green ginger noodle house...the quaintest little cafe you ever did see...

Tuesday 26th october 2010

ok, so at number 46 jalan pantai brawa, a new little cafe has opened. it's called Green Ginger Noodle House, and it is the most adorable little cafe to hit the Bali shores. as you can see from the photos, it is steeped in charm with a beautiful interior and delightful trinkets scattered throughout the cafe. a rack of vintage clothing for sale just adds to the overall charm of the place and you feel like you have walked into someone's home rather than a roadside cafe. the menu is succint offering a variety of asian dishes including laksa, papaya salad and miso ramen noodles. i tried the papaya salad (a favourite of mine from my days of living in Lao) and it was delicious - tasty and full of that particular flavour that comes along with a papaya salad that leaves a tingle in your mouth as your tastebuds are tantalised by the combination of flavour and spice. an orange juice to wash it down made sure that a return visit to this new addition to the Bali cafe scene is a must...

Green Ginger Noodle House,

46 Jalan Pantai Brawa,

Canggu - Bali

photos taken from Green Ginger facebook page

roots, rock, reggae...Gili T-style

Thursday 14th October 2010

if you're in Gili T, don't forget to drop into Sama-Sama Reggae bar to catch some live reggae tunes being played by the local band. a great way to unwind after a hard day at the beach...the singer who is originally from Lombok, sings in a mixture of Bahasa Indonesia, English and Sasak (the local dialect) and is downright rockin'! there are bungalows out the back of this restaurant where you can also stay...pretty convenient after a night of dancing away to reggae music...

just look to the rainbow, you will see...

Wednesday 13th October 2010

taken from the beach at Gili T, where it was a sun-shiny day looking towards Lombok where it was obviously pouring with rain...and lo and behold a perfect rainbow with every beautiful colour of it shining through in all its' glory. i haven't seen a perfectly coloured rainbow ever! and it's shooting straight into the ocean...wonder if there was a pot of gold down there?

Gili T sunset...

Sunday 3rd October 2010

truthfully, it didn't blow me away half as much as some of the bali sunsets. there's something about the sun setting over rice paddies and i'm a sucker for colourful sunset skies...i need red, purples, oranges...

transportation...Gili T-style!

Saturday 2nd October 2010

the famous Gili Trawangan cidomo...view from inside and out. NOT for the faint-hearted or weak-backed!

another day in a different paradise...Gili Trawangan...

Friday 1st October 2010

ok, so one would imagine that living in Bali, one would not need a holiday away from their holiday...well, think again! sometimes it does get a bit hectic here, especially during tourist high season, where the roads fill up with traffic and one feels like locking themselves away in their homes until the tourists have all gone back to wherever it was they came from...hence Gili Trawangan, one of three small islands off Lombok, the other two being Gili Air and Gili Meno. They are a short plane ride from Bali and a complete paradise in that there are no cars and motorbikes allowed on the island. this means transportation is down to bicycle, feet or something called a cidomo which is a horse drawn carriage.

it's pretty idyllic, with crystal blue waters and and white sandy beaches. life is very very slow and night times are one big party after another, with the location changing every night from one bar to the next. however, on the downside (if you can possibly imagine one!) food and drink is very expensive. with being such a small island everything has to be imported from the mainland, hence in some places there is a 21% tax charge! and most of it doesn't really taste that fantastic.

however, if you need to get away from it all and get a feel for what Bali might have been like 20 years ago, this is the spot. it's peaceful, you can find quiet beaches, swim in turquoise blue water and completely unwind. i'm thinking next time a trip to Gili Meno and Gili Air is in order as they are even less populated than Gili Trawangan.