BACK TO GILI TRAWANGAN IN INDONESIA…
Spending time in the Philippines really makes you feel like you are travelling. Since the country is made out of thousands of islands, you can let it take forever to move from A to B, making the experience as adventurous as you like. After a couple of weeks, you are loaded with the spells of this country… You can even become a little over-stimulated!

THE BEAUTY OF BLUE MANGO BUNGALOWS
With mixed feelings I left the beautiful Philippines behind, and made my way down to Indonesia and the region of West Nusa Tenggara. I heard that Blue Marlin Bungalows had been renovated and I was interested in seeing how they had been done up. It was the perfect excuse for attending one of the islands famous parties and hanging out at one of Indonesia's best dive operators. So I decided I had made myself worthy of a break on Gili Trawangan. It was a short but brilliant break.

Two Danes professionally maintain the popular dive center and they do an impressive job, making everything run smoothly.

I was happy to find the dive center full of energy and chatty divers in all ages. It is located right in the heart of the most atmospheric part of the island, on a crazy little strip of paved beach, where backpackers from all over the world seek asylum. Most of them end up staying for several weeks longer than planned. I find the life you live on this island just as interesting as the diving itself.

With quite an intense urban developing project going on in the northern part of the island, you can now find all types of accommodation, big villas and private beach penthouses - whatever you want!

I was just happy to find the cosy simple bungalows in Blue Marlin had been painted and fitted with new showers. That's all you need really, a good bed and a shower.

A HIGH QUALITY DIVE CENTER
The bungalows are located right behind the dive center, which is an Instructor Development Dive Center, meaning that they train most of their instructors and dive masters themselves, thus keeping everything on a very high level of standard. With bungalows in the back, restaurant in the dive center and well-educated dive staff, they have the most energetic family thing going on. No harm travelling to this place on your own!

THE PARTY & THE PAIN
As for the party, it was good as always on this enchanted little crazy island. But I do struggle with the fact that they saw a Manta Ray on the morning dive, when I was paralyzed on the beach disguised as my evil twin PAIN. I swear I will not compromise on my diving in the future…

Go check out the dive and stay packages for Gile Trawangan on the Blue Venture Diving or on the Kilroy website.