theLOWdown: Gili Trawangan, Indonesia

Not a picture of our boat

The speedboat that we caught to Gili island was really cool. It had 5 engines and 2 decks; above and below, so you could still catch some rays on the way. The ride does take a couple of hours but it is completely worth the time and money to go.

Unfortunately, we lost Joel and James, our native Kiwi friends, they would have LOVED it on Gili but they were making a tour through Europe after Indo and didn't have enough time to come with us.

So we rolled up to Gili with a crew that included, myself (obviously), my sister Holly, Cheesey Mo, Sierra, and Stu McGee. We did end up meeting some other people along the way naturally, one of which was named Caroline who was a Canadian travelling by herself and she slapped me in the friend zone so fast that I'm pretty sure she broke a world record. Usain Bolt came in 2nd, she was that fast.

Holly, Cheese, Me, & Sierra

Our first mission off the boat was to find a place to stay. This reminded me of Kuta because it was so annoying. Everyone had the “best deal” or the “best place” but they never wanted to show it to you. They're very pushy...and somewhat lazy if that's believable.

So I had to put on my hard hat and get to work. I got in an argument or 2 but we eventually found a place that we thought was suitable. It was a 2 story bungalow a few streets back from the strip for $20/night. Not too shabby.

Then we decided to go grab some drinks and food, we are on vacation here and that’s what we do. We went to “Rudy’s” mainly because it’s the first place we saw with the cool pillowed cabanas. That’s where we met Ross & Hashis. They were our first encounter with the locals.

3 grams? Me thinks not!

They took really great care of us. Ross was a little younger than us and gave us the landscape of the island, he also gave us our first connection to acquire necessary items. Hashis was a veteran of the island and he taught us some of the local language, and also talked us into getting our first batch of magic mushrooms.

So 2 hours off the boat, and we’re in “Rudy’s” ordering our first (and not last) magic mushy pizza. Hashis tells us that it’s a 3 hour trip to the moon and back.

“You spend 1 hour going up, you spend an hour on the moon, and then it takes you an hour to come back down to normal”, he said.

He also told us that they put 3 grams on every pizza, but from the looks of it, he definitely put more on for us. It was massive…and highly effective. Hashis is a lot of things, a liar he is not.

Holly and I were floored. Cheese likes to play it cool in these situations so “he wasn’t really feeling it” but he was. I’ve done enough drugs in my time with Cheese to know when he’s making a “trip to the moon”.

Afterwards we decided to go for a walk on the beach to calm down. We went to the water and just let the waves roll over us. We were so messed up that Holly thought she was going to float away…

Me & The Sis

I told her not to start having a “freak out” because I’d have to leave her (I’m such a good brother).

I wouldn’t have actually “left” her per say...but maybe…I just would not stand in her general area for a designated period of time.

Yeah, that sounds better.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing on the beach. That’s how we spent a lot, if not all, of our daytime hours.

That first night we just grabbed some beers and sat outside our new bungalow. The guys who owned the place were also selling beers, which was convenient because that’s what we were grabbing outside.

Everything was all fun and games until Cheese knocked over their entire wall!

The reason we got the place so cheap was because they were still building onto the property and putting in a new swimming pool. That afternoon they had just erected a new wall to separate the pool from the bungalows.

Cheese went to buy us some beers, leaned back while he waited for them to come and….KABOOM!

The whole wall came tumbling down, him on top, Humpty Dumpty status confirmed!

His face was priceless…so were ours I imagine, we thought we were all dead…this is our first night on this island, we’re not on the main strip…this could be grounds for termination.

Somebody stop us!

The guys were cool though. At least they played it off really well. In Cheese’s defense it was a pretty shit-i-ly built wall (shit-i-ly is a word right?) so it wouldn't have taken much to knock it down, even if they had actually warned us about it not even an hour earlier….

It was hilarious. He felt so bad, so of course we continued to rub it in for the rest of his trip.

