Gili(gan’s) Island

Gili air, Indonesia

September 19th-24th

We both wanted to spend the last week or so resting on a beautiful and tropical beach before having to head back to reality.  Originally we had planned to do this on the islands of Thailand, but as we have mentioned before, we had some VISA/Delta issues and it led to some very unexpected and great destinations.  We had visited three countries we had not planned to as a result, none of which either of us had ever been to: Malaysia, Singapore and now Indonesia.  We had heard from our friends and travel guru’s Katelyn and Gordon about the Gili Islands and so far their recommendations were spot on.  The Gili Island chain is a series of small islands East of Bali and just West of a larger island called Lombok.  (Lombok was the island we could see from the volcano of Bali).  They are three small islands, listed from East to West: Gili Trawangan, Gili Meno, and Gili Air.  None are large but the most developed is Gili T and the least is Gili Meno.  We chose Gili Air because it was in between (Gili T having too much partying and Gili Meno being too quiet).  To give you an idea of how rustic this place is, there are no automotive vehicles allowed making travel by foot or by horse drawn carriage the only means of transport; there are also no ATM’s.

We arrived via “fast” boat from the port in Amed, Bali.  During our infamous night out in Bangkok, we had heard of a nightmare story from Katelyn and Gordon about rough seas and a very bad boat from the Gilis, so we tried to book a more substantial boat.  This boat and our travel was better than theirs, but there was still rough seas and this made for a VERY bumpy two-hour boat ride.  The trip was also complicated by the absence of ATMs on the island of our destination.  We had cash on hand for expenses but we had planned on paying the boat master with credit card, but the island had no power at the time (a common occurrence we would find out).  So during our stop at Gili T, which had ATMs, I had to run barefoot around the island to find an ATM.  After several tries on some that had no money in them I finally got enough to pay our fare.  This after being hit by a horse drawn carriage and running into a tree branch poking me in the eye. (no ocular damage thank goodness).  After that we reached our port of call, again a small beach with a number of shacks lining it.

After hopping off the boat and grabbing our bags we started walking down the road to find a place to stay.  We had looked before we left, but were told it was low season and we would have no trouble finding a place.  Unfortunately it was hot and the road was basically slightly reinforced sand, so the going was tough with the large backpack.  We had “smartly” reduced our overall baggage by leaving one pack the the Hilton in Singapore (we would pick in up on our way back) but it concentrated most of the weight into my pack and it was even heavier.  This and I was STILL fighting off an illness, but I planted at a coffee place and Al scouted for places to stay unencumbered with baggage.  She found a place called Hotel Gili Air and we booked a ocean view bungalow there.

These accommodations are simple, but amazingly cheap when one considers what you get.  We had a private room and bath, air conditioning and hot water and an unobstructed view of the beach and ocean, only 10-15 meters away.  The resort had a pool and restaurant and breakfast buffet was included.  On the beach there are several recliners with umbrellas and also half bungalow huts with pillows and tables on the beach.  And there is free Wi-Fi in the rooms!  I mention this with a touch of edge as I sit in a Hilton in Singapore that wants to charge for internet at a rate of $10 per hour.  All this was about for about $25 per night.  Score.

It would not make sense to recount the details of this portion of the trip chronologically because for the most part it was admixture of relaxing on the beach, relaxing by the pool, relaxing in the mini-bungalow’s… you get the picture.  We would take walks around the entire island that would take about two hours if you are going slowly and taking pictures.  The island being underdeveloped and in the middle of the low season does not offer much in the way of culinary delights like Ubud.  Most of the places to eat on the island are attached to resorts much like ours.  The low season was a little disconcerting because there were so many of these near identical combinations of resort/seaside restaurants and too few tourists to populate them.  Some of the resorts were literally abandoned and boarded up and would not be out of place in a horror movie.  However most were active places leaving bars and restaurants with only a few or no patrons and Indonesian employees hanging out desperately trying to get any passerby to try their food.

However we found a place about halfway around the island called Scallywags, that was the only place to even resemble a proper restaurant, both in its operation and patronage.  We ate there for probably half our meals. They had some more versions of the Storm beer including a Bronze Ale Allyson enjoyed and a stout that I liked.  The Indonesian food there was great but their Western food was the best – we had great fajitas and burgers there, as well as mint chocolate chip ice cream.  We also had food at a place nearby called the Chill Out Bar (the names of the places were pretty interesting i.e./ Chill Out, Mirage, Sandy’s).  One of the things all the open places offer is barbeque of fresh fish, which they display at the front of the restaurants.  One even had some parrot fish, which is not cool because they are so pretty and I imagine crappy tasting, but oh well.  The barbeque fish I had was a grouper in chili sauce and it was amazing, probably top ten meals on this trip.

One of the days we went snorkeling.  We had heard the snorkeling was good.  After the diving experience on Koh Tao Thailand however it was hard to imagine this would be more than a little diversion.  We could see the coral outcrops from our bungalow and on low tide most of it was exposed.  I figured the coral would be dead and this would be a simple break from the many different forms of relaxing we were doing.  It took a while to get out to past the shallows (we went at pretty low tide and we were wearing flippers).  We finally got out past the break and started.  Our plan was to ride the current to Scallywag’s, half-way down the island, not because of the need for a post-snorkel drink (although we did end up doing just that) but we knew there was a nice sandy outlet there making egress easier.

Immediately we were blown away.  Firstly the “vis” (“cool” lingo for visibility) was really good that day.  Also the coral was fairly healthy further from shore.  And the marine life was INCREDIBLE.  I could not believe it.  Save for some exotic fish known to live at lower depths we saw a variety of marine life comparable to our best dives in Thailand.  We saw barracuda, parrot fish, long-fin banner fish, trumpet fish, squid, trevaly, bat fish and more.  Also the sheer number of fish per cubic feet was higher than in Koh Ha.  At one point we were surrounded by thousand of small blue fish swimming in tight swirls in all directions.  And for me the most amazing thing was something we did not see on our dives: two giant sea turtles.  They hung out with little fear and were amazing.  Allyson also had an encounter that I imagine for her is the highlight.  At some point she saw something blurry in her mask because it was so close.  She got my attention and pointed out an extremely small lone fish (less than half an inch) that resembled in color a small Clown Anemone fish (think Nemo).  He followed Allyson and her mask for the better part of 20 minutes.  She loved it.  We ended up drifting for about two full hours.  Towards the end we had broken through some thermocline ( a switch from cold to hot water, or vice versa which creates a mirage underwater).  It made the visibility poor and the water cold, so that time we were ready to get out of the water.  It was definitely the most exercise we got during this this leg of our vacation.

We spent the rest of the time with the ocean and pool soaking up sun and books from our Kindles, trying to get some deep relaxation before ramping it back up again for our long journey back home.  Gili Air may have been hard to get to, but it was very laid back.  Dare I say towards the end we were ready to go.  And what better way to ease our way back to a Western speed of life than… a theme park!