Gili Air, Lombok, Indonesia

29th April – 3rd May 2018

Once we had been collected from our hostel in Ubud, we had a few more people to pick up before we made our way to the port. The car most certainly wasn’t the safest and the passenger side of the windscreen was completely smashed up, and there weren’t any seat belts, but we got there in one piece. There also wasn’t any air conditioning and the humidity was high, so I was like a dog with my head out of the window, trying to get a breeze, the whole way there.

When we arrived at the port, our driver seemed to park as far away from the office as possible. We had to carry our bags back to where we had driven past, in order to check in. There was a little café with the office and it was busy. Lots of people were sat around fanning themselves trying to keep cool. We checked in and got stickers with our destination on, before we had to sit around and wait. We were asked if we wanted to book a return trip but we said no at first because we didn’t know if they were just saying it was cheaper to book with them. After some discussion, we booked it anyway, as they could have been telling the truth and we didn’t have to worry about it, once it was sorted and they said they would take us to our next hostel, back in Bali, so it was worth it.

After waiting for about forty-five minutes, we were finally asked to walk down to the front. It was complete chaos down there and I soon realised why they were keeping us up in the café until the boat arrived. At the port, there were so many people booked on with many different companies, all waiting for their boats to arrive, and when they saw all of our group moving towards the front, they all started moving too. I guess they felt that they had been waiting longer and it looked like we were pushing in, but their boat wasn’t there.

Once we had fought our way through the crowds, we made it onto the boat. We found ourselves some seats and got comfy, or at least tried to get comfy, as there wasn’t much leg room. On the journey to the islands, we both had a little nap. It was so hot on the boat and there was lots of bouncing over the waves, so sleeping was best.

After about an hour and a half, we arrived at Gili T. This wasn’t where we were getting off, so we just had to wait for passengers to get off and the crew to off load their bags, before others got on.

From Gili T, it only took ten minutes to get to Gili Air, which was good, as we were ready to get off the boat. When we pulled into the port at Gili Air, we had to wait for our bags to be brought off. Once we had collected them, we could set off to our accommodation, which wasn’t far at all. I had decided by this point that it’s easier for me to carry my small bag on my bag and just hold my big bag in my arms. This only works for short distances but it’s much comfier for me.

On Gili Air, we stayed in a homestay (about a five minute walk from the port) which I found on booking.com. I wasn’t too sure what to expect at first, but from the moment we arrived, we were welcomed with open arms. We only had to say we were from England and he showed us straight to our room, we didn’t have to check-in or anything. Once we had dropped our bags off and cooled down a little, we went to pay up, before we went out. The rate for the room was less than we were anticipating which was great – more spending money for us!

Once everything was settled at the hostel, we went for a wander on the island. We walked along the main street, to the front and turned left and just started walking. While it’s possible to circle the entire island, we weren’t up for it straight away, we had a little while to tackle that.

Our mission was to grab an ice cream (of course) as we hadn’t eaten since breakfast and price up some snorkelling gear for the next few days. As we were desperate, our ice cream wasn’t a proper ice cream in a cone, it was a magnum from the shop, but it was needed and it was good – we didn’t have the energy to wander around looking for real ice cream. While we ate, we wandered along the front comparing renting prices to buying prices for the snorkelling equipment. At first we thought it would be better to buy it and then we can use it for the rest of the trip, but we didn’t know which was best and it was really difficult.

As we didn’t urgently need the snorkelling things, as we weren’t going that night, we soon gave up and decided that we needed some dinner. We checked out the menus of the places we had passed, and decided to give ourselves a cut-off point so that we didn’t end up circling the island and passing out from hunger. For some reason (I think it’s because I was so thirsty) I was really drawn in by the 2 for 1 cocktail offers most places had. We finally chose a place and sat down; we ordered drinks, only to find out that they didn’t have cocktails, despite their advertised offer.