We only stayed there for a couple of nights.

For a couple of reasons, one obviously being Cheese’s unmitigated need to destroy…the other being the mosk. Which I was able to offend them about before we even handed them money to stay there…

I am extremely tolerant of other religions that aren't my own but in my defense I had no idea what that was. I thought it was one of their neighbors with a karaoke machine or something…there’s this little girl talking/singing which all sounds like gibberish to me so I asked them what that was.

“This is a Muslim country, you have to understand”, said the extraordinarily patient Balinese man.

Oh, I understand alright. I understand I just messed up real bad and my (constantly broken) inner monologue was not working again.

View from Gili Divers

“My bad”, timid idiotic American replies.

On top of our bungalow was the speaker for the mosk. Which plays for anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours a day, several times a day…including 5 and 6am. We had to get out of there.

The little girl preacher honestly sounded like 2 cats having sex (see, very tolerant). It’s all over the island so there’s no escape from it obviously, but it doesn't have to be in my bedroom window for f*** sake.

So Holly went and found a dive shop on the strip that she liked. It cost $40 a night, but was much better. It had A/C, Internet, a pool, and it’s own beach lounge area with round-the-clock service.

Basically...that's the life

That’s how we met Maday, Arman, and Conchill. They all worked at Gili Diver’s as servers/bartenders.

A lot of the days blurred together after that.

The basic 10-day forecast for Gili was wake up and get food at the lounge on the beach, drink on the beach, drink at happy hour somewhere (usually also “the lounge”), go out to whatever bar was busy that night, yell at slutty English girls, meet random people, hit on anything resembling hot, go home defeated, rinse and repeat.

A view from our beach "Lounge"

Well, except for the slutty English girls thing, that was a one night fiasco.

Cheese and I sometimes get so drunk that the truth spurts from our mouth like fountains in the park. We (and everyone around us) wish we would shut-up and keep it to ourselves, but it doesn’t work. If we see something we don’t like…we tell each other, we tell them, we tell everybody.

So one night we decided to tell this girl and her friends (who we knew from Kuta strangely) that we thought their form of “fun” was very unbecoming for such pristine young ladies….(that’s the nicest way I’ve ever described anything nasty…EVER)

Funny excerpt, after that, I saw the main girl hanging out with the Canadian Caroline and I was not nearly as intoxicated as the first time that I saw this one English Sloot McGoot (or Slut McGillicutty, I couldn’t decide, you pick one) but she walked right up to me and said, “I can’t talk to you, you make me feel bad about myself”.

LOL. That absolutely made my night!

Caroline & Sierra

Maybe YOU should make YOU feel bad about YOURSELF, making out with 6 different guys in the same bar and finding a way to go home with each of them on separate occasions…come on, just sayin’.

Caroline was not pleased…but she put me in the friend zone way too early for me to care what she thought.

I don’t mean to make it sound like everyone hated us. Quite the opposite actually, Caroline kept coming around and I introduced myself to anyone within earshot and/or looking lonely by themselves.

During one particular beach day I was on a mission to play volleyball. Okay, what started out as my wanting to talk to the chicks with the volleyball (I got shutdown)…quickly turned into a mission to play volleyball.

So I made some other Canadian friends, just walking up and down the beach asking people to play. We found another court along the beach where some locals were playing and began a very intense session of beach volleyball, 6-on-6, real deal stuff here.

My pride would not allow me to go sit back down next to those chicks when I made such a scene to play in the first place…I could tell they were impressed when they saw I found people to actually play.

I’m a go-getta! (I heard that in a rap song once)

They wanted me then of course...I think I have a problem.

The only other major occurrences I can think of that happened, that wouldn’t sound like I was repeating myself (see above). Would be the “Dark Moon Party” and of course the “Ecstasy Incident”.

The “Dark Moon Party” is a funny Asian tradition (they do it all throughout SE Asia) because it’s basically just a reason to throw a party. They throw “Full Moon” parties, “Half-moon” parties, and of course, the “Dark Moon” variety.

