So my exit out of New Zealand was as graceful as you can
make a 4:30AM trip. Mike took me to the
airport. Bless his soul.
My agenda was to fly
from Auckland to Sydney to Bali.
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| Bali Hostel |
As usual I got to the Bali airport and I hated it. Denpensar
(Bali) is full of hawkers. I’ve been
there three times, you would think I would get used to it. But no, they annoy the shit out of me.
I got to my hostel and met some cool people. Unfortunately I was exhausted, so I didn’t
get to know them all real well.
Now my goal for this trip to Indonesia was to go to the Gili
Islands and maybe make it over to Lombeok.
The Blue Water Express is the only speed boat you can schedule
online to get to the Gillis. They were
good, and when all the speed boats charge the same amount I’ll take the one
that books online and has great reviews.
They gave us free coffee and tea while we were waiting and sea sickness
pills before we boarded. The ride took
about 2 ½ hours. It was smooth sailing. I had heard a rumor that the weather is
always nice on the Gilis. I was keeping
my fingers crossed.
Let’s talk about Gili Trawangan. This was my first destination. This is the largest of the three Gili Islands
with an estimated permanent population of about 800. All of the gilis are less touristy than Bali
but Gili T is the party Island. On this
island, there are no cops. Well there
are cops, but they only come to fill the ATM and that’s it. The locals have kind of an agreement with the
mainland police. They can do what they
want, as long as the crime rate stays low.
And this works. The crime rate on
the islands is practically non-existent.
This is because if the locals catch you stealing or anything like that
you are exiled from the Gilis for life.
The locals sure as heck can’t afford that. They have family and their livelihood
there. So the only ones that would risk
it are the tourists; who are likely to end up in an Indonesian jail. And that would not be any fun.
I got picked up right away at the harbor. In Asia I tend not to book my hostels in
advanced. You can usually wander around
and find something way cheaper and nicer than you would online. A nice man took me to the homestay he was
working at. Dua Nina, the homestay, was
not as nice as I am used to. It had no
toilet paper, no towel, and I had to use the badea to shower with. At least I had a fan, and the internet worked
every once in a while. I met some cool
people there, and that’s part of the fun.
I love meeting other travelers.
I considered this trip to Indonesia as a holiday, rather
than traveling around. So in true
holiday style I did a lot of nothing. I
walked, ate, read a lot, and biked around the island. Biking around the island only took me two
hours and this was because I had to walk to bike through the sand
sometimes. It was peaceful, and not as
busy as Bali. This is what I
wanted.
I managed to sneak in a snorkeling trip as well. Most people go to this island to get their
diving certificate, but I find snorkeling is just as fulfilling. On the snorkeling trip I met some of the
other people staying at hostel and
photographer from Protugual. We decided
to have some drinks after words and then took a crazy horse ride. It was pretty scary, I felt like we were on a
near death experience the entire time.
But we did get to stop and take some pictures.
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| naked swinging |
I got it in my head while I was on Gili T to get my tattoo
done. I was going to get it in Korea,
but because my plans had changed (i.e. I couldn’t get my flight voucher changed
to Korea!) I decided Indonesia would be cheaper than The States. Little did I know what an ordeal I had just
signed myself up for.
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| The shop |
When they guys at the hostel found out I wanted a tattoo,
they lead me to a shop. This shop was
pretty nice. Clean inside and out. It looked fairly new and I discovered that
the guy that owned it was from Lomboek, not the Gillis.
That was good because he had a lot of
experience and his tattoos looked wonderful.
I looked through the example books and admired the apprentices tattoos
while I waited. I showed them my design
and they said they would do it for $600.
There was no way I was going to pay $600 in a third world country, that
part of the reason I had convinced myself to get it done. It’s supposed to be cheaper. I told them $300 and wouldn’t budge. They took it and we scheduled the appointment
for later that day.
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| My design |
It started out alright.
They sanitized everything, shaved my arm and got the stencil. They
started the black work. That only took 2
hours. The work was solid too. This guy
defiantly knew what he was doing. When
we started on the color I was impressed as well. Working on the water background, I could tell
that he had much experience making waves.
It looked sweet.
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| the process |
We got into some trouble when he started the other color
work. For some reason he thought this
was paint by number and he didn’t have all the colors… So when I asked him to
do some of the books brown, or a darker green he looked at me like I was a bit
off. He didn’t like to mix his inks to
get custom colors. Come on!!!
Then the power went out.
Yup. You read right. No
power. That meant we had to put the
tattoo on hold until it came back on.
This is quite a common occurrence on the gilis. The head honchos like to regulate the partying
so they usually shut the power off for a few hours every night. It could be one hour or 5, we were luckyish
and got a two hour tattoo delay.
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| Finished! |
By this time I was pacing around trying to ignore the
pain. I was tired and cranky. One of the apprentices wanted me to take
aspirin. I politely refused telling him
I didn’t want to bleed more than was necessary.
When the power did finally come back on and we got back to tattooing it
was excruciating. It was 11PM by this
time. Me and the tattoo artist were both
tired. He wanted to cut a few things
out. I did not. I wanted this finished so I would need to do
as little touch up as possible. In the
end, because I was bleeding so much and the ink wasn’t holding, I let him cut
out a few details.
We wrapped my arm up, I paid and went to bed. I was in so much pain it wasn’t funny. I had a very hard time sleeping.
The next day I got up, washed and headed to the boat. I was off to the next island, Gili Air. A much more relaxed place.
When I got there a nice man picked me up to bring me to his
home stay. It was much nicer than my
last place. It was band new, and
cheap. They did breakfast and even
laundry there. No wifi, and he told me
that was because he only just built the place in July. It’s next on his list of things to do. The man and his family were quite nice. I enjoyed my stay immensely.
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| the owner and his son |
Per usual I did a lot of nothing. I slept a lot, walked, read, swam and walked
some more. I was having a terrible time
with my tattoo. It had swollen up and
still hurt terrible. So I went to the
local clinic. They said I had an
infection, from washing my arm with the local water. Duh… I kicked myself pretty hard. Of course I can’t wash an open wound with
water I can’t drink. It was an easy fix
though. I just had to take a week of antibiotics. My tattoo looked terrible, but at least it
was on the healing path now.
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