“For decades, backpackers have made the hop from Bali for a dip in the turquoise-tinted bathtub-warm waters of the tiny, irresitible Gili islands”, the Lonely Planet raved.

“What a perfect way to end our stay in Asia!”, we said to ourselves.

“Deep-water coral reefs teeming with rays and sharks”, the book continued.

“Heaven!”, we imagined, and hopped on the little boat that would whisk us across the beautifuly clear waters to Gili Trawangan, which would ultimately turn out to be the bane of our existence for the next four days. A little dramatic? Perhaps. But from these “jungled pearls [which] are hard to leave”, we couldn’t get away fast enough!

We know we’re going to sound a bit like picky whiners, but everybody kept telling us that their stay at the Gili was the highlight of their holidays, and once there we were really disappointed by the reality: the accomodation is not “stylish”: it’s as crapy as everywhere else – if not worse-, and 4 or 5 times the prices we expected. The “fun expat community” is hidden by the crowd of tourists, and the “outstanding dining” is disappointing and overpriced.

But the diving! This could save it all! Yes, it’s twice the price we paid in other places in SE Asia, but it’s supposed to be great! So with visions of manta rays and sharks, we signed up for a dive from a guy who assured us that there was no comparison to what we had dived in Malaysia. Unfortunately, he was right!

All we saw was a bunch of dead white coral (thanks to the thankfuly now ceased dynamite fishing) with a few fish swimming around. It must be a flook: bad site, bad divemaster, unlucky…so we persisted and signed up for another dive the next day to a well known site, supposedly one of the best in the area: Shark Point! Sounded great until we got out there and due to high waves we were forced to dive the same crappy site we were at the day before. And because the current is so strong, you’re whipped through the water at such a pace that you can’t even see the few things there are to see.

There’s one thing the Lonely Planeet was right about: you are indeed offered “Magic Mushrooms” openly at every other bar along the main road, and they are quite creative at promoting their creations:

I’m afraid we couldn’t tell you if they really were “bloody sexy” or “bloody fresh”, but the colour of a mushroom milkshake is enough to turn the stomach.

Despite our complaining we did take some nice shots of the island (which is NOT covered with jungle, incidentaly):

And we spent most of our remaining time taking it easy along the beach, trying to get over our grumpiness by watching sunsets…

…in admittedly neat bar huts with nice views…

…having a Bintang beer (though Anker is better!)

Roland even tried a Bali wine. (Don’t. Really.)

But really, everything is so expensive (by Asian standards) and people are so focused on transfering the money from your pocket to theirs, that we were not sad to finally leave. I think we may have even done a little cheer.

Or maybe the cheer was because we got off the island without being arrested by security (there are no cops) after refusing to pay the fictitious tax that was suddenly added on to our guesthouse bill as we were leaving, resulting in the owner yelling threats (“this is Indonesia!!” suggesting we would be treated harshly).

We did, however, have a nice time at Senggigi, on Lombok island – we rented motorbikes for a day, and cruised the coast in search for the perfect beach! It was Kath’s first driving experience in Asia! And possibly the last?

We found a few rather lovely spots

The local boats all have these triangular sails

And fishermen sell their fish along the beach

So it turned out to be a fairly successful day on the road!

A few days later, a 13-hour boat-bus-boat-bus journey took us back to Bali. This time, we decided to stay at Kuta, which is supposed to be the trashy-budget place on Bali (budget being the key word and it’s close to the airport). It did not disappoint! Loud techno music all night, drunk, rather icky looking tourists everywhere, pushy touts, and stores that seem to all contest for the lewdest stickers:

It’s a big spot for surfers, with a crowd of young Australians that come here for cheap fun (they form most of the party crowd, as the memorial for the nightclub bombing reminded us). That’s actually the only picture of Kuta we have. It wasn’t worth more than that, but at least we got cheap accomodation and cheap food for a couple of days!

We left Kuta for Perth, Australia, leaving our books behind, and with the firm intention never to come back again! At least not back to Kuta… and probably Bali…and certainly not Gili Trawangan…but there remain many unexplored islands in Indonesia, and in the end bad memories fade and we’ll be itching for a plate of Nasi Goreng (or at least their red MSG-laden chili sauce)!

(as an epilogue -since we’re writting this post while waiting 6 hours for our connecting flight in Kuala Lumpur airport- the books are actually following us to Australia as the sign we saw yesterday on a store in Kuta for “book exchange” was, on closer inspection, “Books- No Exchange”… It made sense: why exchange when you can make a buck?)