My heart was set on a frozen strawberry daquiri at this point, so we carried on walking, looking for somewhere else. As we are both very indecisive people, it took a while but we finally agreed on one and got a perfect table right at the front, down on the beach. We wasted no time ordering our drinks, while we looked at the food menu.

As I was so thirsty, I tried to order a bottle of water too, but this was hard work and took around four attempts, with four different waiters until we finally got it – as this point, the first cocktail was gone! For dinner, we decided to share some tapas dishes, which were all very good.

After dinner, we wandered back in the direction of the hostel. We walked a little bit further up the main street to eye up some future eateries. They were all much cheaper and looked just as good, so we decided that’s where we would go in future.

As it was dark, and the island isn’t very well lit, we thought it would be best to fully explore in daylight. We went back to the hostel where I did some blog writing and we tried to sort out some photos (which is a difficult task with rubbish wifi). By the time everything was sorted, it was quite a late night, before we fell asleep.

The next morning, we had a little lie in, but I struggle to sleep past 8, especially when I have new places to see! We got ourselves ready for the day, before going for breakfast in the reception area. Breakfast was included and we had quite a choice. I chose omelette and Joe just wanted jam on toast. I got a nice feeling during breakfast, as the place is run by a family (from what I can tell) and they are all so welcoming and happy to help with anything – it’s just a really nice atmosphere.

After breakfast, we grabbed a bucket from reception, so that we could wash some clothes. We left them in soaking, while we went out.

Our first stop for the day was to a yoga place that we had seen advertised all over the island. As we both wanted to try some yoga, we thought we would go and check it out before committing to anything. We saw a different yoga place on the way up, so thought we would compare them once we had some wifi, before deciding where to go.

From the yoga shop (H2O), we wandered to the beach. We had decided by this point, that renting snorkelling gear would be much easier for us, as it was cheaper for the three days, and we definitely have no room to carry more things around with us. We found it a little difficult to find anywhere that rented it, where we were, but we eventually got some. We only paid 100,000 for the both of them, so it worked out at £5 for the day, as long as we returned it all by 5pm.

Out in front of the stall where we rented the equipment was the ‘turtle area’ apparently. We got ourselves ready for the water, and hid the bag under a tree (I didn’t feel completely comfortable with this but we had no other option), before getting into the water.

We had to swim out a little bit to get to the coral but when we did, it was amazing! We weren’t there two minutes, before we saw a turtle! It was huge and so close to us! We were both fascinated by it, just following its every move! I managed to get some good photos of it, before it swam off and another one came by. We watched this one for a while too, before that swam off and we decided to go in, for a rest.

Back on the beach (which was full of coral), we had a sit down and a dry off. It was a really pleasant temperature in the shade and there didn’t seem to be any humidity either which was nice. We sat there for a while, while Joe had a little snooze, before we got back in the water.

Unfortunately, on our second snorkel, we didn’t see any turtles. There were lots of cool fish, but no turtles around. The current was so strong though, that we drifted so far along, I don’t think we were even near the ‘turtle spot’ for very long. After about half an hour, we gave up and got out again. The mask was squashing my upper lip so much but when I loosened it, it let in water – I guess you get what you pay for.

Once we had dried off the second time, we decided to go for a wander around the island to see what else there was, and see if there were any other snorkel spots. We also wanted a smoothie or some kind of refreshing drink, so we were on the hunt for that. Since being in Bali, we have seen dragon fruit quite a lot. It’s a fruit I have never tasted before but the colour of it intrigued me so much, I wanted to try it, so I was looking for a smoothie with it in.

After wandering for a while, we didn’t have any success, but we did come across a proper ice cream stand and we couldn’t resist. I had a caramel flavour and Joe got brownies and they were both good! We ate them while we carried on walking, still looking for a drink stop.

About half way around the island, we decided the dragon fruit hunt needed to be put on hold, as we were having no success but still wanted a drink. We stopped in a bar on the east side of the island and chilled out in the shade, on some beanbags. We both ordered a sprite in the end and once I had finished mine, I chilled out so much, I nearly fell asleep.

