Gili Trawangan: More Than Just a Rave

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Delia

Stepping off the boat onto Gili Trawangan, one of the first things I noticed was the signs posted along the main strip. One sign, positioned above a restaurant (of the shack variety), resounded with me for obvious reasons. It read: ‘I’m on a seafood diet, I see food and have to eat it.’ I might have to get that tattooed.

The second one I saw, as we wandered down the island’s main dusty coastal road in search of accommodation, said: ‘Get your bloody fucking amazing magic mushrooms here.’ A little unnecessary perhaps, but it certainly gets your attention.

Welcome to Gili T. Near Lombok and just a short (but death-defying) boat ride from Bali, it is one of three islands, alongside Gili Air and Gili Meno. The latter, I am told, is the quietest of the three, the former is described as the most cultural, while Gili T is best known as The Party Island. All three have one thing in common; sun kissed white sandy shores and beautifully clear water – the kind that so often, and unfairly, appear on British TV adverts during a typically wet summer.

I have fallen in love with Balinese culture but as our trip so far has been an orgy of calmness, quietness and culture (having avoided all the ‘Blackpool for Australians’ hotspots), we were craving a little party or two. We had come to the right pace, the east coast of tiny Gili T is lined with quirky little bars and restaurants, where you can lounge around all day on beanbags. Come evening it is a hive of twinkling lanterns and funky beats, with ‘the party’ taking place at a different bar every other night.

In fact, if you were to believe the Lonely Planet you would think there is nothing on the west coast at all, the map just shows a big empty void. But after failing to make it up for a single sunrise on the east coast (I blame the local vodka and their red bull that comes in a medicine bottle), we decided to venture into the abyss to try and see a sunset on the west coast.

We packed water, torches, lip gloss (Matty insisted) and the useless Lonely Planet map and began our one-mile trek across the island. At first we tried to follow the little lines on the Planet’s map but pretty soon the dusty zig-zagging paths were indistinguishable and so I just followed my nose crying ‘here, this way’ randomly. Matty suggested it would make more sense to follow the sun, which after a while I begrudgingly agreed to.

So our little one mile journey, across the arid, dry landscape of the island became more like a two or three mile adventure. But it was a wonderful contrast to the Bintang-guzzling joys of the east coast; we passed palm tree forests scattered with cows and spied on locals going about their rural work.

Eventually our sweaty, dusty faces emerged out of the woodland and we could hear the crashing of waves. We had made it. The West Coast.

With Columbus-like pioneering spirit we eagerly made our way to the sea, expecting to find well, nothing, nada, no one. Instead we were greeted with a couple of very plush resorts with large sea-facing decking and infinity pools. They sold Bintang.

Somewhat defeated we wandered further south until we reached about a few hundred metres of isolated, rugged coastline, broken up only by large, dreamlike pieces of driftwood. It made for the perfect Robinson Crusoe sunset… Especially with me singing the Travis classic, ‘You’re driftwood floating underwater, breaking into pieces, pieces, pieces…’

Then suddenly, as the sun got lower in the sky, ready to take its hat off for the day, it illuminated Bali’s highest mountain Gunung Agung across the ocean. The volcano is not even visible from Gili T during the day, or at least it wasn’t when we were there, so it felt quite magical to see its brooding silhouette appear on the horizon in the last few minutes of the day. Especially after our enduring trek up it.

There are other hidden gems on the west coast, namely a couple of sunset bars that offer cold drinks and refreshments so you can toast the sinking sun. And after the sun has gone down, the bonfires and fire dancers come to life.

While it all feels like a well kept secret for now, the plush resorts, coupled with the construction work we saw, suggests the west coast of Gili T could soon be firmly on the Lonely Planet map. All the signs are there… Even if the magic mushroom ones aren’t, yet.

Traveller’s Tips

There are many boats travelling between Bali and the Gili islands, some take as little as an hour while others take about four hours. We paid 450,000 Indonesian Rupiahs for the one-hour fast boat from Padang Bai, the journey was treacherous so make sure it’s a reputable-ish company.

