Secluded Paradise, Perhentian Kecil

The beach where we spent every day (near romantic beach)

The moment we touched down on the smaller Perhentian island (Kecil), Laura, Erika, and Christina went walking along the beach looking for a place to stay. I sat on a sandy slope watching the neon blue water and minding the backpacks. Behind me, an Australian gal started yelling at her group of friends walking up the beach. “I sold your passports!” she yelled, “So it looks like we have beer money.” They laughed and she said, “Not like you care though, by the looks of it you could stay here forever.” I was excited, because that was exactly how I felt. But wait, there’s more!

Its raining

Well its raining.  But the rain is good because it means you sit under a roof, on the beach and meet new friends.  And its nighttime which means you also drink Bintang beer and play cards games….new Dutch card games you learn from you new Canadian friend.

We are currently on Gili T, a tiny island (in a set of three), off the coast of Lombok, the island east of Bali, for those of you that haven’t memorized the 17,000 islands in the Indonesian Archipelago.  🙂  We will be here for one more day, circumvent the island (which should take all of 3 hours), then head back to Bali, specifically Ubud.

Traveling has been good to us so far.  We started off in Singapore with Amando’s roommate from college, Chris.  Please see Amando’s FB page for awesome photobooth pictures they took together.  Starting the trip off with a friend was priceless.  Singapore is beautiful, lush, metropolitan, and the food!  OH the food!  We had, if I remember correctly, about 6 different kinds of cuisine.  After 5 days in a big city, it was off to Bali to start using some of those Marriott points.  And since then its been beach, beer, good friends, sun, and lots of walking.  We’ve quickly discovered that we: a) don’t like moving around as much as we thought, b) its important not to by a return boat ticket before you are sure that you will in fact, return, c) plans can change literally in a matter of hours, d) and that the snorkeling/diving around here is like looking down into an aquarium.

Look for some pictures coming soon and please feel free to share with your friends and family!  We are also hoping to, at some point, have guests posts involving others who have done similar things to us (traveled, fulfilled a dream, etc), so if you have anyone in mind, please send us an email.  We hope to inspire all of you, as so far, we have inspired ourselves.  We are incredibly grateful to be here and thank all of you for what you did to help us get here!