Gili Islands, add to your list for future reference please. “You’ve not been to Bali if you haven’t been to the Gili Islands”. God I hate it when travellers say that to you. Do you agree? Particularly after you have been somewhere and they know you hadn’t done a certain activity or missed out a certain place. Man it’s irritating. Anyway, I am telling you in advance. If you go to Bali or Lombok please, please don’t forget to add the Gili Islands in. The ferry to get over there, let alone treacherous, is worth it. From Lombok I can’t imagine the ferry is bad at all. Garuda fly between Denpasar and Lombok about five times a day so this is an option, if you have the spending money.
Best advice for the first spot: Gili Trawangan, or Gili T which is the more popular name. Lazy but true. There isn’t a lot of choice of hostels on a site like hostelworld, or there wasn’t when we went in in 2016. Actually, maybe they were all fully booked? I can’t remember. Anyway, we ended up booking through booking.com which was more cost effective and it was a whole room to ourselves. It was called the ‘Wonderland Guesthouse’, so cute, it only had about four rooms in total, twins and doubles. It was a five minute walk from the main bar side of the island (East side) but it wasn’t right in the middle of it all. It was actually perfect for what we wanted and at a fraction of the cost it would have been to be in a dorm room. Win win I think.
There aren’t any roads on the islands for cars, just dirt/sand tracks for the horse and carts. Step back in time to the Victorian era for this one. It’s either a horse and cart, cycle bike or you walk. Nice and easy options. We never actually took the horse and cart as they looked hot and exhausted. I really didn’t think ethical was a word here. However you can cycle around the whole of Gili T in about an hour and a half, so you can tell it wasn’t very far to walk anywhere either. If you are wanting the quieter side of the island you will want to stay on the West side, this is a very calm and chilled out place, you can have drinks and watch the sunset with some light Indonesian drums playing softly in the background. All sounds very zen right?
Nia and I knew we wanted to see another island as well while we were other here. There are also Gili Air and Gili Meno, all in size order. T the biggest and Meno the smallest. Let’s describe them quickly; so Gili T is the backpacker party island, most popular of all the islands and the biggest as mentioned, also furthest to the West. Gili Men is the smallest, in the middle of the other two islands and it more for a couple paradise, quieter, more romantic, you get the idea. Gili Air the second biggest and the furthest East of the other two, this one has a bit of everything. It’s more of a chilled vibe, backpackers go there, couples go there, families go there, you name it. There are beach bars with louder music for a longer night or relaxing beach bars for a slower evening. It’s a bit like goldie locks and the three bears, you have to pick the island which is just right.
We were feeling greedy so we decided to go for two; Gili T to start off with and Gili Air after that. So now you can see why we didn’t want to stay around the zen part of Gili Trawangan. We wanted to be right in the middle of all the action, and the East is very different. Beer pong, bar crawls, “nightclubs”, beach bars, loud music, it was just what we were wanting. Then in the day time it was all over. Gili T became an island paradise. Calm, crystal blue waters to go swimming and snorkeling in. If you wanted you could take a boat trip to the underwater statues in the middle of the islands, where you’re bound to see turtles and possibly even whale sharks if you are lucky. We spent two nights in total on Gili T before we trundled across to Gili Air where we again booked another guesthouse on booking.com, this was right in the centre of the Island called ‘Gili Air Garden’. This island you could cycle around in about fourty-five minutes. Bicycle hires are from most places, you can even borrow them from your guesthouse or hostel if you get a good one. There are also hotels on the Islands by the way. So if you did want to go for something a bit more upmarket than what I am speaking about, you can always find four-star beach bungalows which yes are pricier, but lovely. You will see them as you cycle around the island. Very romantic and very picture perfect.
Air was the time for a full R&R session. We decided to head to some beach bars which had that more zen vibe as I mentioned above. I think you can probably tell by now Nia and I aren’t ‘zen people’, you know the ones I mean when I say that. However there have been a few instances where things have gotten a bit too zen for us and here’s an example. We went to a Gili beach bar and it was all very chilled, we had cold beers, there was crackling of a fire you could hear, some music playing lightly in the background, people chatting amongst themselves, sunset was in full glow on the beach. It was a really nice setting, we met some really lovely travellers, got chatting to them about where they have been and started sharing our stories. I think we also started sharing some herbs as well. Like I said a nice even. However suddenly a traveller comes out with a guitar. This is the zen-ness that I am talking about. Nia and I just aren’t those sorts of people. We aren’t going to join you when you want to sit around a camp fire and sing Kumbaya. If that’s your thing continue and go right ahead. It just wasn’t the right time or place though we weren’t the only people here who thought this had dampened the vibes. Some people loved it and joined in but for us, we found another beach bar. Trial and error I guess, people gotta do what they gotta do.
After two well spent nights on Gili Air, it was time to have that birthing experience again and get back across to the mainland of Bali and then it was then onwards to Ubud from there. The journey back was even more treacherous than the first, Poseidon of the sea had decided to make a visit. We made it, it was fine, after the second child most people stop now right?
LEAH HANCOX 