You’re spoilt for choice when it comes to accommodation on Gili Trawangan. The beach side stuff is pricier but we stayed down one of the back streets, which is known as ‘the village’ at a homestay called Black Sands. The room was nice, spacious and clean, and the staff were lovely. It only set us back 200,000 Rupiahs a night.

Stay off the local spirits. Ouch.

Climbing Gunung Agung, Bali’s highest volcano

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Delia

I am going to make a confession: I am a massive scaredy cat.

There, I’ve said it and now the whole world can see me for who I am. It’s true, I get scared about every day things most people don’t even think about – I find lifts terrifying, and stairs aren’t much better (I always see myself tumbling down them) and don’t even get me started on cycling. Despite cycling to work every day I am always convinced that every white van driver is out to mow me down or every school kid I pass will throw rocks at me.

So there you have it, a big old scaredy cat. But I refuse to let the cowardly cat inside me dictate my life. Instead I repeatedly sign up to things that terrify me.

And that is partly why I climbed Bali’s highest volcano Gunung Agung on Tuesday.

Gugung Agung is, according to our guide book, ‘Bali’s highest and most revered mountain’, the Balinese believe its peak houses ancestral spirits so it is regarded as the spiritual centre of the country.

Naturally I was terrified. Of everything. I doubled my asthma inhaler dosage the day before ‘just in case’, packed extra water ‘just in case’ and started regretting never having mastered the SOS code. I was even scared about trekking in the dark as we were to start the walk in the pitch black at 2am in order to be at the summit for sunrise.

Our guide picked us up from our hotel in Sidemen (which is beautiful valley in rice paddy land in east Bali) at 1am and began driving to the temple at Pura Pasar Agung, where we were to start our climb.

By 2am I had a headlamp fixed to my forehead, my feet firmly strapped into my new, waterproof walking shoes and a look of determination across my face. I was going to do this.

After climbing the 280 steps to the temple (that was the easy bit) our guide Gung Bawa asked us to turn our torches off and look up. The sky was alight with hundreds of thousands sparkling stars. While we gazed into the night sky, the sweet smell of burning incense wafted through the air as Gung prepared his offerings for the Hindu Gods. I was grateful. I needed all the Gods I could get on my side.

We began our slow, steady climb up the volcano. It began in woodland with tree roots and large stones providing some grip to the dusty ground. It was bizarre trekking in the dark, my eyes were transfixed on the spot of light on the ground that my headlamp provided, but I was otherwise oblivious to my surroundings.

We paused after 15 minutes or so. Gung’s wonderful wide smile lit up the night and he asked us if we practised yoga.

‘This is just like yoga,’ he explained
‘You balance yourself, you walk with your left foot, your right food. You breathe deeply. You enjoy every step.
‘If you get scared remember to enjoy every step and believe in yourself, what you put in is what you get out. If you believe you can do it, you will.
‘And smile, keep smiling’.

I felt inspired. There was something about our kind faced guide that just reassured me and silenced the scaredy cat within. We were in safe hands.

As we continued to climb through the forest, he would pause every time he sensed we were tired, he would inspire us with his words and pull some biscuits and sweets out of his big backpack. And he gave us regular altitude reports.

We soon emerged out the forest and were climbing up the hard, rocky surface of the volcano, which last erupted in 1963. Clambering across solidified lava, we gripped onto large smooth stones that jutted out form the volcano’s surface with our hands and feet.

We were more than 2,000 metres above sea level by this point with a sheer face of rock and woodland below us.

Looking up I could see the peak, it seemed so close but in reality we were still more than an hour away from our sunrise breakfast. As we scaled higher and higher, it became steeper and steeper and at one point, when I was clinging to some rocks with a seemingly vertical drop beneath me, the scaredy cat started talking. One wrong step and it could all be over, the cat said. It almost made me whimper.

Almost. Instead I smiled. Under my deep, calm breaths, I quietly chanted ‘enjoy every step, enjoy every step’ and I looked to Gung’s wide smile for further inspiration. I found some and managed to cross what felt like an impassably smooth part of the volcano that left my hands and feet with almost nothing to grip onto.

