our own. After a few looks we stopped at Rudy’s, a nightclub that had guestrooms in the back for 100,000, although every price everywhere is always negotiable. They were decently sized and clean but extremely drab. Also there was no wifi, but apparently wifi had just come to the island one month before and was to be found at four places on the island. We did little that day but eat, I don’t think we even went to the beach. That night was Friday night though, which was the big night of the week at the Irish bar on Gili T; apparently Gili T is the smallest island in the world to have an Irish bar on it. It was a good night as always.
The next day, not being satisfied with our room or it’s price, we found a new guesthouse a few streets back of the waterfront in the village for 70,000 a night. The manager would get extremely mad at us on the day we left because we would tell Suzanne, who also randomly ended up staying there, that we were paying 70,000 while she was paying 80,000; she wasn’t too upset though, it’s all in the game there. In the next few days we would met up with the British couples from before, Suzanne, and two Canadian girls, Claire and Katie. These people made up the best crew of the entire trip for us. We hung out at the beach and drank together multiple nights. We were planning on going snorkelling with Chris and Ben one day but had to postpone due to me getting a fever the night before; easily the worst night of the trip. We ended up going a couple days later fortunately. We saw some cool fish and turtles around the three main islands of Gili.
I did hike up the hill in the middle of the island one day and watch a bit of the sunrise from the Western, and mostly unpopulated, side of the island. Other than that not much happened. There was a night market with some great food we ate a bunch, and a good all day restaurant beside it as well that we ate at most days. There was not boiling water to be had on the island so my noodle diet stopped for a bit. I got talking a bit to a guy from California who told me that most of the locals made their own rice wine and would sell you a 1.5 litre bottle for 50,000, a very good price. We ended up having some a couple times and found it palatable.
Although we heard a lot about it we didn’t have much Arak, the locally produced alcohol. Apparently a few years back tourists were constantly dieing from the high levels of ethanol in the alcohol, from the high levels of gasoline being put into it. Fortunately though the government stepped in and executed the people making the alcohol and now it is much safer.
One of the coolest things I saw was the beginning of the Sunday afternoon, night/morning in Gili, English Premier League games one night. All the British guys we were with told us that on Sundays in England everybody is at the pub and completely wasted all day on Sundays. That Sunday night from midnight to 6 a.m. they were playing all of the usual games; which brought out every English guy on the island. Apparently by the end of the night is was getting pretty rowdy ( I only stayed for the first half of the first game). That night was our last on the Island and we were forced to say farewell to all the Brits save for Chris and Ben; whom we would see back in Kuta.
Steeves
