We had 9 lazy lazy days on the island of Gili Air for our last destination on this trip. Gili Air is about the size of our Stretch Island in Washington state. On the first day we walked the entire 3.4 miles around the perimeter which is the exact same as my kayak trips around Stretch. Not any tourist attractions on this island except the beaches, restaurants and our pool. There aren’t any cars or trucks on this island and all transportation is by walking, horse and cart or by electric motorcycles. It was so nice to be without the noise of gas scooters, I wish some of other South East Asia countries could switch to these electric scooters or E-bikes. Not many attractions to take pics of but we tried to get some photos of the regular island life so you can get an idea of Gili Air.
We are not resort people…. but sometimes it just seems like the right thing to do. This is the end of a long trip and we just wanted some chill out, not tourist time. We stayed at the Pinkcoco resort which was about 30 rooms around a fancy pool with lots of daybeds, loungers and tropical plants. The beach was protected by a reef so it was calm, but we didn’t swim much there because of the seaweed beds everywhere. It was one of the nicer places on the island and we splurged for the “Grande” room at $80 per night including breakfast. We could have found many cheaper places on this island and we would have been happy, but the resort thing can be fun sometimes. We got to know the names of the staff and it seemed like they all knew our names. The place was really beautiful and we got used to people walking by our pool and taking pictures of our paradise. We spent a lot of time reading in the day beds next to the pool.
We had looked at spending this week on Bali, but it just looked too hectic for us. The much smaller island of Gili Air was perfect for our end of trip needs. Nothing to do but read, eat, walk about, snorkel, and swim. One day we did take a boat to the more busy Gili island called Gili Trawangan (AKA Gili T). It has a stretch of late night party bars for the young Aussies to come and have their Full Moon parties. We just came for lunch and then rented some snorkel gear. It didn’t take long to find several turtles right off shore that not many people were paying attention to.
Getting to the Gili Islands is a little bit tough. We had flown into the airport on the Southern end of Lombok island. The ferry to Gili Air is only about 15 minutes but it doesn’t run after sundown so we had to stay 1 night on Lombok. We stayed at a Sheraton on Senggigi beach on Lombok for 1 night. We really would have liked more time on this island and we will probably be back. Lots of hikes, waterfalls and beaches that we didn’t have time for. The Sheraton did have a really cool pool with a tiki monster slide but the hotel was almost deserted. I am really intrigued by Lombok. 4 million people on the island and very few tourists but I think there is a lot to do.
Leaving Gili Air, we decided to take a boat to Bali instead of going back to Lombok. Bad decision. The boat was late, and crowded and hot and stressful. The 3 hour boat ride became much longer and it really took the whole afternoon before we ended up at our airport Holiday Inn Express for a 1 night stay. Bali has people everywhere and the transportation network can’t handle it. This confirmed we had made the right decision to skip it and go to Gili Air and Lombok instead. Our next destination after 3 long long long flights is our home in Seattle, for a much needed little break from international traveling and a chance to see our family again. Sunset for this trip.