Just a starter...

We heard about a major party on the island, down at the end of the strip where there was going to be a DJ and a bonfire on the beach for this event so we decided to go see what it was all about.

We began the pre-game pretty early as we did on most days (again, see above) but that night for the occasion we decided to step it up a notch. (Pictured in the top right)

Excuse my French, but we get to this party and I am FUCKED.

I barely have enough to keep it together to order another beer at the bar. I start talking to this really hot girl beside me and it hits me out of nowhere. Poor girl probably thought I was having a conniption.

I got my beer and headed straight for the beach…

Nothin french about that...

To my delight, that’s where I found Cheese and Holly as well. Cheese was still “playing it cool” of course. I know him, if he were okay, he would have been at the bar buying Ms. Hot Girl shots.

Not hanging out in the dark with Holly and I discussing life and all things random.

I also say, I found them there…I’m pretty sure they were with me at the bar. I have no sense of time or actions during that night. I’m guessing they saw me high-tail it to the beach and decided to follow.

I'm not sure but between the shroom shake, combined with the excess amount of beer and the tequila shots…something happened. Something I didn’t particularly care for. I didn’t freak out. This wasn’t “bad acid trip in New Zealand” or anything but it wasn’t good and I didn’t want to be around anybody. Or at least I wasn't in the mood to be around anyone new. I had no desire to make that effort.

But speaking of a good freak out...here's a link to that "bad acid trip" I had in NZ: http://thatlowdown.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/road-trip-new-zealand-leg-four-wanaka.html

Again, no concept of time but we stayed out there for awhile. We spent most of it just talking about life, making "angels" in the cool, soft sand, and staring at the most beautiful sky we had ever seen!

Not taken by me, but here's an example of "Aurora Australis"

It was laced with so many stars and multiple color schemes streaking across a jet-black canvass, it was so gorgeous and surreal that we were convinced we had seen something special and decided to research it the next day, only to find out that it was in fact something completely amazing, it was "Aurora Austrailis".

Which apparently is a smaller version of the "Northern Lights"

After I began to feel better and come down, I went to grab another beer (with other people, good sign) and went to the bathroom.

Where I encountered some weirdo trying to barge in on me taking a piss, except I couldn’t figure out if it was really happening or if I was freaking out for real…I have had bad experiences with bathrooms and psychedelic drugs in the past so I was being cautious here…(again, check the link above)

But then I realized that it was real and this guy was just some drunken prick. So I came out of the bathroom and told him off, that’s when I knew I was back to normal. He slithered into the OTHER bathroom…damn straight, you don’t mess with the beard bitch!

Dark Moon Party

After that I was cool, I went to meet Holly and Cheese at the bar and grooved (I like to use funky verbs) my way over to the dance floor. Where I spent the rest of the night, until the party wound down and we went back to our rooms.

Nothing too major to report about the “Dark Moon” party really, I can’t remember anything.

However, the “Ecstasy Incident” is a whole different encounter all together. I had worked out a deal with one of our buddies (who shall remain nameless) for some ecstasy. Except there was a hiccup in the deal, I didn’t hear how much it cost. I thought it was $400,000Rp for 3. It was $400,000Rp a piece.

"No dice", I thought originally. It’s only $40AUS, but I wouldn’t have paid $40 back in college when I did it all the time and thought I was Robert Downey Jr.; however Holly and Cheese were still down to do it, cost be damned.

So we did and went out that night. We spent happy hour taking shots and drinking Long Island Iced Teas with a couple of busty Latina chicks I picked up on the beach. So we were already feeling pretty good when we left. As we were walking down the street to the bar, we decided to take them.

All of them, whole…which is normal protocol in my eyes but what I found out the next day was that these were a little bit more potent and should only be taken ¼ at a time…but no more than ½ at a time…

HO…LY….SHIT!

