After the conclusion of the bloody (and delicious!) chaos that was the Vegetarian Festival, I stuck around Phuket Town for the weekend to go through all my photos and write up the story for the blog. My original plan was to finish all that work in Phuket Town, then travel to the western side of the island for a couple weeks of relaxation on the beach.
And then the rain started.
The day after the last day of the festival was not one of my favorite memories from this trip. During the 24 hours of constant precipitation, I had to move guesthouses twice, got soaked multiple times in torrential downpours, skipped meals and ate instant noodles in my room because the rain was so heavy, and dealt with a pretty healthy hangover. Perhaps I should have done this research earlier, but I nervously opened the 10-day weather forecast for Phuket and was greeted with probably the worst forecast I’ve ever seen: two weeks of straight rain, 100% every day. Uuuggghhh.
While meditating upon what to do next, I remembered that Bali’s rainy season doesn’t start until the end of October. I wasn’t planning on going to Bali during this trip, but once the idea of sunny beaches, nice weather, and low tourist numbers was planted in my head, I scrambled to make travel plans. AirAsia to the rescue yet again!
Bali
After putting in some long hours over the weekend at a local coworking space to finish everything for the blog, I flew out to Kuala Lumpur, then on to Bali. I spent the first four days in Legian, a beach area just north of Kuta, the most developed and most popular place on Bali for (Australian) tourists. I don’t have much to say about Legian as I was on pure holiday at that point and wasn’t seeking anything interesting or photo-worthy. I don’t think I even took my camera out of its bag. Sunsets, cheap warung food, and a few Bintangs every evening were easily the highlights.
Gili Islands
The really interesting part of the Indonesian trip started on Sunday, when I took a boat to the Gili Islands, a group of three very small islands just off the coast of Lombok (the large island east of Bali). How small, you say? You can circumnavigate each island on foot in about ninety minutes or less; you can cut across the island from one side to the other in less than half an hour if you take a more direct route. The Gilis were completely undeveloped even just thirty years ago, but today they’re very popular for diving and snorkeling. Many people (mostly couples and families) also go for a more simple holiday of swimming and sunbathing.
From west to east:
- Gili Trawangan is the largest and most developed and also has the longest history, especially with backpackers. It has the biggest party scene and a very impressive number of restaurants and bars.
- Gili Meno is the least developed and quietest, though you can still hear the basslines from Trawangan’s parties thumping and reverberating across the water. Meno has, in my opinion, the best beach for swimming, pleasantly devoid of the annoying and painful natural debris – rocks and dead coral – that plagues most of the beaches on all the islands.
- Gili Air is the happy medium of the other two islands. If the Gilis were the story of Goldilocks (more like “Gililocks” amirite?), Gili Air would be the one that’s juuuuuust riiiiiight.
The islands are a delightful departure from the standard beachy tourist experience for a variety of reasons. While the perimeter of each island is dotted with bars, restaurants, and shops for tourists, the interior of each is very much an authentic Muslim village, with simple huts, farms, animals, and mosques. I quickly acclimated to sharing the winding dirt roads with farm carts, children on bikes, cows, horses, small tribes of goats, chickens, and tail-less cats. (Thankfully, there are no stray dogs on any of the islands.) Motorized vehicles are not allowed, which is the main reason why the islands are so serene and peaceful. The only form of “public transportation” is the cidomo, a horse-drawn cart whose only contribution to noise pollution is the clip-clop of hooves and the jingling of small bells.
Not surprisingly, the accommodations tend to be simple bungalows and the power went out several times while I was there. Though, I will give credit where it’s due: 3G service was very good in most places (and better than the islands’ WiFi) since each island has its own large cell tower.
For eight days, I spent every moment either reading, swimming, eating, drinking, or sleeping (or some combination thereof). As ridiculous as it sounds, I was very much needing a holiday to do as little as possible after aggressively traveling and visiting people for many months. Yes, I needed a vacation from my sabbatical. The most pressing obligation of each day was making my way to the western side of the island for a chair or beanbag in the sand, a gorgeous sunset, and a sundowner or four.
Brisbane
After getting my fill of sand and sea, I took the boat back to Bali and had a layover for a couple days before getting on a redeye flight to Brisbane to visit my friend Ayu. I had never been to Australia before and Bali was the closest I would be for a long time, so I decided to take advantage of the proximity and a friendly face who could show me around.
Over the next six days, Ayu played tour guide and we hung out and explored the city (especially South Bank and the riverfront), went swimming and sunbathing, rented a car (an initially nerve-wracking experience for me) so we could drive along the coast to a few spots, and had some quality time and delicious home-cooked meals with her lovely extended family.
One of the most interesting – and certainly most photogenic – activities was a visit to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. The big draws are seeing (or holding, for an extra fee) the koalas and feeding the kangaroos, though the zoo also has lizards, snakes, crocodiles, cassowaries and other birds, dingoes, and duck-billed platypuses. Lessons learned: koalas have very strong claws and kangaroos are surprisingly gentle (at least while eating).
After six very memorable days down under, I found myself on another redeye flight, this time heading north towards Chiang Mai. Immediate plans include Halloween, Yi Peng, Loi Krathong, and the arrival of two friends from America who will be traveling with me throughout the country for several weeks.