We reached a ridge in the rock and Gung motioned us to sit down. For the first time since it had got lighter I found the courage to look around me. We were high above a dense, green forest where some clouds were staring to gather and looking to the east, the horizon was a thin rainbow of colours as the sun started to make its entrance for the day.

We watched the small orange dot break through the colours of the horizon and grow bigger and brighter, illuminating everything around us. It was a moment I will never forget.

This is the wonderful Gung Bawa

We made our way up the last stretch of the volcano and as I stepped onto the lip of the volcano’s crater, at 2,800 metres above sea level, I hugged everyone around me. I’m not sure what came over me, it was like passing my driving test all over again. Only this time I’d done it on the first attempt.

We strolled around the rocky surface, and looked down into the 500 metre long crater while Gung prepared our breakfast. There was even a shrine perched on the summit, scattered with offerings.

Gung prepared a mighty fine breakfast of freshly cooked pancakes drizzled in a delicious sweet syrup, that were the envy of every other trekker on the summit. He also handed out his mother’s home cooked banana fritters and poured us steaming hot coffee from his flask. It was a breakfast for kings, only slightly marred by my fears of getting back down.

See? Long way down!

But actually I needn’t have worried as Gung expertly led us down via a different route, which was much more manageable. Of course I still struggled and inched my way down the mountain like a three-legged foal.

With the sun now burning down on us, I longed to get down into the clouds which we could see lying above the verdant forest. In many ways the trek down was much harder than the way up and once we entered the woodland, it took a great deal of concentration to stay upright on the seemingly never-ending dusty path, which left me skidding in all directions.

By the time we back to the temple stairs, where it had all begun 10 hours earlier, my feet and legs were throbbing, I was caked in dust and my shoulders were sunburnt. I had that strange heady, dizzy feeling of complete fatigue but an overwhelming sense of achievement… I had put scaredy cat back in her box, for now.

We did it! (Me with Gung and the two lovely German girls we climbed with).

Travel Notes
There are a lot of places to stay when climbing Gunung Agung, Sidemen was perfect because it’s stunning (think Ubud rice paddies but even more remote and beautiful) and it has a lot of accommodation. Most hotels will offer you a guide as well.

We stayed at Sawah Indah, which was stunning, with attentive staff and beautiful rooms.

A room with a view!

If you want Gung Bawa to be your guide, you can email him on info@gungbawatrekking.com

Happy climbing!

Food in Bali: Curries, Seafood and Noodles, Oh My.

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Delia

I have been known to pick places to travel purely because of their cuisine. When my dear friend Carly and I planned our post-university trip around the world we decided, as a starting point, to shout out the countries we’d always wanted to visit. From what I recall Carly threw Australia, Thailand and Mexico into the mix, and I added India and Vietnam.

As a history graduate, I had long been fascinated by the latter after studying the Vietnam war. India, on the other hand, stemmed from a burning desire to eat curry on a daily basis and see how it varied region by region. By the end of that trip we were eating three curries between us at dinner, just to make the most of it. I even kept a curry diary… if only I had this blog then.

Carly, it transpired, picked Mexico because of her love of burritos. Unsurprisingly we made very good travelling buddies, although we never did make it to Mexico so I still owe her some fajitas there.

Now I find myself in Bali, and while it was not the food that brought me here, it is certainly one of the many reasons why I am falling head over heels in love with this little island. So if I may, I’d now like to eulogise about Balinese/Indonesian food.

The one dish that you can find almost everywhere here is Mie Goreng. This is a delicious fried noodle dish, which can be found mixed with with seafood, vegetables or meat, and there is also a very similar dish, Nasi Goreng, that uses fried rice instead of noodles. These simple stir-fries are juicy and rich in flavour and the key ingredient seems to be ‘sweet soy sauce’, which is almost like a sweet, plum sauce take on soy sauce. It is very good. Such dishes often cost as little as 20,000 Indonesian Rupiahs (about £1.30 at the time of writing) so make the ideal dinner for backpackers in Bali.

