We finally made it! Since we left home I’ve been dying to get into a warm sea, to dive deep and swim with the fishes. We were almost there. After Kuala Lumpur, we had a long and arduous journey back to Indonesia. The Gili Islands to be exact. In 16 hours we crammed in two plane journeys, delayed flights, a couple of 2 hour taxi rides and a dodgy boat ride in the pitch black with some locals we had never met. People have had a lot worse, but boy was I glad to sink into bed that night!
And so was our arrival in Gili Trawangan, one of three small islands located off the coast of Lombok, a large island to the east of Bali. Gili T, as it’s otherwise known, is a crowded and busy ‘party island’, where people come to drink and cure their hangovers in the sea. We found a cute little place on the quiet end of the island, and finally relaxed into island life. There are no motor vehicles allowed, with the incessant beeping of horns replaced by the jingling bells of the horse carts that trundle along.
On our first day we pitched up at Turtle Point, a white sand beach with a shallow bed of seagrass and old coral. It was the perfect place to snorkel and swim, and we swam with no less than 6 sea turtles! It was amazing to be so close to them – and they didn’t mind us one bit. We also saw parrot fish, Moorish idols and neon something-or-others, completely forgetting about work and reality while we played in the sea like kids.
