Playing Robinson Crusoe...

As we were: when we left off, we were headed out to go spear fishing for dinner off of the lush waters of Gili Trawangan. We were charged with energy and fascinated with the magical island we had found. A bit about Gili T: It is one of three islands off the coast of Lombok. The other two are called Gili Meno and Gili Air. The most popular however is definitely Gili Trawangan. The island is so small that you could walk it's entirety in under and hour. In addition, the only mode of transportation aside from walking and biking is by rickshaw. If I could give you a visual, I would say it was something out of Peter Pan's Never Never Land. There was just something so mystical and old world about this island. The main strip which was about fifty yards long consisted of fresh seafood restaurants and Indonesian pubs (all open air). The restaurants would advertise their dinners for the night by displaying that day's catch on ice on the street. You would walk up, pick your fish or lobster, tell the bbq master how you want it cooked and then move on to the salad table for first course. The whole dinner would usually come out to about $5 U.S. One night we felt obliged to take our hostel to dinner, our treat. That was probably our most expensive night in Indonesia so far at $60 U.S. each.

One bizarre fact about Gili T is that every restaurant and pub has big signs out front advertising, "We have bloody fresh magic mushrooms...take you to the moon and back, no transport needed". We couldn't quite figure out why this particular strand of Psylocibin was so popular to the locals on this island. One theory was because there were no cops on the island so the locals could supplement their income by selling this native fungi which grew in fields on the nearby Lombok.

We spent our days on Gili T exploring the clear waters, hiking through the jungle and playing on the beach. After two days, if you don't know everyone on the island then something is wrong. We had made friends from Brazil, Sweden, Germany, England, Australia, Austria, Africa, to name seven, but there were many more. At night, the restaurants and bars would rotate by who gets to have the evening party. For example, if Tir Na Nog got to throw the island party on Wednesday night, then Rudy's would get it the next night, followed by Sama Sama the following. We witnessed some of the coolest music I had ever heard at Sama Sama. The beginning of the night started with Reggae, but the main event was this Indian chanter/rock n' roller. I was able to film this man who was a dead ringer for Geronimo. He belted out some of the most powerful native chanting I had ever heard. Not only was he playing instruments and dancing wildly, but he was accompanied by a rocking band that created the groove behind his voice.

After spending five days on the island, we decided it was probably time to move on. We needed to start making our way back to Bali because we have to catch a flight to Bangkok on the 14th. On our last day we all got a bit teary eyed...we had fallen in love with Gili T and the wonderful people who decorated the island. The general consensus amongst our group was that we could definintely live on Gili T...maybe open up a dive academy or a fish shop We will miss our magical island and it will forever remain a sacred place in our hearts and minds.

One big mistake we made was not booking our way off the island. We walked over to the boat house only to find out that all boats were booked until the 14th. The 14th was the day we were flying out of Denpasar to Bangkok, so we began to panic. Were we stuck in paradise?? There certainly could be a lot worse places to be stuck. After spending hours contemplating all the different scenarios, we finally discovered that we could charter our own boat. The regular boats were between $30 and $60 U.S. and you shared with other travelers. Chartering a boat back to Bali was extremely rare amongst the backpacker community. The reason being was that each person had to pay a little over $100 U.S. If you have been paying attention to the prices in Indonesia, that is wickedly expensive and we were hitting ourselves for being so stupid and not booking our reservation ahead of time. Oh well, ya live and ya learn, right? Dave, Ryan and I had our own private boat back to Bali. As we left the island, fellow travelers were giving us eyes like, "who do these guys think they are with their private boat."

One catch with the private charter was that instead of dropping us off back at the port we had originated from (Pandangbai), it could only drop us at a town called Amed. We needed to get back to Kuta, so that would be quite the detour. Once again, due to our mistake we had to pay a hefty cab ride across the island and back to Kuta.

As I sit here now, we just arrived in Kuta and are staying at a mosquito infested hostel for $2.50 each per night called "Suka Beach" (a long stretch from Gili T). We are staying here, but during our remaining days we will venture out to explore the volcanoes and hotsprings. The 14th is just around the corner and Thailand is on the horizon!

All my love and hugs!
Ross