The Gilis: second time's the charm

November 28, 2016

"Picture three minuscule desert islands, fringed by white-sand beaches and coconut palms, sitting in a turquoise sea: the Gilis are a vision of paradise."

The Gili Islands (or just the Gilis) are three little islands just a couple of hours off the shore of Bali. Each Gili Trawangan, Gili Meno, and Gili Air have their charm: Trawangan is a cosmopolitan and glamorous place attracting young people wishing to party until the sun comes up, the quiet and untouched Meno is known of predominantly couple holidays, and Air offers a combination of both of these worlds. A short boat ride of around half an hour will get you to the next island, and thus island hopping has become commonplace for most tourists coming to the Gilis.

The Gilis had me from the start. The promise of white sand beaches, snorkeling with turtles, crazy parties, and breathtaking views on every step made me extremely impatient to visit this paradise. So when my classmate from my bachelor Hester told me she would like to meet up with me, I knew we need to go to the Gilis together. And so we did.

Aerial view of the Gili Islands: Gili Trawangan, Gili Meno, and Gili Air (from left to right)

The budget way of getting to the Gilis is with a smaller speed boat, as opposed to the huge fancy cruises with the luxury decks, refreshments, and no seasickness. In contrast, the speedboats were so small that you were transported like cattle; they smelled funky and opening the windows was not a smart idea unless you wanted the seawater to splash you every three second; and most importantly, the speed of the boats meant that every wave we crashed into led the whole boat into a huge turbulence, making the whole ride into a roller-coaster, inducing seasickness after just a third of the whole trip. But in the end, the speedboats truly shaped our backpacker experience. Yet still, when we finally reached the shores of Gili Trawangan, the whole populace was happy to feel the earth under their feet—especially since earth, in this case, could better be described as warm white sand.

After the long ride, still feeling a little queasy, I decided to find a nice beach lounge to wait for Hester. As it turned out, it was not as easy to get to the Gilis from Jakarta. Whereas the flight to Lombok was easy, getting to the island's most popular tourist place seemed more difficult than getting there all the way from Bali.

My starry map of Bali and surroundings

All the way from Ubud, which stands at the very center of Bali, getting to the Gilis was rather easy: We purchased one ticket through our homestay to get right from there all the way to the islands. On the day of the departure, we got two tickets: One that we had to show to the driver who came to pick us up in the morning and drove us to the harbor, and then a second one that we presented to the boat crew—and we were settled. On the other hand, Hester faced the problem of finding a way from the Lombok airport to the coast (she flew from Jakarta). I wondered why I had to wait in the beach lounge for hours, but as she explained that she had to wait for a cheap cab to drive her (which failed), later tried to take the bus, but eventually ended up finding other tourists to share a cab ride with her, I realized that having spent some Rp 400,000 (around € 25) and not having to worry about anything else was a real luxury.

Friday night dinner at Gili T

Reunited

We decided to island-hop just like any proper backpacker, and spent the first night at Gili T. After realizing that Hester spoke Indonesian and that she fascinated every Indonesian person she ever spoke to, we made friends with our homestay staff and they took us to the top of a hill to watch the sunset. Later that day we found a beautiful restaurant right at the beach and talked for hours. We did try to go out later that night, but since Hester did not feel like a party animal that night, and also because we could not find any music that would sound any good, we decided to return to our room without having danced much.

The second day was reserved for Gili Air. It was a time to relax, chill at the beach, and do nothing. Unfortunately, I did not know that because of her sensitive skin, Hester could not really tan on the beach or comfortably be in the water for longer than just a couple of minutes. Seeing the beach life was not Hester's, we later rented bikes and toured the island.

The great thing about the Gilis is that there is no traffic. No cars, vans, taxis. For one, the islands are so small that you can easily walk from one edge to the other in half an hour. But additionally, the infrastructure is so bad that cars would not be able to go anywhere. Instead, traffic consists of pedestrians, bikes, and horse-drawn taxis—apparently really bad for the poor creatures.

Hester fixing loose bike chains in Bali

Funnily enough, Hester's bike chain got loose in the middle of the island, and she bravely put it back on like a true Dutch person. And had the memorable moment of Dutch pride properly documented.

Compared to Gili T, there was no doubt that Air was a much more tranquil and 'photogenic' place, full of beautiful empty beaches. And even though my pictures do attest to this, they do not show that there were also tons of dead corals in the water and millions of little sea lice which made swimming very uncomfortable and painful.

The beauty of Air

Sunset at Air

Our Saturday evening at Air was very quiet and chilled, and after a nice dinner at a local cuisine restaurant, we returned to our homestay.

The last day at the Gili was all about snorkeling and, in fact, my friends from the VP Bali joined us on a snorkeling tour. The boat took us to all sorts of places around the Gilis, and after two days of the unsuccessful search for a sea turtle, I finally saw some. The only sad part was that the guide had to disturb the turtles in order for us to see them. Once we got to the shores of Meno for lunch, we also saw many baby turtles in a 'sanctuary.'

Meno's baby turtle sanctuary

The Meno tranquility

After our snorkeling tour, we all had to leave: the volunteers and I to Bali and Hester back to Lombok. And so I parted ways with Hester. And with the islands.

✦

Before flying out to Thailand, I had a couple of last days to spend in Bali. And even though I had already been to the Gilis, I felt like I did not truly get the Gili experience I had longed for. That is why I decided to book a ticket to the Gilis again and was this time joined by two other volunteers: Marcel and Maria.

My co-volunteers

I had planned to go all out after my farewell dinner all along. My crazy party plans in Ubud's one and only CP Lounge, however, did not make my trip to Gili the next day any easier. I had thought that the 6 am alarm clock might be the most difficult part of the day, but the six-hour long travel to the Gilis was even worse. And so with three hours of sleep, pretty bad hangover, and gag reflex activated every time our van or speedboat would jump (aka pretty much all the time), I managed to reach the Indonesian little piece of paradise.

Curing our hangovers in the sun

I spent the weekend with the two volunteers and was planning to stay there for four more days alone. We went out on Friday night at Gili T, but I was the only one to stay in the clubs until the closing, and later made my way back to the homestay.

Drinks at the beach

Gili T

Saturday was reserved for Gili Air, where we chilled the whole day at the beach. We listened to music, swam, strolled around, played games, and enjoyed the last bits of sun before leaving back to Ubud or flying off to Thailand.