Welcome to paradise...

At last we have reached the promised land! Although we were stuck in Padangbai for three days in the end. After originally planning to leave for the Gili Islands on Tuesday it wasn't until Thursday that we were allowed to leave after extreme swells in the Strait of Lombok had caused even the health and safety unaware Balinese to cancel all travel. Apparantly the aforementioned Strait is one of the deepest stretches of water in the world and although it only measures around 25 miles across, it is actually the official dividing line between Asia and Australasia. Due to it's depth it can create some monstrous waves, on these particular days of about seven metres! On the Wednesday we even boarded the boat and powered on up around the south-east corner of Bali up until we saw around ten fastboats coming towards us. The captain switched off the engines then told us we would be going back to Padangbai 'to rest', we arrived back having been on the water for forty minutes and felt dishearted to be back yet again, in a place we didn't want to be. Shell even heard some Aussie surfer dudes talking about the swells lasting for three days. Things didn't look promising.
Back on dry land we made a decision to book another night in the room we had as although it was incredibly noisy it was, more importantly, clean and cheap (around 130,000 rupiah-9 pounds). We were told that if we stick around for a day there may be a chance that the boat would be leaving tomorrow, however small that chance may be. Although we decided that we woud wait we also checked out the slow ferry that leaves from the same port. An altogether different proposition by the standards of the fast boat we paid for (72,000, one way to South Lombok, rather than 1.2 million for both of us to go return on the fastboat! £85) it was a scruffier side to the port than we imagined. Lots of bleary eyed lorry drivers and a hell of a lot of noise and disorganisation. It would be a real challenge to get to the Gili islands this way if this is what we had to do tomorrow if the fast boats were cancelled again. The ferry itself takes six hours instead of one and goes to a port called Lembar, in south Lombok (the Gili's are in the north-east). You would then have to find a means of transport from Lembar to Sengiggi, the main coastal town and then again onto Bangsal, the main connecting port to the Gili's. After arrviving there we would have to wait for a boat that doesn't even think about leaving until every last seat has been filled. Bangsal itself is apparently a bit of a horrific place to be too. So...faced with the grim prospect of an epic if not interesting journey, we hoped and prayed that tomorrow would bring inclement conditions. It did.
Although at first we were adament that the same things would happen that had happened the previous day, the boat did in fact keep on going. Preparing ourselves for the worst though (in more ways than one!) we kept quiet and gripped on for dear life. At the halfway point the water stopped being choppy and started being extremely rough, pumelling the bow of the boat every few seconds, I hung on as if I were flying. But after a journey that seemed to get progressively worse the closer we got to the Gili's we managed to get there in one piece, even though the seas all around the islands looked, and sounded, like a hurricane had hit them. On dry land I left Shell with the bags once more and went in search of hotel that wouldn't break the bank but would be slightly better than some of our most recent rooms, as it was Shell's birthday the following day. After spending an hour and looking in so many rooms and bungalows that they all merged into one I decided that I would make the walk back to Shell and haggle with the owner of the bar we sat at to try and get one of their rooms as they looked really nice, really big and airy. In the end, after a tense round of negotiations managed to get him down from his starting price of 450,000 rupiah per night to a slightly more affordable 250,000, with air con and private outside shower area, beautiful. The only downside was the location right in the middle of 'party zone', a fact made even clearer that night when we got back shattered at half nine to be met by Dance Anthems 98 in all it's glory. You were even waiting for Judge Jules to break in and say 'Come on kids, you've gone Pete Tong!'. In the end we shoved our ear plugs in and went to sleep. Rock and roll.
So to Shell's birthday, we woke early and went for breakfast, free with the room, and munched on eggs and fruit. Once finished we headed to the beach, a beach so sublime that it wouldn't look out of place on any Bounty advert or indeed, Wish You Where Here, I have the theme tune in my head this morning. However, we were stupid in more sense than one today. Firstly, we had run out of suncream, and in place like this it cost at least ten pounds for a tiny bottle. Secondly, we had used the suncream that we had left, designed for faces, for the rest of our body. Thirdly, we stayed in the sun pretty much all day, forgetting in the process just how strong this equatorial sun can get. The result, unfortunately, was two people with horrific sunburn. In the end I went to buy said expensive suncream so due to our stupidity and fear of blowing budgets we ended up with two sunburnt carcasses and a small pot of, seemingly, liquid gold.
Despite this Shell had a great day. We ate some fantastic food, spent the day on the powdery white beach and frolicked in the warm sea. We also spoke about the previous night's sunset. Something so spectacular, I think we would struggle to find something equally beautiful anywhere else. As the sun set on the sea, out of nowhere Bali's tallest volcano, Mount Agung, appeared as the sun dipped behind it in almost perfect unison. What a beautiful place this can be. Much love, Tommo xx
p.s, we are having trouble finding anywhere fast enough to put the photos on at the moment but we will try and get them on before or during our stay in Hong Kong, only four days away!