Gili Trawangan is heavily influenced by Ramadan and if you can avoid it, I would not recommend traveling during that time. Western restaurants will be open but all the local warungs and food carts and whatnot will be closed during the day, and many during the night at well (they close for the month). The mosque calls will be twice as frequent and loud, which makes it tough to sleep. And unfortunately, I found that tired and sleepy people are also cranky people 🙂

Also, local divemasters will not be working at that time — part of what I loved about diving in Gili T was it’s one of the rare Southeast Asian destinations with plenty of local dive staff, so that was a bummer too.

I hope that I will be there next year to report on it for Alex in Wanderland!

Yeah, I too have certain places I will never go back to. I spent a week in the Perhentian Islands in Malaysia almost five years ago and it was such a special week, I would never want to mar those memories by returning. Some things deserve to stand alone 🙂

For me the best solution has been mixing in the old with the new…. visiting old special places but also making time to visit fresh destinations within the same country. That’s what makes Thailand remain such an exciting place to be despite the million Thai stamps in my passport!

I wish you all the best and hope it does for you! I’ve done five big trips to Southeast Asia now, and each one manages to be special 🙂

That’s fun too 🙂 However I find myself going back to the same places over and over again. I love that feeling of the exotic becoming familiar.

That is a good way to look at it and a nice way to go back somewhere a second time. I always love playing tour guide and showing friends and family around the places that have been special to me!

Well my best friend on Gili is very pregnant right now, so I will have to return as some point to meet her little girl! Probably in about a year or so I will head back to Southeast Asia, if all goes according to plan!