The routine of Gili

Tomorrow morning we will be leaving Gili Trawangan Island and heading back to Denpasar. We will spend one more night with our generous couchsurfing host, pick up our second bag from him and walk into Kuta to exchange the awful and overpriced departure tax money. We will spend our last night at the airport as we often do because we have an early flight out to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Our first night there we are staying in a lovely hotel in the heart of downtown. The only problem is that the airport is 75-100 km away from downtown so we will have to figure out transport when the time comes.

As it stands, I am sitting on a blanket on the most beautiful beach ever snacking on almonds. The sun is shining as I look forward to the sparkling clear ocean and a breeze brushes by. The sand is warm, soft and white and Tyson is actually reading a book. Bob Marley can be heard from the bar behind us and life is good.

In the last week we have created a very routine life here on the island and except for a few burps we have stuck to it. We wake up and curse the rooster that is screeching behind the window of our lovely bungalow. I get up first and fill our water bottles, clean up a bit and prepare breakfast of bread, pinapple jam and local coffee. Tyson gets up, we eat and chat and before we know it several hours have gone by like this. We ask the kid in charge for more sugar or water or something and chat with him a bit too. Then we finally leave and walk 1.5 minutes to the beach where we swim, read and sunbathe for the rest of the day. Around five we head down the strip to another beach and lay in a hammock and watch the lovely sunset. We then head in for dinner which has almost always been four packs of noodles shared. We then shower, read and chat with our neighbor nurses until we head out for chocolate and sweet milk pancakes from the same street vendor at the market. We eat, read and pass out until the rooster repeats its crimes the next morning.

While Gili is still visibly a third world country, it is a significant improvement from mainland Bali.
Here we still get offered "real" pearl necklaces on the beach and drugs every time we walk down the street. We still hear the shrill prayers chanted over the loudspeakers at prayer time. We still see skinny kittens purring for food and young children running around naked in the puddles. We still get dirty looks for wearing bikinis and ripped off when trying to buy the same pack of noodles from the exact same shop for several days in a row. The shower is still cold water, there is no sink and toilet paper is not refillable through the hotel. People still think it's ok to chain smoke and internet is not free. Customer service is non existent and locals think that garbage cans are too much trouble.

I could live like this for a lot longer but we have places to see yet and only six and a half more months to see them in.
"If we are not happy and joyous in this season for what season shall we wait"