The whole time I was trekking on gunung rinjani, I was thinking of how good it was going to feel when I laid out on my next beach…all the tourist literature talks about the gili islands, just off the northwest coast of Lombok, and I figured I really ought to see at least one of them…there are three, and each is supposed to have it’s own personality…I went to the one that has the cheapest accommodation, gili trawangan…also known as gili T…it’s also known for partying, and while I don’t do that, I’m also pretty good at ignoring it anywho…
There are several ways of getting to the gilis…the first is by fastboat, directly from Bali…there are a number of companies offering this service now…I wanted to see more of Lombok than just the gilis, so this wasn’t an option for me…plus, it’s super expensive, at least relative to me…plus, there are no motorbikes allowed on the gilis, so if I’d taken one of those fastboats, I would’ve had to leave my motorbike on Bali, and that definitely wasn’t going to happen…the second option is by boat from senggigi, through a tourist company called perama…the third option is to take a shuttle bus to a village called bangsal, and take the public ferry from there…a lot of companies in senggigi offer the shuttle bus option…they put you on shuttle ferries, so you still aren’t with the locals…this third way is the cheapest option, so you’d think that’s what I did...i was worried about where to leave my bike, and wanted to leave it in senggigi…I don’t know why I didn’t think I could do that, even with this shuttle bus…anywho, I signed up for the second option, the boat by perama, direct from senggigi…the advantage to this was that it’s a faster boat, and you don’t have to take a bus first…the ride was under an hour…and I was the only customer on the boat…woo hoo!!
The boat landed on gili trawangan, as that’s where I’d said I wanted to go…there are two other gili islands, gili meno, and gili air…gili meno is the least populated, and has the least tourist infrastructure…gili air is in the middle in terms of people, infrastructure, etc…but it’s closest to Lombok geographically…from all three islands you can see gunung rinjani, if it’s clear…(which only seems to be early morning, when no one is awake…after that it clouds over, and you can see the rain clouds coming)…from all three islands you can see each of the other islands…the distance looked swimmable to me, but I’ve always been terrible about judging distance…plus, as I was to learn, the currents are crazy strong, the swim would be a challenge to say the least…
While in senggigi I’d talked to a couple that had just come from the gilis, they said it was expensive, and they’d spent more money there than they intended…this worried me a bit, even though I know I spend less than the great majourity of travelers…I suppose I could’ve looked around for accommodation, but I was satisfied with the price and condition of the first place I checked…the entrance was just outside the port area, but the room was a ways back, so it wasn’t terribly loud…plus, without the motorbikes, everything was a lot quieter…I talked to the couple in the room next to me, they had some suggestions about laundry, but the prices were crazy expensive…at least to me…I knew all my clothes from the rinjani trek were just gross, and really needed to be washed, but I guess this wasn’t the place to do it…I saw a lot of signs saying that laundry service was offered, but prices weren’t listed, so I knew I’d have to bargain, and I really don’t like bargaining…I had all the dirty clothes in a bag in my pack, so they weren’t polluting anything else in the pack…
When you are on any of the gili islands you have your choice of beach activities…sortof…all the scuba and diving you could want…a lot of the hotels/resorts offer PADI courses, most of them have their own pools in which they start the classes…it’s a bit odd to be walking along the street and realize that you’re walking by a pool with 6 people on the bottom, and they’re not coming up anytime soon…since I can’t dive, none of that meant anything to me…
I made my way to a beach, and soaked up more sun…I was dark enough that my skin colour doesn’t really change even when I’ve been out in the sun all day…hmmm…it started raining around 1500, but I’d seen the clouds forming for a while, so I wasn’t caught in the rain…even though I’d been able to see the gili islands from the top of gunung rinjani, I wasn’t able to see rinjani from gili T…
After the rains stopped I went for a walk along the main road that circles the island…there are a lot of cafes and places to stay along a good portion of one side of the island, then all of a sudden there is just nothing…very few people, and no buildings…and lots of mozzies…I walked for a while, but just wasn’t enjoying it much, especially as the light was quickly disappearing…I’m still not so comfortable being outside by myself after dark…
Somehow, during that evening, I knew I didn’t want to spend long on gili T…despite it’s similarity to a number of other beach places I’ve visited and enjoyed, I just didn’t like it…originally I’d been thinking as long as four nights…howeva, I knew I wanted to spend more than just one night, simply because I hate packing, and wanted to put it off as long as possible…
