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Indonesia 1997
No, of course I don't look like a German tourist ;-)
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Getting There
After the stress of my final university exams, my girlfriend and I treated ourselves to a 5-week trip to Indonesia. We landed in Jakarta, then travelled through Java via Bogor, Bandung and Yogyakarta to the volcano Bromo. After that we ended up in Lombok (having skipped Bali, which we were saving for the last 10 days of our holiday). We had already heard from other backpackers about the Gilis (indonesian for "island") which lie north-east of Lombok. There are 3 Gilis: Gili Meno - the smallest of the three, Gili Air - nearest to Lombok, and Gili Terawangan - the largest and most frequented of the islands. All of the islands have fine white coral sand beaches and are surrounded by beautiful coral reefs (although I don't know to what extent they may have been affected by El Nino, of course). Sarah and I decided to stay on Gili Air.
After spending a couple of days in Sengiggi, we decided to go on a snorkelling trip in a glass-
That's no water-sprite peeking through the glass bottom of the boat
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bottomed boat and to be set down on the island. This didn't seem to pose any problems, and we had asked and made the arrangements the day before, although the man in charge of the boat did seem slightly surprised when he saw our large rucksacks. But the nice thing about Indonesia was that the people never got worked up about anything, and most things could be sorted out with a little time and patience. This was the case here, too, and our little boat set off for the Gilis with us and our luggage on board. The boat trip was great, and the journey was worth it just for that, and the snorkelling was quite nice, although the corals off Gili Air were much more beautiful. Another great thing was that we were given fresh pineapple after every snorkelling session, which got rid of the salty taste of the seawater. As evening approached, we reached Gili Air.
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