Lombok & The Gili Islands

Turtle Sanctuary - Gili Trawangan

We arrived in Bali and got picked up at the Airport by Andrew & Simone. It was really good to see them again. We spent their last 5 days with them in Kuta before making our way over to Lombok. We left Bali from Padangbai which is in the South East. From here we took the Local slow ferry over to Lombok. And yes it was slow! 5 hours later we were docking at Lambar. Approaching Lombok was breathtaking. It was a beautiful lush green islands filled with mountains. Unless you see it, it is hard to believe how lovely it really is. We found our driver who would be taking us to Senggigi. Another mini bus ride with more amazing scenery. We drove past local villages, Burning rice fields, waving children and a stunning sunset. Senggigi was just a stop over. We arrived in the early evening, ate in a tasty restaurant, slept bad as we were next door to what seemed like their only night club and left early in the morning to get to the Gili Islands. The drive from Lambar to Bangsal took us up the whole of the West coast. Bangsal is where you catch a small boat over to the Gili Islands. Gili Air is the smallest and the most populated Island closest to Lombok. Gili Meno is in the middle and is the quietest and Gili Trawangan is the biggest with the most accommodation and restaurants. Catching the small boat over is quite an experience. The locals are also using the boat as their main transport to and from the Gili's. So imagine 20 travelers and 40 locals battling it out to squeeze past the engine, climb on board the rocking boat, walk across the seats as the middle is packed with cargo and find a spot to sit without sitting on a pineapple. Oh and if your not quick enough to get on that boat then you will have to wait for the next one, which can take up to a few hours in low season. Our boat was meant to have 25 people max but we counted at least 41, not including the extra weight of the cargo, bags and double mattress which was balanced on top. With no life jacket in site, Sam was not feeling to confident on board. It took about 30 minutes but we survived and soon found a room in the village. From Gili.T you can see all 3 Gili Islands and Lombok. And on a clear day you can see Gunung Agung on Bali at 3142 metres high. With no transport on the island, it was good to breath in some clean air. Especially after Kuta! The only problem is that the only transport on the island is a Cidomo aka Horse and cart, so you do breath in Horse s**t but that made us feel a little bit at home in the countryside again. We walked the whole island in under 2 hours. It was hot but we enjoyed it. We only spent 6 days on Lombok & Gili.T but enjoyed our short time here. We are glad we popped over from Bali.

Singapore..... again.

Three months into our trip it was time to get back to Singapore before flying to Bali.
We really enjoyed Singapore last time so we thought we'd spend a few more days here before flying out. We arrived in Singapore at 10:30am found the closest MRT underground station which took us to our guesthouse. after dropping off our bags we headed to Orchard Road fore some food and a look around the malls. The next day we walked along Clarke Quay and stopped for a pint of ale in the brewerkz, where they brew their own ale. It was nice to have a decent pint of their finest hopback ale. We carried on walking down the river to the famous Singapore lion where we seen a Asian soap being filmed, and a super model having a photo shoot. That night we made our way to the night safari and started the evening by watching a Bornean tribal fire show.
We then watched the creatures of the night show before hopping on the night safari tram and beginning our tour of the park. As well as the tram we also walked the safari trails it was strange walking through a zoo at night. We seen some really interesting animals such as fruit bats, flying squirrels (which we actually saw fly), and the clouded leopard. By the time we arrived home it was gone midnight. On our final day we got the monorail across to Sentosa island, which now hosts a universal studios. All buses and transport on the island is free. We got the blue line bus to fort Sentosa, a fort that was built by the British and used in world war 2. The soldiers surrendered to Japanese and fort Sentosa become a prisoner of war camp for three years, until the end of the world war. After the fort we went to underwater world which has many different species of sea creatures a dolphinarium and UV jellyfish tanks. We spent a few hours looking around before heading to Sentosa beach for a beer and a pizza (extremely tasty) and enjoy watching the flowriders. We still cant believe how clean and efficient Singapore is by far our favourite city.

The Perhentian Islands, Malaysia

We left the Cameron Highlands at 8:00am and arrived at 4:30pm at Kuala Besut in the north. From there we took a speed boat for 40 minutes to Kecil the smaller Perhentian island. Upon arrival we were very excited, the islands were very beautiful with crystal clear waters like we have never seen, and we were told that there were many sea turtles to be seen. We found some basic accommodation on Panjang beach and slept in a wooden longhouse which was also home to many monitor lizards which lived beneath, one which was 5ft in length. We only had electricity during the night for our fan to keep us cool as the whole island is run on generators.
We took time to explore the island and walked the jungle path to Coral Bay. Walking this path lead to Matt breaking his toe on our last evening. On the third day we booked a snorkeling trip around the islands. We stopped of at some really great sites and the best coral reef in the Perhentians. Shark point was fun as we actually seen sharks for the first time, we seen a few black tip reef sharks the biggest one being two metres. After shark point we were taken to a secret spot between the two islands to see the turtles. The first turtle we seen was huge, Matt kept up well with his fins and was lucky enough to see it mate. The other turtles were a bit smaller and more relaxed so
we had plenty of time swimming with them and watching them surface for air which they do every 10 to 15 minutes. We finished our trip at turtle beach where the turtles go to lay their eggs, this area is protected and was absolutely beautiful. The rest of the time on the island was spent relaxed on the beach, drinking banana and strawberry lassies and doing a bit of bodyboarding. The Perhentian Islands are definitely worth a visit.