oked a dive for the next morning, but we soon canceled it, wanting to move on to the smaller island of gili air, where we hoped we'd be less a walking money-bag and actually meet some nice, local indonesian island folk. What difference a short boat ride makes! Gili Air was totally chill, though just lively enough to keep us entertained. We found a wonderful little italian-run set of bungalows, Biba Beach Chalets, which were beautifully done up – very luxurious, except for the on-and-off electricity and the salty tap water which the entire island suffers from. We made 
several local friends in bars and restaurants around the island. Kappy even was serenaded by a couple of singing bartenders at the tiny Corner Bar where we had a send off “party” for her. (The party consisted of the 3 of us, a guitar player and our singing bartender, Sonny G, but we had a great time.)
Kappy and I had a few days of good diving before it was time for her to move on. She wanted to fly west to Java to see the Borobudor ruins, while we had our sites set east, towards the island of Flores. In the oddest bit of timing, Kappy left 3 hours before the arrival of another friend of ours, Rumana, who'd worked with Talor in NYC. We don't have anyone come travel with us for 15 months, and then we get back-to-back visitors, separated by only a few hours! Wish they could of overlapped a couple of days so we'd 
be more of a gang to contend with, though I might have gone crazy with all the “girl talk” (just joking, ladies.) Our musical bar tending friends were very surprised when we showed up again the very next night, but with a new friend this time – ready for a “welcome Rumana” party to follow up on Kappy's farewell.
Rumana seemed to love Gili Air, and she decided to learn to dive there, so we ended up staying much longer than we'd planned – 10 days in all. Not that i was complaining at all. During that time I got to know the dive staff at Manta Dive quite well, and I very nearly stayed for another month to do my dive master training. Up until the morning we left, I was still unsure if i'd be staying or not, but in the end i decided it was best to continue our travels and leave my DMT for a later date.
We had a great time with Rumana, though after gili air, she wanted to head back to bali to check out ubud, etc., and we still had our sites set west, so we said our goodbyes one morning after 5 days together, and got on the small wooden ferries heading in opposite directions. Still, we felt very lucky to have had friends come visit us from so far away. We were also a little eager as well to get back to our travels.
The gili islands lie offshore of the much, much bigger Lombok Island, which is where we headed next. After the ferry we got a taxi to the beach town of Sengiggi, which was supposed to be beautiful and laid back. What we found was one main touristy strip where we were constantly hounded by touts wanting to help us find hotels, scooters, tourist trinkets, etc. We couldn't walk more than 10 steps without being approached by someone wanting to sell us something. It was so bad that we decided to leave the next morning. And not just leave Sengiggi – we left Lombok all together, getting a combined series of buses and ferries all the way across lombok, across the next island of sumbawa and on to flores. 30 hours non-stop travel. Woo-hoo!
Talor: Gili Air is a nice little island with a friendly chill vibe. Like Gili T, all the locals wanted to sell you something (everyone's gotta make a living), but they were also happy just to get to know you. And like Gili T, everything was overpriced (for the tourists, which is their main industry), but they were a lot nicer about it and were willing to negotiate.
But what made our time there special was the company we had. It was great hanging out with Kappy then having Rumana join us... so the parties continued, including a super-fun one Saturday night at the Blue Bar where we got totally trashed and kicked up our heels in the sand. Then, in a state of euphoria (or stupidity), Erik decided to go in the water, and I followed suit. Within minutes, tragedy occurred... I lost my ring! I felt it slipping off my finger and two seconds too late, I was frantically searching, but all I saw was pitch black... aghhhh! The next morning, Erik went searching, but to no avail. Felt like I lost a
friend, and shed a few tears, until Alice (the ever-wise Dive Master) posed her theory that the ring left because it felt it had done its job making me happy and it was time to move on to give to someone else... not sure if I was completely convinced, but it did make me feel better or maybe the hangover wore off... hmmm.
While everyone went diving, I spent the days walking around, exploring the island's many sandy paths into the interior and chatting with the locals. I was really surprised at how well everyone spoke English. Had nice conversations with Arsa, a horse-cart driver who also worked as a tour guide. Talked a lot to Roling, who dreamed of going to Korea one day for a better life. He spoke better Korean than me! Then there was also the teacher at the public school and his students eager to practice their English. And getting my hair cut, the hairdresser happily talked about her family. It was really nice being able to chat with the locals and learning about their lives. But outside of that, there wasn't much to do since I couldn't go into the water...
I have an allergic reaction to sea lice. For most people, their stings are just an annoyance. For me, I break out in a rash that bubbles into tiny 
little blisters, and it itches like crazy for about two weeks. Usually Erik will go in the water first and let me know if he feels them, and if so, I won't go in. Unfortunately, that has been the case through most of SE Asia. Not being much of an aquatic person, I've always preferred beaching more anyway, but I still enjoyed looking out into the lovely blue waters.
But after 10 days, I was ready to move on. I was really missing stuff like reliable electricity (the island was having power issues so it would go out for hours), good food (there wasn't much of a variety on the island so we ate a lot of fried rice, which is Indonesia's national dish), fast internet (there were two internet cafes using dial-up which cost a fortune), and a fresh water shower (never actually feel clean after bathing in salt water). So we decided to go check out Senggigi on the main island of Lombok to enjoy some of these luxuries.
Unfortunately, we never stayed long enough to find out... the super-aggressive touts annoyed us so much, literally following us around at times, that we decided to get outta Dodge! The very same day, we booked a 30-hour journey (that's how desperate we were to leave) to the island of Flores... OY!
For more photos...
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| Gilis, Lombok Indonesia |
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| Senggigi, Lombok Indonesia |
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