Gili island way of life

We've arrived on Gili Meno! The smallest and least popular of the Gili islands to visit by tourists but that's what drew us towards it the most. There are three islands in total and Gili Meno is the only one that does not have a direct boat that goes from Bali to it. That meant that we had to catch a boat to Gili Air and then book another ticket to transfer over. Luckily we're staying on Gili Air next before heading back to Bali so that meant we could book a return boat ticket and save some money. Our ferry transport arrived at 6:45am so we were up early at 5:30 to get ready. So very hard to wake up! It took an hour to get to the ferry port where we were greated by two half sunken boats in the harbour so it was a optimistic start. After a short wait we boarded the boat which was completely full and began the journey to the Gili Islands. The boat was very fast so it didn't take too long to reach the first island and then Gili Air afterwards. After a quick juice and an investigation into island transfers we booked onto a boat that was more expensive than the public boat but meant we didn't have to wait 4 hours for it to leave. We landed on Gili Meno pretty quickly via transferring to another boat near the shore and began our hunt for our accommodation. After a lot of walking down small bumpy roads and dirt tracks we found it. It's a small collection of three tall huts and one larger villa hut owned by an English woman who sold her house before travelling and ended up buying these instead of going back home 5 years ago. She lives in one of the huts herself. Although the area of land she has is small she's grown such beautiful green plants and trees that you have privacy sitting on the patio or lounging on our shaded lounger area. It feels almost like glamping in the sense that we are in the middle of tropical jungle with free roaming chickens and goats in a hut that only has cold water. It's so peaceful to just sit outside and listen to all the insects and cockerels with the sound of the call to Mosque in the background. After dumping our stuff we got our swimming gear and suncream on before heading on a walk for somewhere to have lunch. We ate a place overlooking the sea on the west side of the island where I saw this crab who took on a bee that was about 3 times the size of a bumble bee back home and almost as big as the crab was and he was fighting with it before he pulled it down into a hole in the ground never to be seen again! We walked from here round the bottom of the island and to the east side where the ferry dropped us looking for somewhere to swim and snorkel. Unfortunately the waves were rough which meant you couldn't see clearly in the water and there were many huge rocks so after 2 minutes of me trying I realised it wasn't going to work out. We abandoned swimming and went hunting for somewhere with wifi as rather annoyingly our accommodation's wifi is currently being fixed so we are without it. That's a little bit difficult when we want to plan the rest of Australia before we set off there next so we will have to keep visiting places with wifi to do so. The owner said she'll give us a discount if she doesn't get it working so hopefully she follows through with that and returns some of the money we paid. We realised the sun was setting after visiting two places with wifi so we rushed the 15 minute walk across the island to the west side and just caught the sun as it set behind the island in front of us. The mosquitos then descended in force and after finding out that food isn't served anywhere until 7pm to allow people to eat who are doing Ramadan we headed back to get covered in repellent and layer up the clothing. Still in the 10 minutes we were out when they were around and with constant swiping them off you I received about 10 bites! Just how! By the time we got back out it was 7pm and we had tea at a nice beach front place looking out at the lights of the island across from us and the black sea between us and them. If there wasn't any mosquitos this island would be paradise.Read more