From the bar, it was about forty-five minutes carrying on, around the island, to get back to the turtle spot, where we had to return our gear, so we decided to do that. Along the way there were lots of bars and restaurants but some of them looking a little sad. The main reason for this, we were guessing, is the amount of rubble on the beach fronts. I asked a man about it the night before and he said the government were going around knocking buildings on the beaches down, but he didn’t tell me why. It is something that only started a couple of days earlier (the day before we arrived), and we saw it happening at one point on our walk. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why they would do this to these families who have built a livelihood out of it, but it made me determined to find out. Some bars were completely demolished, while others had a separate building, off the beach, which was still intact, so they had something but now had to clear the rubble.

When we arrived back at the turtle snorkelling spot, we had done a full lap of the island – something I was determined to do during our stay. We thought we would go for one last snorkel before returning our gear, so we got ourselves ready. We didn’t get very far though, as the tide was very low and we were walking through lots of seaweed and coral. As we decided to turn back, a man told us we shouldn’t go any further as there were hedgehogs in the long grass. We’re not sure if he meant hedgehogs or was just referring to the spiky coral, but we weren’t going any further anyway.

After we returned our snorkel equipment, we made our way back to our room. We hung our washing out, that had been soaking all day, and wanted to freshen up before going out for dinner. However, when we turned the shower on the smell was disgusting – it smelt just like Rotorua in New Zealand. We let it run for a bit but nothing changed, so Joe went to tell the man at reception. He came straight away to clean it and it did smell better once he had done that.

Once we were ready, we set off out for dinner. We had researched where to go and the number one place on Trip Advisor was called Warung Sunny; it was number one for local foods, cheap eats and overall on the island, so it was a place we had to try! It took us about fifteen minutes to get there, and when we did, it didn’t look very busy, although it was still early. There weren’t any signposts for it along the way and it was down a bit of an alleyway, so this made me think that it must be good if they don’t need to advertise but it’s still number one.

Before sitting down, we checked out the menu, but we had already seen photos of food online and it looked tasty. We chose our table and sat down, to look at the menu properly. I finally found somewhere that sold dragon fruit smoothies, so I couldn’t not get one. When it arrived it was fluorescent pink and it didn’t taste at all like I thought it would, but I still enjoyed it. For food, we both got an Indonesian style burrito which were both tasty.

As we were still a little hungry afterwards (we had only eaten ice cream since breakfast), we decided to order dessert. The options were limited but we went for fried banana and decided to share. When it came it was so much tastier than anticipated and there was so much of it, we couldn’t even eat it all! Once we could move again, we paid up and made our way home. I couldn’t believe how cheap it was, for what we got: we paid 120,000 IRP altogether, which is about £6.50.

Back at the homestay, we sorted out the rest of the washing and I did some writing – it’s all I seem to do in the evenings. We keep saying we will start a new series, but there never seems to be time! We got into bed and carried on sorting things out until we were too tired and fell asleep.

The next morning, we were planning on going to a yoga class. However, when we woke up, I just didn’t have the energy to move, so I did a little research and found out that Uluwatu, in Bali is the best place for yoga, apparently and as that is our next stop, we decided to wait until then. Whilst doing the yoga research, we found out that our booked hostel is miles away from everything else in Uluwatu, so re-planned that, before we got up.

Once we were dressed, we went out for breakfast. This time, we both had banana pancakes, which were good, and we knew they were fresh as he had to go out and buy the stuff once we had ordered them!

After we had eaten, we went back to our room to finish getting ready, before heading out for the day. It feels so nice to not be rushing or be on a schedule, for a change. Our first plan was to head to the swings in the water, which were on the other side of the island. On the way, we stopped off at a couple of stalls to compare prices of snorkel trips, as the trips go around all three islands, so we get to see different snorkel sights.

When we arrived at the swings, we couldn’t resist taking photos – it’s the typical tourist thing to do on the Gili Islands. We had to wait our turn, but we got some photos on the swings together, as there were two seats. There were a lot more swings than I imagined (I thought there would just be one) but I think the different bars and restaurants build them outside their place to attract customers.

