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Published: November 21st 2009
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November 14 2009 - November 22 2009
TRANSPORT:
Padangbai (Bali) to Gili Trawangan--Rp150,000 (includes ferry to Lembar, bus transfers to Bangsal and boat to Gili Trawangan)
Gili Air to Senggigi--Rp75,000 (includes boat to Bangsal and bus transfer to Senggigi)
HOTELS:
Snapper Bungalows (Gili Trawangan)
Twin, fan, cold water, western toilet--Rp150,000 inc breakfast.
Not a bad value place just opposite the beach. Restaurant serves some great food and for once a pretty decent breakfast!
Tao Kombo (Gili Meno)
Double "platform", outside squat toilet, cold water--Rp100,000 inc. breakfast
A unique place with a few bungalows and two platforms. Yes platforms and they do exactly what they say on the tin! Literally a platform, with a mattress and mosquito net and a private outside toilet. Worth the experience!
Nina Bungalows (Gili Air)
Double, fan, cold water, western toilet--Rp150,000 inc. breakfast.
Very nice 2-storey chalet in walking distance from the best beach on the island.
Lina Cottages (Senggigi)
Double, aircon, cold water, western toilet--Rp125,000
Nice convenient place with dull staff. Location is good, opposite Perama Tours and a load of restaurants.
Saturday arrived and so did the clouds... we haven't seen rain (or much cloud for that
matter) for weeks, and the day we are heading on a long ferry journey, the weather doesn't look so brilliant! We were originally planning to set of on Friday which was incidently the 13th, so we decided to not play with superstition and head out on Saturday.
We brought tickets from the Perama office in Padangbai, which would skip all the fuss (we thought) with transfers from Lembar ferry port to Bangsal harbour, and then by another boat to the Gili Islands. We boarded the ferry, hoping the weather wouldn't take a turn for the worse and thankfully it didn't. But that didn't make the journey any less hassle-free! Actually, thankfully the sea was very calm and we had to wonder what it would be like on these rust-buckets if the seas were choppy. Even with a flat sea, water was still seeping into the forward loading door!! We opted to sit on the top deck, and soon regretted it as the clouds cleared and we risked getting skin cancer! We took some shelter and sat out the 4 hour boat journey that turned into 6 1/2 hours (more on that later). We were already a little miffed as
Padangbai to Lembar
Leaving Padangbai (finally!) the restaurant / bar downstairs didn't have any change for a Rp50,000 note, even though they were charging Rp10,000 for a can of Coke! So we sweated it out for a while. Anyway, we reached Lembar, the port in the southwest of Lombok, exactly 4 hours after we departed Padangbai. As we prepared to get our stuff together, the anchors dropped and we were.....going nowhere! See, one of the problems with the ferries in this part of Indonesia (in fact it's probably the majority of Indonesia) is that there are too many ferries and not enough port! This port only had one ferry at a time and we were second in the "queue". It took us 45 mins to load our ferry so it wasn't looking promising. An hour and a half later we finally docked and headed to our transfer bus that would take us up to Bangsal port, in the north of Lombok. This is where we really experienced the Indonesian philosophy of Jam Karet or "Rubber Time". The driver informed us that the journey would take an hour from Lembar to Bangsar via a 20 minute stop at there offices in Mataram, Lombok's capital. After which we
would transfer onto our boat to the Gili Islands at 5:30pm. At 4:30 we arrived at the offices (an hour later). At 5:10 we left the offices. At 6 we were at the port. We had been warned about Bangsal's squalid little port both from Lonely Planet and the tour agents. But once we were there we were left to fend for ourselves! And everyone there was telling us not to trust anyone. So who do we trust. The most important thing was that we had already paid for a boat with the tour agents so the plan was to make sure we didn't have to pay. Everything went ok and we piled onto a little wooden floating device called a boat (apparently) and off we went. 45 minutes later we were on Gili Trawangan, and we didn't have to walk far to the place we decided to stay.
As we really did nothing much on the islands (we visited all three) all we can really do is give you a rundown on each island as they are all different!
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Gili Trawangan Trawangan is the Gili Island's "party island". It is also the largest and the only island that
has a hill! There's more bars, restaurants and things to do here and seems to be the busiest. The beaches are still quite decent and accommodation is plentiful. The locals here a little on the aggressive side. One of the interesting things is that this island has almost everything you could ask for in terms of food! Things like freshly baked bread, proper toast that is actually burnt, great cakes and other things you can find in the west. Even Jakarta (and to some extent Kuala Lumpur) was hard to find these kind of things!!
Gili Meno Gili Meno is the quietest of the three islands, and it has the best beaches. It's perhaps a little too quiet but then again that's part of island life! Snorkelling is great around here as Dan found out when he swam with a wild turtle and spotted a sea snake!
Gili Air Closest to the mainland, Gili Air somewhere in between Trawangan and Meno. The island has the highest local population but still appears quieter than Trawangan. The beaches here are still good and is in our opinion the best island. The locals are very friendly here too!
So a
cap of our days here: wake up, have breakfast, go to the beach, have lunch, go to the beach, have dinner (on the beach), sleep, wake up again. We have even forgotten what day it is!!
So it was time to leave on the 21st it wasn't exactly straight forward. We had booked a ticket from Gili Air to Senggigi in Lombok due to leave at 8am. We got to the pier and it wasn't due to leave until 8:30. The boat to us to Bangsal (that dirty little port!) and from there we had to hop onto the tour agencies shuttle bus which was parked 200m away at one of their offices. The touts at the port were telling us it was 1km away and we'd have to pay for a cidomo (horse and cart). We chanced it and walked and it was about 200m away! Half an hour later we got onto the bus which took us to Mataram (again at their office). From there we had to transfer to another bus to take us to Senggigi which is pretty much back the way we came! So it took about 3 hours to go no more than
15km!!! But such is life in Indonesia. We arrived at Senggigi, checked into our hotel and bought our tickets for the 3-day boat trip to Flores via Komodo Island. Our time in Senggigi was only spent as a transit point and we really did nothing or saw nothing of interest here (if there is anything of interest!).
So, for the next 3-days we'll be sailing the (hopefully not so...) turbulent waters across to Flores!
See you then!!
NB: Viewer discretion advised. If you are offended by white sand, blue sky, and turquoise waters, please look away now!
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