But most menus do not stop there. There is often a dazzling array of fresh fish with Balinese spiced sauces, creamy curries, shredded coconut infused dishes and satay delights. Some of the best food we’ve had on this trip so far has been in Ubud, and of all the places we’ve sampled (of which there were many) my favourite remains the tiny little warung beside our guest house – Wena Homestay.

Easy to miss, Warung Saya is tucked down Jalan Goutama and has just three small tables inside and a little table on a platform on the street where you can watch Balinese life walk on by. A ‘warung’ is traditionally a small kiosk-like cafe that sells cheap every-day food. But the take on Balinese street food here is really quite unique.

We ordered Fried Tempe Mendoan, having no idea what it was but we had spied someone else eating it and it looked delicious. As her plates were cleared I heard her ask the chef-cum-owner Amier if he ran cookery classes, high praise indeed. As we placed our order, Amier also recommended the Pad Thai so we went for that too. There are a lot of similarities between Balinese food and Thai food so the latter is often found on the menu.

Tempe, we soon learnt, is actually deep-fried soya bean. Similar I suppose to tofu, but much less watery. It came with a crisp golden coating, which gave way to the juicy but firm texture inside. However it was the rich, sweet sauce that really brought this simple dish to life, a blend of sweet sauce, with shallots and mini kaffir limes, to drizzle all over the tempeh. It was delightful.

Next up was the Pad Thai. I’ve always been a Pad Thai fan and regularly ate it from street vendors across Thailand a few years ago, but this was quite different to the traditionally dry noodle dish. Mixed with chicken tofu and egg, the dish was much juicer than I’ve had it before, with lime and fish flavours coming through. It was topped with peanuts to give a lovely crunchy finish.

We polished the dishes off in no time, Matty even smiled at the camera for once.

In Ubud you’re spoilt for choice when it comes to restaurants but another favourite of ours was Biah Biah, which is in the same road. A very cute little open air restaurant with funky wooden tables and benches, it serves a variety of tasty rice and noodle dishes on banana leaves but has a fantastic selection of tapas sized side dishes, which were really different to anything we’ve found in Bali so far.

It was too dark to get any decent pictures, so sadly I have no food porn to offer you from this lovely little establishment. But one dish which I must tell you about is Urutan. Urutan is a type of pork sausage which is served as a delicacy at festivals and ceremonies. And let me tell you, the Balinese love their ceremonies.

Back to the sausage. It was described as being a blend of meat, seasoning and intestines, but that didn’t put us off. The truth of the matter is that when it comes to sausages, intestines give a lot of flavour. The Urutan arrived. Served small and chunky, there were about six sausages on the plate. They were fried so had a nice, crispy skin while the meat inside was spicy, bursting with flavour, and was reassuringly coarse in texture. All the other dishes we ordered were just as good.

In fact the food has been so tasty here that I felt compelled to sign up to a cookery class to better understand the local spices and tricks of the trade. But that’s another story for another time, it is after all, dinner time and I have new menus to explore!

I shall leave you with a picture of Amier’s dog Precious Lady Salsa. Yes that’s her name. Amier designs all her clothes and there is a whole album of her dressed up that you can flick through while you wait for your food. Her nails are often painted to match.

Need I give you more reasons to visit?

Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary, Ubud: It’s Gorilla Warfare

Posted on September 15, 2012 by Delia

Almost every traveller has a story about monkeys. And it took Matty just a few seconds after stepping into the Monkey Forest in Ubud to tell me his fable.

‘We were in Agra in India,’ he said, eyes wide with fear, taking in the monkeys around him. (Monkey Forest is, quite simply, a forest full of monkeys set around three old majestic temples.)

‘We’d checked into a cheap room, it was upstairs.’

His sentences were slightly disjointed, as he broke off to take 360 degree turns, assessing the threat levels around him.

‘I woke up early,’ he continued.

‘It was dawn and I went out onto the balcony for some fresh air.

‘Suddenly, out of nowhere this huge monkey just threw itself at me and went…’

At this point he screwed his face up into a hideous mess and uttered a fierce, guttural growl.

He added: ‘I tried to beat it off and just ran, but it clung on and dragged its claws down my back. It was terrifying.

