GOODBYE INDONESIA, it was a pleasure to visit you…

It was 1 ½ amazing months in Indo, sharing time with locals and friends.

How friendly Balinese people are! It seems that Hindu religion shares good principles.
Security was never an issue. The biggest hassle was to be approached by many locals every time we arrived to a harbour, to sell us their hostel and transport. It was good for developing negotiating skills though, not easy task with this guys.

Some Muslim regions like north of Sumatra or south of Lembongan, are not so friendly. Girls should be covered and look down. Loudspeaker praying at 5 am is a bit invasive as well; maybe that’s why Bali is the most visited island…

Bali’s beaches aren’t as impressive as expected. Actually, the place is too touristic and only the southern coast is nice with white sand, all the rest of the island has volcanic sand or stones beaches (good for diving though). It’s more a surfer paradise than a honey moon paradise.

Gili Islands is the paradise everyone is looking for. Still quite rustic, no cars/motorbikes, just bicycles and horses. Beautiful beaches, colourful snorkelling, some surfing and welcoming people.

If you want to go extreme Mentawais might be the place. Waves for pro riders and isolation are a good challenge.

Indo language is pretty basic, which helps to learn some indo phrases and show interest and respect towards the locals.

The culture is quite basic as well. It’s definitely not a civilized country from the western point of view. Islands, ocean and sunny days don’t push you too much to study and work… It’s important to notice that no culture or civilization doesn’t mean no values. Generosity and cordiality is bigger in the most rustic place where basic values remain untouched.

There’re so many places we didn’t visit. Many people said eastern Indo is beautiful, Flores was highly recommended among many other islands that one wants to explore… But well, things should keep rolling and we’re thankful for what we had.

TERIMAKASI INDONESIA!









And TERIMAKASI Lucas and Sol, it was beutifull to travel with you with UB40 rithms!

GILI ISLANDS -LOMBOK, INDONESIA- (2-12/06)

After some days in Lembongan we all made our way to the GILI ISLANDS, three small islands in the north west of Lombok, highly recommended by many. No cars or motorbikes, back to horses!



Moving day is the hard working one. Getting up really early; negotiating taxi, bus, boat, room, many want to take advantage of travelers in transit.
It took us one day and one night to get there. Fishing boat (Lembongan-Bali), van to the port, public ferry (Bali-Lombok), minibus, night in Senggigi and a last public boat to get to Gili’s. Of course we didn't took the short way...







During this "moving days" interesting things can happen, such as seeing a 2 mtr shark just fished, face to face!




The Gili Islands are 3: Gili Air = “lazy island” (our choice), Gili Meno = “honeymoon island” and Gili Trawangan = “party island”.
All islands have a beautiful landscape, what we usually think as "paradise", well... here we found it, we really recommend this place !!






After walking around we found some really nice bungalows in the opposite side of where most of the people stayed. Tourist doesn’t like tourists…




We had our own beach, our own “chiringo” and the best connection with locals.










Sabri, the “uncle”, was the man in charge. Calm, smiley and helpful. Kilan, “Mariuati”, was the leader of the young gang that was doing the work. Cool guy who had the big advantage against the others of speaking english. Rapa and XXXX the “che pibes” were always ready to get what we needed.




The place was pretty turned off but little by little we light it up, again being a big group helped a lot….
- When are you gonna open the bar on the beach?
- When the season starts…
- When is that?
- In June
- We are in June!!!
- Ohhh…. ok, tomorrow

Bring electricity to the bar, get lights, music, decoration, do some painting… in two days it was alive! We had our “warung”, where we played our music, made our fruit shakes and barbacues! The best part is that we could help in the way so we felt like part of it.











Days went by on local mood, lay down and humorous. Guys were busy:
- Fish hunting



- Surfing (very little, since the waves were rather small or inexistent)
- Barbacueing: corn, fresh fish; chicken and even a goat! Once you find a nice fireplace you can’t stop burning something…






The girls had their fun: walks around the island (around 2 hours for a slow full turn), talks on the beach, some snorkeling and some artworks.
Everybody felt “at home” in Gili Air, lazylanders were very open and we enjoyed the mutual chats and company.








Every time we were cooking many came to our table, maybe because they don’t eat goat that often, hopefully because they felt welcome …




After cruising around Bali and other islands we think this was our favorite stop, maybe that’s why we stayed 10 days... Good balance between peace, beautiful nature, welcoming people and fun activities.

We’re gonna miss you Lazyland!!