This was the best stuff I EVER HAD IN MY LIFE and that’s coming from me, who used to have a friend who dealt and used to give me all different kinds for free as long as I agreed to do it with him (what an easy trade!).

Look at those pupils!

I just remembered that the timing could not have been any better. As soon as we reached “Rudy’s” I was grinding my jaw and tapping my feet like a slack-jawwed yocal.

I remember dancing with some Canadian chicks (lots of Canadians in INDO, weird)…and Cheese announcing that we’re going to the bar for shots.

I decided that I didn’t need any shots at that moment in time. I needed to calm down. I needed to find a nice quiet spot for me to relax and take it all in before my head exploded. So I made my way back towards the bathroom/kitchen area where there was this little table in back right corner with 1 chair, completely in the dark.

Perfect.

I went to that chair and sat down to take a load off. I needed to reflect, I needed to come to terms with what I was dealing with. My brain was racing and my stomach was turning..I looked around at the party going on and remember thinking that it was going to be a great night…

Then I woke up…

My head was on the table…and every pore in my body had some fluid coming out of it...whether alcohol, sweat, tears, semen, I don’t know. Mostly sweat I hope.

But I was absolutely drenched, I was profusely sweating, like a fat girl writing a love letter, like I just came out of the pool, my t-shirt was sticking to me and I was in full “GO” mode.

I'm sweatin' sooo bad here with Olix

I stood up out of the shadows and screamed, “THIS IS THE BEST NIGHT OF MY LIFE!” in the direction of some random unsuspecting civilian walking into the bathroom unaware of my presence.

I can’t be bothered with people I may or may not give heart attacks to at this point, I have a party to get to.

In my mind, I had been gone for 5 minutes. I go over to the bar for tequila shots with Cheese and the Canadian chicks. They’re nowhere to be found.

Then a local guy with a really awesome afro comes up to me and says, “Adam?”.

I say, “Yes, my God you have incredible hair!”. (you should be aware that everything was acclimated and probably will be from here on out).

He says, “Holly needs you”.

That's how I found her...she's in BIG trouble right?

I go into big brother mode, even though I’m the little brother, “Where is she!? What’s going on!?”

He takes me over to a little spot near the beach at the cabana and there’s my sister laying on the pillows…tripping her fucking balls off!!!

Grinding her teeth, bouncing around on the pillows, she sees me and hops up immediately..”ADAM…OH MY GOD…I’M TRIPPING MY FUCKING BALLS OFF (told you) WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!!!??”

I see that she’s okay obviously. I tell them that I've only been gone for 5 minutes, long enough for a bathroom break. They see right through me, like a President without a thumb point.

Holly and Cheese are surrounded by new friends and they inform me that I’ve been M.I.A. for anywhere from 45 minutes to 1 hour. Holly also tells me the description that she told Olix to find me, "Long hair...big beard". Olix found me in 3 minutes flat.

The crew and our new buddy Olix!

I tell them my story and where I was, while trying not to think about the fact that my body shut itself down for a complete hour due to overheating and dehydration…..

I also have no time for these details of life and/or death.

Holly introduces me to Olix and Norman who apparently saw her freaking out early on and proceeded to take care of her. Which was very nice of them to do, so I immediately took them to the bar and bought them drinks and shots for their trouble.

I was also introduced to our resident Australians, Linton and Big Mac. They were sitting with Cheese at the table, ordering entire bottles of vodka. There was also a peculiar female hovering around…I mentioned this to Cheese.

You do you Big Mac!

“She’s by herself, she’s been here the whole time”, he says.

I walk over to her and inquire, “Are you a prostitute?”. She doesn’t speak to me for the rest of the night.

I was right, so I told Big Mac…

“I don’t care”, he says.

Fair enough Big Mac, you do you.

Honestly, I did feel bad about that crack I made. It was a serious question at the time and I was beyond hammered...but she remembered my name and said "Hello" to me every time I saw her after that....so I did feel a little bad, just a little. She was really sweet.