‘At night they would rattle at the bars of our door. Trying to get in.

‘We had been given a stick as well as a key when we checked in. Only then did I realise the stick was to beat off the monkeys.’

A strange ending I thought, I wasn’t sure if he was most upset about the clawing or the guesthouse’s failure to adequately highlight the stick’s purpose.

Nevertheless we had just paid 20,000 Indonesian Rupiahs (about £1.70) each to go into Bali’s most notorious monkey forest. We were going in.

Matty was a little resentful at first and as I started snapping, he muttered: ‘I don’t even want any pictures of these buggers’, or something along those lines. But he soon joined in and was soon staring right at the strange, unnervingly human like creatures, thought the barrel of the lens.

Here’s a few of our favourites, enjoy!

Balangan Beach, Bali: Ice Cream You Scream

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Delia

I’m trying to act just like a surfer… Just doing the tanned, nonchalant thing, looking cool. The only problem is I’m not yet tanned (day two in Bali and I have a red chest and white legs), I’m not really pulling off the cool thing (I keep getting over excited by bits in my book and squealing) and I don’t have a surf board – I have never surfed in my life.

I think I am the only person on Balangan Beach that can make such a claim. This beautiful, white sandy cove is scattered with tanned and toned beach bods who, when they are not out in the ocean riding the waves, are sitting in the sand hugging their surf boards, waiting for the right moment to get back in the water.

It means the sun beds are free for the likes of me. The beach has an ‘undiscovered’ feel to it, there are a handful of palm-thatched shacks that line the shore, providing some much needed shade, snacks and drinks, while also contributing to the rustic charm of the beach.

That’s the look I’m working on…

There’s not too much hassle and hardly any hawkers, but there is a lovely little man who wonders down the beach with his ice cream box crying, ‘Ice cream, you scream!’ That’s quite hard to say no to. Another bonus to this little cove, which is on the western coast of the very southern tip of Bali, is its beautiful sunsets. It is the perfect place to watch the day turn into the evening while digging your feet into the sand, which is scattered with corals and shells, and drinking a Bintang or two. (Bintang is the local beer and I thoroughly recommend it.)

We are staying at Flowerbud Bungalows, which sits on the cliff above the cove, just a few minutes walk away. The pretty little winding path down to the beach takes you past a few Balinese cows (I love cows!) that actually wear cow bells. This is brilliant, I thought they only wore these in Scandinavian films and songs.

Our bungalow is beautiful. Thatched with a palm front, it is made from bamboo and has a lovely spacious porch area at the front with chairs and a chaise longue style day-bed for cheeky mid-day siestas. The room itself has a large four poster bed with a mosquito net draped over it but my favourite bit is the outdoor bathroom where the shower spout just chucks sun-heated water over you.

But we shall bid farewell to it tomorrow for we are off to Ubud, the ‘spiritual heart’ of Bali according to the Lonely Planet. So by this time tomorrow I will probably be a Buddhist surfer.

14 Top Tips on How to Save for Travelling

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Delia

So you’ve got a car, you’ve got a house, you’ve got friends (that like drinking and going out for dinner), and you know what, you don’t really fancy putting your life on hold. But you want to travel… and somehow you need to find those extra pennies. I’m no Money Saving Martin (I think that’s his name, some bloke my mum regularly quotes, “Well in Martin’s latest email…”) but nevertheless I am getting quite good at making my less-than-the-national-average-salary get me where I want to be.