After sitting on the swings, we walked along the beach front and found a hammock in the water! We took it in turns to lie in it, and I could have stayed there all day, it was that comfy!

From the hammock, we moved off the beach and walked along the path to look for more snorkel trips for our final day, and find some snorkel equipment to hire out to spend the rest of the day exploring the seas. Every price that we got for the trip, was the same, but as we really liked the first guy that we spoke to, we decided that we would go back to him to book it. For snorkel equipment for the day, we found some for a cheaper price than the day before, so that was ideal.

While the man was getting our things together, I got talking to him about the rubble everywhere. He again, told me that the government had done it and when I asked why, he said that they wanted to make Gili Air pretty. To us, this sounded like they are trying to commercialise it too much, as we both agreed that we loved that the island is full of the locals who are so friendly and welcoming and running their own business. The man told us that despite the fact they are trying to make the island pretty, by putting in a new road, they have left the piles of rubble everywhere, making it quite unattractive – one of the main things I commented on when we arrived, so imagine many others would feel the same. He also said that the government aren’t going to clean up the mess, it’s left for the locals to do.

Once we had all of our equipment, we then wanted to find a spot to go into the sea. We had read that the best snorkel spot wasn’t where we had been the day before, so we thought we would try that instead. We wanted somewhere safe to put the bag for the day, so we thought we would buy a drink in a bar and leave our things at the table or sunbed while we went in – it seemed to be what everyone else was doing. We went into a place and were shown to some sunbeds. We sat down before we were told it was 100,00 each to hire a sunbed for the day, so we got up and left.

Just over from the bar, on the same beach, there was a little spot that no one had claimed, so we did, for the day. We hung the bag up on some bamboo that was sticking out of a pile of rubble, so that it wouldn’t get wet, as the tide was still pretty high. We got kitted up and headed into the water.

At first, we both had trouble with our snorkels, as they kept leaking in water, but we persevered for a while. We swam out and saw so many cool fish! There were so many different types and colours and sizes, it was so amazing to see! Annoyingly the SD card in my GoPro was full, when we got out there, so we couldn’t get any photos, and we saw another turtle too.

After a while, Joe got fed up with his mask, so he went back in, while I stayed out a little longer. When I went in for my rest, I tried to delete some files from my GoPro but for some reason it wasn’t working, so I decided to go and buy a new card instead. It took me about fifteen minutes to get there and back, which wasn’t too bad. Joe waited for me and as soon as the new card was in the GoPro, we got in the water.

This time, when we went in, there were hundred and hundred of fish surrounding us. People had come in on tour boats and were feeding the fish bread, so they were just swarming, it was so cool! We also saw what looked like a shipwreck which had loads of coral growing on it and fish swimming in and out – it was really pretty. After a while, we both got out as our masks were making it too hard, as we had to keep rolling over to sort them out.

Once we had dried off, we went for a walk to get a drink, to refresh. We found a warung further up the beach: I got a fresh lemon juice and Joe ordered a sprite. We sat on some semi-broken bamboo bed and chilled out for a little while. We started to realise that our day was very similar to the previous day.

After our drinks, we carried on walking around the island. We had seen a stall the day before that had ‘Gili Air’ bracelets, but the stall owner was asleep in the back and we didn’t want to disturb him. I wanted the bracelet for my bag, as I knew I wouldn’t find a patch. We eventually found the stall and bought the bracelet, so I was happy.

From the bracelet stall, we cut into the island and walked towards the snorkelling tour stall from the morning. Sadly, when we got there, it had shut for the day, so we couldn’t book it with him. We had seen lots of other places too for the same price, he was just the nicest and sold it to us the best.

Instead, we returned our snorkelling gear and found another place to book our tour, before heading back to the homestay.

