Big Changes in Gili Air

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So many places that we travel to change in a short period of time, but none so dramatically as Gili Air. We were here just a year prior and didn’t expect there to be too many big changes. Nothing could have prepared us for what we found this time around. Just three weeks before our arrival, the military came in with heavy machinery and tore down every structure on the ocean side of the road that runs around the island, in accordance with the new rules. Whole buildings were torn down in a matter of days: dive shops, trinket shops, but mostly restaurants. Where there had once stood fairly fancy restaurants, there was now just sand and rubble with tables placed on it. Whole kitchens had to be relocated to the inland side of the road, too. It was quite a devastating time for the locals. Many businesses closed down and many jobs on the tiny island had been lost. Our resort was hit one of the hardest as the road curved a bit more inland, meaning that they had many buildings on the “wrong” side of the road. In an attempt to save some of their buildings, our resort had even built a new road closer to the ocean. Still, the evidence of all of the destruction was all too apparent, most noticeably in the old dive shop, where the whole front of the building had been torn down, leaving just half a building! The other crazy thing that happened was some idiot in government decided to relocate the island’s garbage dump to just 20 meters from the island’s main (and busiest) beach. Unfortunately this was also just down from our resort. It ruined our hotel and the main beach as the smell was definitely noticeable when you were downwind.



Despite all of the devastation, you could get away from it by going to other less-affected parts of the island. Scott and I found that the south-western side of the island was now one of the nicest. We’d not been here much last year as we’d stayed mostly around the main beach area, but this year we found ourselves drawn to the beautiful white sand and blue ocean vistas, and generally a more laid back feel. Unfortunately, the kids said that this beach was “boring” and always nagged us to go to main beach as they loved to build things with the construction rubble! We ended up alternating days to keep everyone happy. Most afternoons we ended up at the pool, watching the scuba divers practicing for their certification. We also started to hang out with two French girls who were traveling for six months. One in particular was so great at playing with our kids in the pool, and Jake (but especially Kyla) loved all of the attention.



At the start of our last week on Gili Air, a high winds event coincided with an extremely high tide. Do you remember the garbage dump I mentioned? The sea water reached into it and pulled the garbage out. You could see black bags floating out to sea and the main beach was absolutely strewn with garbage. Even our preferred beach on the south-west wasn’t as appealing anymore.



As luck would have it, it was around this time that we met five year old Alicia and her mom Pernilla. Kyla and Alicia met on the sandy streets and bonded over twirling their skirts, and the rest is history as they say! Alicia and her parents are Swedish but are living on the island for a year. We hung out with them for six days straight. Kyla and Jake were both excited to visit her in her house as she had lots of cool toys, plus a bunk bed for jumping off! They also loved to play with the baby kittens and feed carrots to the horses in the nearby stable. Another cool thing they introduced us to was ice-cream rolls. Because there are frequent power cuts, and freezers are therefore not always working, storing and selling ice cream can be a risk. One restaurant on the island combatted this by making each ice cream to order. They started by putting a flavored milk powder into a blender and then added water to make a paste. Then, this was poured onto a cold plate (which looked like a hot plate for making crepes, but was instead freezing!) The mixture was continuously smoothed out and then gathered up and mixed for several minutes. Eventually, when it was looking more like “real” ice cream, it was smoothed out for a final time and then scraped into rolls for serving - ta da! It was really fun to watch, if not a bit loud!



So that concludes what may very well become the penultimate part of this two year trip! Now we are back off to Thailand to celebrate Kyla’s 6th birthday at a kid-resort. It will certainly be a change of pace, but we are hoping the kids will be ecstatic about a pool place instead of more boring old beaches!



*** Please Scroll right down for the rest of the photos ***

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