Day 1: Gili Air and Gili Trawangan (Gili T)
Gili Air
We headed to Gili Air (Gili means island) from Bangsal Port. But our bus can only drop us at a terminal about 400 m away from the port. You can take a walk or take a cidomo for Rp5,000/person (Cidomo is a four-wheeled carriage drawn by a horse. It is called andong or delman in Java). The official Bangsal port ticket office is on the left side of the port. I suppose there must be a lot of touts here. Luckily, we didn’t approach by any touts as our group already hired three boats to go the Gilis.
Gili Air is our first stop. We didn’t spend a lot of time here. The beach is great and it is not crowded. The white sand is so soft and the sun is warm. What can I say about it? The blue sky accompanied by the sea with different blue colors. The white color gives its elegant touch to the sand and the cloud. Please, please not too many white clouds because the picture of the sky won’t be that great again. The yellow color from our boat slightly adds a different view of the beach. It was merely us on the beach taking pictures and jumping on the beach. A foreigner sat on a bar sipping his cold beer. He must have a long weekend here. I envied him.
After a few jumping sessions, I realized that there’s blood staining my sandal. The blood came from my injured big toe. It got injured by a chip of wood that struck down by the waves. The wood hit my big toe when I was out of the boat on the beach.
We continued the trip to Gili Trawangan. This time the waves were not as calm as before. I couldn’t sit on the front part of the boat again as the sea water hit me often. So, I joined my other colleagues on the middle part of the boat and successfully got a seasick. Hahahaha hoping islands and me are not a match.
Gili Trawangan
From all of the three Gilis, Gili T has the most complete infrastructure. As if I were in the smaller version of Kuta, Bali in a more natural way. Most of the tourists here are foreigners. Unlike in Bali, I couldn’t make out what they are talking about. In Bali, there are a lot of English speaking tourists. Here, it seems like most of them are European. Our guide confirmed that most of the tourists in Lombok are Germany. This time is Russian season; while Italian, Spanish and other European season are in June-August. Great!! I thought we only have dry and rainy season :)
On Gili T, we did different activities: snorkeling, glass boating, and biking. And I chose to bike as I love being on the beach but not on the sea. I did biking with Irma on Gili T’s sandy road. The bicycle can be rented for Rp15,000/hour or you can hire it for one day. However, you can’t speed up the bike because you will bump into other road users such as the cidomo and the pedestrian. There were the pedestrian who includes the children who like to suddenly change their direction, the pedestrian who bring coarse grass for the roof on the new café, and pedestrian with their backpack or suitcase. It is an interesting view along the beach, especially the pedestrian dragging his/her suitcase on sandy road looking for a place to stay. Don’t worry! They were still seemed enjoying the holiday. Another interesting view was when I saw two foreigners who just off from the boat directly sunbath on the beach with their backpacks as the pillow.
My colleagues who went for snorkeling were heading to the northern part of Gili T. Meanwhile, I and Irma ride the bike to the southern part. It became quieter as we were getting away from boats dock area. You can have the beach for yourselves. Some cafés were located on the beach. It must be brimmed with visitors at night. Gili T is well-known as a party island. Sometimes we stopped to enjoy the beach view on the left side of the road.
We took a right turn after Rudy’s Pub. A lot of guess house are located here. A local told us to go to the hill by stairs to see the island view. But, we had to leave our bicycles unguarded at the bottom of the hill. I have no guts to leave it just like that.
So, we went back to the main road near the beach. We finally turned back when the road has become too sandy for biking. It must be great to venture out further. But, we only had a short visit here.
I met my other colleagues who just finishing their glass boating. Some of them then did the biking also, but this time to the northern part of Gili T. I was going to continue biking to the northern part with my colleagues, but an ice cream seller distracted me. Hence, I was just waiting for them while having a scoop of chocolate chip ice cream. After having the lunch, we went back to Senggigi.
I have to go here again for a longer period!!
We spend the afternoon at some souvenirs stores in Ampenan and had our dinner at Ayam Taliwang restaurant. The restaurant is famous for its Taliwang chicken. Nevertheless, I still prefer the fish than the chicken. We had a birthday party for Mrs. Fili and some games at night in the hotel’s pool side
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