Whatever! Wherever? Indonesia

Not had much of an opportunity to catch up with the blog, since we hit Indonesia. We landed in Bali late at night, grabbed a room for the night and crashed at the nearest bar. We spent the next day in Bali getting ourselves together to head over to Lombok. On the way we heard mention of the Gili Islands, just off Lombok, which we'd not considered in our travels before.

A night in Mataram, the main town of Lombok, and we decided that the Gili Islands were for us. We didn't know how long we would want to stay there, so we booked an open ticket to Komodo. (On a 4 day boat trip taking in various uninhabited tropical islands on the way.) So we were soon bound for Gili Tranwagan (bad spelling again, sorry), only a short boat ride from the Lombok coast.

This is the largest of the 3 islands, but still only a mile across, with a 700 inhabitance, plus 1000 cats! As usual we grabbed the nearest, best guest-house on offer. Dumped our bags and went exploring. The small bars and places to stay stretch north and south from where the ferry lands. All are the usual tropical island fair of small bars, places to watch movies, dive centres and a variety of resturants mixed in among the various standard places to rest your head.

We soon came upon the Cava Cafe, not far from where the boats land. The rest has now gone down in island history! The past few days have involved drinking Bintang (local beer), a tattoo, much merriment with the local people (who now all seem to now our names), a wrong path taken, a big hole in the ground, minor scrapes, and a visit back to Lombok just to check no bones broken! Nothing bad, but a hell of a story to tell. The whole event may have cost us more than we would have hoped by having to visit the hospital, but no damage done, apart from to the bank balance. (And we can claim on the insurance when we get back, so not so bad really.)

Anyway, we have met some very good people here, and made some good friends. We are here until Saturday, when we go back to Lombok to start our Komodo trip. Then back to Bali as we want to get some pressies in and clothes for ourselves. They are so so so cheap in Bali. Clothes we could never afford in the UK. Clothes I wouldn't even consider wasting money on, are very cheap in Bali. We both need new clothes. What we are traveling in have seen better days, and we didn't leave much in the UK.

Well that's it for now. Typing makes me so tired, I think I need to have a lay down on the beach for a bit.