Gili Islands... day 1 and 2 in Gili Air

We have internet again! :)  Well, we've had it all along, but not quite strong enough to upload blog photos... So, about 4 days ago, we bid farewell to Lombok Island and jumped in the personal car of our homestay  owners and drove 2 1/2 hours to the harbor at a cost of 350,000 rupiah (about $35.00), which was surprisingly only $10.00 more than if we had been shmooshed between 15 backpackers in a van than took almost twice as long to get there!  As you can see, we're doing things a tad bit differently this last time around SE Asia!  We saved a lot of money in Korea and are ready to spend some of it! :)  So, once we got to Gili Air, after taking an 80 cent boat ride over from the harbor in Lombok (AWESOME!), we walked our happy selves about a 1/2 mile to Kaluku Cottages, where we decided to call home!  We would have paid the $2.00 for a horse driven carriage if we knew it was that far, but such is life.  Kaluku originally quoted us $40.00 a night when they showed us the room, but we got them down to $30.  Thanks for the negotiating skills, dad!

I fell in love with the outdoor bathroom and shower! :) 

.... The pool wasn't a bad extra though! :)  We've actually NEVER stayed at a place with a pool while traveling SE Asia!  I'm feeling a bit spoiled this trip!  But, after playing bank this morning, I realized we're only spending $50 a day, on average.  That includes accommodation  transportation, food, drinks, rentals and any sort of day trips we've done!  Can't beat prices like that!

... and the free breakfast, while laying on the hammock next to the beach wasn't bad either!

The beaches in Gili Air are filled with coral and beautiful shells!  I'm one lucky girl to have married a guy who doesn't mind searching for shells with me!

There aren't many ways to get around this tiny island.  You've got a horse drawn carriage, which runs you about $4.00...

... your own two feet or a rented bike! We went with the rented bike option and paid $2.50 for a full day!

Having the bikes gave us a good chance to explore the beaches and local town (in the middle of the island).  I actually felt like a kid learning to ride a bike all over again for the first 30 minutes or so.  

It'd been over 4 years since I'd even ridden a bike, and attempting to do it through thick sand pathways (not shown above) is not really a great way to start! We were falling all over the place!  But it was all worth the journey to see palm tree lined cow fields and adorable local island kids playing in the street!

We got over to Chill Our Restaurant just in time to watch the sun set and the sky to fill with purple and pink! A Margherita pizza was in order for dinner tonight to go with our, well, margarita drinks for happy hour! 

The kitty's come out as soon as the food is placed on the table around here. (There are no dogs on the island. Apparently Muhammad stated that the company of dogs voids a portion of Muslim's good deeds and since this is a Muslim Island, there are only kittys, which is fine with me!)

See why we love this place so much?!

We stayed here for quite a while and then rode our happy little selves, 10 minutes in the dark, back to our bungalow at Kaluku and watched a little Nat Geo on TV while the storm passed overhead.  The last two days around here have been a mix of boring (I can get easily bored... working on that), refreshing, indulgent, exciting, scary and adventurous.  So happy we decided to come back to this little gem of Indonesia!

Island life... Day 4 on Lombok Island, Indonesia

Sometimes we feel a little bit bad about being abroad in Indonesia and spending all of our time eating, swimming, collecting shells and scootering around... but then we remember that's our favorite kind of vacation and just go with it! :)

How cool are some of these shells?!

In the past, I've always taken my shells back to Korea with me to give as prizes during classroom games, but since I won't be teaching anymore, I decided at the end of every beach place we're at, I'll make a little sign with the shells and then throw them back out onto the sand... (Keeping the ones we can't possibly part with, of course!)

 The town of Kuta, Lombok is small and quaint with about 10 restaurants lining the beach and small shacks selling local chips, drinks, and beer.  It's the ultimate beach town and fairly undiscovered by tourists since it's kinda hard to get to!  We had to take a flight from Denpassar on Lion Air ($60) and then drive 30 minutes into town in a taxi. ($10)

We met a sweet couple at our homestay who had told us to check out Seger Beach, so we took their advice and scootered ourselves over there later in the afternoon. 

We were there just in time for the sunset, which came about 30 minutes after this picture... and had the whole beach to ourselves!  

We, of course, went off the path and checked out the small little beach villages.

It's a darn good thing I've got this guy to scoot me around!  Oh, and I think it's worth noting that gas here is 50 cents a liter!  That's just over $1.00 a gallon.  (Thanks to the government for subsidizing it!)

Tomorrow morning, we're heading over to the Gili Islands off the West coast of Lombok Island.  We're planning to start at Gili Air and stay for a little while, then head over to Gili Trawagan.  We're definitely looking forward to a little more island living and possible some sea turtle sightings!

Island life... Day 3 on Lombok Island, Indonesia

We started off the day with a gorgeous scooter ride through Lombok, going west from Kuta Beach to Mauan and Maui Beach.  Sadly, I accidently deleted those photos.  ugh.  When we got back into town, we headed over to Warung Turtle....

...which is at Tanjung Aan beach... for some swimming and lunch!

... and a pineapple for 50 cents!  YES please!

 I spent most of the day searching for shells with Aaron, swimming and doing sudoku's! (Thanks for the Sudoku book Loola... I've already finished 25 puzzles!)

This just about sums up our day around here... Can't complain!  Life is slow around here... and we're loving it!

Probably won't be back in the blogging world for a week or so!  We'll be here in Lombok for one more day, then we're off to Gili Air, a teeny tiny island off the coast of Lombok Island and if the wifi is spotty here, it'll DEFINITELY be spotty there... not to mention, there's no power on the island during the day! haha.  Can't imagine how many sudoku puzzles I'll be doing there!

Bau Nyale Festival (Day 2 in Lombok)

Part of the reason we came to Kute, Lombok was because of it's seclusion!  Tourists are just barely starting to come here and there are only a few hotels in the area.  But.... we happened to be here on one of the busiest weekends of the year, for the Bau Nyale Festival.  What seemed like a little bit of a bummer turned into a really awesome cultural experience!  We hung out here, at Full Moon Cafe, for the parade to come through town... 

The police were excited I stopped to snap their photo. While it may not seem like it here, they actually thanked me. 

How awesome are these two? 

 The island is almost completely Muslim, and yes, the Muslim prayers are broadcasted over LOUD SPEAKERS 5 times a day!  Intense, I tell you!  Our homestay host actually gave us these ear plugs as part of their welcome package!  LOL

The parade was awesome! As legend has it, Princess Mandalika, who was stunningly gorgeous, was the talk of the island.  Princes were fighting over her and began to distress her after some time, so she jumped off a cliff to bring peace back to her land.

At this time of year, every year, at Kuta Beach on Lombok Island, the locals believe Princess Mandalika comes to visit them in the form or little, colorful worms which come up through the sand for 2 days each year. They believe the worms are actually strands of her hair and the locals fill the beach around 4am, to gather the worms and bringing them home to fry and eat. Ugh! The people here believe that the more worms they catch, the better their harvest will be for the year. So, the parade is made up of different groups/schools from around the island. Each group is dressed in traditional Indonesian garb and 1 girl is dressed as a princess and carried along the entire 2 km parade route!

 "Happy Bae Nyale" from Indonesia!