Here’s how…

Work out your budget. Dull, dull, dull – but sadly necessary. By all means pur yourself a glass of wine to help you through it (I’ll come to alcohol savings later!) Look at your bank statements from the last three months, get a blank piece of paper and draw up three columns with the titles: “Direct debits/outgoings”, “Things I don’t want to give up” and “Naughty”. The first column is fairly obvious – include all bills and regualr payments, column two for me had things like haircuts, dinners out, drinks, magazine subscriptions etc, while my column three featured naughty names like H&M, Zara and Topshop. Next, add up column one – plus your weekly food bill and look at that against your salary. It made me realise how much I was actually spending on things I didn’t want to give up/naughty purchases. This is the key stage – work out what you want to save against how much your willing to sacrifice. Then set up a direct debit so your savings are transferred the day after you are paid into another account you can’t touch. I find it helpful to then withdraw my weekly spending money every Monday so I can see it disappearing in my purse, plastic is deceiving but when your notes disappear you get a little bit more tight!
What else can you give up? Be reasonable about this – remember if it’s a long-term savings plan you still need to enjoy life. I cancelled my contact lense direct debit as I had a surplus of lenses and my partner quit his gym membership and bought some weights, which he combines with running. I’d like to say we stopped drinking but we didn’t… each to their own.
Can you get rid of your car? I did – got a bike instead – and now I travel everywhere for free!
Use TopCashBack whenever you buy anything online – it’s a website that will transfer you to the page you want to go to (almost like a search engine) but it pays you a small percentage of whatever you buy in commission. While I only make about £50 a year, I know someone who books a lot of hotels through work and made over £1,000. Quidco is another popular site but they charge £5 a year.
Everytime you’re about to buy something online go to www.vouchercodes.co.uk – there is almost always a discount code you can use. For example, when we hired a car recently we went on this website and found an 11% discount, then we paid for it via TopCashBack and got 8 per cent cash back – we saved about £10.
Get a second job. Sounds rubbish but doing one night’s work a week could make the difference between you staying on budget rather than going into your overdraft by £100 every month. I couldn’t get a bar job or restaurant work due to the nature of my day job, so found work copy-writing online a few hours a week. There will be something that suits your life… find it.
Check your energy bills – are you in credit with your gas and electricity provider? If so call them and ask for the money – why should they make interest on it? It’s yours! Put it straight into that ISA…
What do you do with your “free council tax” months? Every Feb and March you are council tax free! But you’ve budgeted for it so transfer it into that tax-free ISA you’ve set up before you are tempted to spend it…
Put a pound in a pot every day. This one is priceless, I promise. Buy a pot you cannot get into (we once had a metal tin with a big tacky £50 note image wrapped around it and we currently have one of those posh pottery numbers that you have to smash on a ceremonial occasion) and put £1 in every day. The last time it provided all our spending money for a weekend in Sovenia and by the time we break into the next one we should have about £600 for our forthcoming Bali trip.
When it comes to food shopping – set a budget and stick to it. Ours is £50 a week – it makes cooking imaginative and we don’t eat any worse for it at all.
Don’t stop doing things – just do them cheaper. Living in Nottingham, I visit my friends in London about once a month and rarely spend more than £15 on a return ticket – book in advance with Megabus (which is actually a train) and National Express buses are often £5.
eBay. Enough said. Everything you don’t want, or don’t need – stick on eBay (make sure pics are super, descriptions are enticing) and everything you do need – buy it on eBay!! I unashamedly love clothes but cannot justify fashion as an outgoing at the moment so I recycle clothes on eBay. For example, I bought a beautiful French Connection dress (retails at £130 bought on eBay for £30), whcih I intend to wear to a glitzy London hen do, then I will re-sell it to buy a beautiful dress for a wedding a month later. I will then re-sell that for the next wedding – and so it goes on. Make sure you buy labels because you are guaranteed to sell them on at the same sort of price – I normally make a profit actually. I think eBay tips might be worthy of their very own blog space soon. Watch this space!
If you own your own house can you have a lodger? We had a great lodger for a while that stayed with us during the week and went back home at weekends, giving us the space and privacy we were used to on the most important days of the week! There are websites for these kind of arrangements, one of which is www.mondaytofriday.com – but there’s loads more.
Want a weekend away? Do it! Camp or find a dirt cheap B&B… take homemade sandwiches for the road and work out where you want to splash your cash – one night posh dinner, cheap grub the rest of the time? Trust me, it can be done!

I’m sure there are more – I might have to come back to this topic, but if you have any more tips leave them below – I’m always on the lookout for more ways of saving cash. My motto is Live it Like you Love it…. but sadly that often comes at a price (flights to Bali were not cheap) so the cash has to be found!

Happy savings! x

World in Words

By a girl who loves to write, eat and explore…

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