THE GILI ISLANDS & LOMBOK
On to LOMBOK' or rather THE GILI ISLANDS which are just off the north west coast of Lombock. Another of Sara's bucket list places. Three tiny islands, no cars, just pony and traps, Gili T being the young peoples party Island, Gili Air, being the slightly calmer, and Gili Meno being quiet. We plumped for the middle course. 1.5 hours thumping over the sea in a massive speedboat and then the maddest pony and trap ride to our hotel you could possibly imagine. Why not just walk, or trot? But canter, on tiny roads??? Watch the video!!
This is a different holiday to that we have enjoyed up to now. This is just laying about in beautiful weather on an island where things are just opening up for the season, so no crowds and excellent service and CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP.
​
Amazing value with great places to stay at £30 a night and a meal for two with wine at £30.
​
You really could live here for nothing and just veg out. Which we proceed to do .
And to make things even funnier, our hotel had a thing about pink, The Pink Coco it was called. And everything, literally everything, was pink.. I fitted in a treat. I was like the invisible man with my pink skin.
​
It took Sara about 10 minutes research to come up with the very odd fact that on Gili they specialise in mushrooms, magic mushrooms, made into a smoothie at a number of bars.
​
It took me 5 minutes research to discover that use of drugs in Indonesia is a CAPITAL offense, they flipping top you.
​
Sara countered by saying there were no coppers on the island, I agreed and so that is SO on the list of things to do whilst here. Psychedelia here we come. And if the old bill show up I will throw Sara to the wolves, it was her idea after all.
​
Anyway, we are going to make as much as we can of the island before being put up against a wall and being shot while imagining we are being chased by pink elephants.
And it is truly lovely, at least on a par with Holbox in the Yucatan (link), our previous favorite hideaway. Real shabby chic and ultra rural, very quiet and calm with lovely beaches all the way round the island, coral reefs to the shore, fish abound, lots of bars and lovely people. Walk round it in an hour or so, bike round, horse ride round, your choice. Proper island paradise - so ideal for me to be laid up with Bali-Belly. 60 hours and only water! My poor liver thought I had died. Still, it was an eye-opener for me not eating or drinking for 2.5 days, it can be done. Amazed Sara. Sort of a de-tox.
​
Fortunately that passed and so we enjoyed the sun and the calm after so much travel.
WALK, BIKE OR RIDE
So rural, so pretty, so quiet. Biggest danger? Getting mown down by a horse and trap! Lovely dinner on the beach, then on to 'rock-and-roll-bingo' which made about as much sense as the title, but very funny. Cab home my man!! No? All the gee-gees in bed? Oh!!! Cue a 40 minute walk in the dark along country tracks. Luckily the island does not allow dogs (only cats) so what could have been a bit perilous as we staggered past and through peoples gardens looking like cat-burglars, was actually quite fun.
​
The only shame is that so many businesses have failed to reopen after Covid, lots of small abandoned hotels and villas, lots of shut shops. But it only makes the island more unique as you walk past houses being slowly but surely reclaimed by the jungle.
We are now coming in to the last week and have a planning meeting to cover the way home. Lombok is the big island just across the way but every website on 'What to do in Lombok?' says 'Go to Gili Islands' and we can take a hint. So instead of Lombok.......
​
We decide to move to the party island Gili T and give that a go for another three nights! Party-on!!
​
We order a boat to pick us up off this beach outside our hotel and deposit us on another beach outside our next abode, Gili Treehouse. A massive treehouse villa with a private pool, sleeps 4 normally, but we like it and its just £110 a night so as we are under budget we splash out. May do a day trip to Lombok, may veg out some more.
​
After that we are going back to Bali to the more expensive part down the very south Uluwatu.
Nice easy boat ride over and check in to our massive treehouse below, that is the downstairs, two bedrooms up stairs, so 4 would pay £25 a night each.
Difficult to say which is the nicest island as they are both lovely, like Amsterdam with so many bikes and Dutch folk. Sara however is paranoid. Everyone is either Russian (she hates Ruskies), or 'on' mushrooms. Perfectly normal people are branded with one or both accusations. I decide that maybe I should swerve the 'shrooms', lest I too be accused of being either 'on it' or even worse, 'out of it'. I do have a reputation to protect after all.
And as our recent DNA tests prove, I have zero percentage Ruskie in me, just a rather annoying 24% Scottish, 21% Irish, and thank God, only 2% Welsh!!!! Plus a tiny wild card of 1% Norwegian (my baby blue eyes perhaps). 46% English, and there was me thinking it would be 100% true blue Rosbif. Thank goodness no Russian is all I can say.
​
All we do is cycle, beach, chill, cycle, beach, chill. Lovely. The season is changing from the end of the rainy to the beginning of the dry. It is still very hot and very humid, but all under blue skys, so no complaints.
​
​
So finally it is time to return to Bali. We never made it to Lombok. It sounds lovely, but just like Bali with fewer people, less temples and less traffic, same jungle, same waterfalls, same food. It seemed a shame to miss it , but even more of a shame to interrupt the charm and peace of The Gili Isles. Leave that one for another year.
​
We locate a fast boat that goes direct to near where we want to be to save another interminable drive through teeming traffic and twisting, undulating, cart track roads in the back of a taxi. So we swop a three hours drive for an extra one hour in a speedboat and make our way back to Bali..................