It’s been almost a week since we left the island and I find it still difficult to describe Gili Trawangan using words or photos. Though, it’s been my favorite place so far; but it was all about feeling, not just beautiful landscapes, cultural heritage or adventurous activities.

It is a very small (just 2-3 square km) piece of earth surrounded by blue clear water and bigger islands. We got there by a small local boat packed with locals and their goods (e.g. fresh fruit, vegetables, meat) bought from the bigger island in front (Lombok). Neither cars nor scooters are present, so the air is fresh and people are either walking, biking or horse riding. Isn’t that cool? Beach, seaside, horses, looooots of diving schools, bars, warungs (local tiny restaurants), restaurants, cafes and a few local houses…this is pretty much it. And the smiling people. Locals or tourists, everyone seems happy!

I passed my PADI Open Water and the Bear passed his advanced PADI at Gili Scuba that we highly recommend. Our days were quite standard: banana pancakes for breakfast at 8 am, preparation of equipment, leaving for diving at 9, diving for 40 – 90 min depending on our air consumptions, meeting sharks, crown fish, tiger fish, snakes and other sea life, back to Gili Scuba School, reading some diving theory till 12.30, noodles lunch, leaving for diving again at 2 pm, back around 4.30-5; diving theory till 6/ 7, dinner, beer/cocktail, beach fire. For 5 days!

We’ve met interesting people, Dragos, my scuba instructor being one of them. The Bear already knew him from 2 years ago when he first came to Gili and passed his Open Water. Dragos gave up capitalism few years ago: he closed his own company in Timisoara and started to travel. He discovered new ways of life in tribes from areas such as Papua and has started their exploration. So part of the year he works as diving instructor and saves some money. The other part, he wonders around Papua and lives with people far from the civilization we are used to nowadays. He keeps a blog (duba.ro), has done a TED talk in Romania and is dreaming of writing his own book. If you can and/ or want to support Dragos in this dream, contact him via his blog. He has amazing stories and could help all of us be aware of and understand that there are people leaving a completely different life.

That was Gili and I hardly wait to have the chance to go back there, swim with the turtles, dive with the sharks, have a pot of fried spicy noodles, enjoy sunset on a lazyboy and drink Bitang in front of a beach fire while listening to incredible, almost fictional stories.