Tranquility on Gili Trawangan, Indonesia

I think we've entered paradise. We've settled in nicely to island life here on Gili (Island) Trawangan - one of three small islands off the northwest coast of Lombock. It was quite the travel day to get here from Padangbai involving a 4 hour ferry ride (thank goodness it was cloudy that day), then a 2 hour bus ride, waiting for an hour at what Lonely Planet calls the "armpit of Indonesia", then another 45 mintues on a smaller outrigger boat, and we're here. Life is pretty easy here, once we found a decent room ($5 a night) with a working fan (the first room had a fan that didn't move any air making for a hot, sticky night), all we've got left to do is try and stay cool in the pristine aqua waters, and find places to eat.

Here's Keith relaxing outside the room we've called home the last few days, Trawangan Cottages:


Once again, we have breakfast included in our rooms, and banana pancakes and Lombok coffee delivered to our patio is becoming one of my favorite times of the day. The pancakes are SO good! The village here is small, and the locals are lovely. We've been trying to improve our Indonesian, but it is still pretty limited. Nevertheless whenever we say selamat pagi (good morning), we see faces just light up at our efforts. And they literally sing it back to us...selamat paggggiiiii! So cute.

The town consists of one main road that lines the waterfront, with tons of restaurants and places to stay. The sad part is, there is hardly anyone here to fill them all up. I think I've mentioned in other blogs (I can't remember what I've said and not said), but it is low season here, and even so, we've had more than one person tell me that even in low seasons in the past this place is usually full. They are openly very frustrated with the effect the bombings have had on tourism here. They say things like, "nobody comes anymore", "fucking bombings", and we've seen lots of t-shirts and signs to the same effect. After all my nervousness in coming here, I am so glad that we did. I feel nothing but safe here, and any little bit we are doing to help their economy makes us feel good.

Here is our big heads in front of the waters where we snorkel and try to stay cool:


The soliciting is way less here to. Only when you walk the strip do you get constant invitations to eat a meal, get a room or book a snorkeling trip. But they take no very nicely. No vendors on the beaches, so by dealing with it all on the way over here, you are rewarded by some honest to goodness peace. We've mixed with the locals a little bit. Mostly Keith who joined in two different soccer games. They were only a touch faster than him - but he had a blast, and they seemed to enjoy him being there. Yesterday we did our first diving trip. Beautiful, clear water, 28 degrees celsius (aka WARM), and lots of nice coral and colorful fish. On the second dive, we saw three whitetip sharks! They were pretty small (2 meters or so), but still pretty cool the way they just kind of circled around where we were.

Here's me on the dive boat yesterday:


It is definitely hot. The first half of the day is the hardest - the air is very still, and the sun is out. Not much to do but hit the water and try to find shade. We don't put up the big bucks for AC so our room is quite hot during the day. Then, being the rainy season, the afternoons usually bring some releif in clouds and wind. We haven't really gotten rained on, just the wonderful sea breeze when it decides to show up. We have thoroughly enjoyed eating (big surprise there). The food is fantastic. Some of our favorites have become the gado gado (a potato and veggie mix in peanut sauce), barracuda and the way they cook any of their tempe and tofu. Yum.

We'll stay tonight, then take off back to Bali tomorrow. We'll head to central Bali first to look at (and buy) arts and crafts, then up to the north coast of Bali before heading to the island of Java. Thanks for the emails and comments....we love hearing from back home!