Lombok

For Spring Break, Toni and I visited Lombok and then spent a couple days on the Gili islands. Gili is the first place that I have doubled up on since moving to Asia. It took a year and 9 months before visiting a place twice, and Gili is the kind of place worth going back to.

Lombok is the island east of Bali and is supposedly what Bali looked like 40 years ago. It had the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen and Toni and I got to learn surfing. She did way better than me but it was a lot of fun regardless.

Here are some photos from Lombok:

(we stayed in Kuta on Lombok and this was the beach within a 3 minute walk of our guesthouse)

(this is Selong beach where we learned how to surf)

(this is Muwan beach; wide open and absolutely gorgeous)

(we met up with my old pal Eli on Gili Trawangan; he stole some poor dude's bike)

(we enjoyed the snorkeling tour that takes you around the 3 Gili islands)

(that beautiful Gili sunset)

("It goes a little to the left" - Toni; "It just looks that way because you have one shoe on" - Matt)

(we played a skins game: 15.000 a hole; Eli won)

(we spent one afternoon walking around Gili T; it didn't take too long - about 2 hours)

(the food on Gili T is awesome; here is our last lunch enjoying Indian food and the beautiful view; personally, I think the view to my right was better than the view straight ahead)

Belitung

We get a 4-day weekend for Chinese New Year and last year I went to Lake Toba on Sumatra. This year, Toni and I went to Belitung Island where you can go out and explore some cool islands and see some awesome boulders that are along the beach. I enjoyed Belitung but I think a 4-day weekend is the proper amount of time to spend there.

Jeremy, Kasandra (the couple from the Philippines blog last year), and Trevor (BBS teacher in Bandung) were also doing the same vacation and we more-or-less hung out all together most of the time.

Here are some pictures from the short, relaxing holiday:

(Jeremy doing Jeremy things)

 (the crew)

(the area just outside of the hotel has a very low tide in the evenings and was a lot of fun to walk around and play in)

(view from the hotel room)

(Trevor)

The snorkeling was better than I thought it would be. Not the best I've ever seen, but still fun:

(Mr. Science himself)