When we got back, I was so hungry, so we had quick showers, sorted out our washing and did some restaurant research, before heading back out. We had found a nice looking sate place that we had passed earlier, so had decided to go there. It was only five minutes around the corner, so it was ideal for my stage of hunger.

When we got there, we checked the menu before sitting down. We ordered a few different sate sticks – chicken, beef and vegetable – to share, with some potato fries. As the sate sticks were pretty small, we were still quite hungry afterwards, so ordered more potato fries and a chicken sate wrap to share. After eating that, we still weren’t completely full but thought that the bill would be huge if we kept on adding more and more, so decided to pay up and go for ice cream instead. The food was nice, it just wasn’t quite enough for how hungry we were.

Once we had bought our ice cream, we sat on the front and ate it, before walking back to our room.

When we got back, I was still a little peckish, so Joe nipped out for some snacks while I did some writing. We chilled out for the rest of the evening, and endured another power cut – it was quite a long one this time, before going to sleep.

On our final full day on the island, we had an alarm set for 8am. Although this is a massive lie in to what we were used to when we were on the road in Australia, I find these wake up calls much more difficult. We got up and had some breakfast, before we got our bag ready and walked down to the front to the stand where we had booked our tour, the night before.

At the stall, we checked in with the man, before he took us further along the front to meet the rest of the group, and the boat. I think there must be lots of stands all over the island, selling tickets for the same boat, because when we arrived, there were loads of people there already.

Once everyone had arrived, we boarded the boat, and it was a crowded one! They did warn us about this, but the private tour was almost four times the price, so it wasn’t worth it. We squeezed into a space and once everyone was on, we set off around to the other side of the island to pick more people up!

After everyone had been collected, we set off on the trip. We didn’t drive very far, until it was time to jump off for our first stop. the first stop was just off Gili Air, but it was a place a little bit further out, that we hadn’t seen before. The coral and the fish were so beautiful and we saw more turtles! The problem I found, though, was that we had to stick together as a group and there were just far too many people to even get close to the turtle, which was a shame – I much preferred it when it was just me and Joe.

After a while, we were called back to the boat. We all climbed back on, before driving to the next spot. We weren’t entirely sure where the second spot was, somewhere between Gili Air and Gili Meno we think, but the guides never told us anything and it wasn’t the tour that the first man we spoke to, described, so maybe there were differences in the tours available.

We jumped back into the water and had a little swim around, seeing more beautiful fish and coral and another turtle. At this stop, we both had a go at diving down into the water, which was a little harder than I thought it would be, and it was painful on the ears, as the pressure changed.

Once we were back on the boat again, we had one final stop before lunch. The third stop was to see the underwater statue just off Gili Meno. We jumped off the boat, but there were about four other boat loads there at once and it was chaos. There were so many people trying to crowd around this one statue in the water, that we didn’t even know anything about! Later, when we got back, Joe researched it and it was apparently put there in recent years by British artist to encourage coral growth, as it is made from a material to do this.

Towards the end of our visit to the statue, it got a little less busy, so it was more enjoyable. We both took it in turns to dive down and get close to it, and it was quite cool to see. After about fifteen minutes, we made our way back to the boat.

From the statue, we drove up to Gili Meno island, where we got off the boat to have some lunch. The guides told us to go to the place on the front, but it was expensive, so we wandered along and found somewhere else which was much cheaper. We sat in a little hut and ordered some food. I wasn’t overly hungry so just ordered chips, and Joe had a very untraditional Indonesian meal of a chicken burger.

Once we had finished eating, we made our way back to the boat. Not everyone was ready yet, so we stood and waited for a little while before we boarded again. Once everyone was back on board, we set off again at about 1.30.

Our final stop of the day, didn’t seem to be very far off Gili Meno, so we never went to Gili T like I thought we would – the tours must differ quite a bit. Although it hadn’t been long since we ate, we jumped off anyway, for one last snorkel. We enjoyed swimming up and down and see the beautiful fish. The GoPro had once again broke, so there weren’t any photos from this stop, unfortunately – this was something that needed sorting because it’s very frustrating and I paid a lot of money for this new one. We didn’t stay in the water for the full length this time, as we were having mask and snorkel trouble, but just as we got on the boat, they called everyone back in anyway.

