New island and a New year
Trip Start
Sep 13, 2006
1
46
178
Trip End
May 08, 2008
Gili Trawangan,
Indonesia
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Bangsal which is the gateway to the Gili islands... There are 3
beautiful little islands just off the coast here and Trawangan is more
renowned for being the backpacker island and good for parties so this
was where i wanted to do new years. Got transfered over to the island
on a little wooden boat (only half hour by boat) possible to swim it i
reckon. Anyway got on to Trawangan and instantly was thinking this
place is gift. The island is very small u can walk arond the whole
thing in less than 2 hours.
Beach
. its all beach the whole way round, palmtrees and one short stretch is lined with little guesthouses, hotels,
beach houses and bars. There arent any roads on the island and the best
thing is there is no cars or motorbikes.... the only transport is horse
and cart or pony and cart and bikes so this was a really nice change. There arent exactly any laws on the island either and no police so pretty much anything goes.
Found a great little place to stay and headed out for a walk
about the island. On the way i rented meself snorkling gear and
flippers..(this place is total paradise in my head) There is a lot of
good dive sites surrounding the island too so i headed for the Blue
Marlin which Ian had given me the name of and i booked in to do a few
dives with them over the few days. My first dive i went to Shark point
to look for a few maneaters.
debbie and gerryat
. I cant get over how clean and clear thewater was here and the coral was stunning. On that dive managed to see
a big ass shark which was well impressive and saw two little sea
turtles before coming across a huge turtle, it was about the same size
as a car bonnet. So that made my day.
I had met two canadian lads
who were staying in the same place as me so went out with them one
afternoon to the beach inn bar, both of them live in Jakarta and speak
Indonesian so they had some great stories and what seems to be a
crackin lifestyle. We met up with some locals then who worked at our
guesthouse and they filled us full of Arak.. a local rice wine which is
pretty potent. The Canadian lads were headin back to Senggigi for new
years, I took in another dive on the 30th and met 3 English lads from
Derby who i had met a few days before in Senggigi..(matt, matt
and jam) Not surprisingly there is an irish bar on the island.
Finally a few Welsh
. andabout time i was in one that was owned by a genuine irish guy so we
stayed there pretty much all nite with a Dutch couple we found along
the way. I did my last dive on new years eve and the sea was really
rough which made it quite interesting when a support for the boat
stabilizer broke... and it was pretty much abandon boat. Anyway that
evening i played some badminton with the lads who worked at my
guesthouse... they had an outdoor badminton court and played at 5 every
evenining when there was bugger all wind. I found this a great laugh
playing in a pair of flip flops and was totally weird playing outdoor.
Anyway
i met up with the Derby lads for a beer and some Absinth before headin
out on the town... We all had tickets for a bash at the Blue Marlin but
hit a few other places first.
jam matt and me
. Rudys bar were doing free food so thatwent down well with a few Bintangs and then went back to Tir na
Nog...The irish bar.. Atmosphere was really good there and we had a
wicked laugh and did the midnite bit there. In between we visited Rudys
again and up and down to the Blue Marlin which only got busy at about 3
in the morning by which time i had already been in swimming in the
sea... had to be done and no problem with the water temperature here.
So finished up being a pretty late nite in the end and definitely not
enough sleep either. New years day i did some more swimming and
snorkling and went up to top of the little mountain where there is a
good view over the islands. Back out again new years day with the
english lads and a few other stragglers but an earlier nite was had.
Jam matt and Rom
I left Trawangan on the 2nd of January, while at the boat jetty
one of the boats sank (about 40 feet long boat) it was in shallow
enough water but i think it had sank overnite when a wave hit it while
it was anchored, so it was bloddy hilarious watching the local lads
pulling it in and bucketing the water out of it... kinda looked like
they were well used to doing it too... but i dont think it gave
all the people leaving the island too much confidence watching this and
the sea rough today. Having had a good start to 2007 now just another
poxy day of traveling back to Bali ahead of me though.
