Paradise on Gili

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August 31st 2010

Published: October 19th 2010

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Carla and Jim

Gili drinking buddies

Next stop the Gili Islands, we had the option of an expensive 3 hour speed boat journey or the cheaper minivan/ferry/minivan/boat option. We chose the later and 12 hours later, noisy music videos on the ferry, a few scam attempts by cocky but harmless Indonesian teenagers (who all seem to run the place!?!) and tourists being herded around like cattle we arrive on Gili Trawangan.

Upon arrival we decided to divide and conquer, Jim found somewhere to stay and Carla drank beer and made friends with a nice, if very drunk Norwegian couple. A fun evening of drinking and meeting the Norwegians other friends from England continued until the early hours. However after many beers Jim could not remember where our guest house was and after a smidge of panic and almost checking into the guest house next door we found our new home. Phew! Although Carla wasn’t happy with the lack of aircon and bamboo bars for windows!

Whilst of Gili Trawangan we were woken up every morning at 4am by the Mosque (this was a running theme in Indonesia), walked around the entire island which took 1hr 50mins, ate loads of banana pancakes, saw a baby sea

Jim at the end of our island trek

turtle conservation, enjoyed the dazzlingly white beaches and watched an amazing sunset from the beach with a bonfire and our new drinking buddies from the first night.

There are 3 Gili islands and they are all tiny and have no motor vehicles, ‘Trawangan’ the party island, ‘Meno’ which we didn’t visit and is said to be very basic and ‘Gili Air’ the chill out island, where we spent a few days relaxing in a much nicer bungalow with aircon, proper windows and a nice outdoor shower, (well done Jim! Princess Carla was much happier).

Gili Air is very much a paradise island, with beautiful beachs and coral, at night you can see almost every star in the sky. Here we walked around the whole island in 1hr 30 mins, Jim ran it and almost passed out from the heat in 30mins. We also enjoyed even more amazing sunsets, played chess (Jim won! *Carla edit* his first game ever), snorkled, got stung by jelly fish and took a horse and cart to the jetty to catch the boat to the next leg of the adventure…the 4 day boat trip to see the Komodo dragons. Roooarrr!!!

Love, J and