The next day I repeated my “schedule”…though I did get to a beach earlier in the morning, and got into the water several times…the water in between the gilis has a strong current, I was quite surprised…I’m a strong swimmer, far stronger than the average tourist, and the current was pulling me down the beach rather quickly…but the temperature of the water was absolutely perfect…it felt wonderful…the clouds came over at the same time in the afternoon, leading me to think that the afternoon rain was a daily occurrence, even though it’s dry season…that evening instead of going for a walk, I took my laptop (I guess the proper name for it now is notebook?) to one of the cafes along the main street…the power kept going out, which meant the wifi connection, though speedy, kept going out, which was just annoying…i didn’t think I was online very long, but apparently my waiter did, as he prompted me to order something else after a while…I said no, since I didn’t want to spend more, and packed up…
The next morning I took a ferry back to Lombok, then a bus back to senggigi…I’d chosen to take the shorter ferry back to Lombok, rather than the hour boat straight to senggigi…there was a LOT of waiting in between the ferry and bus, I wasn’t thrilled…I don’t know what we were waiting for, that was never explained…anywho, once in senggigi I picked up my bike, posted a few things at the post office, and started making my way toward the southern end of Lombok…I was aiming for kuta…
The drive was around 2 hours, and much more confusing than I’d hoped…there were a few places more than usual where I had to make a turn, without the benefit of signage…fortunately, people on the side of the road were able to point me in the proper direction…at my last intersection of question, the guy I asked wanted to sign me up for accommodation, which I wasn’t keen to do…I said I just needed to go to the beach, and wasn’t worried about accommodation just yet…
kuta Lombok is completely different from kuta Bali…there are very few people in kuta Lombok…it’s such a small place that lonely planet doesn’t have a map of it in the Indonesia guidebook…which of course makes me nervous, as I’m a big fan of maps…I love being able to point to a map, and know where I am…kuta basically amounts to two roads, though I didn’t find the second one for a couple nights…I found the first place listed in the guidebook, but the price was a lot higher than what was listed…and the place was a lot nicer than I expected…I said I’d keep it in mind, but would keep looking…I kept driving down the road, and pretty soon realized I was out of the village already…I turned around, the first place I came back to was the royal bungalows…the price was listed on the board out front, and it included breakfast…woo hoo!! I turned in, and asked to see a room…there were 9 bungalows in the area, each had a lawn chair out front…the bathroom of the bungalow was significantly larger than anything else I’d seen in recent history, woo hoo…a shower, a sink, and a western style toilet, and plenty of natural light…amazing…the sleeping room of the bungalow had a huge mosquito net all around the mattresses (two of them pushed together to make what amounted to at least a queen size bed)…a small bedside table, a lamp, and a fan…I was sold immediately…there was a small porch on the front, and two chairs on the porch…
the next day I went to one of the beaches to lay out…it was deserted, I was the only one there…again, yayJ…howeva, after not too long, a couple local kids came up to me to try to sell me coconut juice…which doesn’t normally bother me, as I’m used to saying no…howeva, even when I said no, the kids stuck around…they simply sat down very close to me, and kept trying to get me to buy the coconut…they didn’t understand when I said that I wouldn’t be buying the coconut no matter what, as I don’t particularly like coconut…after a while they went away…after a little longer, other local kids came up and wanted me to buy bracelets…I have enough bracelets, thanks…I don’t need any more…these kids sat down close to me for a while as well…not particularly enjoyable for me…especially since the sand mites kept landing on me, so I kept fidgeting…I stayed on the beach as long as normal, but I didn’t enjoy it much, with the kids and the sand mites…
after packing up my malong and hat, and putting on my skirt and tank top, I walked along the beach, and over some of the rocks at one end…I could see locals out in the water, fishing…awesome…and I could see another beach, just around the corner…also deserted…
the next two days were a repeat, though instead of going to the beach, I stayed on the chair in front of my bungalow…that way I still got sun time, but without the kids and sand mites…nice long walks in the evenings, and I was a happy camper…the morning of my fourth day I road my bike around the area, looking for a couple beaches mentioned in the guidebook…the roads were in horrible condition, but I tended to think that was a good thing, as it means there isn’t a whole lot of development going on…I found one beach that was quite crowded with locals…which was neat to see, as I haven’t seen many Indonesians on the beaches I’ve visited…it was beautiful, just like the other beaches I saw that morning…white sand, blue water, does it get any better?
The next morning I got up early, paid my bill, and drove back to the port in lembar…the way back to the port was a lot easier, there was plenty of good signage…I didn’t get lost, and I didn’t have to ask anyone for directions…I felt like there must’ve been signs I missed on my way to kuta…I bought a ticket for the next ferry, back to padangbai, on Bali…
