Paradise

I know it has been a very long time since we've written here. The internet connection is very slow here.


Right now we are in the Gilli islands. If there was one place that I visited that I can stay at forever, this would be it. This island is just East of Bali and it is located on the top right hand side of Lombok. If you look at the world map you cant see these three islands because the biggest one is 3km wide. All the hotels, restaurants, bars and activities are located around the island on the beach. There is one main street where everyone walks past. The town population is less than 800 people but no one really knows for sure. All the locals know each other and when there is a new face they make sure to make them feel welcome and at home. Their English is the best we heard in our travels which makes communication easy and very interesting. This island really is paradise. It is its own magical island that is not connected with the outside world. They don't have any cell phones, cars or motorbikes on this island. The only method of transportation is a Ferrari with one horse power. That is what they refer to their horse and carriage. This method of transportation is only used by very lazy tourists and to distribute goods that arrive by boat for restaurants and bars. We rented bicycles (mine had a little basket) to see the island.

We met a lot of people here and we see them daily. Its like a small high school where everyone has seen each other around and knows their whereabouts. I even met a lot of young adults traveling alone from Moscow. One girl is a dive instructor here. Marc has set up daily poker tournaments at 4pm and he won the first one, which is nice that he is bringing in some income. Every night there is a different bar that is having a party, and people are really friendly and get to know one another during the night. Last night we went to a ladies night which means that girls get free drinks. We saw one guy at the bar wearing a dress and I had to find out why. He said that it is ladies night and he came for free drinks. He couldn't walk at the end of the night and all for free. Apparently this wasn't his first time.

We are staying in a local Indonesian house. The owners have only four rooms to let out. This family like many others here are very welcoming. We spend a lot of time talking to them and relating on many fronts. Their way of life may seem so beautiful and worry free while in reality it is very bitter sweet. I find it very sad that more than half the kids are not it school and they have to start work as early as five years old. Its also really sad that medical services must be paid from their pocket and they don't have any insurance. Most of the people on the island have two jobs, they work every single day with no exception. Still they cannot afford to buy or rent a house and end up sleeping on the floor or a couch at a hotel. In return for having a place to sleep, as a third job they help the owners of the hotel by bringing tourists that don't have reservations. I like this one family so much that I have offered to help to add them to a popular booking web site to generate more revenue for their hotel.

At Gilli there is one power generator. The power goes out daily sometimes for 3 hours sometimes 12. I didn't mind this to be such a big deal until we were watching a very interesting movie in our room and just as the movie reached its climax the power went out. I will have to wait to see what happens.

Before we got to the Gilli islands Marc and I did a day tour of Bali. We saw a local temple built for a king, went to a silver making factory, Monkey forest, coffee plantation, and a mountain top to see a volcano.
Silver Factory: it was odd because they walked us through the factory and we literally watched over peoples shoulder while they were working. I felt really uncomfortable by this and the people were pretty upset to be disturbed from their work. However, we later went to their showroom and bought two pairs of earrings. I already lost one of the earing and have one wearable pair left. This always happens to me where i lose one earring so I figured the next pair I get will be glued to my ear, this way I can't lose it.
Monkey Forest: very beautiful forest with more than 1000 monkeys. The monkeys were trained hustlers. They climbed on your shirt and grabbed over priced bananas right out of your hand. I tried to give the bananas to the baby monkeys but the older ones were quite quick and aggressive and let me know that I was in the wrong. Marc also had an interesting experience with a monkey. As he was trying to hide the bananas in his backpack the monkey jumped on his back and grabbed the stack right out of his hands.
Coffee Plantation: was a hoax. The tour of the coffee grounds and plantation consisted of one man that was frying the beans in a pot while right next to it was a coffee bean bag of ready coffee. If you have any questions you should visit the gift shop they said to buy the coffee and try it at home. Nevertheless we were quite intrigued by one of the coffees that they had. There is a small cat like animal that lurks in the bushes of this plantation. It eats the coffee leafs and when it craps (excuse the language) the workers pick it up, process it in their pot and sell it. This coffee is very expensive, because the animal is very small therefore its waste is small as well. Marc and I didn't try this coffee but I did see a lot of Russians buying this coffee and referring to it as an Indonesian delicatessen to bring back home.
Mountain Top: this was a very beautiful place. It overlooked a volcano, a river and popular temple. Unfortunately our camera broke and we couldn't take any pictures. We did find out that they have a trek atop the actual volcano that starts at 1am to watch the sunrise. Once we go back to Bali we will do the trek and take a lot of pictures.

Our plan right now is to avoid flying back to Thailand due to the situation there and we are trying to change our ticket for direct flight from Bali to London with stopover in Bangkok (only airport). In the mean time we are staying here and have no plans to return to Thailand.

P.S Marc had a very funny idea that I must share. The public bathrooms here smell very bad. The idea was to capture this smell in an air freshner and sell it to the homesick Asian community in Toronto. I don't know, but there might be something to it.