CAIT AROUND THE WORLD

May 1, 2023 — A new month, a new destination! I woke up at quarter to eight in the morning without my alarm, which is definitely uncommon for me lately! I also didn’t fall asleep very easily last night, so I didn’t expect to be awake so early. Even so, I eventually got up, got dressed, and packed up my bag. Then I headed to breakfast at the hostel.

I enjoyed a banana pancake with chocolate syrup and some orange juice. If you’re ever in Indonesia, their banana pancakes are always excellent!

I checked out and dropped my bag at reception for safekeeping, then headed to the port to find the slow boat to Gili Meno. When I was at Serangan Turtle Island Homestay, the host, Kadek, told me to just head to the beach and find one of the slow boats heading to the other islands — Gili Meno and Gili Air — and that these would be very cheap. I didn’t venture on to the beach, but there are slow boats departing from the regular harbour. The ticket office is about a hundred metres from the main office and is tucked in the back of the building, facing the ocean. I paid 40,000IDR (about $4.00CAD) for a ticket on the Island Hopper slow boat, which runs twice a day. I believe the times were 9:00am and 4:00pm. They told me to come back at around ten minutes before departure to get my ticket. I was too late for the 9:00am, so that put me on the 4:00pm. That was fine, though, because I went to a coffee shop to do some blog work for a few hours. I had a vanilla latte and a muffin as big as my hand.

As you might remember, I decided to nix caffeine from my diet before I left home so that I wouldn’t be dependent on it while I was travelling. That was a really good plan through Australia since many times, coffee wasn’t overly accessible or the coffee that I was looking for (sweet; I know, it’s shameful) was hit and miss. Either that, or it was really expensive. But this habit went right by the wayside when I was in Indonesia because they had great coffee options and it was cheap (like 35,000IDR which is $3.50CAD, roughly). But I was starting to wonder if the caffeine was messing with my sleep and if I should go cold turkey again or not. Decisions, decisions.

Around lunchtime, I headed back to the hostel and used the wifi there to do some more blog stuff. By the time I finished that, I was tired of working on the blog and needed a break. I got my beach gear from my bag and headed down to the shore. I stopped on my way and picked up a drink and a carton of Pringles. The drink was a Fanta Orange, which I hadn’t had in YEARS and I’d really forgotten just how sticky sweet they are! I found a spot on the beach with my snacks and cooled off in the water. When I got out and tried to lay in the sun, I was sweating to death within seconds so I moved into the shade, which was so much better. When the breeze came up, it was downright heavenly.

Around 3:00pm, I was starting to get worried that the Island Hopper to Gili Meno would sell out and I really didn’t want to have to stick around Gili T for another night, never mind that I would then have to sort out coming a night late with the hostel in Gili Meno. I packed up and got my stuff from the hostel and went to buy a ticket.

I needn’t have worried in the end, but it was fine to sit there and wait for the boat to come in. I met another girl there who was waiting for the same boat, except she was heading onward to Gili Air instead of stopping in Gili Meno. We found out that we were staying at the same place in Gili Air and that we’d be there at the same time! I got off the boat in Gili Meno looking forward to having someone I knew on Gili Air in a couple nights.

It only takes about fifteen minutes to get from island to island on the slow boat between the Gili Islands, so that put me in the hostel and checked in by 5:00pm. First impressions of the hostel were that it was so cool. If you like staying in hostels when you’re travelling, this has got to be on your list of bucket-list stays.

I got into the room and then showered off the sweat and sand and took forty minutes to chill right out. I turned on a few YouTube videos and planned to go downstairs to eat (the hostel offered a food menu!) in a little bit. Juuuust as I was getting ready to do so, though, the power went out! Since being on Gili T, I at least had an idea as to why, but it still kind of cracked me up. I also hoped that it wouldn’t last too long because I was very hungry at this point. I walked downstairs after brushing my hair to see what was going on since there seemed to be some activity downstairs. Would this hostel put on a game of hide-and-seek in the dark? They didn’t, unfortunately. But after I headed back upstairs and had just gotten settled with Monte Carlo on my iPad, the lights suddenly came back on.

I headed downstairs immediately for dinner since I wasn’t sure just how long the lights would stay on. (On my first night in Gili T, they went off again while I was lying in bed about an hour or so after the first outage.) I got the beef burger — their specialty, according to reception — and enjoyed it immensely.

After dinner, I headed upstairs, brushed my teeth, and climbed into bed.

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