The Gili Islands

A year ago, I’d never heard of this place. And then a friend went. And another. And when I got to Indonesia, I heard about these islands far more frequently. Three relatively small islands off the coast of Lombock, Bali’s neighbor to the east. Paradise. A place to relax. A place to party. Best of both worlds.  A place with no paved roads, no motorized vehicles.

It is really nice - that’s the truth. But it's not that amazing. It wasn’t just discovered yesterday. The locals are quite friendly as usual, but there are an abundance of island boys. Young Indonesian kids, each with their own unique hairstyle, working for one of the various hotels, bars or restaurants and also trying to sell you magic mushrooms to ‘take you to the moon’ or offering up wacky tobacky. There is no police on the island they tell you. There’s nothing wrong with the abundance of local dudes other than it gets old having someone call you ‘boss’ or asking if you want some mushrooms.

Most of the people here are tourists drinking overpriced beer and overpriced westernized local food. If not overpriced beer, then expensive cocktails or inexpensive cocktails made with local liquor. I suppose it’s not overpriced compared to back home, but compared to every other southeast Asian country it is and when you’re traveling for a long time it seems crazy to spend half your budget on alcohol. So I don’t.

You do get a nice view here though. And a nice place to sit when drinking that beer, but I prefer local scenery as opposed to the abundance of Western bodies. Aside from decent conversation, and that is nice, there is not much incentive for me to stay out late. I get tired. Yawn. I guess I’m saving money by going home earlier than I otherwise might.  There are only so many conversations you can have involving the questions Where are you from? How long are you traveling for? Where have you been before? Where are you going next?

Having said that, if you get past all the seemingly requisite bullshit, sometimes you do meet good people. And good people are essential to a person traveling on their own. Fortunately I’ve run into quite a few despite being a little antisocial at times. At times, however, when I’m not very conversational and instead feeling quite judgmental, I prefer to drink a quiet beer and eat some food alone while watching the world around me. And of course, silently judge them.

Anyway, here I am. Day three on Gili Trawangan. I’m predicting I’ll be over all of this by day five. Move on. I should try snorkeling again. Swim with the fishies and inhale some more salt water. It’ll be good for my sorish throat. Although I must say I don’t really like swimming in salt water, it stings my eyes and makes my skin feel funny. Nor do I really like sand. Gets all over the place, including my crack, but even worse is on the bed. Or in my pockets.

I’m going to be no fun tonight. I might need a red bull to kick start this evening. Just need a little boost otherwise I won’t have any patience to talk to anyone. Hopefully meet some random new people to spice it up. The old people are good people. Keeping me busy and entertained. Without them, I’d have met some other random people and have been doing other random stuff.

Almost time to go eat. The food market or whatever the fuck it’s called is the place to be. No overpriced shit there. No 10% added tax + 5% service fee. Fuck those surprises. Besides, it’s difficult to meet people when you’re at a private table. The food market is family style. Pick the local food vendor of your choice, stand in line, say what you want and go sit down next to whoever you want. 

In theory, it’s a good place to go scope out the scene before it gets too dark or you get too drunk to really know what’s going on. However, in reality, for me anyway, I just want to eat something that pleases my taste buds, indulge in that for a few minutes and just relax although I'll always be paying attention to the passing scenery as well. If it happens to be nice, I’ll enjoy the view.