On my last night before I left Ubud for Gili, a friend and I went out for dinner in Ubud. As we drove through the main town, our taxi driver explained that we would have to stop for about 15 minutes as there was a festival procession making its way down the street. And what a procession! On chatting to a local on the boat to Gili I subsequently discovered that it was a village temple celebration that happens once ever 50 years. A procession of hundreds of Balinese made their way down the narrow street towards the temple, playing music and carrying their offerings. It was an amazing spectacle, which as the title of this entry suggests, took place without me having my camera on me. I did manage to capture it on my phone however, so whilst the quality isn’t so good, it will give you an idea… (when I can eventually upload it)

A few drinks later we headed back as I had an early start to Gili this morning. There I learnt my next lesson: when you see your bag disappear without warning amongst chaotic scenes at the port, have faith that it will make it on to your boat, because sure enough 2 hours later mine did, despite me being utterly convinced it was gone, never to be seen again. We arrived at Gili (boat trip not as rocky as people had suggested!), had to transfer from the fast boat to another boat for the 20m (yes, metres) to the harbour itself. There we offloaded (still into the water, despite the additional boat trip) and my journey to my current accommodation was by taxi in the form of horse and cart – there are no cars on Gili Meno. I tried not to be alarmed by the “sir likes sex” sign painted on the cart, and was grateful when the driver took his payment in rupiah…

This is a sleepy paradise – perfect for me to completely switch off. And on the basis it has taken me 24 hours to get this wifi connection, I don’t think I am going to have much choice. Photos are going to have to follow when I get back to the mainland, as there isn’t enough wifi power (I am sure there is a proper expression for that – bandwidth?) to do any kind of uploading. Which is annoying as it is incredibly beautiful here and I want to share that, as well as the selfie of me in the crystal clear turquoise waters. Karma hits again eh!

So I am going to switch everything off for the next few days, learn to dive, sleep, relax, enjoy the view, and will update this with photos later in the week.