Gili Islands, Lombok / Indonesia

23/10/17 - 01/11/17

At 5 am our alarm went off. The first time getting up so early was tough 😀 Then we went to Ubud by shuttle bus to Padang Bay on the fast boat to Lombok to the Gili Islands.

On the way there, we passed Mount Agung, the volcano that is about to erupt. It was disturbing to see the smoke coming out of the volcano and the driver said it didn't look good... But thankfully everything is okay now - the volcano has calmed down and there is currently no high alert level.

Arriving at the port in Padang Bay, we had to pick up our tickets for the crossing. Just as we arrived at the counter, Markus realized he had left his backpack in the shuttle bus... both of us panicked, ran around, searched, hoped... But luckily we found someone who had the driver's phone number and could call him back - lucky again 😀 Then it was time to wait, wait, wait... The departure of our boat was already delayed by an hour until it finally arrived. But not for us. Just before we reached the long line, they said 'we are full' (apparently they are not very organized there). So we waited another hour until another boat company took us with them 😀 The good thing was that this company was much better than the one we had actually booked for much less money - so it had some advantages 🖒

Finally arriving at the first of the three Gili Islands (Gili Trawangan), we felt like we had traveled back in time: no streets, no cars, no scooters. The only way to get around there were horse carriages and bicycles 😀 But somehow that was also cool!

For the first time, we regretted having suitcases instead of backpacks. Because as I said, there were no streets... Just sand. So we had to "drag/carry" our suitcases through the sand (at 34 degrees Celsius) for half the island and arrived at our accommodation completely soaked in sweat.

The location was great! We were right in the middle of the island and since none of the islands is really big and you can walk around it completely in 1-2 hours, it was only about 10 minutes walk to each side.

On the day of arrival, we wanted to see the beach right away and were shown a shortcut behind our accommodation that tourists usually don't take/don't know. But here we got to know the downside of the beautiful paradise: the path led us through huge piles of garbage that were occasionally burned at some places... including plastic, which smelled extremely bad. Amidst the garbage, hundreds of cows were standing, chewing on the trash. Everything was run-down and truly shocking. A few meters behind these piles of garbage, some of the poor locals lived in stone or wooden huts far away from civilization in their own world... They really had nothing. Living in this garbage, in the stench of burning plastic. Around them, new bungalows with beds, pools, etc. were being built for tourism. It felt like they were being swallowed up or displaced by it. Terrible. This had nothing to do with the picture-perfect paradise anymore. Sad...

When we finally got to the beach, it was as if the garbage had never been there. A white beach that stretched around the whole island, turquoise water, and hundreds of beautifully arranged beach bars with all the nice swings and hammocks in the water. The only downside was that there were no people in these bars because it was low season and tourism had dropped because of the volcano. But it was also good - we had the whole beach kilometers to ourselves without any tourists 🖒😀

From our accommodation, we got bicycles with which we traveled around the island for the next few days, it was really cool!

The next stop was Gili Meno. The crossing only took 10-15 minutes, but they were small fishing boats that were overloaded with people and luggage. The rides were a horror! Every minute I felt like the boat was about to capsize because of the rocking... 😀 The islands are not different from each other in terms of the beaches. Gili Trawangan is actually the party island, Gili Meno is the quiet honeymoon island, and Gili Air is a mix of both. But for us, they were all the same since there were no people anywhere. On Gili Meno, we visited the Turtle Sanctuary, a breeding center for turtles that are released into the sea when they reach a certain size. We also went snorkeling for 2 days! It was amazing. On the first day, we went on our own to see sculptures presented underwater and coral reefs with the most beautiful, colorful fish like clownfish, Nemos, and so on! And on the next day, we went on a small private tour to a spot where we were lucky enough to swim with a giant turtle for an hour! It was such a breathtaking experience!!! 😍 We didn't want to leave the water!

However, we had a "bad luck" on Gili Meno... our accommodation was right next to a mosque where the typical chanting started at 4:30 am in extremely loud volume and there was absolutely no chance of sleeping anymore...

Our last stop was Gili Air (again beautiful beaches, lovely sea,...).

Then we went back to Bali. Two girls who we know from Australia joined us here and we spent the last few days together before we continued to Vietnam.