After spending three quite pleasant nights in Ubud I was heading to Gili islands. I wouldn’t have mind spending one more day in Ubud just doing nothing and relaxing but my neighbors 2 Polish guys were going on Sunday so I decided to join them. It is always nice to have some company when you don’t exactly know where you’re going.
Our trip began at 7 am when the minibus came to pick us up from our guesthouse. The bus trip took about an hour and a half. The bus wasn’t too full and it was nice to see the passing villages to wake up to a new day. I read somewhere that the slow boat would normally take about four hours but that it would be perfectly normal as well if it would take seven instead. We walked and carried our luggage from the bus to the ferry where we were placed on the top deck. I was quite worried when I saw no shade what so ever but I was still thinking it wouldn’t be that bad. At this point my fellow travelers on the deck (all backpackers) were still enthusiastic about the trip sitting on their backpacks trying to avoid touching the dirty deck, girls in bikinis trying to make the most of the opportunity to get some sun. But as the trip went on and on you could see the spirits broken one by one.
We were sitting on a towel leaning our back to our backpacks and sleeping. We were sweating and trying to cover ourselves from the burning sun as best as we could. I woke up at some point with the terrible headache. It felt like hours had gone by but to my disappointment it was only an hour and a half. I went to look for a shade and found kiosk selling some drinks and snacks. I was suppose to name this story “I need potato crisps” because when I saw the Lays logo I just had to get them. I don’t normally buy crisps so I considered that to be some sort of a low point in my life but luckily I didn’t know what was still waiting. After eating the small bag of seaweed flavored crisps my headache started fading. It was obvious that I just needed the salt. We had been on the ferry for two hours and the worst was yet to come.
Somehow the time passed and we started the see land in front of us. It had been three hours of journey and I was hopeful that we would be there in four and we wouldn’t have to take this much longer. As we started to get closer people some more burnt than others started packing their things. The ferry had stopped and we got down from the deck. My travel mates helped with my bag and we got three levels lower on to the car deck. Everyone packed in front of the busses, scooters and cars we were waiting the bridge to come down but the wait would be long. The drivers started their busses to get the aircon going and the deck started to fill up with gasses. Soon it became impossible for me to breath. I started gasping air which made it worse. We were in a gas chamber with no way out. I felt tickles on my fingertips and my vision going plur. We had been there for half an hour and I wasn’t the only one feeling sick. We managed to find a staircase up and go into a small balcony with fresh air. After one more hour the gates finally opened and we got our out from the ferry hungry, thirsty and sweaty.
We were at Lombok. Once again we were stuffed in a mini bus for the next part of our trip. Two hours drive up north on a beautiful mountain road. We drove through small villages with wedding parties through corn and rice fields and up and down to the mountain through jungle with breathe taking sceneries and monkeys aside the road. Then we arrived at small beach with boats. We were in the boat, maybe 20 backpackers and their bags, sun setting down on the right and our destination finally glooming in front. At this point I thought there is no way I’m ever gonna to do this again.
