Dog on Roof: Gilligan's Island

Before going to Bali, my first thought of the island was that it was a pristine place with white sandy beaches, clear blue waters, thatched roof huts, and breathtaking sunsets. Bali itself was not exactly that.

Indonesia in general, being a third-world country, is dirty, crowded, and polluted outside of the hotels and resorts. Stepping off the plane and into a densely populated city that smelled like burning trash and incense was not exactly what I had expected.

Lucky for us, our friends Mason and Chelsea had already scoped out the area and led us away from the crowds and to some of those pristine beaches.

The four of us took two days to venture by boat to an island called Gili Trawangan, or “Gili T.” Gili T is part of a chain of three tiny islands that can only be accessed by boat. Furthermore, there are no motorized vehicles on these islands – only bicycles and horse and buggy. But Gili T was so small that we could ride bikes around its perimeter in about an hour.

So much cart for such a little horse!

Bintang! Bintang! Everywhere!

Still in the third world.

The ocean water surrounding the Gili Islands was so blue that pictures just can’t do it justice. Ordering cocktails at the swim-up bar of our hotel and looking at the ocean was somewhat surreal. If we could go back to Indonesia, we would definitely choose to spend more time at this place and less in Bali.

Part of what made the experience so great was our hotel. Basically, it was baller. After exploring several options on the island, we decided to splurge and get the villa. Our unit had two separate suites with top-notch everything. Outside of the suites was our little courtyard with a private pool, lounge chairs, eating area, couches, and a refrigerator.

Looks expensive, right? Well it was about $200 per night. So split among four people it wasn’t too much of a drain on the ole bank account.

110% relaxation

One of the most valuable lessons we learned in staying at hotels was to not book ahead of time. That’s right. Not book. Usually in the States you’ll end up paying more for a last minute reservation. But in Indonesia, bartering is king. Not only can you barter for board shorts, but also, you can ask for a few bucks off of your accommodations and usually get some sort of deal.

Even though our hotel was awesome (two pools, a restaurant, full breakfast in the morning, room service, giant chess boards, and just gorgeous, baller things all around us), we did get out and do things on the island.

There was lots of scuba diving, shopping, eating, tanning, bike riding, and floating in the pool to be done. Yeah, we were busy. But we managed to fit it all in before catching our boat back to Bali!