I will, as in my previous blog post, first list the budget we had for this trip. Then I will move on to telling the story. The budget:

* Flight: 236 EUR
* Ferries: 61 EUR
* Hotels/hostels: 10-15 EUR/night * 10 nights = 100-150 EUR
* Food: 5 EUR/meal * 2 meals per day * 10 days = 100 EUR
* Surf sessions: 10 + 13 EUR = 26 EUR
* Party: 50 EUR
* Tours, taxi: 50 EUR
* Scooter rental: 2.5 EUR/day * 5 days + 7 EUR fuel = ca 20 EUR

Total: 643-703 EUR
Actual total: 700 EUR

Tips for the trip:

• Make a rough and generous budget before the trip and withdraw the money you have calculated you will need before entering the country. Almost all of the ATMs here only allow you to withdraw a maximum of 2,500,000 Rupiah, or even as low as 1,250,000 Rupiah - and they charge you 50,000 Rupiah per 1,250,000 level of withdrawal (i.e. 100,000 for withdrawing at a 2,500,000 Rupiah ATM, 50,000 for a 1,250,000 Rupiah ATM). This is equivalent of withdrawing ca 160 EUR/80 EUR and getting charged 6 EUR/3 EUR for it.
• Look at the grab app for the transition price to get to where you wanna go. The taxi drivers will try to chart you up to an extreme amount of what it is actually worth - above 200%.
• Always be careful when withdrawing money from ATMs here, as they make it possible for you to take the money without grabbing your ATM card. You do not want to lose your card in this region - especially if you are travelling alone.

First day of recess week. We took a mid-day flight from Singapore to Bali and met Clàudia the Catalonian girl who lives a floor under me and was also going to Bali with some other girls (including Sara Kristiansson who also went with me to Cambodia). On the flight, we also met a german NTU girl whose friends had apparently cancelled the trip because of the anticipated volcano eruption of Mt. Agung on Bali. Personally, I was a little bit excited about the eruption, as I had never seen such a thing. Also, it did not make much sense to worry about it, since the volcano was so far away - even at Padang Bai, where we stayed at. This is one of the closer harbours to the volcano.

Anyways, we got off from the flight and I tried to withdraw money, as the deal me and Markus had made was for him to pay hotels and flight tickets with card, and I would pay with cash - then we could take care of dividing the costs when we got back. Turns out, however, that the ATMs over there only limit small withdrawals, and each withdrawal is quite expensive as well - as can be seen from the tips section above. On Claudia’s recommendation, we decided to fix a taxi driver which could take us to an ATM elsewhere and Padang Bai for 250,000 Rupiah. We managed to bargain our way down from 600,000 Rupiah (ca 40 EUR) for this one hour trip to 250,000 Rupiah (ca 16 EUR). They really want to trick westerners over here with their, locally speaking, extreme prices. Watch out for this!

Also, another thing to watch out for is their ATMs, as they do not provide security measures for forgetting to take out your card. Normally, it is impossible to take out the money before you have collected your card. Over here, however, it is possible to take out your money before your card. Having had quite little sleep the previous days, as well as concentrating on a BIG pile of money having recently entered my hand, I stupidly fell into this trap. Yep, I lost my one and only card for cash withdrawal, and for the rest of the trip, I had to rely on Markus providing the money for both of us…

I had a BIG pile of money though, and was also a millionaire for a few days, so it was not too bad. I also cancelled my card quite quickly, so nothing bad happened with the rest of my money.

Sad that I spent all my wealth in such a few amount of days, though…

Having installed ourselves in Dharma Homestay, we went out to eat some food at a local restaurant. We got this after having walked around for 5 minutes:

And we also saw the Ozone bar, albeit not as high up as in Hongkong.

Next day, we went up early, had some breakfast (garlic bread for me, banana pancakes for Markus, both of us also got a plate of fresh fruit and coffee) and headed out with a scooter to see the surrounding area. They have quite a nice landscape over here, I have to say! The scooter ride was definitely worth it, and it only cost 4 EUR for an entire day (although we could only go for 2 hours).

Sadly though, it is very dirty in these areas, and there was trash everywhere on the streets, as can be seen below. On the night we arrived, we also took a walk in the nearby area, only to see a cockroach paradise, with entire populations of them crawling out of some house walls. It was a disturbing sight, and I really hope they do something about this situation soon.

Moving on, we quickly turned our scooter back, checked out and got on the ferry, Eka Jaya, that took us to Gilli Air. Oh, and before I forget it, we had a volcano refugee camp across our hotel. They had to flee from the surrounding area of the volcano.

It took a little bit more than an hour to get to the Gilli islands, from what I can recall, but time quickly passed by, as we both had beer in our hands, and a great landscape to look at.

Also, we started talking to a norwegian guy who was going to Gilli Meno with his family. Apparently the team he coached had come third in the largest football youth cup, Gothia cup, the same year that I had played it. Thinking back on it, I actually think I saw the team play live on Gamla Ullevi in Gothenborg. It is strange how small the world can be sometimes. That, as well as how impressive some random people you meet can be.

Getting to the Gilli islands, we were definitely impressed by how much the islands looked like paradise islands.

Soon, we landed on Gilli Air, where we got a horse ride to our Hostel. More on that tomorrow!