Bali and Gili Islands Photos

Alicia and I are winding down our last few days of tropical vacation land. We leave for one day in Singapore tomorrow. The following day we have an early flight to Tokyo! I have no idea what to expect about Japan besides cultural differences everywhere. That and it will be cold. We only have six days in Japan before we land bright and early in Seattle the morning of the 29th. That will be the cap to six and a half months spent overseas.





Spectacular Ubud scenery. From beautiful river valleys right outside of the city to rice paddies among stores and shops.




Shots from the back of the monster boat we took from Pandang Bai to Gili Trawangan. The top shot shows some of the boat staff working on a misbehaving engine. We were apparently on the boat's fourth day of operation. Given my motorhead and boat loving nature, this 1000HP craft was a lot of fun. You can see the five V6 200HP outboards hanging off the back. On the dashboard in front of the captain were five black VDO RPM gauges. It was quite fun to watch them start one by one and all climb up to 5000RPM for the duration of our 30 knot trip.



Alicia and I on our first tour of Gili Air in a horse-drawn cidomo. No motorized transport is allowed on the islands via a collective village decision that it would be noisy and pointless. Hooray!



Alica and I with our new friends Chantel and Björn. We met them at our guest house in Ubud and we both ended up on Gili Air for a few days while they planned a boat trip to the island of Flores. They two of them wholesale silver jewelry in Germany and manage to travel to SE Asia for at least a couple months each year. Amazing.



Alicia climbing on a bizarre tree next to the ocean. Maybe it is a mangrove?



Alicia sitting with the other tourists at the Sasak wedding we got to attend on Gili Air. Rosie, one of the owners of our guest house is to Alicia's left.



Sasak "breakfast" (aka, lunch and dinner food). As Alicia described in her wedding post this feast for 500 was prepared all night with the mostly-women volunteers working in shifts until dawn. Very spicy. I love the thick coconut-chilly-beef curry stuff in the bottom right. Yum!



A crappy picture (color-wise) of the lush village. This is a typical family plot in the 1100 person village in the middle of the island.



The population of Gili Air will probably be 3000 in ten-fifteen years. There are loads of kids about. All super cute and playful. It seems to be like a rather idyllic place to grow up. No cars, paths everywhere, tons of playmates, the ocean on all sides... not so bad. The best part is watching the tiny tiny kids all ride their bikes with no training wheels.



Doesn't Alicia look so beautiful even when she is tired? We were out of bed early to catch the wedding.



The new couple and their family along the reception line.



We witnessed history on Gili Air! The photo above shows village men connecting the recently laid fresh-water pipe from Lombok. They were connecting the line to a pre-laid village system. Previous to the pipe a small amount of potable water was available from Gili Air itself, but not the other two islands. All other water was brought over in huge tanks on outrigger boats each day. And guest houses and locals end up with brackish showers. So great for the island but not so great for Alicia. She missed fresh water showers on Gili Air by a week!



Village children playing soccer.



Typical village life. A young woman, of course with head scarf, on her bike through the coconut tree fields.



On a walk through the middle of the island with a wonderful British couple, Judie and Gabriel. They had just started a four month SE Asia journey and we had sundowners on the beach.



The sunsets, as usual, were amazing.



On a cidomo again on our way back to Bali.



Local boats at the harbor.



Kuta has a number of scary western establishments. But this two story KFC takes the cake.



The main drag in Kuta at night. Full of drunken shirtless Aussies outside of clubs offering 'foam parties', 'Pirate nights', and 'jam jars' (huge Thailand-bucket-like cocktails). Note the Starbucks across the road. One wasted fellow was dancing in the street and nearly dropped his shot glass on Alicia's foot right after taking this photo. Lots of scary people but inside some of the clubs are almost entirely Indonesian crowds. Most of them wonderfully behaved and actually wearing shirts and no swim wear. Imagine!



A cute Christmas tree with tropical flower.



This shot may be a bit small for the required detail. But the two people in this photo were too hilarious to pass up. We stopped at a club next door to Double Six (in Seminyak, Bali) to wait for people to show up. The fellow in red to the left was dancing like a total maniac. I'm not sure I've ever seen someone so violently out of sync with the beat. The other guy to the right was in a strange Tommy Hilfiger tank top, faded jeans with the bottoms rolled up and weird sandles. And he was all over the local ladies. Gross!



Alicia and enjoying our last tropical dance party night.



Beautiful lady!



This strange guy wanted Alicia to take a photo of him. When shown the result above he was apparently all about it!



The dance party at Double Six in Seminyak. We showed up at 12:15 to a virtually empty club. Alicia and I were disappointed. By 2:00am the cavernous dance floor was packed with 80% Indonesians rocking out. The local flavor and vibe more than made up for the totally average commercial dance music.



Rosy-cheeked makeup goodness.



The night before these photos Alicia and I went to the 'Sky Bar' in Kuta. It was a really, really scary place full of super drunken tourists and 'sexy girl' Baliense dancers in tiny outfits. We lasted about 45 minutes but long enough to meet a wonderful guy named Doddy (above). We figured he was probably the only cool guy in the club and were right. He lives in San Diego but was raised on Java. We met up with him last night and got a super great Indonesian-speaking guide to hang out with. Hooray for meeting great people around the world!



The scores of motorcycles outside the club. We're assuming almost all of these were driven home by drunk people :(

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Thats it for now. Stay tuned for pictures from Tokyo.

-Jonathan