The Gili Islands are pretty much as close as you can get to that beach picture perfect view. The bright white sands, palm trees and gentle lapping waves are a constant reminder of how lucky we are to be able to travel the world like this.

The Gili's comprise of 3 small islands close to a bigger island called Lombok. We started on Gili Trawangan the biggest of the 3 islands and the one that has a reputation for being a party island. We took this as an opportunity for a good night out and after meeting with some German friends we hit Blue Marlin's Monday night party. This night has been going for years and has quite a reputation. The energy drinks helped fuel the night although we didn't quite make it to dancing on the tables like some of the locals.

We'd been looking forward to diving on the Gili isles and it didn't disappoint. After a day of rest from the partying and a quick refresher in the pool to remind ourselves how all the gear worked, we were straight on the boat and ready for our first dive. We went with a company called Aquadiction and were very happy with our choice.

So much so that Tim decided to further his skills and undertake his Advanced Diving Certification. If this sounds like a lot of hard work it really isn't! It's basically 5 dives with each one specialising in a certain area. So Deep Water, Navigation, Buoyancy, Night and Photography dives were all part of the package.

The visibility on the Gili's is incredible with sometimes up to 30m of clear blue water visible in front of you. The waters are also teeming with Turtles and whether it was diving off the boat or simply snorkelling off the beach you'd always see a turtle or two. The thousands of other bright coloured fish were also incredible, from Titan Trigger Fish to tiny Pygmy Sea Horses the variety of fish and coral was stunning.

When life on Gili T became too much we hopped on the dive boat and jumped across to Gili Meno. Meno is the smallest and quietest of the islands, we were staying in a beautiful bungalow and the family brought us delicious Indonesian food. It turned out island life really was all it made out to be.