The four days in Ubud had gone by in a flash. It was now time for our trip to the Gili Islands. One of the services that Blue Water Express offered was to pick you up from your hotel and take you to your closest port. From Ubud we chose to go to Padang Bai which was only 20 mins down the road from where I was staying in Candidasa and is also where Blue Lagoon is located. From Ubud, the trip takes about an hour and a half. Despite the late confirmation, the driver arrived right on time and away we went before the traffic got too crazy in Ubud.
It was a very pleasant drive, through many rice paddies and scenic hilly areas. The shortcuts to avoid the traffic were usually small, one lane roads with hairpin bends, always interesting ! We arrived at the Blue Water Express office in plenty of time and just had to take care of our payment. Unfortunately their EFTPOS machine was not working. After trying several times they decided we needed to pay in cash. They would tae us to the closest ATM which was only 5 minutes away. What they didnt mention was they would take us on the back of the motorbike, luckily one each, but I wouldnt have been surprised if they had intended to take us both on one bike. Leah was a little shocked but it was literally 5 minutes away and it was a fun ride. It was comparatively a pricey trip at about $150 return but it only took 2 hours where the public ferry is a fraction of the cost but takes about 5 hours. We were aiming for maximum island time!!
So having paid we had about half an hour to wait and other people started arriving. Always comforting. Getting close to the time we decided to wander out to the pier. As we waited a local fisherman came sailing in in his outrigger, very happy with himself as he had caught a fish the length of the outrigger!! Who knows how he caught it and got it into the boat but he did. As he went past you could see the tail of the fish sticking up over the side. It was a real "old man of the sea" moment. No doubt it would end up in some restaurant that night.
Finally we were on board and on our way. The boat was reasonably full having come from Serangan, further south, near Denpasar. When looking for transport I had heard it described as "if you have ever wondered what it feels like to be in a high speed boat ride like you see in the movies"! This should be interesting! We were lucky as it was reasonably calm that day and it didnt seem that bad. The trip took us along the coast and I was able to show Leah where Candidasa was and we also passed White Sandy Beach.
Gili Trawangan was the first stop (it also went to Lombok) and it was a "wet landing" meaning we had to jump off the boat into the water. This was no big deal as we were really close to shore and it was hot so quite cooling to do so. The crew unloaded our luggage onto the sand and we collected it from there. We were excited, the island looked gorgeous, the sun shining, beautiful blue sea and restaurants all along the beach. There was a narrow road and then accommodation, tour places, more restaurants and shops on the other side. There are no cars on the island only bicycles and cimodos. We jumped in a cimodo (horse drawn wagon) to take us to our hotel as we werent sure how far away it was. The horses looked reasonably healthy although they were small and after a while I decided they spent too long in their harnesses and carried too heavy a load. I didnt use them after this.
Due to the difficulty of getting accommodation, we had decided to spend a bit more to get something nice. We werent disappointed (not yet anyway!). The room was lovely with its own pool that you could sit in and look across the little road to the beach. The room was spacious and clean (well when the guy who was cleaning it when we arrived had finished). We had to ask for a couple of things like soap and towels but hey, we loved the view. We jumped in the pool and the people from the other two villas were friendly. We were booked into Kelapa Kecil for the first 3 nights, then Dive Trawangan for the next night. After Leah was leaving I had booked further accommodation which again was a bit piecemeal with one night at Dive Trawangan and 3 nights at Kelapa Kecil. I had booked this because I had a sneaking suspicion I was going to love the island....! We did our usual investigation of the place after our swim and looked for somewhere to have a cocktail and a late lunch as it was about 3 pm by now.
No comments:
Post a Comment