Once we were all back on board, we drove back to Gili Air, where we were all dropped off. We weren’t sure what do to with ourselves back on Gili Air, so while we decided to go back to our room for a quick toilet stop, while we had a think.

As there were still a few hours of sun left, I wanted to find somewhere where we could lie on a sunbed for an hour or two and not have to pay a fortune. We remembered that the yoga place that we didn’t end up going to, had a café with access to a pool, so we decided to try there. The smoothies were a little more expensive than what we were used to, but they were really tasty, and we got to have a dip in the pool and a lie on the sunbeds, so it was worth it.

After lounging on the sunbeds, and enjoying our drinks, we decided to head off again. I had been offered by a few people to get a braid in my hair and I was really tempted, so we went to have a look. We went to the back of the island to speak to a man who we had previously spoken with, but he only had bright coloured threads and I didn’t want that in my hair, so we carried on. We looked in a few stalls, until we ended up back at the front of the island, where I saw a girl getting hers done. It looked really good and they had some good colours, so after some deliberation I decided to go for it.

Whilst my hair was being braided, Joe sat and watched a load of locals playing football. Even though he was told he could join in, he resisted and just watched for about half an hour. Eventually he got up and they all welcomed him into the game. Apparently, the teams were picked based on hair styles, so I had no clue which team he was on, but I could watch him from where I was.

Coincidentally, the game was finished at the same time as my braid, so we paid up and walked to the homestay. We had very quick showers, as it was already much later than we were used to for dinner, and we were hungry.

Once we were ready, we made our way up to Warung Sunny, the same place we ate on the second night. We had looked at other places and discussed whether to try somewhere different, but Sunny’s had things on the menu that looked so good, we wanted to try them too. We shared an opak-opak which was amazing and got another dish each for our main. Although it was all good, we both wished we just stuck with the opak-opak as that was the best!

After dinner, we made our way back to the homestay. On the way we encountered two frogs, one of which jumped on my foot and freaked me out – it was traumatic! We got some ice cream after that, to calm my nerves, before we eventually made it back.

We stayed up and chatted for a while. I had decided to have a night off from blogging, so that we could start a new series. However, as we set it up, we realised that it had expired from the downloads section in Netflix, so we couldn’t watch it after all that! We chilled out and enjoyed the rest, before falling to sleep.

On our final morning on Gili Air, we couldn’t quite treat ourselves to a lie in, as we had left packing to the last minute. We got up and Joe went down the street to the boat transfer shop to check what time we had to check in, but he was too early, as it was still shut.

When he got back to the room, we finished packing up our last bits and pieces, before trying at the boat place again. Luckily, the boat wasn’t leaving until 11.30 so this gave us plenty of time to get ourselves organised. While Joe finished off packing his bag, I tried to get in touch with the GoPro people about the trouble I had been having with it. This went on a little longer than expected, so I had to take my laptop to breakfast with us so that I could continue my conversation. Just before we left, they finally agreed that it was faulty and that they would replace it, but I just had to wait until I was home, so that I could send the faulty one back first.

Once all of that was sorted, we set off towards the harbour. We checked in at the time we were told (10.30) but then had to wait about an hour and a half for the boat to actually arrive. While we waited, we got some water and pringles to keep us going, before we were finally invited to board the boat back to Bali.

Gili Air was a sad but beautiful place. It’s a shame we didn’t arrive a day or two earlier to see it before the government started to destroy the buildings. We had to try and see past the rubble piles and imagine what it would have looked like, or what it will look like once it’s been cleared up. The snorkelling was amazing though and we both loved swimming with the turtles, but definitely preferred doing it ourselves off the coast, where it was much quieter than the boat trip. After and peaceful and relaxing few days, it’s time to head back to explore more of Bali.

To travel is to live, Katie x