June 17 – Bali, Lombok & the Gilli Islands

So far, Indonesia is our favourite place in Asia and we’ve definitely seen the most beautiful beaches of our lives while here. The scenery is straight out of a postcard; deserted white sand beaches, turquoise water, lush jungle, waterfalls, palm trees hanging over the sand, small islands popping out of the water, volcano’s on the horizon and gorgeous sunsets followed by huge, bright moons.

View from plane

View from plane

 

The people here are very friendly and most of the time it’s genuine, they aren’t just being nice to try and get something from us. The children are very playful and often join us at our table/beach chair to talk or just hang out. The original plan was to do some island hopping but we didn’t realize how great the distance was between each island so we decided to only visit 3:

Bali

We first visited Ubud, a town on the slopes of the central mountains and full of amazing culture. Every day the locals light incense with flowers, rice and leaves and place them around and in front of their homes and shops to welcome good fortune. Most of the hotels have a temple built within the compound which is used by the owners and their family members. We spent a day exploring the area with a scooter and discovered the rice terraces, valleys and old stone temples with incredible sculptures guarding the entrances. We then spent a day on the beach in a place called Jimbaran which was a little too touristy for us so we decided to go.   

 

 

Gilli Air

The Gilli Islands are a group of 3 islands stretching off the coast of Lombok. We stayed on Gilli Air, the smallest island, which takes less than 90 minutes to walk around, including swimming breaks. This is the perfect place to escape everything and just chill out, eat some freshly picked coconut, sip some beer and watch the day pass. There are no motorized vehicles so to get from one side of the island to the other, you walk or take a horse. Jacob made friends with a very eccentric software designer named Paul from Silicon Valley who’s certainly been on this island for far too long. I’m not sure what exactly happened, but one morning Jacob left the room to get breakfast and after being gone for 45 minutes I went to find him. He was sitting at a table on the beach with Paul, eating cake. The cake looked delicious and smelled like sweet coco and coconut. Despite several attempts to find out what was in it, neither Paul nor Jacob would tell me but Paul kept referring to it as “space cake”. We were supposed to leave that day but I was unable to get Jacob to focus on anything other than his conversation with Paul about the steps needed to stage an alien landing on the beach…we ended up missing our boat to the next island. We still aren’t sure what was in that cake.

Our beachfront bungalow

 

 

 

 

Lombok

We went to a small surf village called Kuta on the southern tip of Lombok. Everyone knows that I’ve always wanted to visit Hawaii and Kuta is exactly what I imagine Hawaii to be like; large bays with crystal clear water, surfers riding the huge waves, hidden beaches, small shops and food stalls along the water and winding roads passing through local villages. We rented a scooter to explore the island and had to be very cautious while driving off of the main strip as the roads are in horrible condition. They aren’t paved and are very narrow with sharp turns and crater-size potholes everywhere. While going down a hill, Jacob lost control and got thrown off the bike. I got stuck underneath it and the exhaust pipe fell onto my ankle burning it pretty badly. Fortunately there was a jeep driving behind us when this happened and they gave me a lift to the hospital where the doctor peeled off a big junk of my skin that had been burnt. It was pretty scary but both Jacob and I are ok. Anyway, we were expecting for something bad to happen along the trip so hopefully this is it.

Our private beach

 

 

 

 

At the ER 

 



Jacob's severe injury