Not the owner...but he ran the show

We leave “Rudy’s” and head down to the “Pub” formerly known as “Irish”. That’s where we meet this guy in the picture to the left. Who for the longest time, we thought was the owner.

Why did we think he was the owner?

Because he kept jumping behind the bar and pouring everyone shots and NOBODY said anything.

Was he the owner?

NO!

How many bartenders can you see?

I asked him if he was tripping with us later on in the night after we took some pictures and I saw that he was sweating as badly as I was…so that goes to show this picture here which contains most of the people we were hanging out with BEHIND THE BAR. The local bartenders either didn’t care or were too afraid to say anything.

We spent a lot of time behind the bar, and on the bar. Very little time was spent in front of the bar unless it was chasing down skirts…or anything resembling this incredibly hot Irish girl (couldn't fit the pic here, pictured at the bottom).

We were a whirlwind of wasted, all of us. Not sure the head count of people on this crazy brand of ecstasy but it was at least half and half. At some point I picked up the Canadian Caroline and paraded her around the bar on my shoulder letting everyone slap her ass. Guys and girls alike, even taking her over to my sister and screaming, “Look what I found!!!”.

Caroline was again, not impressed. Guess we just weren’t meant to be.

Shucks...(loud fart noise with my hands...or...from the other end depending on my diet at the time).

See...she liked it...for whatever reason

Arman told me that at one point, he was sitting beside me at the bar and I was talking to this cute girl in a blue dress.

At some point in the conversation, I got bored with what she was saying and simply just kissed her right on the lips. She apparently screamed and asked me why I did it and proceeded to tell me that it was not okay.

So….naturally...

I did it again! “See it’s okay, no big deal, you like it!”.

She did like it, according to Arman and he wouldn’t steer me wrong. Not enough to come home with me obviously, but she was blushing at least.

I think at some point though, every chick I talked to saw how dilated my pupils were and chose to keep me at a “comfortable distance”, which was hugs and handshakes appropriate.

Which I can’t really say I blame them, I looked like an ax-murderer with that beard, even though it was badass.

Arman was really impressed though. He told me he wished he could do that, so I tried to help him find someone. He said that wasn’t how the locals did things. I tried to teach him the ways of the “Adam….the drunken ego-maniac”.

I ended up being the last one to leave the bar. After it was all said and done, and none of which I can remember after I kissed the blue dress girl. I can’t remember any of their names but I know we had fun, I have pictures to prove it.

We always hopped we would run into them again at some point on the island but it never happened.

We did find Big Mac and Linton again, the next night in fact. That was cool.

Norman & Big Mac

We tried to recreate the magic then, but we couldn't get in touch with my connection…so we tried Norman & Olix’s stuff.

Which sad to say, was nothing at all. It was complete crap and didn't nothing in comparison, so that was a letdown to say the least. They were cool guys, but someone misinformed Norman about his stash...which you wouldn't be able to tell from this pic to the left...

Norman did however hook us up with a patch of his own specialty mushrooms, grown from home, for free! So that more than made up for the bad "x". All-in-all we had a lot of fun filled nights on Gili, along with intense hangover mornings to match...and now that we have the local connections, when we go back…it should be even better!

We weren't ready to leave…but it was about that time to go back towards civilization and be real model citizens again…sort of...

Here’s a collage of Gili & Ectasy Pics:

Pool Bar

Pre-game harder than you go!

Olix & Holly

The group at Rudy's

Behind the bar AGAIN

I would like to clairfy the following 3 pics because it's funny to me. What we were going for in the following 3 pictures was the theme..."gangsta".

Holly just didn't get it...

After countless photos, that were deleted...(i'm talking 10 at least) and lots of yelling at Holly..."HOLLY THAT IS NOT GANGSTA! IT's NOT FUCKING GANGSTA HOLLY!"

we finally take this photo...